This really isn’t true. Much of government sponsored education teaches this, especially by teaching about the peaceful side of successful movements without mentioning the violent side. MLK and Gandhi were effective leaders, but there were very large, very violent riots going on from their camps too. The reason why governments negotiate with non violent actors is to avoid the alternative which is the violent actors.

If you look at VZ, RU, CN, it’s clear that if a government doesn’t want to, it will not negotiate and will simply roll you over.

Change has to come from within; you need people like Gorbachev.

Revolutions bring lots of bloodshed and animosity and pits friends against friends. It takes many decades to heal from that. There is also a vast and deep trail of wasted lives in its wake.

Right at the end of Gorbachev's change the street fighting suddenly became important: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat...

Whenever there's a revolution there's a potential counter-revolution. It's rare to be able to spike the guns with carnations, like Portugal.

> Revolutions bring lots of bloodshed and animosity and pits friends against friends. It takes decades to heal from that. There is also a vast and deep trail of wasted lives in its wake.

This is something every would-be revolutionary kid needs to internalise and ask themselves if they are really ready for. The cost is huge and mostly borne by vulnerable other people.

> Whenever there's a revolution there's a potential counter-revolution. It's rare to be able to spike the guns with carnations, like Portugal.

Portugal's carnation revolution is a clear example that change has to come from within.

The man behind the coup was General Spínola, the man in charge of Portugal's fight against independence movements in Portuguese guinea. Prior to the revolution he wrote a book on how the war was unwinnable to pressure Portugal's ruling dictatorship into a political solution, to which the ruling Portuguese dictator refused. Consequently a couple of coups were attempted and when they finally succeeded the dictator surrendered and General Spínola took over as interim president of Portugal, enactig the political changes he defended such as ending fighting and jump-starting a transition to a democratic regime.

Meanwhile, the dictatorship's single-party parliament already included groups of representatives, such as Sá Carneiro's liberal wing, who were not only openly against the dictatorship but also openly advocated for a transition to democracy.

You can't get more internal than that.

> Revolutions bring lots of bloodshed and animosity and pits friends against friends. It takes many decades to heal from that. There is also a vast and deep trail of wasted lives in its wake.

This is one of the points emphasised by [0| I call it the 3.5% talk]. The argument is that nonviolent peaceful "revolutions" are not only more successful in toppling regimes, they also make it easier to build a new one.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w

Source for that? The impression one gets from history is that without revolutions we would still be feudal farmers.

If you count up all the revolutions and divide by total grievances raised over history, you get an extremely small ratio.

Just because the treasonous colonists took up arms against the King (after many years of trying other means), doesn’t mean that a zoning issue, a gerrymandering concern, a dissatisfaction with the Electoral College, or a debate over UBI should move quickly to armed revolution if the first response isn’t to your liking.

Exactly. See my other response for how I think abiut violence and nonviolence

Very few direct, popular revolutions against feudalism were successful. Most successful ones ultimately involved the layer of people who were as successful and wealthy as it was possible to be without being in the "inner circle" deciding to break in.

Revolution is not a silver bullet, it is simply change, good or bad that's how history has progressed. Out with the old, in with the new.

I think the aversion to violence has made us complacent and resistant to change, expecting progress to always be positive without any struggle or hardship may mean we not only not get the change we need, but also violence will inevitably boil over or will be prolonged over a longer period of time, the cost of which will not be realized until after the fact.

How long will the Israel/Palestinian conflict go on for? How long will crony capitalism vs crony communism go on for? How long will we continue to be present in the middle-east militarily?

Conservative dogma is what causes revolution when no change is allowed within the current societal structure.