[kmijyiyxfbklao]

That's interesting. I think the last Venezuelan election showed there are limits to what you can accomplish with peace.

[davedx]

Of course there are limits to everything, but conversely look at what people like Gandhi achieved

[XorNot]

I've become increasingly uncomfortable with these sorts of casual throwabouts of extremely complex and unique geopolitical situations though. Gandhi existed in a particular moment and context - take the same man and put him up against a different regime, and you would not get the same outcome.

It's like how people talk up peaceful protest by referencing Martin Luther King. He was a major centralizing figure for civil rights, but he did not exist in a vacuum of context either.

[srean]

It helped that WW-II broke the British. Non Violence needs an audience and a population that i) can feel shame ii) holds some power to do something about it.

[jeltz]

Maybe up to 2 million people died in the process, mostly in the partitioning of India and Pakistan, so it was not all peaceful.

[peterfirefly]

There were many millions of violent Indians who helped him achieve that.

[gambiting]

I mean, Poland managed to get rid of communist rule through a peaceful process(which doesn't mean people weren't arrested, tortured, intimidated and beaten). There was a desire for free and democratic elections and it happened.