I got an email invitation today from an old associate. He was inviting me to attend a $55 event where I could get the rare chance to see the founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication.

It is a rare chance since this guy has only come to nyc once before in the past 20 years (I guess he is afraid of the big city or something ;)

Below is my rant on the subject of Non-violent communication...

In my opinion the ideas might be interesting but I will never get past the irresponsible re-definition of the important term violence.

Communication can be hostile and nasty and even abusive, but communication never cracked anyones bones.

Using the term violence to describe hostile communication is 100% irresponsible for activists.

To describe angry debate as violence; to even use the term "non-violent communication" degrades the meaning of the term violence in a very dangerous way.

At ABC No Rio, we bar members of our community that have committed acts of violence against another member of our community. If the term violence were to be altered as you are trying to do, such a policy would become meaningless and we would lose the ability as a community to defend ourselves from true violence.

When you walk into ABC No Rio, you can feel confident that it is a safe zone. You will be in a place that does not tolerate sexual or physical assault and violence. But you better walk in ready for real, honest and at times angry debate. That is just part of the reality of being an activist.

If we accept this definition of violence, then we have to accept and even approve of a bunch of demonstrators shouting at the police being called "violent demonstrators" by the media. We have to accept the police's definition of overturning trash cans as violence.

I refuse to accept such irresponsible use of such an important term.