[news] A Tolerance of Violence On the U.S. - Mexico Border

[Resist!ca]

A Tolerance of Violence On the Border by Rodolfo F. Acuna - Znet; June 20, 2005 In trying to make sense as to why most Americans and even a large number of Latinos are so complacent about so-called minutemen running amok on the border, searching for undocumented people, I recently re-read Herbert Marcuse's 1965 essay on "Repressive Tolerance." Marcuse wrote that "[t]olerance is an end in itself" and necessary for the preservation of the status quo and the strengthening of "the tyranny of the majority..." When tolerance is turned into a passive state it promotes laissez-faire, entrenching the established attitudes and ideas of the right wing. The result is that we passively tolerate ideas and actions that are damaging to man (sic) and nature.

URL: http://resist.ca/story/2005/6/21/25223/5683