[10000truths]

Oh, there was plenty of internalized propaganda about civil disobedience being the "wrong approach" [0] - it is by no means a new phenomenon. Such criticism was common enough during the civil rights movement that MLK addressed it in Letter from Birmingham Jail:

> You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

[0] https://reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/1l7b30j

[asveikau]

> Oh, there was plenty of internalized propaganda about civil disobedience being the "wrong approach"

Yes, I'm aware of this. But I think it's surprising to me because decades later, MLK et al. are nearly universally accepted to have been right, but people using the same tactics are not.

But the cyclical propaganda lines do cross the decades. In the Bush 2 years I was rather taken by similarities between discussions of the Vietnam war or Watergate (which I read about in books or heard about from boomers) and what was then current events. A lot of the right wing stuff we've encountered more recently reminds me a lot of the 90s, when Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich bursted on the scene. All of the same talking points go in waves. Nothing new under the sun.