tl;dr: the means determines the ends

Jay Gould famously said that “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” Nothing would suit the banksters more than a shoot out between Proud Boys and Antifa. In fact, it is impossible to dismiss the possibility that Antifa was created for the purpose, complete with manual and logo.

Violence is the kleptocracy’s solution to everything — war (regime change), prison, torture, and pervasive surveillance. So the kleptocracy sells guns to fascists and whoever is foolish enough to get into a shoot-out with them. Then they make money on the anti-riot gear they sell to the police to suppress the incident, and then they make money on for-profit prisons when the survivors on both sides get shipped off to prison. So the kleptocracy is fine with punching Nazis, in fact, they are all for it.

I am old enough to remember the riots of April 1968. After Martin Luther King’s assassination there were riots in almost every major American city. Entire neighborhoods were burnt out. Those buildings that survived remained boarded up for decades, but the banks only increased their wealth and power. Capitalism is well adapted to civil disturbances and even civil war. Capitalism is not a plate glass window and you cannot smash it. You can, however, dismantle it.

If workers play by bankster rules on the bankster’s ground, workers will lose.

Let us consider unhappy Afghanistan. In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded for the purpose of installing a puppet government. Nine years later the Soviets evacuated Afghanistan, but the fighting continued, until the attack on 9/11, which was soon followed by the American phase of the war which continues as I write this. So how did violence work out for the Afghans?

Now let us consider Czechoslovakia, the Soviets drove the Nazis out, and never left. The people of Czechoslovakia did resist, but non-violently. Thousands perished in prison, but there was no armed resistance, not even in the aftermath of the 1968 Soviet invasion. There was an active human rights movement, which eventually formed the basis of the Velvet Revolution.

Ultimately the Czech Republic and Slovakia would separate, but peacefully.

Consider the situation in Prague or Bratislava and compare that to the situation in Kabul. I know where I would prefer to live. Violence begets violence. Violence is how you get meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Everywhere sustained non-violence has been employed, from India, to Alabama, to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, to the Snap Revolution, to the fall of the Berlin Wall not only has non-violence succeeded in over-throwing dictatorships, but more importantly, replacing them with something better.

You can’t have a revolution without having a revolution, it is necessary to destroy your enemy’s base of power. It is not necessary to employ, indeed in necessary to avoid, violence.