October 10, 2005

• Well, that is a painful and brutal way to die, but the guy created his life of violence. I doubt that he would have lived out his life peacefully somewhere; obvious that it would end via the gun. Violence only breeds violence. Non-violent protest is the only rational means to gaining any political or social change. Nevertheless it seems that he was probably allowed to bleed out.
• Interesting. I'm not sure why he needed to be shot, since his cause doesn't seem to have had much support in Puerto Rico. At 72, was he such a threat? It's my impression that Puerto Ricans could become independent by voting to do so. And that they've had opportunities to do so and haven't supported separation. I've also never been under the impression that the US cared all that much whether they stayed with us or left. If my impressions are right, wasn't his cause a bit overly dramatic? Or, was a violent death for a lost cause a romantic dream? Born in the wrong place at the wrong time?
• Seems more like the Yanks were getting revenge for the deaths of servicemen, even though he wasn't the trigger man.
• Ah, but there are lots who do violent protest while achieving a quite noble goal. There are times for armed struggle and there are times for non-violent protest. Ultimately only time will tell which was more effective.
• Just seems like he was a cool guy who took his ideas a bit too far. He shouldn't have been allowed to escape, and the FBI should have shot him instead of captured him. I'm not sure what they were thinking. I guess that the Puerto Rican independence movement wasn't really all that popular but Filiberto was well liked. If anything this will make a martyr of him.
• err should have said "the FBI should have captured him instead of shot him".
• calimehtar: that was my point, as well. I have to wonder whether he did something that persuaded that shooting him was the only option. Maybe he wanted to go out that way? And squid - are you saying that robbing banks and other violent acts are justified when the people you're committed to "save" don't want your services? I'm sure the guy was charismatic and dedicated, but he didn't have a groundswell of locals who had no way but violence to achieve an independent state. Again, I'll point out that they could be independent if they just voted to do so. How is violence going to be effective in those circumstances?
• "There are times for armed struggle..." There was this guy named Ghandi. Check him out.
• It's my impression that Puerto Ricans could become independent by voting to do so. And that they've had opportunities to do so and haven't supported separation. I've also never been under the impression that the US cared all that much whether they stayed with us or left. If my impressions are right, wasn't his cause a bit overly dramatic? It's true that Puerto Ricans can vote to either be a state of the United States, or become their own country, pretty much whenever they want. However, the portion of the population that wants to become an independent nation is pretty small. Popular opinion is pretty well split between becoming a state and remaining a commonwealth, with the indepedence movement picking up whatever votes are left over. So Ojeda Rios did what passionate leaders in the minority often do: he blew stuff up so people would listen to him.
• There's a general rule of thumb when looking at resistance or protest movements: if you want to know whether to engage in violent resistance, first figure out whether your enemy is ruthless enough to just go ahead and shoot protesters with no comebacks. If they are, then violence is apropreate, preportionate and possibly effective. If they're not, then it's just counterproductive and wasteful. Example: Ghandi said that the Nazis should have been resisted with non-violent protest and non-cooperation. With respect to a great thinker, he was wrong. You peacefully protest against Nazism and they just kill all of you and make sure the papers never report it. On the other hand, lets say you're the Palistinians protesting against the Israelis. The Israelis generally aren't ruthless enough to fire on an unarmed, non-violent protest march. Occasionally, of course, there would be some Israelis who were, at which point the great mass of public opinion in Israel and the world would swing wildly in favour of the non-violent protesters and their cause. This is how non-violence works, which is to say that it is a specialised form of violence.
• Ghandi? PFFFFT! LUSER! Sure - he was all "non-violent", just like Jesus, but then someone shot him, and he died. But when they crucified Jesus, he came back as a zombie - and he KICKED THE SALADIN'S ASS with his followers like Orlando Bloom in that movie. So what can we learn from this? Two things: first, God was WHITE. Second, we gotta invade Iran. WITH ZOMBIE JESUS WE CANNOT LOSE!
• Lets see here ... misspelled insults? Check. Psuedo-neocon politics? Check. Anachronistic pop culture reference? Check. Lack of any intellect, humour or interest? Check, check, check. OK, my work here is done.
• Not quite. You still have to jack off a horse.
• I like this story because he sounds like a real character - a latter-day Che or Castro, but in a time and place that didn't have a use for him. Just an odd little piece of history that doesn't quite fit.
• Dear calimehtar, ***YOU ARE MONKEYFILTER'S 10,000TH CUSTOMER!*** I just noticed.
• 
• smallish bear: thanks for the first guffaw of the day. Thanks, Pastor Dave, for relieving that poor frustrated horse.
• Non-violent protest is the only rational means to gaining any political or social change. Or you could try, you know, voting. The whole purpose of the democratic system is to enable the removal of a government without any protest at all, violent or otherwise. But there's a catch. In order to effect change, you have to get a whole lot of people to agree with you. It's more or less accepted as an axiom that any idea for which folks can't drum up popular support isn't worth implementing. In a democratic society, like Puerto Rico's for instance, protest is neither necessary nor justified. That goes for both the violent kind like blowing up buildings and the non-violent kind (which is most cases is merely less violent; an angry mob is still an angry mob even if no riot breaks out). It seems like all too often, people who advocate change through protest and other forms of mob rule have good intentions but just fundamentally don't get democracy. (Rios was clearly not in that category, unfortunately. His advocacy of violence and vocal support for the Cuban dictatorship seems to put him squarely in the no-friend-of-democracy column.)
• I get your point about the general brakes of living in a democracy, Jeff Harrell, but I don't think it's a hard and fast rule. I can think of a number of situations in which democratic systems might very well trample on the rights of people with legitimate interests, who might stand up for those rights or interests by protesting. Then again, there is the role of protest to effect change through purely diplomatic channels. Protest is often an effective way to convince other people that you are right and that they should vote your way. But most of the time, when people are talking about Nonviolence (note the capital N), they're talking about situations in which democracy either doesn't exist or has been subverted to the point where it might as well not exist. It's all very well to say 'just vote the bastards out', but if you don't have a vote then you have to adopt different channels. Naturally, of course, this doesn't really apply all that readily to either Puerto Rico or Communist revolutionaries.
• In a democratic society ... protest is neither necessary nor justified ... both the violent kind ... and the non-violent kind Hello Jeff Harrell of the Chinese Communist Party! I'm glad you told us your views - now I can freely associate with others who think like us, exchange opinions and attempt to convince others of the correctness of our cause. I just hope I don't get run over by a tank!
• "Or you could try, you know, voting." WTF are you talking about, Jeff Harrell? Under perfect conditions, of *course* protest isn't necessary. We're talking about a situation where democracy has failed. It's not a magical spell, this democracy, you know, sometimes it can be subverted. There's things called vote fraud, election rigging, etc. There are many historical examples of this. Plus, if you have a very corrupt government, voting does fuck-all in terms of being able to change bad situations quickly.
• My democracy has these things called "the right to free assembly" and "the right to free speech" and "the right to suspect that some people in government may actually be fucking crooks".
• Ha ha ha! Exactamundo!
• Saddam won an election. Violent fucking protesters who obviously didn't understand the democratic process removed him from power.
• Then there's the kind of democracy where the President decides who's in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court then decides who is President. The President then decides who's in the Supreme Court. Oh yeah, don't forget to vote! It seems like all too often, people who protest protest and other forms of dissent have good intentions but just fundamentally don't get democracy.
• We're talking about a situation where democracy has failed. No, we're not. We're talking about Puerto Rico where commonweath supporters have outvoted independence and statehood supporters in referendum after referendum. That's not a failure of democracy. That's a democracy success story. That's precisely how democracy is supposed to work. When your side doesn't win, that's not a failure of democracy. Unless what you really mean is "Democracy failed to give me what I want," of course. Also, it's pretty disturbing that you guys can't tell the difference between actual democracy in the United States and Puerto Rico and sham democracy in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. That's downright scary, man. Seriously.
• Much scarier than your generalised principles for democratic society, comrade. You started the great leap forward to abstraction, not we: In a democratic society, like Puerto Rico's for instance, protest is neither necessary nor justified Peel back the scope of thy wise maxims oh I beg.
• Dude, you're the one with the naive belief that voting proves that a country is shaped exactly how the people desire it to be. Even with the most extreme examples you still have failed to see that voting doesn't magically fix anything, and that a country calling itself a democracy does not automatically transform the country into a democracy. Also, the "actual democracy in the United States" hasn't EVER been an actual democracy. It's pretty disturbing that you can't tell the difference between quasi-pseudo democracy in the United States and actual democracy. That's downright scary, man.
• "We're talking about a situation where democracy has failed. No, we're not. We're talking about Puerto Rico where.." No, Jeff, I was making a general observation and not specifically talking about Puerto Rico. My point about non-violent protest was that where protest is needed it should not be violent. I wasn't being specific in my comment. It seems clear that what I said was a general observation. "Also, it's pretty disturbing that you guys can't tell the difference between actual democracy in the United States and Puerto Rico and sham democracy in Saddam Hussein's Iraq." I don't remember mentioning Iraq or Saddam. There are plenty of other nominally democratic countries in the world that can serve as examples of corrupt manipulation of the system. Yes, you're proud of your system in the US, that's obvious, but to others it doesn't seem as great as all that. The two party system (which it basically is) in the USA is not a very efficient democratic system; you've essentially got only a choice between two groups of not very radically different parties headed by people from the 1% rich part of the population, and whose interests usually derive from their funding groups and big business. Half the population don't even vote, because they know that whoever gets in wont make a hell of a lot of difference to them. Those that do vote appear to be guided by heavily skewed, partisan media and unbelievable amounts of money spent on showbiz style campaigns, where your politicians get up on stage like rockstars and make speeches they don't even write. When you've got more than two other parties to chose from that are representative of the interests of the general population, and when the vote tally system in the states doesn't just dump independant preferences into the big two, then you'll have a democracy worth boasting about. The way elections are run in the US doesn't benefit independant parties, it only benefits the big two. I might also add 'Sham Democracy' would be defined by the bullshit that went down in Florida in 2000.
• Just out of curiosity, Mr. K., how would you define 'actual democracy'? Obviously 'one person, one vote' isn't enough to qualify, so what does it take to be an actual democracy? Are there any examples of actual democratic states? Not being snarky at all...I understand the failings of the U.S. system. Chyren touched on a couple of them. Just genuinely curious since you brought up the term.
• rocket88: one person, one vote isn't nearly the same as having an electoral college that decides for you. The electoral college is in place to prevent actual democracy, because they didn't have confidence in a democratic system. When someone is decided for you who your leaders are, you don't have a democracy. (The truest form of democracy would not have any leaders all, but that's really hairsplitting and not where I was going at all.)
• Jeff, don't you have a plane to catch?
• yes, the US is a republic. I dont even feel like getting into the 3rd grade civics review, but it is.
• This country belongs to the people and whenever they shall grow weary of their government they can exercise their constitutional right to amend it, or revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.