cop body-slams cyclist

[Mr. Bloom]

Hate to... (apologize in advance for the alliteration) burst your bubble, BoiseBirder but Gandhi was more the Critical Mass type. Nonviolent does NOT mean nonconfrontational! And there were plenty of people who purported to agree with his goals but found his methods (and MLK's) just plain "rude."

While "Civil Disobedience" may involve the disobedience of laws in non-violent ways, it is at its core "passive" in its aggression.

When Critical Mass encircles a car, verbally assaulting the occupant, this is "active" in its aggression. While Gandhi may have engaged in tactics perceived as "rude", his own standards included principles of:

• not even harboring anger in your heart while resisting
• willingness to SUFFER the anger of the opponent
• voluntarily submiting to arrest and not resisting the confiscation of property
• protecting your own oppressor with your life if necessary

I do not find these principles evident in many Critical Mass events. This was just this week:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...reading27.html

Oakleaf - I respect that you were trying to challenge perspective, but I do believe that:

• Gandhi's "civil disobedience" requires that one be "civil"
• Gandhi & MLK were leaders in being civil; my research doesn't find much of a leader in Critical Mass or its events and its evolved into an anarchist type outreach.