Another great thing about this kind of approach is this: underneath all this crap about the “moral”, what we are really talking about is in the form of a negotiation between the landlord class -vs- renting folk and allies. As in any negotiation, leverage, sometimes called “tension”, is all important.
Here, I’ll let some random olden-times labor organizer explain this little bit…
… 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.”…
If this is really his position then you are right I completely and totally misunderstood. I was reading his position as revolutionary and this is barely incremental.
P&S is explicitly not an experiment in community organizing. Quite obviously, right? It is my little fiefdom by design, constrained somewhat also by 2+2. I certainly wasn’t holding it up as a preferable alternative to Unstuck. As a reader I’d prefer Unstuck much of the time. I also never claimed to be elevating any discourse or anything of the sort.
In any case, I really wasn’t trying to take a jab at anyone here, or to suggest that 2+2 was better. I just want to reiterate that. Microbet used organizing Unstuck as an analogy to attempts at more anarchistic forms of social organization in “real life”, as it were. I think the comparison is interesting on its own terms, not because I want to criticize Unstuck.
An eviction with the threat of violence is inherently violent - and that’s not to say that there’s not plenty of literal violence in actual evictions.
If you beat me in a lawsuit and get a judgement, that’s not inherently violent. Maybe in Ohio and Alabama the cops can take me to jail for losing, dunno, but where I am they can just take your money and credit.
If the result of an eviction might be that the Sheriffs come to your house with guns, it’s violent.
Spoken like a middle class dude who cares about his credit, but it got a smile out of me nonetheless.
Are you thinking that you’re going to get a judgment against them and garnish wages or something? Have you ever tried to actually do this? It’s damn near impossible and unless they owe you a shitload of money, often more expensive to collect on than the original judgment is worth.
I think we need to spend a little more time investigating this notion of “non-violent evictions” because I guarantee nobody has moved beyond thought level 0 with them.
Just to clarify, in general when I use the term ‘violence’ I’m including credible and immediate threats. For example, if a robber gives their victim a money-or-your-life choice, I’d say that’s ‘violence’ regardless which option the victim chooses.
So, using this usage…
If goon #1 successfully gives their victim the pay-me-my-monthly-ransom-or-it’d-be-a-shame-if-your-home-burned-down choice -and- goon #2 successfully gives the same victim the pay-me-my-monthly-ransom-or-i’d-be-a-shame-if-the-sherrif-threw-you-your-family-and-all-your-belongings-out-into-the-street choice…
I’d say, over the course of a year, that the victim suffered 24 instances of ‘violence’.
