Hi Dave, Thanks for the prompt reply.
Unfortunately, I can not consider Breitbart an honest broker of facts. I find particularly objectionable the use of a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed JFK, as I already claimed JFK as a victim on the left.
However, out of respect for you, I've read the article.
There are several problems with the article:
--It conflates 'Leftist' and 'Anarchist.' Not all anarchists are leftist. Not all anarchists are violent. Therefore, the pool of those who are all three, leftist, anarchist and violent, is very small and not correlative and it is quite dishonest of Breitbart to conflate them.
--There WAS a great deal of violence from Unionists, this is true, but the Unionists did not start it. Capitalists like George Hearst (later Senator from California) and others imposed upon them conditions of violence and cruelty--including outright murder-- that they first tried to meet politically and then, ultimately, met with violence. This does not excuse them. However, our debate (such as it is) is about who is 'more violent.' If they didn't start it, then they are not more violent that the, generally, rightist capitalists who did.
--Similarly the Black Panther party was created against a backdrop of even greater police brutality than today (if you can believe it) as well as the continued inability of white people to pass anti-lynching laws. It was, in fact, 1968 before any effective anti-lynching laws were enacted and, technically, in some parts of our country lynching is still not a crime. In fact, the first principle of the Black Panthers was self-defense, not unlike the Proud Boys, today... So, I guess I have to ask you if you think the Proud Boys are legit but the Black Panthers are not... (for the record, I'm committed to non-violence, so I believe that both are illegitimate, but I can understand the Black Panthers grievances whereas I'm totally lost with respect to the Pround Boys....)
--SDS, SNCC and other student organizations on the left... This is the most interesting (to me) case study. SDS and others tried to branch off and do violence without causing harm. What does that mean? It means they planted bombs and told people to vacate the buildings before detonation. They wanted the political capital of violence without actually hurting anyone. When some people did get hurt, many of the students lost their nerve and did not continue with the campaign of violence.
