Political Memes

There is a book “how to blow up a pipeline” that talks about most of these figures and how they succeeded only because the existence of more radical and violent wings of their movements. It is a good read.

I can't address the book directly, since I haven't read it, but I'd point out that:

1. There is a vast fucking difference between asserting the flank effect exists and asserting that success is only possible because of the radical flank in all cases.

2. That asserting that no one has ever gotten their freedom via moral persuasion necessarily implies that moral persuasion has never been the prime mover of the grant of rights to oppressed and marginalized groups, which, itself, necessarily implies a level of violence, capacity for violence, and fear of violence that is often vastly disproportionate compared to what the historical evidence actually suggests.

3. That the reverse can be applied much easier and much more consistently in light of the evidence - that violent wings of a movement have never succeeded in the fundamental goal of eliminating oppression without moral persuasion towards oppressors; movements which rely only on violence can only succeed in establishing themselves as an oppressive regime and flipping which side is oppressed. And, for that matter, pointing out that the long history of violent movements by the oppressed do not have any track record of establishing alleviation of the oppressed in the greater polity without substantial moral persuasion; reducing a conflict to balance of power, as was often done historically before modern methods of communication and analysis resulted in more coordinated and universalist approaches towards liberation, simply results in the oppressors waiting for an opportunity to reduce the gains of the oppressed that were won by pure vigilance of arms.