UPDATED 20NOV24
America’s Third Option: NOT a Call to Arms
(rough draft: 20aNov2024)
Fellow Americans,
The most critical threat to restoring America as we know it may be in the days ahead. If those in power attempt to stop the transfer of the presidency to Donald Trump, it means that traitors have infiltrated our government and the laws and legislative processes normally used by the people to affect their government have been subverted and no longer function to meet the needs of the people. If this is the case, then the American people who overwhelmingly voted Trump into power will have only two options left to enforce their will: violent resistance or strategic nonviolent conflict, also known as people power or civil resistance or civil disobedience. Both options are conflict, but fought in different ways.
The greatest horror we face, only one step up from losing our country, is civil war; America is now calling all good people to come to her aid and stop that catastrophe from happening. If we have to fight, then our best option for winning, reconciling our people, and preserving our infrastructure is strategic nonviolent civil disobedience—the people’s power.
Below are some comments about strategic nonviolent conflict. This is a rough draft, quickly thrown together, and it will be revised and added to as needed; urgency, though prevails.
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God, I pray that you help those with the ears to hear, hear.
1. Three of the most important writings on nonviolent conflict authored in the United States are Common Sense(Thomas Paine), The Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson), and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (Martin Luther King).
2. Thomas Jefferson refined Paine’s ideas in The Declaration of Independence and articulated support for the people’s right to civil resistance: that people are born with basic rights of life, that governments are formed to secure those rights, that leaders govern by the consent of the people, and that the people retain the right to revoke that consent when the government no long abides by those principles.
3. Henry David Thoreau believed that many times resisting the state was the best way to serve it, and that if a person was legally bound to act in a way that brings injustice on another person then he advised breaking the law on principle.
4. When the normal legislative processes fail, the people have two options to change their society: violence or nonviolent civil disobedience also known as people power or nonviolent conflict. These are three distinct processes; they are not on a continuum where if nonviolent efforts fail people are then expected to resort to violence.
5. It has been claimed that if the nonviolent side can be led to violence that it is destroyed: nonviolent conflict is so effective that regimes use agents provocateurs to infiltrate the civil resistance movement to incite violence.
6. The use of violence by the resistance makes it easier for the regime to respond with excessive force and to label the opposition members violent extremists.
7. When violence is used to overthrow an oppressive regime there is less freedom and democracy and a greater chance of civil war in the country post conflict than when nonviolent methods are used.
8. Nonviolent conflict is not nonviolence and it is not passivism, which is a worse stance than even violence because it involves no active attempt to make the situation better (Gandhi).
9. We use nonviolent tactics, the weapons of civil disobedience, because they work better than violence: our objective is not only to win against the regime, but afterwards to have a freer, more just, more peaceful, and more democratic society.
10. Commitment to adhering to nonviolent tactics when participating in civil disobedience in no way commits the person to not using violence in other aspects of their lives, such as in cases of personal defense or defending one’s family or property.
11. In strategic nonviolent conflict there are many tactics and strategies needed to win, but there is no tactic or strategy that in and of itself is sufficient to win.
12. The idea that the use of nonviolent tactics by the opposition force will touch the hearts of regime personnel and cause them to reduce their violence seldom happens: often it leads to just the opposite. That said, self-suffering on the part of the resistance may touch the heart of the oppressor if there is a close level of identification between the resistance and the regime’s forces: the greater the affinity between the individuals on the opposing sides the greater the chance that a willingness to suffer on the part of the opposition will reduce the level of violence used against them by regime forces. Compare the people power movement against Marcos, vs the Soviet’s response in Poland at the start of the solidarity movement or China’s response to the uprising in Tiananmen Square.
13. Civil disobedience is often used as theater to garner support from people, governments, and organizations outside of the country: outside actors applying pressure to the oppressive regime are usually required for success. Think South Africa, apartheid, and boycotts/sanctions.
14. Centralization of power often results in greater violence and oppression and less freedom and democracy in a society. Centralization of leadership in the opposition movement makes it easier for the regime to destroy the movement by killing those leaders; decentralized leadership relying on people at a community level allows the movement to continue in an organic way regardless of a central command point.
15. In nonviolent conflict the losses incurred by the opposition often carry greater weight with outside actors or with people in country who are still undecided about participating in the movement, than when people are killed in violent efforts, e.g., the death of a group of terrorists vs. the death of a single nonviolent protestor standing her ground on principles: think Rachel Corrie.
16. Nonviolent conflict has shown itself more effective against dictators than violent resistance, but it has never been used successfully against a representative government or in an industrialized society: the situation that may develop in the U.S. is unprecedented, if for no other reason than the United States of America and its people are unprecedented.
17. The opposition group must be able to articulate grievances that are meaningful to men and women, the old and the young, people of various faiths or none at all, and people from across all social, ethnic, and economic levels of society; the solutions to those grievances must also meet the needs of all of the people in those sectors of society.
18. Civil disobedience—people power—allows for total participation across our society: not only can everyone in the society participate by using one or more of the thousands of nonviolent tactics, but more people want to participate when violence is not involved.
19. Wide spread participation across a society is essential to the success of a nonviolent campaign: it reduces the chance of outside actors high-jacking the movement, it promotes better decision making, and it may result in a longer peace post conflict.
20. If a nonviolent people power campaign succeeds in overthrowing the existing regime, and it does not have in place a viable government to immediately install and take control of the country’s military, a vacuum will develop that will be filled by outside actors not in the people’s best interest: think after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the fall of Mubarak in Egypt.
21. Nonviolent civil disobedience operates outside of the normal political process and without consent from the regime: it breaks the existing laws. Securing permits to protest on the weekend, regardless the amount of people involved, is not civil disobedience it is compliance: a demonstration of desire rather than direct action against oppression or for regime change. Think the global protest weekend of 15 February 2003 against the war in Iraq.
22. People engage in civil disobedience for many reasons: moral, political, pragmatic, and religious. Gandhi and Martin Luther King and their commitment to nonviolence in other aspects of their lives are the exceptions in the history of civil disobedience, not the rule: many times the reason for using nonviolent methods is simply pragmatic, as in it offers the best chance to win the fight without killing countrymen and destroying the country in the process.
23. Strategic nonviolent conflict engaged at the tip of the spear requires as much, if not more, courage than physical combat: those people selected to participate in positions of direct conflict with the regime must be trained in how to respond to the aggression used against them and they must be committed to remaining nonviolent to the point of losing their lives for the cause. Think the Chauri Chaura incident, Indian Independence Movement.
24. Those people unable or unwilling to participate at points of direct contact with the regime are used as support personal, and engage in the thousands of other less confrontational nonviolent tactics required for success.
25. The people working to overthrow an oppressive regime need to realize that the methods used to do so will set the template for the future society. If the means justify the end, control of the means is lost and the cycle of violence and oppression continues; if the means are used to condition the end, we maintain control of the process and society can be transformed. Accepting short term wins at the expense of the long-term vison must be carefully considered.
26. A successful nonviolent campaign must have a definite objective, a strategic plan covering all aspects of the conflict (think AQAL analysis), and the people, support structures, and goals needed to take immediate control of the country on achieving the objective.
27. Nonviolent tactics are the weapons of civil disobedience: think either non, limited, or subversive cooperation across all points of contact with the regime and the support structures keeping it in power.
28. Below are the three primary concerns regarding the use of nonviolent conflict:
A. Nonviolent tactics used against a psychotic regime that has no compunction about repeatedly massacring its people or that has genocide as its goal.
B. That civil disobedience undermines the people’s respect for law, order, and the electoral process.
C. That using civil disobedience can also result in domination when highjacked by extremist ethnocentric groups with their own agenda. A suggested way of determining the quality of the groups motives of these cases is questioning the degree to which they are committed to ideals like truth, justice, transparency, etc. Think social, religious, or political organizations with ulterior motives contrary to those professed in public.
29. Short book list: From Dictatorship to Democracy (Sharp); The Dictators Handbook (Smith and Bueno de Mesquita); The Prince (Machiavelli): Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (Etienne de la Boétie). People Power, Civil Resistance, and Social Transformation: An Introduction to Nonviolent Conflict (Kezer).
Okay everyone. That’s enough food for thought for the moment. Please share this post now.
Defend liberty
Protect the children
Serve humanity for God
Bob
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