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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36419 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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The last notable incident in US was in 1920, the Wall Street bombing. It's not like anarchism just went away but the violence did. There were some incidents in the 60s and 70s but limited property damage and no injuries and casualties. It's as if they tried to avoid causing bodily harm. These are easily outnumbered by other types of extremism over the past century. So what can explain the end of anarchist violence. Maybe anarchists saw they could no longer win on that front and instead focused more on other means of change.

Where are you coming up with "maybe 2-3 far-left incidents in the US over an 80 year stretch with no casualties?"

The 80-year stretch is from 1920 to 2000.

I'll link to the Status 451 book review that everyone always links to:

What if fanatics made a serious and nearly successful attempt on the life of the President of the United States?

What if those fanatics got into the Capitol building and committed a mass shooting on Congress while it was in session?

What if those fanatics conducted bombing sprees, for years, in multiple American cities?

And what if people really did do every one of those things, and you’d never heard of them? That’s the story of Puerto Rican separatists.

https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/

My post was pretty clear that the era I was referring to was the end of the nineteenth century - beginning of the twentieth century. A big part of my post was asking the very question why have things calmed down since then. Starting your measurement in 1920 is like saying fascists had a low body count from 45 onward - true, but not very useful (this is of course not to say these two movements are comparable in violence, just that they had select eras they were active in).

As @Thoroughlygruntled pointed out, your numbers are deflated even for the US, but remember this was also a much bigger phenomenon than just America; there were bombing campaigns across the western world, especially in Russia and Italy. Assassinating nine leaders of the most powerful countries in the world is pretty breathtaking imo - if right wing or Islamist terrorism had accomplished anything of this magnitude I think we would consider them a far, far more serious threat.

My post was pretty clear that the era I was referring to was the end of the nineteenth century - beginning of the twentieth century.

you said:

Anarchists pursued “propaganda of the deed,” or expressing their philosophy through acts of violence. Bombings became standard fare across the western world, claiming scores of victims - up until the 1990s World Trade bombing,

So I assumed you meant the period form 1920 to 90s, or 80 years.

I will just take the L on this one. I am used to almost always being wrong here anyway haha

Ah, no worries at all, I see what you mean, the way the sentence is structured it's weird but there's another half to it

up until the 1990s World Trade bombing, the anarchist bombing of Wall Street in 1920 was the bloodiest act of terrorism in the US.

I didn't mean that the violence sustained over that time period, just that the body count from that particular act of terrorism was a high point for a while after

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