It’s not an oppress or be oppressed issue.
Nonviolence only works when your opponent has humanity.
The point of this is that both sides need to be engaged in making a nonviolent solution happen. If only one side is on board with the process, then the result is either a lack of change or one sided violence.
Look at how much progress we have made in Europe since the second world war. We’ve done so much through diplomacy alone.
In Europe, both sides are engaged in nonviolence. Both sides are interested in diplomacy over violence, so progress can be made.
The situation between American’s and corporations (and increasingly corporate controlled government) is one where nonviolence has been met with inaction. That is a single sided engagement. The lack of both parties being engaged means the approach isn’t working anymore.
I moved out of the USA about 10 years ago. There are many reasons, both big and small. When people ask why, I’ve learned to boil it down to one overarching idea: I believe we should live in a society where the people are primarily treated as the definition of the society and not where the people are primarily treated as a resource belonging to the society.