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On the outskirts of a desert town in the Moroccan-occupied territory of Western Sahara, about a dozen young activists are gathered. They are involved in their country's long struggle for freedom. A group of foreigners-veterans of protracted resistance movements-is conducting a training session in the optimal use of a "weapons system" that is increasingly deployed in struggles for freedom around the world. The workshop leaders pass out Arabic translations of writings on the theory and dynamics of revolutionary struggle and lead the participants in a series of exercises designed to enhance their strategic and tactical thinking.
These trainers are not veterans of guerrilla warfare, however, but of unarmed insurrections against repressive regimes. The materials they hand out are not the words of Che Guevara, but of Gene Sharp, the former Harvard scholar who has pioneered the study of strategic nonviolent action. And the weapons they advocate employing are not guns and bombs, but strikes, boycotts, mass demonstrations, tax refusal, alternative media, and refusal to obey official orders.
Serbs, South Africans, Filipinos, Georgians, and other veterans of successful nonviolent struggles are sharing their knowledge and experience with those still fighting dictators and occupation armies.
The young Western Saharans know how an armed struggle by an older generation of their countrymen failed to dislodge the Moroccans, who first invaded their country back in 1975. They have seen how Morocco's allies on the U.N. Security Council-led by France and the United States-blocked enforcement of U.N. resolutions supporting their right to self-determination. With the failure of both armed struggle and diplomacy to bring them freedom, they have decided to instead employ a force more powerful.
The Rise of Nonviolence
The long-standing assumption that dictatorial regimes can only be overthrown through armed struggle or foreign military intervention is coming under increasing challenge. Though nonviolent action has a long and impressive history going back centuries, events in recent decades have demonstrated more than ever that nonviolent action is not just a form of principled witness utilized by religious pacifists. It is the most powerful political tool available to challenge oppression.
It was not the leftist guerrillas of the New People's Army who brought down the U.S.-backed Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. It was nuns praying the rosary in front of the regime's tanks, and the millions of others who brought greater Manila to a standstill.
It was not the 11 weeks of bombing that brought down Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, the infamous "butcher of the Balkans." It was a nonviolent resistance movement led by young students, whose generation had been sacrificed in a series of bloody military campaigns against neighboring Yugoslav republics, and who were able to mobilize a large cross-section of the population to rise up against a stolen election.
It was not the armed wing of the African National Congress that brought majority rule to South Africa. It was workers, students, and township dwellers who-through the use of strikes, boycotts, the creation of alternative institutions, and other acts of defiance-made it impossible for the apartheid system to continue.
It was not NATO that brought down the communist regimes of Eastern Europe or freed the Baltic republics from Soviet control. It was Polish dockworkers, East German church people, Estonian folk singers, Czech intellectuals, and millions of ordinary citizens.
Similarly, such tyrants as Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti, Moussa Traoré in Mali, King Gyanendra in Nepal, General Suharto in Indonesia, and, most recently, Maumoon Gayoom in the Maldives were forced to cede power when it became clear that they were powerless in the face of massive nonviolent resistance and noncooperation.
The power of nonviolent action has been acknowledged even by such groups as Freedom House, a Washington-based organization with close ties to the foreign policy establishment. Its 2005 study observed that, of the nearly 70 countries that have made the transition from dictatorship to varying degrees of democracy in the past 30 years, only a small minority did so through armed struggle from below or reform instigated from above. Hardly any new democracies resulted from foreign invasion. In nearly three-quarters of the transitions, change was rooted in democratic civil-society organizations that employed nonviolent methods. In addition, the study noted that countries where nonviolent civil resistance movements played a major role tend to have freer and more stable democratic systems.
A different study, published last year in the journal International Security, used an expanded database and analyzed 323 major insurrections in support of self-determination and democratic rule since 1900. It found that violent resistance was successful only 26 percent of the time, whereas nonviolent campaigns had a 53 percent success rate.
From the poorest nations of Africa to the relatively affluent countries of Eastern Europe; from communist regimes to right-wing military dictatorships; from across the cultural, geographic and ideological spectrum, democratic and progressive forces have recognized the power of nonviolent action to free them from oppression. This has not come, in most cases, from a moral or spiritual commitment to nonviolence, but simply because it works.
Why Nonviolent Action Works
Armed resistance, even for a just cause, can terrify people not yet committed to the struggle, making it easier for a government to justify violent repression and use of military force in the name of protecting the population. Even rioting and vandalism can turn public opinion against a movement, which is why some governments have employed agents provocateurs to encourage such violence. The use of force against unarmed resistance movements, on the other hand, usually creates greater sympathy for the government's opponents. As with the martial art of aikido, nonviolent opposition movements can engage the force of the state's repression and use it to effectively disarm the force directed against them.
In addition, unarmed campaigns involve a range of participants far beyond the young able-bodied men normally found in the ranks of armed guerrillas. As the movement grows in strength, it can include a large cross-section of the population. Though most repressive governments are well-prepared to deal with a violent insurgency, they tend to be less prepared to counter massive non-cooperation by old, middle-aged, and young. When millions of people defy official orders by engaging in illegal demonstrations, going out on strike, violating curfews, refusing to pay taxes, and otherwise refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the state, the state no longer has power. During the "people power" uprising against the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, for example, Marcos lost power not through the defeat of his troops and the storming of the Malacañang Palace but when-due to massive defiance of his orders-the palace became the only part of the country he still effectively controlled.
Furthermore, pro-government elements tend to be more willing to compromise with nonviolent insurgents, who are less likely to physically harm their opponents when they take power. When massive demonstrations challenged the military junta in Chile in the late 1980s, military leaders convinced the dictator Augusto Pinochet to agree to the nonviolent protesters' demands for a referendum on his continued rule and to accept the results when the vote went against him.
Unarmed movements also increase the likelihood of defections and non-cooperation by police and military personnel, who will generally fight in self-defense against armed guerrillas but are hesitant to shoot into unarmed crowds. Such defiance was key to the downfall of dictatorships in East Germany, Mali, Serbia, the Philippines, Ukraine, and elsewhere. The moral power of nonviolence is crucial to the ability of an opposition movement to reframe the perceptions of the public, political elites, and the military.
A Democratizing Force
In many cases, armed revolutionaries-trained in martial values, the power of the gun, and a leadership model based upon a secret, elite vanguard-have themselves become authoritarian rulers once in power. In addition, because civil war often leads to serious economic, environmental, and social problems, the new leadership is tempted to embrace emergency powers they are later reluctant to surrender. Algeria and Guinea-Bissau experienced military coups soon after their successful armed independence struggles, while victorious communist guerrillas in a number of countries simply established new dictatorships.
By contrast, successful nonviolent movements build broad coalitions based on compromise and consensus. The new order that emerges from that foundation tends to be pluralistic and democratic.
Liberal democracy carries no guarantee of social justice, but many of those involved in pro-democracy struggles have later played a key role in leading the effort to establish more equitable social and economic orders. For example, the largely nonviolent indigenous peasant and worker movements that ended a series of military dictatorships in Bolivia in the 1980s formed the basis of the movement that brought Evo Morales and his allies to power, resulting in a series of exciting reforms benefiting the country's poor, indigenous majority.
Another reason nonviolent movements tend to create sustainable democracy is that, in the course of the movement, alternative institutions are created that empower ordinary people. For example, autonomous workers' councils eroded the authority of party apparatchiks in Polish industry even as the Communist Party still nominally ruled the country. In South Africa, popularly elected local governments and people's courts in the black townships completely usurped the authority of administrators and judges appointed by the apartheid regime long before majority rule came to the country as a whole.
Recent successes of nonviolent tactics have raised concerns about their use by those with undemocratic aims. However, it is virtually impossible for an undemocratic result to emerge from a movement based upon broad popular support. Local elites, often with the support of foreign powers, have historically promoted regime change through military invasions, coup d'états, and other kinds of violent seizures of power that install an undemocratic minority. Nonviolent "people power" movements, by contrast, make peaceful regime change possible by empowering pro-democratic majorities.
Indeed, every successful nonviolent insurrection has been a homegrown movement rooted in the realization by the masses that their rulers were illegitimate and that the political system would not redress injustice. By contrast, a nonviolent insurrection is unlikely to succeed when the movement's leadership and agenda do not have the backing of the majority of the population. This is why the 2002-2003 "strike" by some privileged sectors of Venezuela's oil industry failed to bring down the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez, while the widely supported strikes in the Iranian oil fields against the Shah in 1978-1979 were key in bringing down his autocratic regime.
Homegrown Movements
Unlike most successful unarmed insurrections, Iran slid back under autocratic rule after the overthrow of the Shah. Now, hard-line clerics and their allies have themselves been challenged by a nonviolent pro-democracy movement. Like most governments facing popular challenges, rather than acknowledging their own failures, the Iranian regime has sought to blame outsiders for fomenting the resistance. Given the sordid history of U.S. interventionism in that country-including the overthrow of Iran's last democratic government in 1953 in a CIA-backed military coup-some are taking those claims seriously. However, Iranians have engaged in nonviolent action for generations, not just in opposition to the Shah, but going back to the 1890-1892 boycotts against concessions to the British and the 1905-1908 Constitutional Revolution. There is little Americans can teach Iranians about such civil resistance.
Citing funding from Western governments and foundations, similar charges of powerful Western interests being responsible for nonviolent insurrections have also been made in regard to recent successful pro-democracy movements in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine.
However, while outside funding can be useful in enabling opposition groups to buy computers, print literature, and promote their work, it cannot cause a nonviolent liberal democratic revolution to take place any more than Soviet financial and material support for leftist movements in previous decades could cause an armed socialist revolution to take place.
Successful revolutions, whatever their ideological orientation, are the result of certain social conditions. Indeed, no amount of money could force hundreds of thousands of people to leave their jobs, homes, schools, and families to face down heavily armed police and tanks and put their bodies on the line. They must be motivated by a desire for change so strong they are willing to make the sacrifices and take the personal risks to bring it about.
In any case, there is no standardized formula for success that a foreign government could put together, since the history, culture, and political alignments of each country are unique. No foreign government can recruit or mobilize the large numbers of ordinary civilians necessary to build a movement capable of effectively challenging the established political leadership, much less of toppling a government.
Even workshops like the one for the Western Saharan activists, usually funded through nonprofit, nongovernmental foundations, generally focus on providing generic information on the theory, dynamics, and history of nonviolent action. There is broad consensus among workshop leaders that only those involved in the struggles themselves are in a position to make tactical and strategic decisions, so they tend not to give specific advice. However, such capacity-building efforts-like comparable NGO projects for sustainable development, human rights, equality for women and minorities, economic justice, and the environment-can be an effective means of fostering international solidarity.
Back in Western Sahara, anti-occupation activists, building on their own experiences against the Moroccan occupation and on what they learned from the workshop, press on in the struggle for their country's freedom. In the face of severe repression from U.S.-backed Moroccan forces, the movement continues with demonstrations, leafleting, graffiti writing, flag waving, boycotts, and other actions. One prominent leader of the movement, Aminatou Haidar, won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award last November, and she has been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Those in the Western Sahara resistance are among the growing numbers of people around the world struggling against repression who have recognized that armed resistance is more likely to magnify their suffering than relieve it.
From Western Sahara to West Papua to the West Bank, people are engaged in nonviolent resistance against foreign occupation. Similarly, from Egypt to Iran to Burma, people are fighting nonviolently for freedom from dictatorial rule.
Recent history has shown that power ultimately resides in the people, not in the state; that nonviolent strategies can be more powerful than guns; and that nonviolent action is a form of conflict that can build, rather than destroy.
Stephen Zunes wrote this article for Learn as You Go, the Fall 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Stephen is a professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco and chairs the academic advisory committee of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.
36 Comments so far
Show AllZunes is right, and he has exposed a most welcome truth: the powerful outcomes that a mass democratic change campaign can and does bring about.
Now the big question: how can we use the same approach to effect liberalized change in our country? The sad story of health care reform, or lack thereof, is a case in point. Another is the impotence of our government in reducing the grinding inequities in wealth distribution. Paradoxically we are more like a banana republic in this than like other "developed" nations.
A million or so American CEO's, bonus-rich financial executives, movie stars, top sports figures, and "idle rich" living off dividends loll in conspicuous consumption and pay modest taxes. Another large group lives comfortably. And perhaps a third or more live somewhere between agonizing poverty and constant anxiety about making ends meet. The warped distribution of wealth and privilege creates a paradox, and highlights the major weakness of the American version of capitalism.
Congress and Obama go through agonies trying to pass reforms in a way that does not increase the deficit. But quite simple reform of the tax structure could easily solve the problem. Put a $1 or $2 per gallon tax on gas. Raise taxes on tobacco and alcohol. Go back to realistic graduated income taxes so that the rich pay a substantially larger portion of national costs.
these are some of the oldest tools we can use yet how much
discussion of it do we hold here? i practise this everyday
and i tell the stores that i boycott why and when and
encourage my friends to join me. i am always surprised
when friends don't get it makes me think what planet they live
on. but then the realization of a consumer society kicks
in for a big duh and i rephrase the tactic and the result.
people like the idea of control of their own destiny
and in these trying times any control feels great!
educate your friends and talk to fellow shoppers.
start a trend on the spot. also it feels great to tell global
corps to go fuck themselves and your not buying anymore.
they fear this more then any other outcome in the shopping
experience!
Bring America Back !!!!....US Homegrown Peace.
***Yes, these weapons of mass democracy were on order, and to be used widely on the condition a US petition was successful at putting the organization of a Department of Peace onto the legislative ballot.
***Since the Dept of Defense is actually now the War Dept again, the Dept of Peace was a sound concept===I signed a couple of the petitions.
**Somewhere during the 8 year Rule, the Peace concept was scrapped, and its retirement party held in a NYC telephone booth==lots of folks jammed in there ! Peace did not fit into Orwell's concepts, either. The Dept of PEACE.
I am a baby-boomer born in 1950. My children are grown, but I am nonetheless frightened for them, and ashamed at the political and environmental wreckage my generation has allowed and abetted.
I imagine there are many people of my age and circumstances (that is, withdrawn from our rapacious, unsustainable economy, and having rather little to lose) who feel similarly. Mr Zune's very powerful observation -- that non-violent dissent broadens a movement's base by appealing to the old -- should serve as a clue to movement organizers of all stripes.
It should also be considered a challenge to those of us who are, or nearly are, retired, to get of the couch and the golf course and take to the barricades. As a group, we've skimmed the cream off the top of the global economy and the planetary ecosystem. It's time to make amends.
Even though in an indirect manner, this terrific article by Stephen Zunes is a very important call for the American people to put their trust in the power of non-violent civil disobedience to bring about much needed radical social change. Otherwise, plan on many of your children and grandchildren becoming serfs and cannon fodder for the corporate oligarchs.
I know this is not an easy sell considering the high percentage of good progressive minds posting on Common Dreams who remain very skeptical of the probable success of non-violent civil disobedience. The thought of success is what makes such personal sacrafice possible. There are those who have not bought too heavily into the system and have really little to lose who can be counted upon to have great courage. A felony to them is not a huge disaster. .
The possibly that police brutality in Washington DC and Pittsburgh could be so bad that it will be a wake-up call to many Americans now sitting on the fence. Such police brutality could be the "final straw" to alarm American citizens of the emerging "corporate America" and the brutal national security state that backs it up.
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At that time, maybe more American citizens will realize that they too must join in future public demonstrations to free the U.S. from this “dirty rotten system”, the words Dorothy Day often used. The spiritual dynamics of such a movement can become more powerful than the police and military forces waged against them. It is the powerful spirituality of human liberation that is at work.
I speak with the experience of much peace and social activism, including the WTO demonstrations in Seattle and the World Bank demonstrations in Washington, DC, both of which produced tremendous success. I wish I could attend the demonstrations in Washington DC and Pittsburgh but cannot due to prior commitments. But I intend to do so in the future. Those who have not done so cannot understand what a powerful transformational experience it can be.
The U.S. is so blessed to have great minds speaking out like Stephen Zunes, Chris Hedges, Ralph Nader, Ray McGovern and David Korten. I am sure there will be many more to come!
Some people always die violently first in the non violent methods.
The Nazis did use violence to coax the protesters into line, albeit in camps. I am not aware of the Danish non violent resistance that was succesful against the Nazis.
When Blackwater comes down your street, as Alex Jones keeps harping it will, some of us will be victims of the repression.
The reasons that you dont see people on the street en masse protesting our present government decisions is because Bush was very succesful in violently crushing non violent protests. Noboody wants a record.
Who wants to be first in line to die?
Love
Zero
During the days of union organising, people carried pistols and those being treated violently by cops would often shoot back. So it wasn't all one-sided, the way it is today. The working people then knew that they had only those rights they were willing to defend, and that any cops trying to roust them were the enemy. There was a lot of violence, but that's always been true: the ruling class has never not been violent toward us, so our choice was always lie down for it or fight back.
That's one of the major changes: we have stopped believing we have rights. Cops can do whatever they like to us --"detain" us, beat us up, jail us-- and we just take it. And then when the court eventually throws out the bogus charge, we celebrate as tho it was a victory!
It used to be that cops had to arrest or release. Now they can "detain" without arrest or charge, just like the the cops in '30s Germany or the USSR.
Re Mairead September 22nd, 2009 12:47 pm
Good points.
It's worth noting that the Panthers' original name was "The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense," in regard for the freewheeling violence regularly and routinely visited upon blacks and other minority communities by the Oakland PD.
I recall a snippet of dialogue from these pages that addressed this subject:
Q: "Why does evil always seem to win?"
A: "Because evil has neither compunction nor scruple, while there are some things most people of good will just won't allow themselves to do."
non-participation as expression, whether strike or boycott, eventually kills businesses...businesses need to die, that the planet may live...
failed businesses create ex-employees without income...income is very handy for paying the mortgage or rent or property taxes, thereby avoiding homelessness...
land must not require money...land must not be owned...as long as land is owned, business is required to generate money, and business kills the living land...
our current economic choices are complicity, which contributes to the destruction of the living world, or resistance, which results in homelessness, and incarceration...we must be able to spurn current economic structures and return the planet to a position of supreme importance, rather than an asterisk on profits and health, and to do so without losing shelter or social status...
one option would be increasing dwelling densities...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...three years out! We're gonna need lots of local food, and squatting rights...let's get those gardens growing, and start sharing shelter and labor...
A general strike by 25% of Americans would accomplish a lot, but Americans are a supine bunch. Or, much could be changed by 25% of Americans doing NOTHING!! A general strike a week long!! Imagine.
While I can't comment on organisations with which I'm unfamiliar (ANC, Black Panthers etc) I became VERY familiar with the IRA, Real, continuity, Provisional etc having been brought up in Belfast. So I became very familiar with what are now called IEDs, bomb scares while in school, in a store in a bus the sound of gun fire echoing across the city at night, burned out bars etc etc....both the IRA and Loayalist paramilitaries where equally guilty but of the dead in the 30 years of the troubles 1696 (49%)were killed by the Provos. It was when the people of Northern Ireland,from BOTH communities, (not the politicians) began to reject the violence that peace started to be seriously discussed. Two particulary vile atrocities occurred and spurred the 'peace process'. The Womens' Peace movement was higly successful. When terrorism stopped, organised crime perpetrated by the same groups began. So the legacy of the violence will be with us for a long time. Would power sharing in Northern Ireland have taken place without the IRA...hard to say, but we might have 3200 people alive now to enjoy the benefits without their intervention. This from someone who was involved in the Civil Rights movment in NI only to see it taken over by guns.
This is a very good article. There is something missing though, that something was outlined in Stone's comment and intelligently so. But there is another level of non-violent protest, which is being made possible by the internet, that is very likely to shape the future more than any other factor.
Corporations are very vulnerable to boycotts. And boycotts can now consist of international coalitions. Consider for example what could happen if carbon emissions in the U.S. fail to meet standard X, a worldwide boycott of the companies that are responsible for those emissions will force compliance. It is important to understand that corporations belong to stockholders and stockholders are of course voters. In the U.S. neary half of the adult population benefits directly from stock. This is currently a big part of the problem with our democracy because economic interests carry too much weight, but it is this same propensity, that will allow public opinion to dictate policies. And the fact that the boycotting can be carried out by those who do not own stock, and by those without patriotic bias, in numbers to vast to defy, will bring a new and much needed objectivity to the democratic process, therby using the stockholder's self-interest as leverage, "fighting fire with fire". This will also give "multi-national" a new and positive meaning.
It is difficult to believe that corporations might soon be an integral necessity of a balanced democracy, and that self-interest might finally be harnessed, but this is very probably where things are headed. A mixture of Capitalism and Socialism will exist in tandom as deturmined by economic necessity because each system has advantages in specific applications. And the important arguement was never about which system is better or worse, but about which system could be made to work at all. And now finally we have the means for a true democracy that can be as good as our ability to educate the participants. (I did not intend to suggest that it might be easy).
"In the U.S. neary half of the adult population benefits directly from stock."
-------------------------
There's less to that than meets the eye.
Since the wealthiest 10% own 85% of all stocks, and the next 10% own most of the remaining 15%, the other 25% or so of your "nearly half" own buggerall by comparison. A few shares here and there, but by comparison a drop in the rain barrel.
Mairead, So you think that people do not care about their retirment funds? Then too you surely recognize that political influence is not distributed evenly accross the economic spectrum. Your point is also a little weak because 15% can be any number divided by a forseeable number.
Do you have any numbers? I got mine from the work of Prof. Edward Wolff, who's at NYU. His study of wealth distribution is pretty much the gold standard (npi). You can look it up. Here's an interview in which he covers some of the data http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03interviewswolff.html
Apart from that top 20% (and it's thin near the bottom of even that group) stocks are not a significant part of most people's retirement income. For most people, their retirement is funded by social security and some combination of employment pension and/or part-time work. This is especially true of non-White people, and those not born into middle-income affluence. From the BLS (it's a little out of date, but the situation is probably worse today rather than better): "The traditional ideal of retirement income is the three-legged stool of Social Security, employer-provided retirement plan, and personal savings. This ideal is not widely achieved, in part because employer-provided plans are not universal and in part because many retirees have little or no income from savings. In fact, earnings from work were slightly higher than income from assets or employer benefits in 1998."
Your comment about the 15% could perhaps bear re-writing, because while I understood every word, I couldn't understand the sentence.
Mairead,I did not dispute the numbers you provided. You seem unaware of the prevelance of 401k plans and I could provide that number but that seems a lot of trouble when your words: "those not born into middle-income affluence", seem to imply that you know that affluence has become "middle-income". You may be correct in your assumption that the "situation is worse today rather than better", but my comment is about the future and your using an outdated retirement model (1998), and a claim that 15% is a "drop in the bucket", but 15% of what? Double the size of the real economy and give the same groups the same amounts in percentage terms and now is it enough to influence votes? How about tripling the size of the equation but keeping the percentages constant.
Perhaps in my first comment I should have explained the following. In the late 1920s 2% of the U.S. population invested in stocks. By the mid 1980s 25%. In 2007 it was up to 50%. My original comment assumed that most readers know these trends.
I'd be interested in learning how workers saved for retirement before 401(k)s...I don't fancy risking my money on Wall Street's "enlightened self-interest"
Zmann, these methods may not transfer easily to contemporary circumstances, but may give you a start.
Where one cannot trust banks and contracts, one trusts commodity, family, and frugality.
There's no point buying what you do not need. If someone advertises it, you probably do not need it: you don't see a lot of ads for beans or rice. Buy something you need or can resell at profit. Purchase commodities that one assumes or hopes will raise in price rather than stuff the money under a mattress.
If you can't trust the insurance company, don't pay them. Pocket the money and take the risk, which in some cases is genuine.
With family, you have to be able to trust them. Where I have seen it work, it looks like this:
One makes certain within one's power that one's children have what they need as long as one remains capable of working. Young people getting educated, married, and started in business still need and get concrete help. Rather than running to banks for mortgages, relatives pool money and produce modest living quarters.
That's hard in a lot of the US because even now property is wa-a-ay inflated in most places, partly because of the "increased buying power" offered by mortgages, partly by draconian building codes which, while they do have their purpose, only serve it moderately well.
Americans who live in houses live in ridiculously large houses. Hey, space is nice; don't get me wrong. But a comfortable 2 br house can fit easily in 600 square feet, but you'd never know by anything built in the US after the 1950's.
Little houses are cheaper: less taxes, less heating, less construction $$$. Modest rooms can be added.
Having been raised by their parents, remaining out of mortgage to banks, the younger people have space to house their older relatives. Americans pay over $200,000 for a $100,000 house, if they can find it. Supposedly that is made back by inflation, and the inflation works out more or less because of increased production, but there's no systemic gain in producing the fluff that swells current GNP's.
Traditional workers could not afford American medicine, but neither can anyone else.
My generation of Americans have generally failed to raise our children, have invested our time and monies in mostly foreign gewgaws and false display. We stand to reap the wind.
Yeah, power to the people... on a website where the little people who post comments can't link.
"If they could link, they might develop their own ideas, instead of cloning whatever the big people write."
Okay.
I think all the articles on CommonDreams are just wonderful, and I agree with all the ideas they present. I am a good commenter.
Hurrah!
And isn't it convenient that comments by the little people don't intrude on what the big people write! Keep them behind a modesty-panel!
Hurrah!
Or whatever.
How ignorant can one be? God forbid if dreamers dream--there will always be your kind there to wake them up--I don't know where you are coming from but I wish you would crawl back there. It is only those who dare to dream and not listen to their detractors until the dream becomes a reality. There is a truth that we will only accomplish that which we believe we can and never be persuaded not to try--for if you never try, you will never succeed. Good people of CD try at get to DC
By your ignorance you expose yourself--God forbid if the people came together and took control away from their retched oppressors--therefore discourage them.There are just so many who dare to dream, but very many who wish to wake them up and prove them wrong. There is one thing for certain people--if you never try you will never succeed.The greatest accomplishments are done by the dreamers that never stop dreaming until their dreams become a reality--Good people at CD dream on and make it to DC.
I'm pretty sure my comments on Juan Cole's articles on here calling him an idiot weren't deleted.
And you can post links, just hit enter to break them up after a few too many characters in a row, and they don't get truncated.
Now that's what I'm talking about--REAL POWER By THE PEOPLE!
"By contrast, successful nonviolent movements build broad coalitions based on compromise and consensus. The new order that emerges from that foundation tends to be pluralistic and democratic." Isn't this what we need here?
"Another reason nonviolent movements tend to create sustainable democracy is that, in the course of the movement, alternative institutions are created that empower ordinary people."
So what we need is for all you ordinary people to come out and non-violently gather with us in DC the 1st week of October to take this country away from the oppressors and start living the real American dream. If you really care you will be there--THANKS!
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
2.1 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
2.2 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
2.3 Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
2.4 But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Zunes builds a strong case, but then undermines it with a few questionable premises and generalizations. Just one example from the article:
"Unarmed movements also increase the likelihood of defections and non-cooperation by police and military personnel, who will generally fight in self-defense against armed guerrillas but are hesitant to shoot into unarmed crowds."
From Sharpeville to Kent State to Mexico City to Petionville, this "hesitancy" is hard to discern. In this country people have been tazed, tear-gassed and beaten, WHILE UNARMED AND PEACEABLY ASSEMBLING, because their dissent is now considered "low-level terrorism."
Would the African National Congress have been as effective without the threat of Umkhanto we Sizwe, or Sinn Fein without the IRA? Would Martin Luther King have achieved all he did without the contrapuntal contributions of Malcolm X and Huey Newton?
Yes, great masses of people united in opposition have toppled dictatorships, and yes, massive civil disobedience is a powerful tool. But to me the key isn't their choice of tactics, but simply demonstrable numbers, however expressed.
I'm reminded, too, of Orwell's comment on Gandhi: that it was only the fact that his opponent was Britain, whose population has a strong belief in fair play and strong sympathy for underdogs, that made passive resistance possible. Against a Nazi Germany, a Soviet Union, ...or (imo) a USA... he'd have been Nacht-und-Nebel'd or simply shot dead in the street.
Apropos cops not being willing to fire on the unarmed, there was a study done some years ago by a Naval officer for his War College thesis. He surveyed a large number of Marines to see whether they would fire on unarmed, peaceful American citizens. I don't remember the percentage who said "Sure, why not", but it was appallingly large.
Your point about giving the ruling class an implicit choice between surrendering gracefully or lying on a slab with a toe-tag is an important one. "Power never concedes anything without a demand. It never has and it never will."
The gun toting authoritarian forces are reluctant to shoot into a mass of peacefully protesting civilians because they are ethical or moral. They fear to shoot because if they do so, their chances of being prosecuted sometime in the future is higher, compared to if they shoot at people who are shooting back.
It is why Obama's "turn the page on a dark chapter" is unacceptable. What prevents law breaking by the authorities isn't altruism. It is fear of future prosecution. Remove that, and a check on law breaking by the police etc, is removed.
Regarding Indian and Gandhi, Britain getting ejected from India was inevitable. Orwell, like most Brits, gives the Brits way way too much credit. It wasn't altruism, it wasn't some belief in fair play that prevented the Brits from shooting Gandhi in the streets. It was an understanding that they could not hold onto India as a colony. They could do it peacefully, which was the option, the escape, Gandhi gave them. Or, they could have fought a violent and bloody war of independence, with the inevitable defeat and departure: France in Algeria, the US in Vietnam, and very likely poisoning the future relationship. And after WW2, Clement Attlee and the Labour party, understood that with Britain devastated from WW2, there was absolutely no way Britain had the money and the men to fight bloody wars of independence to hang onto its colonies. They could accept the inevitable, or, they could waste lives and treasure on a hopeless cause.
"or (imo) a USA... he'd have been Nacht-und-Nebel'd or simply shot dead in the street."
Well MLK was, but his nonviolent resistance movement still attained notable successes.
Quite true. But think what would have happened had it been the FBI who shot him and the rest of the leadership in Birmingham during, say, the bus boycott. Before anything had been achieved, in other words.
When I worked in Germany during the '60s, I used to practice my German by chatting with acquaintances, often about the rise of Hitler, the camps, and the war, which was all still very much recent history then. One older man, a university-educated engineer, said, with deeply frustrated bitterness, that *of course* he knew about the camps, that no matter what anyone claimed it was impossible not to know, if you lived anywhere near one. And he asked a question that's stuck with me ever since. He said "everyone hated the camps, and we all wanted to do something. But to whom do you report the atrocities when it's the government committing them?"
Good point.
And yeah, that's why, most unfortunately, nonviolent resistance isn't the answer to every situation. It took a multinational military force a long time to end it.
At the same time this small band of democratic rights protesters are doing their non-violent best in Morocco, protest in the US (and the rest of the Western world) has been silenced, strangled by 'free speech zones' and excessive military force masquerading as police protection from mythical 'terrorists'.
At the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, 3000 National Guardsmen fresh from a tour in Iraq are safeguarding the economic poobah's who have overseen the systematic looting of national economies by their stock market manipulating brethren.
Non-violent protesters have been denied the right of free assembly, their phones and e-mails tapped, and their peaceful groups no doubt infiltrated by under cover police officer, informants and agents provocateur.
This is not democracy.
This is a road flare about to be flipped into a powder keg. Tensions are high because the masses *know* that they are about to be thrown under the bus to create a permanent economic underclass to service the bloated wealth of the oligarchs. And all they are seeing in response to their legitimate concerns and complaints is the gathering of the iron fist that will be used to crush them.
It is likely that very soon, revolution will no longer be something that happens 'over there'...
Walk in peace.
Participation in the New Economy is a good example of how to participate in non-violent action. Strip American national and international corporations of their power by not purchasing their products and services, then purchase a product or service from a local provider. Purchase used instead of new. Factor sustainability into every purchase. Eat locally grown foods. Reduce you use of energy. Care for and restore indigenous plants. Protect local animal habitat. Stop using pesticides and herbicides. Garden organically. Re-emphasize cooperation by caring for and helping each other. Change you views on clothing style and accept and encourage the use of older clothing of varying styles as acceptable. Learn to provide and give more than you take. The answers are clear and the more participation the quicker the old oppressive corporate state is changed.
exactly.... whether you're a buddhist with a sangha of like-minded individuals who care deeply about social justice/earth-care or a catholic in tune with liberation theology or even just jesus' admonitions to beware of the false-self systems put in place by caesar or an atheist or scientist with no interest in the woo-woo world of spirit but with ethical integrity and a deep caring for the common good, we need to support one another in saying no to the rampant consumption expected...even demanded of us. i lived off-grid for a few years and moved back to my hometown missing friends and family.... now it is a challenge dealing with the 'norms' of city life....(i.e.people thinking nothing of flushing toilets for less than a pint of piss, the able-bodied driving a few blocks to shop for a bag of groceries, sprinkler systems to keep vast lawns green rather than growing veggies or fruit trees or medicinal herbs, leaving tv or radio going on all day in empty rooms or all the lights on day or night in every room when noone's even in them, eating apples from new zealand when there are orchards within biking distance, buying new crap at walmart when the goodwill or salvation army has the stuff you need for 1/10 the price, barristas who look uncomprehendingly at you when you ask if their coffee is fair trade or not...that sort of thing) it's very slow going but now and then things take off in pockets of sanity that give me hope for our seemingly sorry species.... get a 'sustainability group' going or start a new alanon chapter devoted to consumer addictions. nonviolence is all about peaceful means.... violence can get instant results, but the results are tainted with not only the violent means but the paltry rewards that lack community cohesion, brotherhood and respect for the natural world. human conscientiousness in some is in its infancy... that doesn't make people evil, just embryonic or immature. we need to develop our capacity to be humane and skilled diplomats... psychologists helping one another get through and ultimately past, our ingrained insecurities and neurotic obsessions with territoriality and fears of natural processes. a big learning curve, yes... but a journey worth taking for the sake of a world worth living in.
Thank you Matangcita for your beautiful thoughts !!
Great points, Stone. Been doing them all for years now. Another one is to take your money out of the banks. All having it there does is make the fat cats fatter. How many years has it been since the interest rates on your savings has paid anything to benefit you?
Shadre, I am seeing the change we seek. I participate in our local Farmers Market and I do see people changing. There is a refreshing sense of community there that people hunger for. People's attitudes are changing for the better and politicians and businessmen are being left behind. Farmers Markets are springing up everywhere and becoming a force for sustainable change. Local craftsmen are joining the farmers in providing unique local goods. Likeminded people of all ages are participating both as vendors and customers. Sitting areas where coffee and juices are served, serve as places where people sit and talk about the new lifeways while local musicians play in the background. People bring their kids and pets so that all can enjoy the good spirit. Farmers Markets are serving as incubators of change.
Excellent article.