REVOLUTION, Ya Say Ya Want A

[Tom Sawyer]

A place to put resources dealing with the tactics of nonviolent struggle.

This is not a place to debate, this is a place to post relevant information that perhaps can later be edited into a wiki page for reference.

I will ask the moderators to please move or delete posts that stray from the mission of the thread. If folks would like to discuss and debate the issues brought up here I would ask them to create a separate thread for the purpose.

[Tom Sawyer]

In heated debate on the forum there has been a lot of misconceptions and mispresentations of what Nonviolent Revolution means.

What nonviolent action isn't

1) Nonviolent action has nothing to do with passivity, submissiveness, and cowardice; just as in violent action, these must first be rejected and overcome.

2) Nonviolent action is not to be equated with verbal or purely psychological pressures for attitude change; nonviolent action, instead of words is a sanction and a technique of struggle involving the use of social, economic, and political power, and the matching of forces in conflict.

3)Nonviolent action does not depend on the assumption that people are inherently "good"; the potentialities of people for both "good" and "evil" are recognized, including the extremes of cruelty and inhumanity.

4) People using nonviolent action do not have to be pacifists or saints; nonviolent action has been predominantly practiced by "ordinary" people.

For the rest see this link
Correcting Common Misconceptions About Nonviolent Action .pdf

[Tom Sawyer]

...Some have argued that this logic gives a libertarian argument for the morality of violent revolution. To wit, if one is justified in using violence to defend oneself or one's property from a robber, or in defending oneself from a kidnapper or slaver, then one is likewise justified in using violence to defend oneself from similar criminal aggressions by the state. Since the state employ first use of violence, and the threat thereof, on a daily basis against us, it is argued that violent resistance to the state is defensive or, at worst, retaliatory in nature; it is not an initiation of violence.

Whatever the merits of this argument in theory, in practice there are grave problems with the strategy of attempting to win our freedom by violent means:

Cont.
Not Bullets

[Tom Sawyer]

This has been posted elsewhere on the forum.
For those that think that nonviolent struggle isn't manly enough, or exciting enough, I'm sure you can find something that fits your interest in some action. 

198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

[Tom Sawyer]

I will live as a free man among free Americans.  We will pay no taxes.  We will submit to no rulers.  We will exercise our rights openly and without fear. 

I've reached a point in my life where I can no longer bear to live on my knees, meekly submitting to whatever outrages and humiliations America 's rulers choose to inflict on us.  And so I have made a commitment to put an end to the bondage under which I and my fellow Americans suffer. 

I will live as a free man, in a free America . 

I'm not talking about reforming the Government; I mean to bypass it entirely, breaking free of any dependence on it and eliminating its ability to coerce us. The free market and civil society can supply all legitimate services we have heretofore obtained from Government. 

Cont.
Creating a Free America

[Tom Sawyer]

The Albert Einstien Institue is an excellent resource.
Remembering that even though some resources might be put out by organizations that don't completely line up with your world view, doesn't mean that it isn't a source for viable strategies. 


Nonviolent Action
Index of Publications

[Rosie the Riveter]

This guy was on FTL Sat. night -- I haven't check it out in depth but his web site may be a good resource for ideas about how to opt out.

http://thinkfree.ca/

[Tom Sawyer]

The Orange Revolution... Ukrainian's defeat corrupt election
wikipedia article

These are powerful images... and show what it takes to win. Happy women and children are much more appealing to the wider audience than angry men.



What color is our revolution? 

[space]

This guy was on FTL Sat. night -- I haven't check it out in depth but his web site may be a good resource for ideas about how to opt out.

http://thinkfree.ca/

this guy is amazing I will watch his videos repeatedly until it is burned in my brain.

[Tom Sawyer]

Interesting tactics.
Hat tip to Moorlock

Guerrilla Hacks
http://sniggle.net/guerilla.php

[Tom Sawyer]

HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives

May 22, 2007

...Resistance need not be violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment.

Peaceful non-violent revolutions against tyranny have been every bit as successful as those involving military confrontation.  Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. achieved great political successes by practicing non-violence, yet they themselves suffered physically at the hands of the state.

But whether the resistance against government tyrants is non-violent or physically violent, the effort to overthrow state oppression qualifies as true patriotism.

True patriotism today has gotten a bad name—at least from the government and the press. Those who now challenge the unconstitutional methods of imposing an income tax on us, or force us to use a monetary system designed to serve the rich at the expense of the poor, are routinely condemned.  These American patriots are sadly looked down upon by many.  They are never praised as champions of liberty as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have been.

Liberals, who withhold their taxes as a protest against war, are vilified as well—especially by conservative statists.

Unquestioned loyalty to the state is especially demanded in times of war.  Lack of support for a war policy is said to be unpatriotic.  Arguments against a particular policy that endorses a war once it’s started, are always said to be endangering the troops in the field.  This, they blatantly claim, is unpatriotic and all dissent must stop. Yet it is dissent from government policies that defines the true patriot and champion of liberty...

[Tom Sawyer]

Images from the civil rights era... the world witnessed the nonviolent resistance, which led to change.

[Tom Sawyer]

  Hat tip to Dalebert

White Rose (German: die Weiße Rose)
was a non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of five students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943, which called for active opposition to German dictator Adolf Hitler's regime.
All six members of the group were arrested by the Gestapo, convicted and executed by beheading in 1943. The text of their sixth leaflet was smuggled out of Germany through Scandinavia to England, and in July 1943 copies of it were dropped over Germany by Allied planes, retitled "The Manifesto of the Students of Munich."
--Read more from the Wikipedia--



Leaflets of The White Rose

The First Leaflet
 
Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes - crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure - reach the light of day? If the German people are already so corrupted and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand, frivolously trusting in a questionable faith in lawful order of history; if they surrender man’s highest principle, that which raises him above all other God’s creatures, his free will; if they abandon the will to take decisive action and turn the wheel of history and thus subject it to their own rational decision; if they are so devoid of all individuality, have already gone so far along the road toward turning into a spiritless and cowardly mass - then, yes, they deserve their downfall...
--Read more--

[kola]

Man, that pic of the black folks getting sprayed down really makes me sick.

grrrrrr

Kola

[Russell Kanning]

We watched that movie "US vs. John Lennon" recently .... it was pretty good.

Ya say ya wanna revolution