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Discover the explosive story of Alfred Nobel.

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Paul Weiss

My only problem with the video is the implicit equivalence of anarchy and violence. It's a difference between strategy and tactics. The strategy is (to break the word down in terms of its etymology) is "without a king." The fundamental goal is not to return to some "good old days" of a pre-industrial lifestyle, but to solve the problems of living together in groups by using the mechanism of voluntary associations of individuals in the absence of hierarchical, authoritarian coercion. Anarchist tactics have indeed included attempts to destroy the current structure of that authoritarian coercion by means of actions like sabotage and terrorist attacks on non-combatant civilian populations. [New paragraph] However, to establish an equivalence of that set of tactics with the overall objective of anarchism is not only historically inaccurate, but it also plays directly into the repeated (and current) societal tendencies to support even greater authoritarian pressure to eliminate the internal threats from that segment of the population who employ those tactics. [New paragraph] But there is an equally ancient and valid tradition of using non-violent tactics to achieve the same strategic end. There is such a thing as anarcho-pacifism, for instance, with Peter Kropotkin being one of the earliest coherent theorists of that tactic to realize the strategic goal of reducing the power of authoritarian control. The Occupy movements are another, as was the non-violent resistance to wars waged on behalf of and for the benefit of what Eisenhower called a "military-industrial complex," wars brazenly violating the autonomy of impoverished societies simply trying to effect various economic experiments to let more of their citizens to simply eat every day. [New paragraph] To ignore that, and to strengthen the misconceived identity of violent tactics sometimes employed by self-styled anarchists to the fundamental strategic goal, one of creating less violent and less authoritarian societies, is an error with enormous consequences. It plays directly into the current attempts to guarantee stability by supporting strong-man authoritarian rulers (in many countries across the globe), instead of encouraging the examination of the true goals of those authoritarian leaders.

Paul Weiss

I have now tried three different ways of breaking my posting into paragraphs, none of which work.

Timothy-Douglas Alvey

With wars and the Peace Prize in the news, this is very timely. I’ve learned a little more history and physics with each viewing. This would have been good to see in Junior High, when I was trying to get the right ratio of soda and vinegar, for my “bombs”. I could have ruined a hand!