Hannah Arendt viewed pacifism as a method of aggregating power and works only when the opposition is overcome by numbers, press, etc and have only force of arms to maintain authority by force.

Immediately after the American Revolution, this peaceful country had George Washington assemble 15,000 troops and march on Pennsylvania to stop the farmers from converting their crops to alcohol. Not much pacifism there.

Civil War gave us Quantrells Raiders and the birth of the wild willd west. A whole major portion of the country developed with force being the guiding rule and lawlessness being the custom.

In the '50s democracy refused the Weberian contraint of being limited to going to the polls and voting every 4 years, and took it to the streets for the next generation. In Ohio peaceful demonstrations let a Republican governor, Otto Kerner, to turn out the National Guard to kill 4 Kent State college students on their campus.

Holding hands, singing, and putting flowers in the barrells of rifles works if the rifles aren't firing--if the cameras are rolling and the moral imperative is clearly with the pacifist protestors. Otherwise, we know nothing about it--dead men tell no tales. Testimony is born to this by the "dissapeareds" at the hands of the right wing death squads in Latin America.

Publius