what’s happening today in Iran, the brave dissidents are essentially daring the security forces to beat or kill them. The bet is that when push comes to shove, people in the Iranian security forces have some humane and patriotic instincts and will recoil from the idea of using mass violence against their fellow citizens.
reminds me of the success the strategy of peaceful demonstration provoking over-reaching violence has had throughout history, as I wrote back HERE:
Some black people trying to sit at a lunch counter or walk across a bridge in 1965 isn't really gonna move the average white person who hasn't really thought about such things in anything more than a curious, just trying to get through the day, onlooker kind of way. But if jagoff lunatics start showing up and breaking eggs on heads or releasing dogs on black kids while swinging baseball bats, that white person might think "whoa whoa, that's too much...I'm can't be down with that." As awful as it was, the movement NEEDED this opposition of violence, and the bat-swinging racists et al played their part perfectly in prying loose the indifference of millions of onlookers.Sometimes people need to be shocked into realizing what side they've actually been on the whole time anyway.
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