You Should Know

How many of those were backed by much more powerful foreign powers?

Well that's total bs, in Greece there's been dozens of non-violent protests far exceeding 3.5% that have failed spectacularly.

Didn't BLM 2020 protests have over 3.5%? I don't think they accomplished much except put pressure to prosecute Chauvin. Like literally just that one guy.

Liberal three-percenter lore?

I mean, I do think non-violent disobedience can be effective, but the state usually makes it violent. State sanctioned protests where most obey most of the rules isn't disobedience. Is a good start though, and I hope things progress (in a good way).

Phony liberal bullshit for controlling the masses.

edit: YSK this article is old and largely debunked.

Why Civil Resistance Works the book that 2x figure comes from has some major controversy about cherry picking data as well as playing with the definition of peaceful protest.

If peaceful protests worked (as good as this article suggestions) the BBC wouldn't be writing about them.

I heard a saying once (I cannot remember the provenance) that could be paraphrased like: "The liberal is someone who is for all movements except the current movement; against all wars except the current war."

There are two important points:

1. Every major movement in history has incorporated elements of violence;
2. Which movements we retroactively consider as violent is determined by sociological consensus.

For example, the American civil rights movement is today considered by people to have been largely non-violent. However at the time the movement's opponents definitely thought of, and portrayed it as a violent enterprise.

Opponents of a movement will always portray that movement as violent. The status-quo consensus perspective on historical protests is written by the victors. Therefore, the hypothesis that "non-violent" protests are more likely to succeed than "violent" ones is self-fulfilling. When protest movements succeed we are less likely to consider them "violent".

Bourgeoisie propaganda

That second part is especially encouraging.

YSK, This is blatant propaganda

This is actually rewriting history.

The Philippines had multiple militant movements but notably the Reform the Armed Forces which had orchestrated and abandoned a coup that had popular support kicking off the protest movement.

Sudan was a military coup that overthrew bashir and then massacred protestors and was actually backed by American OSI NGOs.

Algiers street protests were illegal and they combined general strikes with police clashes and riots even though they were subjected to mass arrests.

For Ghandi MLK jr and others mentioned there were armed militant groups adding pressure. My take away is you need both approaches.

Without demonstrating the ability to defend your nonviolent protest with devastating results it just gets crushed. If you are militant with no populist public movement backing your ideals you get labeled as terrorists and assinated by the feds.

Non violent protests only work when there's a threat of violence backing them.

if you're arguing that violence is a poor way by which to shape a society, preach that to the police. it's literally what they do for a living.