Regardless of one's stance on the use of violence versus nonviolence, their effectiveness and success depend on the support of the masses and their participation in the chosen course of action. Without a critical mass of public support, any action is unlikely to achieve much. The reaction to the killing of a CEO speaks volumes, as it evidently struck a sensitive nerve in society. Clearly, there is widespread dissatisfaction. However, I doubt this reflects genuine collective awareness or a true rebellion against the entrenched system. There haven't been mass rallies against corporations and elites or a civil rights movement calling for a "March on Washington" against an unjust healthcare system. To the contrary, people recently elected, as their commander-in-chief, someone who defends corporations and billionaires, opposes affordable healthcare, resists reforms to address income inequality, and denies climate change. While, those who advocate for change that addresses the shortcomings of a plutocratic system are often branded as 'communist' or 'woke.' Unless these cognitive dissonances are resolved, and the underlying (often quiet and unconscious) support for the status quo persists, neither violence nor nonviolence is likely to bring about meaningful transformation. This has been a universal rule throughout history: A shift in collective consciousness is required to bring about real and lasting change.
I agree with Marco's "The reaction to the killing of a CEO speaks volumes, as it evidently struck a sensitive nerve in society. Clearly, there is widespread dissatisfaction."
As well as discussing the use of violence, we should also consider how we might amplify that 'sensitive nerve'.
Thank you Rachel for such a well argued piece, and all for the discussion it has raised.
It seems clear to me that, whether or not we support these random acts of violence, they will continue. I recall the fictional sinking and filming of a whaling ship along with it's leaders in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry of the Future. And like the toppling of Colston's Statue, we can see that events like this do bring a peak in the national conversation.
Shouldn't we then be planning and preparing for similar events like this in future that trigger a national conversation, with both a messaging and a communications strategy, that can have a systemic impact?
Respect your view but disagree myself. The system is inclined to correct to the status quo, but kicks to a system can change its state permanently. The more kicks, the better, in my view.
I think the identity argument is unhelpful and wrong. Young white men are not the only people who participate in political violence, and you can only come to that conclusion by looking at a pretty restrictive sample (US President Assassinations). Even if it were true, would that be bad? If we allow ourselves to judge actions purely by who does them, I don't see where that gets us.
A version of the above argument is used against Just Stop Oil activists in the UK ("they're all just posh tarquins"). It's wrong, but even if it were correct, would it matter?
Regarding your worry abt social movements becoming "one person". This happens anyway. Sometimes it's useful for this to happen for messaging reasons.
Your piece appears to suggest that political violence is *never* right/necessary "Whether or not Thompson’s murder achieves anything, it is frightening that there are those who take it upon themselves to remake the world as they see fit through violence. It is a mirror of the same violence they claim to decry." Targeted political violence is often used to bring change, I'm not sure where disavowing it gets you. Many decolonial movements use violence. Are they wrong to do so?
I agree with Ben. They kill us en masse and profit from our suffering, but we must never ever make them feel similarly vulnerable? I do not advocate for political assassinations, but I won't criticize anyone who feels so impassioned by the level of injustice that they put their lives on the line to stand against it. Rather than police his methods, we should elevate his motive because focusing on righteous condemnation only dilutes the national discourse. Maybe this death doesn't change anything on a big systemic level. Then again, maybe it's too soon to say. (Also, speaking as an unemployed cancer survivor who had to negotiate for Medi-Cal DURING an extreme allergic reaction to one of the chemo drugs that essentially gave me a seizure without the neurological effects-- we're allowed to feel good when someone makes these fascists spit out a tooth. Don't let anyone take that away from you.)
Luigi is not a political leader. He acted independently based on his analysis of a social problem. We ought to focus talk on the social problem, which kills/harms thousands of people annually, and assume the vast majority of people understand that the general principle “murder = bad” remains applicable to their daily lives.
Yes, but typically the elevation of motives applies to political leaders like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, or any major leader from the 20th century whose supporters argued that the ends justified the means.
The suppression of motive plays into the propaganda needed to keep the system on the road. We've seen from the Gaza genocide that the ruling class have no problem justifying violence when they see fit. Their sudden horror at this is because (a) one of them was targeted, and (b) it shuts down whether the murderer had a point.
If you disavow this kind of violence targeted at a man directly responsible for the deaths of thousands, who is so insulated by the system no justice would ever touch him otherwise, I would be interested to know whether you countenance any violence? If so what are the criteria?
The “Great Soul” Gandhi showed that non-violence is the only way to make the transformational cultural change that is so necessary, but he also taught that the way of non-violence requires tremendous courage. Tragically, the vast majority of Americans are abject cowards, so little of substance is likely to change.
That is the courage part, the willingness to suffer violence for others. And, especially forgoing the use of violence in self-defense. The really difficult part is in not using violence to defend others, especially those who are vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. This is the heart of nonviolence, accepting violence against yourself in order to defend vulnerable others. For Gandhi, using violence to defend the vulnerable was preferable to being nonviolent without the courage to suffer violence for others - what he called cowardice.
"Courage" isn't letting yourself be beaten. "Courage" is acting even when you feel paralyzed by fear. That takes many forms, there is no one set way to be courageous.
Palestine is a good example of how violence spirals out of control and takes on a life of its own, until it becomes a monstrous abomination, the destroyer of society. Violence, even in self-defense, perpetuates itself and escalates. Gandhi understood, as few today seem to, that the only way to break the cycle of violence is by "letting yourself be beaten."
Palestine and Israel are examples of what happens when you let authoritarian religious zealots make life decisions for other people. The people, I'm talking non-combatants, are dying because they allow a religion to run their lives and justify killing others that won't convert.
It has nothing to do with an arbitrary violence cycle from a spiritual perspective. Israel is run by theocrats. Palestine is run by religious theocrats. Until they are both deposed and the people no longer allow religion to dictate their lives they will continue to wage war against each other.
Spirituality has nothing to do with what has/is happening in Palestine. Hamas and the Zionists are nihilists - the real problem is that they lack the spirituality of Islam and Judaism. If you want to get to the core of violence in Palestine, look to men and how they have for thousands of years used violence to impose a patriarchal, hierarchical, order on society, particularly women.
Uncomfortably, Ghandi, for all his beautiful qualities and acts, also suggested the European Jews should have walked peacefully into the concentration camps in 1939 to awaken the conscience of Europe against fascism.
As a teacher once said to a yogi, who on her way to meeting him had been accosted in an alley by a mugger and only barely got away with her life, and was uncertain how she should have acted in accordance with the precept of non-harming.
“My dear, you should have taken your umbrella, and with all the love in your heart - hit him over the head with it”.
Peace is so important. Defending it is a challenge, but total non-violence is not achievable.
The Buddha taught practicing the LEAST possible harm.
We must remember the unprotected, the helpless, and also harms to ourselves, when we weigh the value of defence and of violence.
The perpetrators of violence – overwhelmingly men – like you to think that non-violence is the passive acceptance of violence without resistance. In the real world there is no alternative to violence, even in the “just” cause of defending the weak and vulnerable from their violence. Non-violence is however, the opposite of passive – it is the active resistance to violence using non-violent means. such as the general strike. Gandhi regarded the passive use of non-violence to avoid harm and suffering was cowardice.
Thanks Rachel, more incisive and thought-provoking writing - I can't wait for the book. The gender analysis of particular types of violence is interesting, and the mix of biology and social construction in male violence is deservedly well studied for diagnostic, legal and preventive reasons. So, yes, assassinations, high school shootings, domestic violence, are all skewed by gender in troubling ways. However, I don’t think it particularly helps in this case (except, as you later note, in terms of the narrative of individualism). The matter at hand seems to me to be the evaluative question of whether some violent actions are morally permissible, or perhaps even morally required, under certain circumstances (e.g. if directed towards the right ends, producing the right outcomes, and/or if with the right motives).
I struggle with this. Violent resistance to colonialism and occupation seems morally justified. More broadly, self defense may warrant the use of violence in order to be effective and may be similarly morally permissible. The question is whether and how violence can be used to address systemic problems, or effect systemic change, when the majority of the population continue to tolerate, accept and/or benefit from that system? I completely agree that “Systemic change is complex. It cannot be achieved by a single act, or a single person. Systems are not transformed by events, they react and mitigate against events.” However, I still wonder to what extent collectivist efforts towards system change can and may need to utilize violence in order to gain traction or success? While Andreas Malm does endeavour to partition violence from sabotage, the action of blowing up a pipeline, a transport hub, a data center etc., assuming one avoids any direct and immediate harm to people, will produce indirect human harms. Sabotage simply externalizes the violence or renders it collateral. Just as corporations and extractive industries externalize their many harms to the environment and populations in the forms of emissions, pollution, toxification etc., so too will attacks on economic infrastructure have negative impacts on food distribution, energy supply and human welfare. This may simply be a bitter pill that must be swallowed.
My biggest worry is that the violence of the current system is so widely distributed, normalized, externalized, slow and lacking a human face that most people are simply unable to recognize it as such most of the time. The violence is insidious with people and planet being slowly dissolved and consumed by monsters they can’t even identify as such. Self-defense, fight or flight, violent resistance and struggle, these are all options that require recognition of the danger one is in and the often more-than-human causes of that danger. Far better senses and stories are needed to address our systems- and risk-blindness. Otherwise, we are little more than the unknowing victims in a horror movie (while the audience screams “It’s behind you!” or, in a more appropriate Alien fashion, “It’s inside you”). Here I’m reminded of a line from Emma Goldman that seems particularly apt, “The most violent element in society is ignorance.”
The complete and outright denial of violence (and the failure to even consider it as an option) by the left might easily be the final nail in their coffin. No matter how virtuous we portray ourselves, right-wingers, fascists and other authoritarians will always use violence against their opponents - because they know it works.
Violence is, as tragic as that may be, an inherent part of Life. No way around that. Assassination was/is a last-resort way to deal with violent or otherwise dangerous/unstable individuals in hunter-gatherer societies all over the world. The Lisu hill tribe of Zomia used to kill overly ambitious village headmen in their sleep, and the threat alone is usually enough to deter the worst authoritarians from assuming and exploiting such positions.
The myopic focus on "nonviolence" that I see especially among my European peers will be their demise. Nonviolence is an illusion usually stemming from excessive privilege. As Kwame Ture has said: "In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience."
Caitlin Johnstone also piles into liberals who say 'violence is never the answer' claiming that they accept violence and therefore don't care about it
She, like you, thinks life, issues and the use of violence is homogenous. It is confusing so many issues. Was Hamas' violence against a murderous brutal suppression 'justified', helpful or 'the answer'? Maybe. Is it helpful to murder or torture Starmer, or shoot CEOs because they're more successful in the capitalist, neocolonial system we all, in the West, benefit from? Absolutely not.
The 'right' and fascists will use violence and the 'left' will die out because it doesn't ( and because they allegedly offer no other solution)?
Therefore the left should think about using violence- but against who and to what end. We're not living in a ghetto being starved, abused and bombed. We're mostly retired well-educated, well-fed middle class people who have done extremely well out of neocolonialism and capitalism.
Perhaps we like to think that we could show our leftist credentials with a little spot of violence and pitch-forks? That's such a romantic and naive view of revolution.
And we have no plan, no leaders, no coherence and nothing to replace the system that protects those unable to work etc etc- straight into the Reign of Terror.
Besides, the capitalist system that supports us, though we all love to criticise it, is soon to crumble anyway. Leaders don't listen to us, we must make them with violence, but we all still fly around the world causing climate change ourselves!
There will be agricultural failures and mass migrations coming to a town near you. Then they'll be enough violence for everyone.
In my state, project 2025 represents a direct threat to a large, essentially sacred wilderness that is all pure, clean water. Project 2025 wants to fast track an approval for mining in the region’s watershed which would irreversibly toxify and pollute the area. A wholesale tragedy.
There is a lot of chatter online about what resistance will look like if these plans accelerate, including sabotage. I wonder where different people draw their line in the sand for where disruption and sabotage ends and violence begins. If violence is ever justified? Many are promising to put their lives on the line. The govt will be enacting violence to the land, they would certainly use violence to protect the money tied to the project.
I have a number of problems with this approach to the conversation. My thoughts can be more concisely summarized in the link below, but I will address specifics to this article as well.
"It is a mirror of the same violence they claim to decry."
You touched on the idea afterward, but when somebody is being abused we do not see their responding with violence to their aggressor as being of equal condemnation. I think the better metric to take account of is a question of how many other measures should be tried before resorting to violence in an act of self-preservation.
"Systems are not transformed by events, they react and mitigate against events."
This is an argument of semantics. Perhaps you are more precisely saying systems are not transformed by *single* events. But even this does not hold true. Single events can be catalysts to significant change. When tensions are high, a single hole in the dam can be all that is needed for the force behind it to be unleashed.
"I have seen arguments to suggest that Thompson’s killer represents the radical flank. I worry these arguments are misleading because they suggest that any single person acting alone has the same right to change the world as a collective of people who have hammered out their ethos and strategy by listening to one another and sharing their lived experiences.
Let's say the only functional approach left truly is violence though. Is it truly more permissible for a group to organize to strategize multiple public executions to make their point? Perhaps this would have more chance for success if violence is truly the only remaining functional tool left, but conspiracy to commit murder has a much higher chance of being thwarted than a lone actor. and is punishable without any form of action having occurred. For all we know, plans such as these have started to coagulate in the past and have been found out before anything newsworthy could occur.
Again, I defer to the post I linked at the top for my fuller feelings on this matter. But the shift in cultural conversation around when murder is and is not okay is not nothing. I do not think Brian Thompson's murder has been absent of results to the national temperature or conversations, nor do I think it is fair to try to make an argument that the only way for people to possibly make a difference to the system is to use that system. Violence should be an absolute last resort, but condemning those who feel like all other options have already failed feels entirely counterproductive to me.
I think the best series of arguments against nonviolence, or, minimally, how nonviolence serves the interests of the State, is Peter Gelderloos's book of the same name.
I’d suggest that everyone, you too Rachel, here read Andreas Malm’s book- “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” Peaceful demonstration and protest alone has succeeded to change nothing. MLK/Malcolm X as an example. Even Ghandi was not that pacifist that many seem to think. So, Rachel, while I love your material and will continue to support you, I cannot agree with your sentiment in this piece.
Sorry for the duplicate post. You’re correct, he doesn’t call for it, but he does point out and provide several historical examples of why peaceful protest is not effective without and element of violence.
From what I remember, he goes to great lengths to separate “violence” from “sabotage” in order to promote the justification of sabotage and neuter the perception of property having the same rights as human beings.
It’s been a minute since I’ve read it, and you have a sharper mind than me, so I’m sure you’re correct about that. I’d offer that he’s very careful about what he says in that book- for obvious reasons. It would be quite interesting you find out what Malm’s thoughts are on this CEO, I think.
I’d suggest that everyone here, you too Rachel, read Andreas Malm’s book- “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” Peaceful demonstration and protest alone has succeeded to change nothing. MLK/Malcolm X as an example. Even Ghandi was not that pacifist that many seem to think. So, Rachel, while I love your material and will continue to support you, I cannot agree with your sentiment in this piece.
I dunno. This take doesn't even mention the widespread violence perpetrated by these people every day. Brian Thompson woke up every single morning and chose to let people die to enrich himself. 68,000 Americans die every year from lack of access to healthcare. Millions have their health damaged by delayed and denied claims. Families are destroyed and driven into medical bankruptcy. And that's happening in a climate where being unhoused is criminalized in all but three states. Where prison slave labor is keeping most of these corporations going. You've got an awfully long take here that seems to suggest working class people should peacefully tolerate the violence killing our families and destroying our lives every day while people like Brian Thompson get to peacefully show up for work as usual. Will violence solve the problem? No. But this act has done more to foster solidarity and class consciousness among working class people than anything that has happened in over 40 years. If we want to fix this system, we need people to wake up and pay attention to what is happening. And we need them to understand that we are very literally fighting for our lives right now.
I’m inclined towards your take even as someone who optimistically believes in non violence. Recognizing violence as violence, self defense as self defense? The writer correctly points out that Luigi was not defending himself or us, and drew some interesting parallels to who feels entitled to take matters into their own hands. Yet, lying down and accepting, let alone peaceful protest, has had… varying levels of success in this era.
To be clear, I don't think violence is the answer. I know it will have to be part of the answer because the system we're opposing uses violence to maintain its power. We absolutely need people doing the peaceful work, organizing communities, feeding people, housing people. That work is extremely important, and we desperately need more hands on deck with orgs around the country. But I do think this symbolic act has done more to foster class consciousness within the American people than anything else in at least 60 years. If nothing else, maybe it will finally make people look up and pay attention to just how heavily they bring the system down on his head. He's being charged with terrorism, something no school shooter in the last 12 years has been charged with. It's obvious that the ruling class are scared and intend to make an example of him. Violence isn't the solution, but it's sometimes going to be a necessary part of the equation. But it's important to remember that our goal in this movement is to be hard on systems and easy on people, particularly our fellow working class people. We want to make sure our violence isn't against ordinary people, but I can't find any sympathy for billionaires or financial services execs leeching off our healthcare system.
Love your points about the charge and that it’s never applied to school shooters. Love the idea of being hard on systems, not people. Appreciate your thoughts.
Thankyou. I picked that up from an activist I follow. Their handle is focusedoninfinity on insta and bluesky, and they have a lot of good takes like that, I think.
Just briefly before reading this article I reacted on a post on Mastodon. The post was about how Canada Should Respond to Trump. The writer of this article concluded:
"Heed the lesson of Thucydides: Only brutality can deter brutal men."
In my reaction I wrote:
With all respect to all diligent writers and thinkers, but I guess it all winds down to this:
Response to Trump: Only brutality can deter brutal men.
Unfortunately the 'left' and/or 'democrats' and/or 'alternatives' are taught that violence is a bad thing, non-violence is the way etc. which is of course exactly what helps the violent parties getting their ways without any problems or resistance at all.
One of the reactions posed an interesting logic to this, and said:
I’m afraid you are right. Sad to say only when us “nice” people quit being nice we will win.
And there is some logic to this because negative always wins. Being nice (=1) when the other is not (=-1) equals to: -1*1=-1
The bad guys always win, even when: -1*100=-100
But when we quit being nice: -1*-1=1
Hmmm, enough food for thought.
In my book I have given violence also some thoughts, I take the liberty to add those paragraphs here:
We need to talk about violence
What can we do when non-violent demonstrations, lawsuits and protests do not yield results or are even met with violence? What to do when we see that no space is created or initiative shown from any side to make real changes and business-as- usual is defended tooth and nail, what then?
Non-violent actions are always preferred, but faced with the ruling power and its monopoly on violence, they can remain ineffective. It’s an unequal struggle: one man with a gun can, just by threatening, easily dominate and coerce 30 unarmed non-violent people.
I want to incite an open and in-depth discussion on the use of violence in today’s society. I call for the creation of a 100% non-violent society. Unfortunately, our culture is based precisely on violence, oppression and exploitation. It runs so deep that even in a democracy, it is consciously and unconsciously deployed against ourselves and the biosphere. Violence is not a mere side effect of an industrial consumer society, it is an essential component and indispensable tool of it. Violence provokes violence in an attempt to resist it. Fighting violence with violence produces even more of it, and we already have too much violence in this world. Can the ruling violent parties ever be made aware of this? Only if we take the trigger for the use of violence out of society, if we stop participating in this violent game, only then can we ever reach a healthy balance. But how do we reach that?
Pacifists like to say that violence never produces or has produced anything. But is that true? How did the oppression of American Indians come about? How is the situation in Palestine? Were Nazis and fascism defeated without violence? Did witches voluntarily walk to the stake? Was the slave trade from Africa or is that of today non-violent? Do we get Coltan from Congo without violence? Is oil extraction in Nigeria and Nicaragua non-violent? Violence, unfortunately, is extremely effective. Violence keeps our culture going. The violence used against us and the ecosystem is not imaginary, but real. To accept ‘legalised violence’ is to support it. Hiding behind notions of pacifism and non-violence keeps, as contradictory as it sounds, unfortunately just the current violent system afloat. You may be non-violent, the other party may have different ideas and consciously or unconsciously employ violence as a regular element of its activities. Nobody can call oneself a pacifist at all if he participates in this violent society, and we all do. Too often, we see those bent on power, money and property ruthlessly and callously using whatever means they can to achieve their ends: economic violence, war, sabotage, blackmail, discrimination, destruction et cetera. Since a mental disorder often underlies this, the wétiko psychosis, we must recognise that rational arguments won’t work as a defence here. Pacifism of the powerless is seen as virtue from above, mainly because those in power don’t want to see their lives and property threatened. It’s very noble and nice to preach pacifism, but the prevailing system is totally insensitive to good moral principles. If our civilisation were sensitive to moral principles, it would never have degenerated into the system we know today. What it does fear and is sensitive to are too large groups of people who do not conform, physical force that ignores its monopoly on violence and its loss of power that follows.
Of course, the question remains when the use of violence is justifiable ‘for the good cause’. It depends on which side you are and how high your position in the hierarchical system is. In our current civilisations, violence is evidently accepted, but is it also justified? Can you then use violence and sabotage in defence against that same violent system, when non-violent resistance doesn’t work, is met with violence or the critical mass for change is not achieved? The right to protect and defend ranks above the stance of pursuing non-violence. We not only defend the survival of ourselves, but also that of our children and all plants and animals that are victims of the present violent society. The battle to be fought is not about the use of violence or not, it’s about freedom and justice versus injustice and power.
Rachel would you consider inviting The Last Farm on to the show? He does cool stuff that's relevant, but also has explicit ideas about political violence and what it's for and when it should be used.
Health care insurance in the US is extractive - but not because it sometimes doesn't pay out to people who are insured: some studies show that when Doctors are on strike, the death rate goes down.
The system is exploitative because it's the health of the population that is extracted, the bodies of the people are the resource. The big pharma/animal ag/agro chemical model, that's reached its climax in the US, is designed to keep the people fat, sick and on drugs.
It's a scam. Expensive health care insurance pays out for preventable diseases, providing useless and harmful drugs that make you need more drugs. Vaccines, pesticides and factory farmed animal products increase autism, Alzheimers, Parkinson's and cancer.
Health care is 20% of GDP. Neither the economy nor the burden on society of this unproductivity can take it much longer.
Shooters or no shooters. The Health care industry will eat itself.
Hospital deaths go down when doctors go on strike... bc doctors love to kill their patients?? Or because people don't go to the hospital and die at home/assisted living? Which seems more likely? Pesticides do cause cancer, but that is a separate industry. (I won't bother to respond to the vaccine denialism.) The problem with healthcare is capitalism-- it does not work for care, but for capital. The actual medical treatments and the people doing the work (nurses, etc.) are fantastic, far better than any other point in history. We need to expand access by changing the for-profit system, not cut care. That's throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Doctors don't love to kill their patients, but they're trained to. Big Pharma funded their training and also pay out $billions for misleading studies and drugs that kill people. It's how the system works. No, it's not because people die at home, it's the overall death rate that goes down, not hospital deaths. Pesticides are not separate to animal agriculture which is pharma's biggest client by far.
Of course health care is about money not care. I agree nurses and many doctors are amazing but I disagree that modern medical treatments are. Chemotherapy for example is billed as life savers but they, on average, only extend life, at huge cost and discomfort, by 2.1 months.
Yes, we need to sow people up and set bones after accidents but we absolutely don't need to expand medical care. In the UK we have free at the point of care- but only for the pharma model, in a big scam with the NHS, not for holistic treatment that works better.
My major point is that 90% are preventable diseases. That's what money should be spent on- access to fresh fruit and veg, legumes, fresh water, clean air, exercise, community and support. This will never be allowed.
You say you won't bother with my 'vaccine denialism'. You have clearly not looked into the evidence (I don't mean pharma marketing wikipedia) of when vaccines were introduced and what effect they had. The witch hunt of Wakefield, the capture of the Cochrane review and the deliberately misleading studies allegedly exonerating the MMR tell us alot about where the money is and what happens to people who speak out against it.
I’m not going to continue this conversation, except to point out to any readers that chemo does not extend lives by only 2.1 months, not really. Some cancers are so aggressive and rare that chemo makes little difference, where many (MANY) other cancers respond very well to chemo, especially in combination with radiation, surgery, etc. My life has been extended by 40-50 years (unless I get hit by a bus), and the survival rates for the most common cancers (breast, prostate, colon, etc.) climb every year. If you get diagnosed, get treatment! You may get months, years, or decades more with your friends and family.
Regardless of one's stance on the use of violence versus nonviolence, their effectiveness and success depend on the support of the masses and their participation in the chosen course of action. Without a critical mass of public support, any action is unlikely to achieve much. The reaction to the killing of a CEO speaks volumes, as it evidently struck a sensitive nerve in society. Clearly, there is widespread dissatisfaction. However, I doubt this reflects genuine collective awareness or a true rebellion against the entrenched system. There haven't been mass rallies against corporations and elites or a civil rights movement calling for a "March on Washington" against an unjust healthcare system. To the contrary, people recently elected, as their commander-in-chief, someone who defends corporations and billionaires, opposes affordable healthcare, resists reforms to address income inequality, and denies climate change. While, those who advocate for change that addresses the shortcomings of a plutocratic system are often branded as 'communist' or 'woke.' Unless these cognitive dissonances are resolved, and the underlying (often quiet and unconscious) support for the status quo persists, neither violence nor nonviolence is likely to bring about meaningful transformation. This has been a universal rule throughout history: A shift in collective consciousness is required to bring about real and lasting change.
I agree with Marco's "The reaction to the killing of a CEO speaks volumes, as it evidently struck a sensitive nerve in society. Clearly, there is widespread dissatisfaction."
As well as discussing the use of violence, we should also consider how we might amplify that 'sensitive nerve'.
Thank you Rachel for such a well argued piece, and all for the discussion it has raised.
It seems clear to me that, whether or not we support these random acts of violence, they will continue. I recall the fictional sinking and filming of a whaling ship along with it's leaders in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry of the Future. And like the toppling of Colston's Statue, we can see that events like this do bring a peak in the national conversation.
Shouldn't we then be planning and preparing for similar events like this in future that trigger a national conversation, with both a messaging and a communications strategy, that can have a systemic impact?
Respect your view but disagree myself. The system is inclined to correct to the status quo, but kicks to a system can change its state permanently. The more kicks, the better, in my view.
I think the identity argument is unhelpful and wrong. Young white men are not the only people who participate in political violence, and you can only come to that conclusion by looking at a pretty restrictive sample (US President Assassinations). Even if it were true, would that be bad? If we allow ourselves to judge actions purely by who does them, I don't see where that gets us.
A version of the above argument is used against Just Stop Oil activists in the UK ("they're all just posh tarquins"). It's wrong, but even if it were correct, would it matter?
Regarding your worry abt social movements becoming "one person". This happens anyway. Sometimes it's useful for this to happen for messaging reasons.
Your piece appears to suggest that political violence is *never* right/necessary "Whether or not Thompson’s murder achieves anything, it is frightening that there are those who take it upon themselves to remake the world as they see fit through violence. It is a mirror of the same violence they claim to decry." Targeted political violence is often used to bring change, I'm not sure where disavowing it gets you. Many decolonial movements use violence. Are they wrong to do so?
I agree with Ben. They kill us en masse and profit from our suffering, but we must never ever make them feel similarly vulnerable? I do not advocate for political assassinations, but I won't criticize anyone who feels so impassioned by the level of injustice that they put their lives on the line to stand against it. Rather than police his methods, we should elevate his motive because focusing on righteous condemnation only dilutes the national discourse. Maybe this death doesn't change anything on a big systemic level. Then again, maybe it's too soon to say. (Also, speaking as an unemployed cancer survivor who had to negotiate for Medi-Cal DURING an extreme allergic reaction to one of the chemo drugs that essentially gave me a seizure without the neurological effects-- we're allowed to feel good when someone makes these fascists spit out a tooth. Don't let anyone take that away from you.)
Hmmm, I think elevating motives is a very dangerous path which leads to the moral immunity of political leaders.
Luigi is not a political leader. He acted independently based on his analysis of a social problem. We ought to focus talk on the social problem, which kills/harms thousands of people annually, and assume the vast majority of people understand that the general principle “murder = bad” remains applicable to their daily lives.
Yes, but typically the elevation of motives applies to political leaders like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, or any major leader from the 20th century whose supporters argued that the ends justified the means.
The suppression of motive plays into the propaganda needed to keep the system on the road. We've seen from the Gaza genocide that the ruling class have no problem justifying violence when they see fit. Their sudden horror at this is because (a) one of them was targeted, and (b) it shuts down whether the murderer had a point.
If you disavow this kind of violence targeted at a man directly responsible for the deaths of thousands, who is so insulated by the system no justice would ever touch him otherwise, I would be interested to know whether you countenance any violence? If so what are the criteria?
The “Great Soul” Gandhi showed that non-violence is the only way to make the transformational cultural change that is so necessary, but he also taught that the way of non-violence requires tremendous courage. Tragically, the vast majority of Americans are abject cowards, so little of substance is likely to change.
Hundreds of thousands of Ghandi’s followers were brutalized, tortured, and ultimately killed during his peaceful protests.
Most of us aren't keen to suffer like that for a pacifists ethicical qualms about violence.
That is the courage part, the willingness to suffer violence for others. And, especially forgoing the use of violence in self-defense. The really difficult part is in not using violence to defend others, especially those who are vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. This is the heart of nonviolence, accepting violence against yourself in order to defend vulnerable others. For Gandhi, using violence to defend the vulnerable was preferable to being nonviolent without the courage to suffer violence for others - what he called cowardice.
"Courage" isn't letting yourself be beaten. "Courage" is acting even when you feel paralyzed by fear. That takes many forms, there is no one set way to be courageous.
Palestine is a good example of how violence spirals out of control and takes on a life of its own, until it becomes a monstrous abomination, the destroyer of society. Violence, even in self-defense, perpetuates itself and escalates. Gandhi understood, as few today seem to, that the only way to break the cycle of violence is by "letting yourself be beaten."
Palestine and Israel are examples of what happens when you let authoritarian religious zealots make life decisions for other people. The people, I'm talking non-combatants, are dying because they allow a religion to run their lives and justify killing others that won't convert.
It has nothing to do with an arbitrary violence cycle from a spiritual perspective. Israel is run by theocrats. Palestine is run by religious theocrats. Until they are both deposed and the people no longer allow religion to dictate their lives they will continue to wage war against each other.
Spirituality has nothing to do with what has/is happening in Palestine. Hamas and the Zionists are nihilists - the real problem is that they lack the spirituality of Islam and Judaism. If you want to get to the core of violence in Palestine, look to men and how they have for thousands of years used violence to impose a patriarchal, hierarchical, order on society, particularly women.
Uncomfortably, Ghandi, for all his beautiful qualities and acts, also suggested the European Jews should have walked peacefully into the concentration camps in 1939 to awaken the conscience of Europe against fascism.
As a teacher once said to a yogi, who on her way to meeting him had been accosted in an alley by a mugger and only barely got away with her life, and was uncertain how she should have acted in accordance with the precept of non-harming.
“My dear, you should have taken your umbrella, and with all the love in your heart - hit him over the head with it”.
Peace is so important. Defending it is a challenge, but total non-violence is not achievable.
The Buddha taught practicing the LEAST possible harm.
We must remember the unprotected, the helpless, and also harms to ourselves, when we weigh the value of defence and of violence.
The perpetrators of violence – overwhelmingly men – like you to think that non-violence is the passive acceptance of violence without resistance. In the real world there is no alternative to violence, even in the “just” cause of defending the weak and vulnerable from their violence. Non-violence is however, the opposite of passive – it is the active resistance to violence using non-violent means. such as the general strike. Gandhi regarded the passive use of non-violence to avoid harm and suffering was cowardice.
This is the most cogent nuanced piece on this whole mess I’ve seen. It’s brilliant. Thank you.
Thank you, Julie!
Thanks Rachel, more incisive and thought-provoking writing - I can't wait for the book. The gender analysis of particular types of violence is interesting, and the mix of biology and social construction in male violence is deservedly well studied for diagnostic, legal and preventive reasons. So, yes, assassinations, high school shootings, domestic violence, are all skewed by gender in troubling ways. However, I don’t think it particularly helps in this case (except, as you later note, in terms of the narrative of individualism). The matter at hand seems to me to be the evaluative question of whether some violent actions are morally permissible, or perhaps even morally required, under certain circumstances (e.g. if directed towards the right ends, producing the right outcomes, and/or if with the right motives).
I struggle with this. Violent resistance to colonialism and occupation seems morally justified. More broadly, self defense may warrant the use of violence in order to be effective and may be similarly morally permissible. The question is whether and how violence can be used to address systemic problems, or effect systemic change, when the majority of the population continue to tolerate, accept and/or benefit from that system? I completely agree that “Systemic change is complex. It cannot be achieved by a single act, or a single person. Systems are not transformed by events, they react and mitigate against events.” However, I still wonder to what extent collectivist efforts towards system change can and may need to utilize violence in order to gain traction or success? While Andreas Malm does endeavour to partition violence from sabotage, the action of blowing up a pipeline, a transport hub, a data center etc., assuming one avoids any direct and immediate harm to people, will produce indirect human harms. Sabotage simply externalizes the violence or renders it collateral. Just as corporations and extractive industries externalize their many harms to the environment and populations in the forms of emissions, pollution, toxification etc., so too will attacks on economic infrastructure have negative impacts on food distribution, energy supply and human welfare. This may simply be a bitter pill that must be swallowed.
My biggest worry is that the violence of the current system is so widely distributed, normalized, externalized, slow and lacking a human face that most people are simply unable to recognize it as such most of the time. The violence is insidious with people and planet being slowly dissolved and consumed by monsters they can’t even identify as such. Self-defense, fight or flight, violent resistance and struggle, these are all options that require recognition of the danger one is in and the often more-than-human causes of that danger. Far better senses and stories are needed to address our systems- and risk-blindness. Otherwise, we are little more than the unknowing victims in a horror movie (while the audience screams “It’s behind you!” or, in a more appropriate Alien fashion, “It’s inside you”). Here I’m reminded of a line from Emma Goldman that seems particularly apt, “The most violent element in society is ignorance.”
SO GOOD
The complete and outright denial of violence (and the failure to even consider it as an option) by the left might easily be the final nail in their coffin. No matter how virtuous we portray ourselves, right-wingers, fascists and other authoritarians will always use violence against their opponents - because they know it works.
Violence is, as tragic as that may be, an inherent part of Life. No way around that. Assassination was/is a last-resort way to deal with violent or otherwise dangerous/unstable individuals in hunter-gatherer societies all over the world. The Lisu hill tribe of Zomia used to kill overly ambitious village headmen in their sleep, and the threat alone is usually enough to deter the worst authoritarians from assuming and exploiting such positions.
The myopic focus on "nonviolence" that I see especially among my European peers will be their demise. Nonviolence is an illusion usually stemming from excessive privilege. As Kwame Ture has said: "In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience."
Caitlin Johnstone also piles into liberals who say 'violence is never the answer' claiming that they accept violence and therefore don't care about it
She, like you, thinks life, issues and the use of violence is homogenous. It is confusing so many issues. Was Hamas' violence against a murderous brutal suppression 'justified', helpful or 'the answer'? Maybe. Is it helpful to murder or torture Starmer, or shoot CEOs because they're more successful in the capitalist, neocolonial system we all, in the West, benefit from? Absolutely not.
The 'right' and fascists will use violence and the 'left' will die out because it doesn't ( and because they allegedly offer no other solution)?
Therefore the left should think about using violence- but against who and to what end. We're not living in a ghetto being starved, abused and bombed. We're mostly retired well-educated, well-fed middle class people who have done extremely well out of neocolonialism and capitalism.
Perhaps we like to think that we could show our leftist credentials with a little spot of violence and pitch-forks? That's such a romantic and naive view of revolution.
And we have no plan, no leaders, no coherence and nothing to replace the system that protects those unable to work etc etc- straight into the Reign of Terror.
Besides, the capitalist system that supports us, though we all love to criticise it, is soon to crumble anyway. Leaders don't listen to us, we must make them with violence, but we all still fly around the world causing climate change ourselves!
There will be agricultural failures and mass migrations coming to a town near you. Then they'll be enough violence for everyone.
In my state, project 2025 represents a direct threat to a large, essentially sacred wilderness that is all pure, clean water. Project 2025 wants to fast track an approval for mining in the region’s watershed which would irreversibly toxify and pollute the area. A wholesale tragedy.
There is a lot of chatter online about what resistance will look like if these plans accelerate, including sabotage. I wonder where different people draw their line in the sand for where disruption and sabotage ends and violence begins. If violence is ever justified? Many are promising to put their lives on the line. The govt will be enacting violence to the land, they would certainly use violence to protect the money tied to the project.
I have a number of problems with this approach to the conversation. My thoughts can be more concisely summarized in the link below, but I will address specifics to this article as well.
https://nakedapes.substack.com/p/murder-is-never-justified
"It is a mirror of the same violence they claim to decry."
You touched on the idea afterward, but when somebody is being abused we do not see their responding with violence to their aggressor as being of equal condemnation. I think the better metric to take account of is a question of how many other measures should be tried before resorting to violence in an act of self-preservation.
"Systems are not transformed by events, they react and mitigate against events."
This is an argument of semantics. Perhaps you are more precisely saying systems are not transformed by *single* events. But even this does not hold true. Single events can be catalysts to significant change. When tensions are high, a single hole in the dam can be all that is needed for the force behind it to be unleashed.
"I have seen arguments to suggest that Thompson’s killer represents the radical flank. I worry these arguments are misleading because they suggest that any single person acting alone has the same right to change the world as a collective of people who have hammered out their ethos and strategy by listening to one another and sharing their lived experiences.
Let's say the only functional approach left truly is violence though. Is it truly more permissible for a group to organize to strategize multiple public executions to make their point? Perhaps this would have more chance for success if violence is truly the only remaining functional tool left, but conspiracy to commit murder has a much higher chance of being thwarted than a lone actor. and is punishable without any form of action having occurred. For all we know, plans such as these have started to coagulate in the past and have been found out before anything newsworthy could occur.
Again, I defer to the post I linked at the top for my fuller feelings on this matter. But the shift in cultural conversation around when murder is and is not okay is not nothing. I do not think Brian Thompson's murder has been absent of results to the national temperature or conversations, nor do I think it is fair to try to make an argument that the only way for people to possibly make a difference to the system is to use that system. Violence should be an absolute last resort, but condemning those who feel like all other options have already failed feels entirely counterproductive to me.
I think the best series of arguments against nonviolence, or, minimally, how nonviolence serves the interests of the State, is Peter Gelderloos's book of the same name.
You can find a free online copy here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence-protects-the-state
I’d suggest that everyone, you too Rachel, here read Andreas Malm’s book- “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” Peaceful demonstration and protest alone has succeeded to change nothing. MLK/Malcolm X as an example. Even Ghandi was not that pacifist that many seem to think. So, Rachel, while I love your material and will continue to support you, I cannot agree with your sentiment in this piece.
I’ve read it, thanks, and in not a single chapter did I see Malm call for physical violence against others, but rather sabotage.
Sorry for the duplicate post. You’re correct, he doesn’t call for it, but he does point out and provide several historical examples of why peaceful protest is not effective without and element of violence.
From what I remember, he goes to great lengths to separate “violence” from “sabotage” in order to promote the justification of sabotage and neuter the perception of property having the same rights as human beings.
It’s been a minute since I’ve read it, and you have a sharper mind than me, so I’m sure you’re correct about that. I’d offer that he’s very careful about what he says in that book- for obvious reasons. It would be quite interesting you find out what Malm’s thoughts are on this CEO, I think.
I’d suggest that everyone here, you too Rachel, read Andreas Malm’s book- “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” Peaceful demonstration and protest alone has succeeded to change nothing. MLK/Malcolm X as an example. Even Ghandi was not that pacifist that many seem to think. So, Rachel, while I love your material and will continue to support you, I cannot agree with your sentiment in this piece.
I dunno. This take doesn't even mention the widespread violence perpetrated by these people every day. Brian Thompson woke up every single morning and chose to let people die to enrich himself. 68,000 Americans die every year from lack of access to healthcare. Millions have their health damaged by delayed and denied claims. Families are destroyed and driven into medical bankruptcy. And that's happening in a climate where being unhoused is criminalized in all but three states. Where prison slave labor is keeping most of these corporations going. You've got an awfully long take here that seems to suggest working class people should peacefully tolerate the violence killing our families and destroying our lives every day while people like Brian Thompson get to peacefully show up for work as usual. Will violence solve the problem? No. But this act has done more to foster solidarity and class consciousness among working class people than anything that has happened in over 40 years. If we want to fix this system, we need people to wake up and pay attention to what is happening. And we need them to understand that we are very literally fighting for our lives right now.
I’m inclined towards your take even as someone who optimistically believes in non violence. Recognizing violence as violence, self defense as self defense? The writer correctly points out that Luigi was not defending himself or us, and drew some interesting parallels to who feels entitled to take matters into their own hands. Yet, lying down and accepting, let alone peaceful protest, has had… varying levels of success in this era.
To be clear, I don't think violence is the answer. I know it will have to be part of the answer because the system we're opposing uses violence to maintain its power. We absolutely need people doing the peaceful work, organizing communities, feeding people, housing people. That work is extremely important, and we desperately need more hands on deck with orgs around the country. But I do think this symbolic act has done more to foster class consciousness within the American people than anything else in at least 60 years. If nothing else, maybe it will finally make people look up and pay attention to just how heavily they bring the system down on his head. He's being charged with terrorism, something no school shooter in the last 12 years has been charged with. It's obvious that the ruling class are scared and intend to make an example of him. Violence isn't the solution, but it's sometimes going to be a necessary part of the equation. But it's important to remember that our goal in this movement is to be hard on systems and easy on people, particularly our fellow working class people. We want to make sure our violence isn't against ordinary people, but I can't find any sympathy for billionaires or financial services execs leeching off our healthcare system.
Love your points about the charge and that it’s never applied to school shooters. Love the idea of being hard on systems, not people. Appreciate your thoughts.
I also appreciated your point about the terrorism charge (which I hadn't noticed) and love your phrase being "hard on systems and easy on people."
Thankyou. I picked that up from an activist I follow. Their handle is focusedoninfinity on insta and bluesky, and they have a lot of good takes like that, I think.
Just briefly before reading this article I reacted on a post on Mastodon. The post was about how Canada Should Respond to Trump. The writer of this article concluded:
"Heed the lesson of Thucydides: Only brutality can deter brutal men."
In my reaction I wrote:
With all respect to all diligent writers and thinkers, but I guess it all winds down to this:
Response to Trump: Only brutality can deter brutal men.
Unfortunately the 'left' and/or 'democrats' and/or 'alternatives' are taught that violence is a bad thing, non-violence is the way etc. which is of course exactly what helps the violent parties getting their ways without any problems or resistance at all.
One of the reactions posed an interesting logic to this, and said:
I’m afraid you are right. Sad to say only when us “nice” people quit being nice we will win.
And there is some logic to this because negative always wins. Being nice (=1) when the other is not (=-1) equals to: -1*1=-1
The bad guys always win, even when: -1*100=-100
But when we quit being nice: -1*-1=1
Hmmm, enough food for thought.
In my book I have given violence also some thoughts, I take the liberty to add those paragraphs here:
We need to talk about violence
What can we do when non-violent demonstrations, lawsuits and protests do not yield results or are even met with violence? What to do when we see that no space is created or initiative shown from any side to make real changes and business-as- usual is defended tooth and nail, what then?
Non-violent actions are always preferred, but faced with the ruling power and its monopoly on violence, they can remain ineffective. It’s an unequal struggle: one man with a gun can, just by threatening, easily dominate and coerce 30 unarmed non-violent people.
I want to incite an open and in-depth discussion on the use of violence in today’s society. I call for the creation of a 100% non-violent society. Unfortunately, our culture is based precisely on violence, oppression and exploitation. It runs so deep that even in a democracy, it is consciously and unconsciously deployed against ourselves and the biosphere. Violence is not a mere side effect of an industrial consumer society, it is an essential component and indispensable tool of it. Violence provokes violence in an attempt to resist it. Fighting violence with violence produces even more of it, and we already have too much violence in this world. Can the ruling violent parties ever be made aware of this? Only if we take the trigger for the use of violence out of society, if we stop participating in this violent game, only then can we ever reach a healthy balance. But how do we reach that?
Pacifists like to say that violence never produces or has produced anything. But is that true? How did the oppression of American Indians come about? How is the situation in Palestine? Were Nazis and fascism defeated without violence? Did witches voluntarily walk to the stake? Was the slave trade from Africa or is that of today non-violent? Do we get Coltan from Congo without violence? Is oil extraction in Nigeria and Nicaragua non-violent? Violence, unfortunately, is extremely effective. Violence keeps our culture going. The violence used against us and the ecosystem is not imaginary, but real. To accept ‘legalised violence’ is to support it. Hiding behind notions of pacifism and non-violence keeps, as contradictory as it sounds, unfortunately just the current violent system afloat. You may be non-violent, the other party may have different ideas and consciously or unconsciously employ violence as a regular element of its activities. Nobody can call oneself a pacifist at all if he participates in this violent society, and we all do. Too often, we see those bent on power, money and property ruthlessly and callously using whatever means they can to achieve their ends: economic violence, war, sabotage, blackmail, discrimination, destruction et cetera. Since a mental disorder often underlies this, the wétiko psychosis, we must recognise that rational arguments won’t work as a defence here. Pacifism of the powerless is seen as virtue from above, mainly because those in power don’t want to see their lives and property threatened. It’s very noble and nice to preach pacifism, but the prevailing system is totally insensitive to good moral principles. If our civilisation were sensitive to moral principles, it would never have degenerated into the system we know today. What it does fear and is sensitive to are too large groups of people who do not conform, physical force that ignores its monopoly on violence and its loss of power that follows.
Of course, the question remains when the use of violence is justifiable ‘for the good cause’. It depends on which side you are and how high your position in the hierarchical system is. In our current civilisations, violence is evidently accepted, but is it also justified? Can you then use violence and sabotage in defence against that same violent system, when non-violent resistance doesn’t work, is met with violence or the critical mass for change is not achieved? The right to protect and defend ranks above the stance of pursuing non-violence. We not only defend the survival of ourselves, but also that of our children and all plants and animals that are victims of the present violent society. The battle to be fought is not about the use of violence or not, it’s about freedom and justice versus injustice and power.
If anyone is interested, there is a more formally philosophical analysis of the moral permissibility of the killing of a Health Insurance CEO by Saba Bazargan-Forward available here: https://dailynous.com/2024/12/15/complications-ethics-killing-health-insurance-ceo/
Rachel would you consider inviting The Last Farm on to the show? He does cool stuff that's relevant, but also has explicit ideas about political violence and what it's for and when it should be used.
Health care insurance in the US is extractive - but not because it sometimes doesn't pay out to people who are insured: some studies show that when Doctors are on strike, the death rate goes down.
The system is exploitative because it's the health of the population that is extracted, the bodies of the people are the resource. The big pharma/animal ag/agro chemical model, that's reached its climax in the US, is designed to keep the people fat, sick and on drugs.
It's a scam. Expensive health care insurance pays out for preventable diseases, providing useless and harmful drugs that make you need more drugs. Vaccines, pesticides and factory farmed animal products increase autism, Alzheimers, Parkinson's and cancer.
Health care is 20% of GDP. Neither the economy nor the burden on society of this unproductivity can take it much longer.
Shooters or no shooters. The Health care industry will eat itself.
Hospital deaths go down when doctors go on strike... bc doctors love to kill their patients?? Or because people don't go to the hospital and die at home/assisted living? Which seems more likely? Pesticides do cause cancer, but that is a separate industry. (I won't bother to respond to the vaccine denialism.) The problem with healthcare is capitalism-- it does not work for care, but for capital. The actual medical treatments and the people doing the work (nurses, etc.) are fantastic, far better than any other point in history. We need to expand access by changing the for-profit system, not cut care. That's throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Doctors don't love to kill their patients, but they're trained to. Big Pharma funded their training and also pay out $billions for misleading studies and drugs that kill people. It's how the system works. No, it's not because people die at home, it's the overall death rate that goes down, not hospital deaths. Pesticides are not separate to animal agriculture which is pharma's biggest client by far.
Of course health care is about money not care. I agree nurses and many doctors are amazing but I disagree that modern medical treatments are. Chemotherapy for example is billed as life savers but they, on average, only extend life, at huge cost and discomfort, by 2.1 months.
Yes, we need to sow people up and set bones after accidents but we absolutely don't need to expand medical care. In the UK we have free at the point of care- but only for the pharma model, in a big scam with the NHS, not for holistic treatment that works better.
My major point is that 90% are preventable diseases. That's what money should be spent on- access to fresh fruit and veg, legumes, fresh water, clean air, exercise, community and support. This will never be allowed.
You say you won't bother with my 'vaccine denialism'. You have clearly not looked into the evidence (I don't mean pharma marketing wikipedia) of when vaccines were introduced and what effect they had. The witch hunt of Wakefield, the capture of the Cochrane review and the deliberately misleading studies allegedly exonerating the MMR tell us alot about where the money is and what happens to people who speak out against it.
I’m not going to continue this conversation, except to point out to any readers that chemo does not extend lives by only 2.1 months, not really. Some cancers are so aggressive and rare that chemo makes little difference, where many (MANY) other cancers respond very well to chemo, especially in combination with radiation, surgery, etc. My life has been extended by 40-50 years (unless I get hit by a bus), and the survival rates for the most common cancers (breast, prostate, colon, etc.) climb every year. If you get diagnosed, get treatment! You may get months, years, or decades more with your friends and family.