[dobbsbob]

Media is a sucker for anything social media, they would probably run a longer news segment on this online protest than they would chaos in the streets. Last workers riot where I live the media solely concentrated on how they were caught from facebook and other social media profiles, they hardly mentioned the reasons for the rioting.

[tossmeup]

And the media is the next best thing to an online petition surrounded by ads... ephemeral bullshit to hold attention while we show you commercials.

If they aren't afraid of you burning down their palace, they are not about to change.

Why do people in the US think that change comes from meaningless, one-click bullshit? In Egypt, the military says GTFO. In Syria, they can take up arms and say GTFO and have it not work. You didn't see arabs using twitter for the "retweet this if you want change." It was the get over to street a and b and mob.

Peaceful sit-ins on unused public land, out of the way of the entrenched interests is something to lampoon... nothing to be afraid of. You can't put a poster of Ghandi up on the wall and be taken seriously.

Peaceful resistance is standing in the way of the tank and letting the entrenched powers present themselves to the horror of the world. They will either turn popular sentiment strongly enough that they are taken away, changed, of they will stand down from stupidity.

It's like not forcing legislators to actually filibuster on their feet. Tweet-it-in resistance is worthless.

Stand up, step in, and cross the line if you mean it. Otherwise STFU and GTFO.

[hindsightbias]

Sometimes I feel like everyone else took a history class where the pages of the textbooks were filled with change brought about without violence being done unto someone.

It would seem Twitter and FB have figured out a way to monetize that.

[groby_b]

Or maybe many people around you have actually read up on the success probability and found that nonviolent resistance works twice as well than violent resistance: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2008.33...

[tossmeup]

Not sure if you're seeing my statement as advocating non-violent, but confrontational methods... that was the intent. Non-violence without any depth of coverage is a tree falling in the woods with nobody there. You need visibility while being non-violent and catalyzing. You must be present and visible to embody the narrative that enables peoples' opinions to be matched with yours. Who takes the internet hate machine seriously?

If you are similar or the same in fundamental, value/moral terms, others are able to identify with you and see how your plight/demands and their aspirations for themselves are the same.

Online petitions are worthless. You need videos that tell the story - like Mitt Romney and his 47%. You need students getting pepper-sprayed. Overreach and douche-baggery strengthen resolve for the believers and give second-thought to anyone trying to reconcile their better selves with the crappier elements of their own side.

Non-violence means little if you are not causing people to deal with you. Nobody is called to account for an online petition or a peaceful protest covered lightly as a hippie revival.

You have to push the envelope and make it uncomfortable - something requiring answers.

[foobarbazqux]

If I win by provoking somebody else to hurt me, that's still violence. True non-violence means nobody gets hurt.

[PavlovsCat]

"True non-violence" also means nobody eats, ever.

Not even Ghandi's movement was non-violent by your definition.