HIST 4061 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Urban Guerrilla Warfare, Kerner Commission
13 Aug 2016
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Fine argues that the riots are not accurately described as a rebellion because a rebellion is organized armed resistance towards a government. It is also not urban guerrilla warfare because this assumes there is an organized plan of operations. Instead, he argues that these riots are characterized by civil violence because it is directed against the symbols of civil order without an attempt to seize or overthrow state power and is spontaneous, unplanned and disorganized. Fine obviously believes his interpretation of the riot represents the best way of summarizing his voluminous evidence. But he is an honest reporter, and while some of the facts he provides support his view, some don"t. In my own view, the numerical piece of evidence that best supports his claim is the survey data that confirms the view of the riot as a violent protest.
