Some friends and I read "A People's History of the United States" a while back and were surprised at how true this is. US classroom history textbooks hold civil disobedience up as the One True Way to bring change, but it's alarming how often the backdrop of famous acts of civil disobedience was in fact incredible violence.

Our conclusion in our impromptu book club was that made sense: why would the state schools give students lots of examples of how violence against the state was an effective negotiating tool? It was extremely jarring to reconcile with the image of US history we'd been imbued with up to that point, which of course was also a reflection of our socioeconomic status at the time.

As a counterpoint, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" is also taught in schools, so it's possible I'm just selectively remembering things.

Here in the UK, political violence has had its moments. My go to example is the Suffragettes who had to resort to violence (letter bombs if I recall) to effect change and get votes for women.

I often think that people will always criticise protests for not protesting the "correct" way, but it's exactly the violent and/or disruptive protests that tend to work.

However, I think the current U.S. political problems can be better addressed with economic disruption such as general strikes.

And you can extend that to the history of the world. Change via non violent means is a historical aberration. We hold those examples up because they are so rare.