Part I of this essay was published on Saturday, May 19, 2007.
“Nonviolence is a universal principle and its operation is not limited by a hostile environment. Indeed, its efficacy can be tested only when it acts in the midst of an in spite of opposition. Our nonviolence would be a hollow thing and worth nothing, if it depended for its success on the goodwill of the authorities.” - Gandhi
The GOP front runners gunning for the White House in ‘08 were trying to one-up each other on torture at a “debate” two weeks ago.
Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said interrogators should use “any method they can think of,” while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney not only supported “enhanced interrogation techniques” - the contemporary euphemism for torture - he proposed doubling the size of the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.
McCain’s support for prolonging the illegitimate occupation of Iraq aside, he’s the one torture hold out.
“When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us as we. . .underwent torture ourselves, is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them. It’s not about the terrorists; it’s about us. It’s about what kind of country we are.”
I suppose we should give McCain a little credit for his anti-torture stance, but, given his support for the “surge,” which flies in the face of all the historical evidence that tells us there’s NO military solution to guerrilla insurgencies, short of genocide, he’s a far cry from USMC Maj. Smedley Butler who warned us in 1935 that “War Is a Racket.”
Butler wrote about his 33 years of active military service, spending “most of (his) time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
High class muscle is what made Mexico “safe” for American oil interests in 1914. It made Haiti and Cuba “a decent place” for National City Bank to do business.
“I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street,” Butler continued.
“I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.”
You won’t get that kind of candor in American politics today, including the Dems, save Kucinich.
A Democrat-controlled Congress “compromises” with no troop withdrawal and more money for an immoral and illegal occupation?!
As I was saying last week, you can’t expect a chicken to produce a duck egg, which is why massive civil disobedience seems to be the only way to send the message the political ruling class should have got from the mid-term elections.
The nonviolent tactical question I raised was “fill the jails” - gum up the gears of the system to the point of gridlock.
I got tons of response from across the political spectrum and the responses affirmed two things:
1) Many, many people think our democratic system is broke and 2), we need an education curriculum that includes the long and successful history of nonviolent direct action because the ignorance of the basic philosophy, as preached and practiced by people most Americans either worship (Jesus) or say they admire (Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi, and King), is astounding.
(Of course, I received a few unoriginal smart-ass responses suggesting I go to jail first, by myself. That would be cool and all except that it misses the point of massive direct action).
“Fill the jails” wouldn’t work, I’m told, because the government, in partnership with the private prison industry, would just build more jails and do horrible things to those arrested.
I raised the prospect of filling the jails, not the prisons. Two completely different things. That said, a crack down on nonviolent direct action is pretty much the point. Nonviolent direct action usually does provoke the powers-that-be to respond with repression. You think those on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement were having a tea party?
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win,” is how Gandhi put it.
While repression is the predictable response of authorities, that’s not an argument for why “fill the jails” would not be effective. It’s an argument for why more courage is needed and a call for more than mere letter-writing, vigils and symbolic protests.
That’s what Gandhi was talking about when he said “nonviolence and cowardice go ill together. I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a coward. Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true nonviolence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness.”
If America’s true patriots aren’t willing to organize on a massive scale, then we had better get used to business as usual.
Let’s suppose a million-plus people - including women, children and the elderly - show up in the nation’s capital or New York City and shut the entire place down with the stated intention of not leaving until the U.S. occupation of Iraq comes to an end.
While those brave folks necks would be on the line, think about the network of relationships (friends, family and acquaintances) tied to those million-plus demonstrators who WILL NOT just let their loved ones slip into some “enemy combatant” black hole.
The powers-that-be are forced to make a decision: either we capitulate to the demands or we go Tiananmen Square on our own countrymen and women and completely destroy whatever remaining moral legitimacy this government may have.
“Fill the jails” may not be the right tactic but nothing short of that level of commitment will make a difference.
If America’s true patriots aren’t willing to organize on a massive scale, then we had better get used to business as usual.
Sean Gonsalves is a
© 2007 The
I am afraid that Rove would just add books on Tiananmen Square to his boss’s reading list (meaning Condi would read them and provide one page summaries), books translated from Chinese that were written by military officials explaining what could have been done better.
As the Chinese learned much from Kent State, so will Bush.
SG: Yes.
Betrayal. Betrayal. Lies. Half truths. Betrayal. Like cursed arrows shot into our minds and hearts to wound, confuse, and disable us. They were wrong. They have immunized us. We know who they are. We will never believe their words again. ONLY their actions and the consequences of those actions. Lying, triangulating, obfuscating, hair splitting corrupt people called Dems have dropped the last straw onto the camel’s back. We are that camel. Waiting is now become the fullness of time.
The cusp is here. A call is raised to the heroes, the working people who know that words are no longer enough. Right action, direct action, now.
My fellow working Americans - Who Are You? What are you willing to struggle for? Will you answer the call? No? or YES. This is it. Bottom of the 9th, bases are loaded, the scoring run is on third. You’ve just been called to the plate. There’s nothing quite like that particular sound, the hushed resonating crack that explodes the silence of the Night. You know what I mean. Its your turn. Think about it. Then do the right thing. You stand on the shoulders of giants. Names and faces you know. Names and faces you have never known. They walk with you. Always.
Peace.
Be there or be square…
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you” Two out of three.
Why not have community gatherings?
Get a permit for a “Stop the Occupation” rally on public property. With the money you would spend to travel you buy food and drinks and have a cookout. Show videos and have speakers; make it fun!
Why would you not be able to get a permit for holding and promoting such an event? That’s where debate and change begins; from the bottom up. We have heard all the pro-war stances; they were lies.
Winning in Iraq looks nothing like democracy and freedom for them or us. We need to go public with this realization!
After WWII, when people discussed the efficacy of Satyagraha (non-violent direct action), many asked, “Yes, but would NVDA work against a regime like the Third Reich?”. Gandhi’s answer, if I’m remembering my quotes correctly, was “Yes, but there would be a great deal of suffering”.
Most people contemplating the question thought that no, given the raw lack of respect for human life and complete lack of ethical considerations demonstrated by the Third Reich, there is no possibility that NVDA would have worked in that context.
Given that:
1. Over $100 million was given to Halliburton to build new prisons (about 2005?) in the U.S. for immigration and “potential new programs”
2. The lack of humanity of the Bush regime as demonstrated by Gonzales’ rulings on torture and ongoing practice of “extraordinary rendition”
3. The willingness of the Bush regime to dispense with all sincere public dialog and, instead, use all contact with the public as an opportunity to “catapult the propaganda” (Bush’s self-portrait in one candid moment).
4. Bush’s dismissal of approximately 15 million Iraq war protesters in the streets in 2003 as a mere “focus group” (as if Karl Rove didn’t rely on consultants and focus groups to craft each new wave of propaganda).
Suffice it to say that I very much doubt that Satyagraha / NVDA will work with the current regime.
So, what, then, do we do?
The Bush regime has too many corproate police and private contractors working for it, all of whom are too dumb to do anything but follow orders, and they would not just fill the jails, they would fill the prisons and concentration camps as well. In the long run, this would result in some kind of massive revolution against tyranny in the US, and much death and suffering, but it might eventually succeed.
The real question should be, is there an easier way to the same ends?
This is my idea. Expose the neocon war-party profiteers by msm-ing their multiple millions in profit off the war, then invite them all to a big fancy affair, and shanghai the whole lot of them to Iraq, dump them in Sunni-occupied Falluja, and let them have a taste of their favorite sport.
Fill the jails equates to Bush’s excuse to declare martial law. With a protest of that magnitude and no National Guard on hand to police it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled that trigger. And that would result in more of our tax dollars then going to the Blackwater-type security force that he would no doubt call in. Let’s not forget that civil-disobediance now can be defined as terrorism, thank you Patriot Act, as long as you spin it the right way. I think we need to target our “watchdogs” who have become the “lapdogs,” meaning the major media. The news that the average American, who by the way doesn’t spend time blogging, receives is still so filtered that it perpetuates this state of subtle supression. The real TRUTH still has yet to reach the average masses, who rely on major media for their information. If the media were doing their job as they have in the past we wouldn’t be where we are today. I feel that’s where the real fight lies, at the foot of the enabler.
The British empire in India once prohibited Indians from making sea salt, to enforce the monopoly owned by a British-controlled company. Gandhi encouraged a non-violent direct action against that law by leading Indians down to the sea to make salt.
The British enforced the law. The Indians continued making salt. The British enforced the law even more brutally, until they were slaughtering Indians. They only gave up enforcement when they became sickened at how many Indians they were slaughtering. And not until.
This approach worked against the British because they had vestigial moral scruples. This approach would not have worked against the Nazis because they had no moral scruples, and had little problem slaughtering people by the millions.
This approach would not work in Amerika with the Bush administration for the same reasons. Dead and wounded, Bush already has the blood of tens of thousands of American soldiers and millions of Iraqis on his hands. Do you really suppose a few hundred thousand more is going to sicken him of his slaughter?
I don’t think so.
Neither would you depend on the American people to be outraged by such slaughter. Notice recent polls indicating that half of Americans would approve of attacks against civilians, presumably including themselves.
In order for civil disobedience to work under such circumstances, approaches will have to be devised which undermine the US economic system without encouraging the Bush Gestapo to commit genocide against the American people.
Do not suppose they would not, because history clearly shows that Amerika has willingly committed genocide in the past, and is at least as willing to do so these days. Radical right-wing posters on the NYT forums did in fact guarantee it on numerous occasions.
For example. The king of Denmark was arrested after Hitler invaded and the Nazis said he was ’sick’. Denmark ’said it with flowers’, and inundated the system with flowers sent to the king, who somehow made a miraculous recovery.
Approaches like this might work, but only if you suppose the Bushites wouldn’t exterminate the flower vendors for sedition, because flower vendors are all treasonous Islamofascists, you know.
Hey Zeus replyers!
way to dismiss a pretty proven tactict with knee jerk quickness.
obviously things are not bad enough for you to personally rock the boat (much like the dems)—-i hope you don’t consider yourselves progressive, as your fears, paranoias and proto conspiracy theories are quite regressive.
Go sean gonzales!
and everybody else who’s usefullness goes beyond mere armchair tactical ‘thought’.
“if America’s true patriots aren’t willing to organize on a massive scale, then we had better get used to business as usual.”
so get used to it you pseudo ‘liberals’!
To claim that Kucinich is an exception is false.
http://www.gpln.com/halfheartedattempts.htm
I’m all for organizing, I’ve been to many protests, but I’ve seen how it’s done little good. And why is that? Because the major media doesn’t give it any respectable coverage. That’s my point, if major media isn’t taken to task first, then even a major protest will just be another blurp on the national news. Progressives, and I consider myself one, need to find a way to engage and activate the average American base, both Dem and Rep, who sadly still make up the majority. That avenue is through the media as it always has been. If the average American were informed the outrage would be non-partisan and overwhelming. Does anyone really think that a week long sit-in in the D.C. mall is going to do anything if the major media outlets don’t give it in-depth coverage?
The MEDIA is the problem. You thought they changed but they were just regaining your trust for the next thrust. (Iran)
I find Alberto Gonzales’ example very inspiring, in a strange and twisted way. What if we all could so easily choose what we remembered and what we forgot?
I find that I’m forgetting that Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NYT and WSJ were ever considered the “mainstream media” before everyone began reading CommonDreams.org and watching indy videos on Google and YouTube.
I have a vague sense that there’s something I’m supposed to do every April 15th, but I can’t recall what it is.
I have completely forgotten to watch network television for the past ten years at least. I’ve forgotten when I stopped watching.
I am forgetting to buy gasoline and conventionally grown processed foods.
I am forgetting how to use Microsoft as I get further into Ubuntu.
I am forgetting why little pieces of paper and metal with pictures of old white men with long white hair are supposed to be more important than leafy green vegetables and fresh fruits and vegetables, which, unlike the pieces of metal and paper, often DO grow on trees (how cool is that?)
In short, I seem to be forgetting everything related to how I am supposed to cooperate with injustice and only seem to be able to retain thoughts and ideas that pertain to a just, sustainable, peaceful society.
It’s sort of a disease I guess, like amnesia triggered by an allergy to totalitarianism or something. I think I’d like to start a support group if and when I meet other people suffering (or not suffering) from the same syptoms.
Walter-map, My sentiments, exactly as I still own the conceit that I might be more useful alive. We are on the cusp of imagining what totalitarianism would look like in this new century aided and abetted by far more efficient weapon systems (some that can harm you by profiling your genetic content!) and let’s not forget those pesky surveillance systems that keep watch on where we are, and what we’re doing. Big Brother is on steroids these days and heavily armed, and with no Habeas Corpus of substance, and the line that defines who’s a terrorist blurry at best, it’s suicide to step out these days. I suspect a whole lot of us migh suffer from the amnesia bout as described by the savvy Clark Kent. It’s still plausible that mutiny will occur within the power circle, as one by one the members keep falling down, usually on their own swords. The Universe does arc towards justice, eventually.
Hey Clark Kent, I really admire your disease and its symptoms, even more than I despise all that I simply refer to as bush.
How do we start? It should be clear to everyone that the window of opportunity is closing…
Might I ask this question: why is it that we, as a population, should consider giving up lives in taking the moral high ground against a very small group of people who have no idea there is such a thing as “moral” on the map? It is an intriguing notion to me that we should be so willing for self-sacrifice and consider it, at the same time, beneath us to sacrifice the people RESPONSIBLE for all the suffering. So often I read attacks on very small groups of people who FIGHT BACK with physical violence. They are WRONG because they prefer not to give up their LIVES so that they might live BETTER LIVES. King was shot and killed after creating an amazing movement, and let’s look at the lives of Blacks in this country now? How much progress since the time of King’s death? And how much regression has taken place in the same years? Sure, African American elites are able to live amidst Whites now, and they can have a small share of good jobs. But look what has happened to so many, traditionally Black neighborhoods. Take a trip to the South Bronx, or to East St. Louis and talk to me about the progress of Civil Rights. We have merely welcomed African Americans to the class war with open arms, but those African Americans on the WRONG SIDE of CLASS have taken a pretty big hit for the team. A hit from which there is no path of escape. The problems faced are self-perpetuating and King’s ghost is not offering a means of rescue. Rather, it is offering a view of HOW they should behave in King’s honor, showing that they are not WORTHY of his lofty goals. King’s image has been COOPTED to keep African Americans down.
Yes, I think non-violent action is a thing of moral beauty. I am amazed and inspired by the fear that King felt when he first put himself on the line and went to jail (a TRULY life-threatening thing for an African American man in that time, and a tremendous sacrifice considering the very comfortable life he was giving up). I am inspired by the power he had to bring people together. Yes, I think that clogging the system is a workable goal. We can talk about prison constructions and private armies, but, the fact is, someone has to POPULATE those uniforms. Someone has to MAKE those uniforms. Someone has to FEED those uniforms. Someone has to manufacture the bullets that given those uniforms AUTHORITY. It is true that they cannot lock up, or kill, us all unless we let them. Unless we enable them. The difficulty in mass action, however, is realizing that you are, in fact, a MASS. That your interests are tied up with many other people’s interests. In making the soldier with the gun at your head realize that, in essence, that gun is also at the soldier’s head and to pull the trigger is to cause more damage than the just the destruction of the body that receives the bullet. It is a slow degredation of the soldier’s life, too. I would agree with the post that suggested Mass Action starts with a picnic. Meet your neighbors. Talk to people at the grocery store. Make it clear in every aspect of your life that people against the Bush junta are PEOPLE, and let your neighbors know that they are not isolated in their anger (I have yet to meet a single person who still thinks Bush is not, at the very least, acting outside the interests of the United States.) Mass action is truly powerful if your local police know you (why do authorities often call in the STATE police, and why do they never use LOCAL National Guard divisions?). We are not likely to oppress the people we KNOW.
And if you really think we can organize a mass action, how about something a little less romantic than going to jail. Why not a tax strike? No money, no war machine. No money, no prison construction. Or a massive strike. Maybe just a week, or a day long, but to show what can happen if we withdraw our efforts from society. I have to say, mass strikes are my favorite moments of civil disobendience. The famous strike in Seattle where all the rudiments of society were kept in order, but the commercial machine ground to a halt…a beautiful thing, if only it had extended across the whole nation. The essence of the problem really is realizing that we are a mass. Failing to be divided by distinctions of color, gender or class. Failing to FEAR the democratic voice of your neigbhor.
Sitting on the mall and locking down the city are NOT the same.
A plethora of tacticts are needed (while ghandi was fasting, peasants in the countryside were tearing out railroad tracks).
You all sound scared, paranoid and so to the delight of the powers that be—-COMPLACENT.
The ONLY way any force has ever been defeated has been through nonviolent action. Violence has never settled anything. One side will become so exhausted that it just stops but nothing gets settled. Nobody wins–one side just loses more than the other. Gandhi and King won something and defeated a more powerful enemy.
“I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912″
‘
Brown Brothers-Harriman, George Bush’s GreatGrandfather. And his Grandfather when he was the banker for the Nazis.
‘
I’d love to believe that NVDA would be effective in the current crisis, but I ain’t holding my breath. Particularly in opposition to these Thugs. Non-violence is just weakness in their eyes and something they can and will exploit. Hellisburnin is already building the concentration camps.
Martin Luther King would have never gained the traction he had, had it not been for Malcolm X and the Panthers scaring the sh!t out of white people, posing with guns in Life Magazine. The threat of violence by people that were nowhere near as reasonable as King made him more palatable, the lesser of two evils. These thugs would have dissappeared both King and Malcolm X.
Unfortunately, mass movements take the participation of large chunks of the population. At present, even though 70% of American want the war to end and the troops brought home, our position is completely obscured by American Idol. If you can’t distract people from their distraction, can’t focus them on effecting change by calling their congressman or even coming out to vote, you can’t be sure that the public will notice if we’re arrested, much less come to get us out.
“The ONLY way any force has ever been defeated has been through nonviolent action.”
Are you joking, Nietsche? I need a smiley face for sarcasm in print, I think.
CV & Unknown Arts, excellent points. Moving the mass(es) kind of like calling the MOUNTAIN.
You cannot fight destruction with destruction.
Fight destruction with CREATION.
Fill their jails for them? March right in, so they can do what they want. So all those War on Iraq vets can practice the skills they learned in the Middle East and brought back to American police departments?
You are mad.
huckleberry — Yes, fighting destruction with creation seems to be one of the symptoms of my memory problem. Living sustainably is the best revenge. Remember how the Bushies talked about the U.N. becoming “irrelevant”? In my mind, that’s exactly what’s happening to the MSM and much of the U.S. gov’t.
Mooser — Yes, I think I would forget to do anything that made it easier for someone to oppress me, like filling the jails.
sLiMsHaDy — Reading Common Dreams, watching Alex Jones videos (like JFK2), also this: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/index.html
Nothing bucks up the phony patriots more than evidence that the real patriots don’t have the courage of their convictions.
Somewhere between Siouxrose and Clark Kent my own sentiments lie. I remember the civil rights non-violent, direct action protests and I am also keenly aware that (so far) there is no one even approaching the understanding, vision, or charisma of a Martin Luther King Jr. or Mohandis Ghandi in our midst. (Honorable mention should go to Archbishop Tutu for his peace and reconciliation comission in South Africa after the ANC gained the rightful control of that land).
I fear what we need are national strikes (in order to gum up the works) and something more like the Black Panther party. The Panthers quickly realized what many on this forum understand–demonstrations and demonstraters are llike so much used toilet paper in the eyes of the “powers that be”.
So the Panthers stopped demonostrating and organizing and started doing things. They started doing things like instituting programs to feed the poor inner-city kids a decent breakfast so they could have the energy and attention to suceed at school, train ordinary men and women in martial arts in order to defend themselves against personal violence visited on them. They also organized neighborhoods to become self-reliant and not need to nurse at the breast of the government.
In Oakland, the drove around with scanners listening for police calls to the ‘hood and would show up 5-10 at a time with loaded shotguns (which they legally owned) form a line and all clear the chambers of their shot guns at once and just stand there and watch the police do their work. Not suprisingly police violence against black folk diminished in Oakland as the forces of repression gnashed their teeth over what to do.
Today we have video cams small enough to fit in a cell phone and an internet big enough to spread the word across the world in an instant.
Until we can go cold tukey and stop getting our fix of a regular dose of government daily, we will always be at the mercy of the powers that be and they know it. Instead of being content to keep us strung out on government heroin, they are cooking up the equivalent of crack, meth, and other designer hallucinogens to make our chains even more secure.
We must create an alternative reality to what they have done and in order to do that we must close our eyes to “what is” in order to understand what can be.
Poet: How ispired and inspiring, today! Government, like the Mr. Smith virus in “THE MATRIX” has learned from the previous protest initiatives. Didn’t I read on THIS site that the military sees small wars in urban centers its upcoming “focus.” They’d never let a group of people point arms today, they’d shoot at the first sign like the many “accidental” killings of citizens, especially those of color, of late. The poet in me asks for a gigantic bonfire where all the guns are burned at once, a gigantic monument to humanity’s foolishness, its self-destructive identification with Mars/violence is at last put down… weapons made into a thing of beauty, a vast metallic sculpture that represents where we learn and commit to freezing our violent/vile impulses. This dream won’t come now, not when government is itself an instrument OF violence. “As above, so below” style suggests quite a dramatic scenario in the next 7 years and where mankind sits at the end of that nuanced scenario is yet to be seen. By 2020 (fascinating astrology and I thought I’d use that NUMBER as a book title, till as it turns out, Uncle Sam a/k/a Pentagon beat me to it in “Vision 2020″ for the domination of space) I think a very different world “order” will be underway. It’s getting there that will summon the spiritual strength of Hercules… muscle up everyone!
NVDA did work against Hitler’s regime. Adolph Hitler may have had complete disregard for human life, but his supporters did have some humanity left in them in spite of their willingness to turn a blind eye to attrocities or participate in them. Take a look at how Hitler was defeated in Norway or how a small town in France managed to help thousands of Jewish people escape. Both examples of Hitler’s defeat by common people without guns.
Some things Mr. Gonsalves left out of his essays is that NVDA /Satyaghara doesn’t work by “changing the hearts” of the oppressor. It works by mobilizing enough dissatisfaction among the citizenry that the oppressor is forced to either acquiesce or lose his power altogether. So,
1. MVDA/Satyagraha works only in countries that have working, even if flawed, democratic traditions.
and, probably most importantly,
2. NVDA/Satyaghara also requires a free, activist mainstream press that vigorously reports on issues of injustice.
In the US today, condition #1 exists. Condition #2 which existed imperfectly in the 1960’s, is absolutely lacking today.
Ghandi relieved enormous press coverage around the world and particularly in the country Gandhi was resisting, the UK. The US civil rights movement, and later, the antiwar movement, received considerable, and sympathetic attention in the media. South Africa, likewise, was tagged a pariah by the press around the world.
I absolutely can’t imagine such a thing happening today. King would have gone in and out of jail, the march to Montgomery, the Memphis strike, and all the rest would have passed with just minor comment in the local press and TV, and King would probably still be alive today, either a obscure pastor of a church or in obscurity or in prison.
Daniel Ellsberg would have been told by the Washington Post and New York Times to go away, then they would have called the authorities, and Ellsberg would be be living a life of anomynity in a federal prison.
The Berrigan’s action in Catonsville, which received massive national coverage in it’s day, would have received the level of coverage that the plowshares actions or the SOA actions receive today, which is nothing.
As far as leaders, people forget that in the antiwar movement, we DO have some compelling personalities like Cindy Sheehan, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Kathy Kelly, etc. What is different is that the press ignores them.
The point is not that NVDA will be met with violent suppression like Tianamen Square, the most powerful weapon is quietly arrest the participants with as little force as possible and then allow the sycophantic press to simply ignore them.
Violence gets used as a propaganda tool. The media will label the group and manufacture fear and pump it through news and talk shows daily.
If we work through our communities from the ground up I see more communication available than if we hope for MSM to tell the story at a large rally where they look for an “I told you so”.
Mr. Gandhi’s organization also owned their own media– a newspaper, which, in pre-television India was a significant asset. Needless to say, the newspaper did not ignore Satyagraha events and people.
need revolution, this is the only way
but then here in USA is sheeple, too complacent,obese, and cushy the life
Clark Kent,
Good point.
Actually, before the age of “professional” (i.e. commercial, for-profit) journalism, and it’s so-called neutrality and “balance”, most Americans got their news from papers printed from various partisan groups as well. You could go to a news stand and could take your pick from newspapers published by the “know-nothings” (right-wing nativists) to the Anarchists, and everything in-between. They didn’t pretend to be neutral, because frankly, the whole concept of “NPOV” (as wikipedians say) is false; as Zinn wrote, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train” - neutrality is just accession to the status quo.
We still see hints of the formerly activist press in the names of some papers today - like the “Baton Rouge Advocate” and the “Lebanon (Tennessee) Democrat”.
(Democrats in Tennessee in the old days were defenders of Jim crow and lynching, but my point remains)
Even today, some hard-right-wing papers that don’t pretend to be neutral, like the Washington (DC) Times, or Scaife’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, paradoxically, often cover many left-activists’ issues better than the more “professional papers like the Washington Post or the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The right wing papers give us good news coverage then denounce us on the editorial page. The professional papers are more clever - they don’t cover us at all, or relegate us to a obscure corner of page B16.
Since the signing of NSPD-51 I’ve been talking to as many people as possible about what that ‘directive’ actually means.
I believe that this administration is openly hoping for something like a mass strike, in order to put this directive into effect and render Courts and Congress officially (not just de facto) vestigial.
That said, I think that the time for mass action is here, and that NSPD-51 offers an effective ‘line’ that Americans can say they will not have crossed on their watch. Unlike the war, NSPD-51 is not a partisan issue - it’s a patriot’s issue.
When America says NO to dictatorial power for the president, and the president responds by instituting dictatorship, US fascism finally unveils itself and walks openly. Once that happens, the world is ready to stand with our Resistance, and has been for years now.
Anytime is fine with me. My life, liberty, & lifestyle are worthless as long as they’re based upon world rape & pillage and not on democracy & justice. Let me know where to show up for the shutdown - I’ll be there.
Peach McD in Durham NC
Umm…a million people non-violently protesting in a sit-in in DC? Sounds good and I support it. Unfortunately, this might cause the hidden puppetmasters to come out and show their faces. If they have to do that, then it’s officially “Facsist Time.”
C’mon people! WAKE UP!!!! What do you think the reaction from the System would be? The hired bootjacks, remnants of the National Guard and police of all kinds would crush the protest! Besides, it takes a lot of money to do something like that because people will need food, shelter, toilets, medicine, emergency medical facilities, so forth!
Then where would they keep these people once they were arrested? In concentration camps, of course! Look up “Rex 84″ on some search engines or “american concentration camps” on youtube. Fema may have been slow at responding to Hurricane Katrina, but it’s been very busy building these camps. It has been estimated that they can hold up to 2 million people! They’re supposed to hold “illlegal aliens” or house citizens in a national “emergency” (including marshall law) but most are empty but fully-guarded and when all those Katrina victims needed housing, these Fema camps weren’t opened up to the Katrina homeless. Why?
Did you know that there are several laws on the books that give the president to declare marshall law any time he feels like it? That during marshall law, anyone can be arrested, especially those critical of the government and/or it’s officers? It seems that few people will use their real name on this discussion platform. I think this observation answers my last two questions.
Wait till the citizenry has truly awoken to $4 a gallon gas and its effects across the economy. Stagnent wages, rising costs cross the spectrum, the dollar buying less and less. Let the right blame the immigrates for this, let the right blame the “war on terror” on this. Let the truth be known, that the corp facist state is interested in one thing, greed and control. And they will do everything in their power to sheild themselves from the truth.
Until there is blood in the streets, not a damn thing will change. Nothing.
“I renounce war. I renounce war because of what it does to our own men…I renounce war because of what it compels us to do to our enemies…I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it. I renounce war and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another.”- DICK SHEPPARD
On this Decoration Day perhaps we can find one more friend to share this commitment.
So we’ve got Habeas Corpus going, going, gone. Private armies for hire. MANY federal prosecutors and/or judges “loyal Bushies.” The laws are being changed everywhere to protect capital over people (including their privacy, private ownership, right to an attorney, right to understand the charges against them, right to NOT be classified as a terrorist for owning pro-environmental initiatives) and Bush, increasingly acting as an independent player, as if there WERE no checks and balances (and thus far not stopped, not even with fraudulent elections giving him his so-called “mandate”) now paving the way for what HIS people determine constitutes an emergency, to use the already waiting beds for (hello, intelligentsia) lock-down… and I think we thinkers and writers here share our sentiments because a part of us is asking in this forum, CAN this really be taking place? Are we REALLY watching as every freedom is being stolen, every grand ideal subducted, every basis for truth, reason or moral clarity obscurred… and the points made succinctly by PDJ certainly explain what our protests might mean. Probably there should be massive work strikes. Everyone just sit down–declare a moral sabbath–and say NO. I will not go along with this anymore… as in the movie Network.
A sit-in? Sure. Everybody sit on his or her wallet. Who are the biggest benefactors of this charade? Let us not buy their products. Got stock in these companies? Let us get rid of it. Work for these corporations? Let us take all of our vacations and/or sick time at once.
Let us sit and write letters to the editors of the news media that will not cover our protests and keep writing those letters or emails or filling out those forms until they are sick of hearing from us. Let us refuse to watch television or, if we can’t, choose one program and give up the rest, just not buy any products advertised during that program. Yes, we can sit-in–on the street or in our homes–but let us do SOMEthing.
The very second that the evil ones start beating or killing non-violent demonstrators,”it” will be on. We will hit them in their homes, where they shop, and where their bastard children go to school. No mercy, no prisoners. And it will not stop until they either give in, or are all gone. THAT is our power; the power of numbers.
PJD opines–
1. MVDA/Satyagraha works only in countries that have working, even if flawed, democratic traditions.
and, probably most importantly,
2. NVDA/Satyaghara also requires a free, activist mainstream press that vigorously reports on issues of injustice.
In the US today, condition #1 exists. Condition #2 which existed imperfectly in the 1960’s, is absolutely lacking today.
***********************
The internet has greater potential than any other mass media ever had and the best news is that it doesn’t cost much at all to spread the word. To the ramparts!
I love to watch all these eloquent contributors to the solution of the problems at hand let off steam. –And steam is the only power, which will drive an engine towards a solution. If we could create enough steam to move the machine of “fill the jails”, to utilize that powerful and proven technique, we might make real progress. But Gandhi, and King did not gain their stature in history by coming up with some technique of protest. I suppose we do not have to wait for historical leaders like they were; but we would dishonor them using their technique without the most careful planning.
Gandhi’s aphorism “First they ignore you…… and then you win.” hides behind a great deal of modesty a statesman’s analysis of a political situation and meticulously planed executions. Unless we assume in our protest the moral high ground, which is clearly recognizable to any honest citizen, we might divide the country at the wrong division line. Without convincing the vast majority of the citizenry of the rightfulness of our action Gandhi’s formula is not going to reach its conclusion. After they fight us we might remain the laughing stock of the majority. And nothing would change except that more people would like to disassociate themselves from the very ideas for which we fill the jails. Too many people feel that Congress should not micromanage the war let lone some protestors.
Protesting for the closure or Guantanamo or for America’s return into the fold of civilized nations by recognizing the Geneva Convention would deflect suspicions of any egoistic motives and should move any just minded person on our side. I am not politically engaged; but it should not be too hard for insiders to fine reason for investigating any number of actions of the administration, which clearly appear criminal to the average person, keeping in mind, though, that 3 years ago a large percentage voted for this administration.
Letting off steam is a great relief; but channeling it effectively is hard work.
there is a difference between an entire nation rising against it’s oppressor/occupier
or an entire race/culture struggling against one which dominates it, and the efforts (mostly approved and controlled) to stop one aggressive policy of a government without changing the very foundation of those institutions which support it. many will agree that a non-violent rebellion cannot succeed in this country if it isn’t focussed. but in no way will it even make a dent if it is simply limited to beligerant militarism.
Born2bWild: “…without changing the very foundation of those institutions which support it.
Which is to say, changing the foundations of an unrepentant, genocidal, Aryan Slave Empire. This is what we were from the time this Plantation society started until the Roosevelt Legacy (our pretty pretty documents of state were written by child raping psychotic America Slave Aristocrats who were clever with words - like good monkies we are taught to quote child rapers as long as they are richfilth child rapers).
These are the sames Slave Empire roots we are returning to today. 80-20 Plantation society. No middle class. No consumer economy. Constant War. Human Slavery. Gender Slavery. Aryan Supremacy. Master has never needed a middle class, or a consumer economy for them to Rule and doesn’t need them now.
Master took the Roosevelt Legacy away from you the way Bullies took your lunch money at school except in school, generally, the Bullies weren’t entitled to kill you outright and the Principal and the school board didn’t work for the Bullies. In our larger society the bully is entitled and the Principal does. The Bully is in fact in the White House with his friends.
You, you who are reading these words, you are “the muck”, you are “the mob”, you are “the rabble”, you are “the enemy”. You are the subject population in this Slave Empire and you have no place here other than to serve Master by giving that psychotic richfilth your life and the lives of your children. That’s all they want: Everything. Forever. That is all they have ever wanted.
I see that you have 3 choices: Emigrate. That’s a choice if you can still get a passport and have enough money and the right skills to restart your life in another country. If you can and you wish to, I wish you well. If it was good enough for Einstein, I got no argument with you.
Or perhaps, you can close your eyes, lay down and abjectly serve Master hoping to ’survive’ for a little while longer. But you have to ask yourself, what is survival if you do not survive whole? What is survival when you are forced to debase yourself merely to live? What is survival when your spirit is twisted with impotent blunted rage. Ask the survivors of the Rust Belt. Ask the survivors of our moribund Blue-Collar middle class. You’ll find A retreat into suicide, alcoholism, spousal abuse, child abuse, various forms of Aryan (white guy) Supremacy, and rabid fundamentalism. It’s gravity. It all ends in the same place, a forced labor camp and a hole in the ground for your corpse.
Or perhaps, you will RESIST. In your life, through your own means, with or without the support of others, without glory or hope of reward but with your eyes on the constant Prize: Freedom and the death of Oligarchy. There’s only one price: Your Life. I think there’s even a line in the scriptures of Master’s State Religion, something about losing your life to gain it. The paradox of giving up your Future to gain one.
It’s your choice.
luckylefty
angry, but good angry. each of us must resolve no matter what the consequence - show determination to take back that which was and continues to be stolen from us. somehow without reinforcing the poison that lies at the heart of much of human struggle and which guarentees its perpetuation.
Jan.15,2003: One white shed door and a can of black paint. Soon an IMPEACH THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION sign was mounted in the front yard. Nothing happened. Good or bad.
Feb.2,2003: One white car and a black magic marker. LAUNCH A LAWFUL PREEMPTIVE STRIKE-IMPEACH THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION was soon writ large across both sides along with a list of websites like commondreams listed on hood. A bit more reaction now. Middle fingers or thumbs up. Nasty note here, handshake there.
5o+ months later and the only political expression I’ve seen ’round these parts is the “Vote for xxx” type before an election. Good luck organizing something massive,hey?
A CHICKENHAWK IN EVERY DOCK. OUST THE WARMONGERS/PROFITEERS THEN SHOW THEM WHAT A WARRANT LOOKS LIKE: INDICT THEM. (My latest effort-no reaction.)
General Butler brought to the attention of america about a Wall street coup de ta by JP Morgan that was white washed by congress. FDR, if he had lived, was going to try all of america’s wealthy for helping Hitler-for treason. I can not help but to think that the same people who tried to overthrow FDR, they are the same people who murderd JFK. The children and grandchildren of Wall Streets American Nazis, whom have never been brought to trial or justice, are running this country. The apple does not fall far from the tree. It seems that CIA Director Allen Dulles, who saved all of his Nazi friends through the Vatican Ratlines, are controlling our foreign policy. George Bush jr. is the grandson of an american nazi. My-My! How the world has changed.!
The imperial collapse intensifies. Meanwhile, the worldwide localism movement makes continually greater strides. The benefits of localism are wonderful as more people discover every day. Enjoy them more yourself, and thereby help propel the movement, for the greater benefit of all.
Localism is self-reliance, an effective boycott of exploitive power concentrations. luckyleft, nothing brings you more luck than self-reliance. Many good posts in this forum. Thank you Mr. Gonsalves for the following: “we need an education curriculum that includes the long and successful history of nonviolent direct action” It’s worth repeating SG’s Ghandi quote identifying the character of nonviolence: “Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true nonviolence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness.”
Moving toward our localist future we find an urgent responsibility to stop the imperial genocide of Iraqis in our stolen name. So we organize per SG to shut down the establishment on the Monday before the July 4, 2007 holiday. The Independence From Oligarchy Assembly. Fill up the civic centers with bodies, haunting them. Are we human or zombie? They wonder. Fear grips them. They call in the police. They clear us out. We’ve made our point. And we can do it again, and again, they know.
So they propose that they will stop the war if we will stop the Assembly. This violates our rights of course so we promptly re-fill the civic center, again and again, until they cave. Then we return to our localism movement with non-violence curriculum - wonderful benefits await all.
Poet wrote:
“The internet has greater potential than any other mass media ever had and the best news is that it doesn’t cost much at all to spread the word.”
Sorry, but I disagree. Try this experiment: Put your best opinion piece you can on the interenet, maybe even get in on the headline of Commondreams - the most widely-read site of left-liberal opinion on the internet. Now, get out on the streets, or your workplace or neighborhood, and do an opinion survey of how many have heard of Poet and his views, and how many have even heard of Commondreams.
Now, ask how many heard of, say, Catie Couric or Bill O’Reilley said yesterday, and ask how many of them have heard of CBS or FOX.
The only thing the internet is effective at is fragmenting dissent into little ineffective backwaters like here, where everyone is deluded into thinking they are accomplishing something.
I care about social justice
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
much,
i care so much
that i have no energy left to actually do anything about it.