It’s educate, AGITATE, organize
edit: putting this at the top so people understand the basis for this:
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
Fucking what
It can’t both be
Either pushing this issue threatens the democratic base of support or nobody cares enough about this issue to make it a winning one.
what the fuck
That…
that’s exactly why it IS a losing issue
This isn’t some fucking game, where the sides are ‘balanced’ or someshit.
We run in a system where victories are decided by a fraction of a fucking percentage point.
I’m just going to keep quoting this back to you.
Uh, okay, you have fun with not understanding the difference between social change and an election coming up in a handful of months with tensions over key issues already sky-high, and ‘Foreign Policy tension’ being pretty fucking unlikely to top or come close to any of them regardless of how loud you make “Genocide Joe” chants.
Then it shouldnt be of any concern to you that I continue agitating it.
It shouldn’t be any concern to me that you’re agitating on an issue that can’t possibly win us the election, but can very possibly lose us the election?
“[…]create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”
Negotiations only work when there is something that both sides can agree on exchanging, and refusing a deal offered, even a poor one (“I will condemn Israeli genocide but not make any actions against it”), is only viable insofar as you’re willing to accept the alternative (“I will give Israel everything it wants and more, and also I will commit genocide here, and also you can look forward to never having a real election again”).