Pete Knows Nonviolent Struggle, Do You?

(I can't upload the video tonight!  Here's a link to tonight's video posted on youtube:  http://youtu.be/nnhTzCq0AKE)

As a polar bear, I want to clear up some misconceptions about nonviolent struggle. 

People say to me “Pete!  You’re a hypocrite.  You claim to believe in nonviolence, and yet, you’re a carnivore!”

Indeed I am.  I eat seals, not salads.  But I’m am a disciplined advocate of Nonviolent Struggle. 

Perhaps I can explain best by illustrating what Nonviolent Struggle is not.

Nonviolent struggle has nothing to do with passivity.  We do not believe people should sit back and say “Gosh, I wish they’d do something about climate change!”  First of all, what’s this “They”?  WE.  We’re going to do something about climate change.  THEY are gonna follow. Capice?

Nonviolent action is a means of conflict where you conduct a struggle on your terms.  Those in power WANT you to use violence because they can easily trounce you with the police and the military.  But with nonviolence you emphasize your strengths, which puts them at a disadvantage.  You use people power, or, polar bear power.

Nonviolent struggle does not depend the assumption people are good.  And I can tell you right now people are not always good. Sometimes they’ve even been known to shoot polar bears just to put our heads on their walls!  Gawd!!!

Also, people think to do nonviolent struggle right, you need to be a saint, like Gandhi, or the Reverend Martin Luther King.  How many people are like THAT?!  Not bloody many!   We’ll be waitin’ forever for another guy like that to come around, and climate change needs to be dealt with NOW!

Take me, I’m a polar bear.  I sneak up on seals, maul them, and eat them.  Then with blood staining my face and dripping from my muzzle, I go out and try to seduce lady polar bears.  This disqualifies me from being Gandhi, who never ever mauled a seal or tried to seduce a lady polar bear!  But, hell!  My Arctic is melting!  I’m gonna do the smartest, fastest thing possible to stop that.  Just so happens that smartest, fastest thing is Nonviolent Struggle!

Here’s the main ingredient of nonviolent struggle:  Stubbornness.  “Massive stubbornness can have powerful political consequences”. Well, I, for one, am stubborn.  Once, I even fought off a pack of wolves who were trying to steal a narwhal kill.  You have any idea how hard it is to catch a narwhal?  It’s like wrestling a unicorn!  I wasn’t about to give that thing up.  And I’m not about to sit meekly by as my Arctic melts away and the rest of the world heats up to catastrophic levels, and neither should you!

No one knows how bad climate change’ll be, but if the permafrost melts it could trigger the sixth Mass Extinction Event EVER!  On the planet!  And the collapse of civilization.  Other than that, it’s not such a big deal!

Compromises and mild solutions aren’t gonna save us!  Nature is spinning out of control faster than anyone ever expected.  We need drastic solutions now! 

But the fossil fuel industry and their allies are gonna use every means at their disposal to keep things the way they are.  They don’t want to hurt their profit margins.  They don’t mind putting the entire world on the precipice, but nothing must touch their precious profit margins!

But ya know what?  As powerful as they are, they depend on lots and lots of people to supply them with lots and lots of things.  If we can make it uncool and unacceptable for those people to do that, we can strip away the power of the fossil fuel industry, and save the world from catastrophe.

Which, I would say, is even better than a nice, juicy narwhal.

Groouumph!




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http://youtu.be/nnhTzCq0AKE

We’ve Got 40 Million Supporters, Let’s Turn Them Into Quality Actionists

           Day 8 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who is serious about stopping climate change. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Anybody see Moyers and Company Friday night?  His guest was Anthony Leiserowitz from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.  In a fantastic interview, Leiserowitz identified “six Americas”, each with markedly different perceptions of global warming.   I want to look at one of those groups. 

“The first group that we’ve identified is a group we call alarmed.” Leiserowitz said.  “It’s about 16 percent of the public.  These are people who think it’s happening, it’s human caused, that it’s a serious and urgent problem and they’re really eager to get on with the solutions.

“But they don’t know what those solutions are.  They don’t know what they can do individually and they don’t know what we can do collectively as a society to deal with it…[they] feel relatively isolated and alone.  They say, ‘I feel this way, some of my friends and family feel this strongly.’  But they have no sense that they are part of over 40 million Americans that feel just as strongly as they do.”

“They’ve never been properly organized, mobilized and directed to demand change…that’s what the political system ultimately responds to.  If you basically have a vacuum of people who are demanding change…I mean, there are of course many great organizations that have been advocating for change for a long time.  But it hasn’t been a broad based citizens movement demanding change.  In that situation a relatively small but well-funded and vocal community that says no can absolutely win the day.”

So the good news is there are 40 million of us!  If this movement can stand up as one with 40 million people, we’ll be able to save the world.  The bad news is the movement’s leaders haven’t been doing it right.  We have to change that, and we have to demand that these organizations actually do it right, or they don’t deserve our time or our money.

This crisis cannot be seen as just another political cause.  The organizations of the movement, when they got started, must have looked around at the political landscape and decided to model their strategies after what all the other advocacy groups were doing.  This wasn’t an inherently bad idea, but after a couple decades now with no results I’d say it’s time to try something else.

Enter Nonviolent Struggle.  If we are committed to doing it right, and really learn how it works, we can do great things here.

Gene Sharp makes the case that, as much as you need to have many activists to make noncooperation effective, nothing is more important than the maintenance of high quality in those activists.  “Quality would be contagious and multiply; the number of nonviolent actionists enrolled under Gandhi’s leadership in South Africa, for example, rose from sixteen to sixty thousand.  In contrast, undisciplined numbers would fade away…Even if it were possible for a single individual or a few nonviolent actionists by their own actions to achieve the desired change, it would be wiser, Gandhi felt, for them to use their abilities to educate the masses of the people in the means by which they themselves could right their wrongs…Large numbers not able to maintain the nonviolent discipline, the fearlessness, and other necessary standards of behavior could only weaken the movement, but large numbers capable of maintaining the necessary standards and discipline become ‘irresistable’.”

So if you’re one of the 40 million, understand that there is indeed hope and we can do this.  But also understand that the climate movement as we’ve known it hasn’t known how to go about it.  Don’t just assume they’ll be able to pull this off.  Instead, educate yourself first, become knowledgeable about nonviolent struggle and devoted to its principles.  Become yourself a “quality” actionist, and demand it of others.  That way you’ll much better able to help whichever group you engage with, or you’ll be able to lead your own group in a way that will be more effective than what this movement has yet seen.

It all starts with you buying Gene Sharp’s books and reading them.

        

---CH

Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action.  You can order it HERE.

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Homework for a Movement: Know the Science, Know the Worst-Case Scenarios, and Know Your Demands

         Day 5 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who is serious about stopping climate change. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “Careful planning and preparations are essential.  Gandhi’s careful attention to detail in laying plans for satyagraha and in solving organizational problems has been acknowledged as one of the reasons for his effectiveness.”

         Satyagraha was what he preferred to call his particular brand on nonviolence, instead of passive resistance.  “Passive resistance,” he wrote, “does not necessarily involve complete adherence to truth under every circumstance. Therefore it is different from satyagraha in three essentials: Satyagraha is a weapon of the strong; it admits of no violence under any circumstance whatsoever; and it ever insists upon truth. I think I have now made the distinction perfectly clear."

Sharp:  “Few things can weaken such a movement as much as the revelation that the actionists did not really know the facts nor have accurate information on the situation they were complaining about.”

         This has become the prized tactic of the climate deniers.   As long as there is a shred of doubt about what’s causing climate change, whether it’s responsible for any particular weather event, or how bad global warming can be, they will throw that in the activists’ faces to make us look bad.  It’s a real quandary for us because no one knows how bad climate change will be or when exactly it will really kick in, there are too many variables for anyone to know.

         The activist must be as informed as she can be (the climateprogress website has a good overview here), but she also can’t let the scientific uncertainties keep her from being active.  That’s what they want us do to.  To me, we need to know the worst-case scenarios and stick resolutely to them.  Because, again, no one knows. 

The Japanese built the Fukushima reactor to withstand an 8.3 earthquake, the one that hit was 9.0.  The sea walls were built to hold back 30 feet of water, but the quake dropped coastal sea level by 6 feet, so the walls were too short.  If you don’t prepare for the worst-case scenario, nature will overwhelm you in a hurry.

         So, admit that no one knows, but be adamant that its foolish to underestimate just how bad climate change can be.

Sharp:  “After the information has been gathered by investigation or other means, the widest possible publicity is to be given to the facts of the case, the grievances, and the aims of the nonviolent group.”

         Quick, what exactly is the worst-case scenario for climate change?  When could it kick in?  We need to put together and widely distribute a look at those worst-case scenarios.  Until we do, no one will understand what we’re so worked up about.

Sharp:  “Representatives of the nonviolent group will make clear their minimum demands…Once the demands are set, it is generally recommended that they be kept unchanged during the struggle.”

         I think the movement needs to agree to a uniform set of demands, so we all know exactly what we’re demanding.  James Hansen, the scientist with longest-running visibility about climate change, has recommended a world-wide six percent reduction of CO2 each and every year.  Sounds good.  He also says we need to initiate massive campaigns to re-forest the planet and plant new grasslands, so that needs to be a part of it too.  But it’s tough to find his prescription easily online.  It shouldn’t be.  It mustn’t be if we’re going to do this.  What are we demanding of our president and world leaders?  This should be easy for every activist to find.

        And there can’t be any wiggle room here.  In his excellent book Eaarth, Bill McKibben talks about the oft-cited notion that "you can’t let perfect be the enemy of good”, then makes the point that when it comes to solving the climate catastrophe, perfect is the only solution that will be strong enough to save us.

        

CH   

Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action.  You can order it HERE.

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To Make the Climate Movement Great, We Need to Cast Off Our Fear

Day 2 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Struggle, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who wants to help save our life-support system. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “Nonviolent action is not a safe means of struggle; there is no such thing.   People are liable to be hurt and to suffer in various ways, including economic loss, physical injury, imprisonment, and even death….There are, of course, risks in passivity.”

         Like, for instance, having the world overheat to the point that rivers run dry and civilization can’t feed itself.

Sharp: “A high degree of courage is required of nonviolent actionists.”

         There are those in the movement who think we can win with “slacktivism”.  That somehow by clicking “like” on a facebook page people are doing their bit to help defeat the forces of industry.   These people are steeped in the old paradigms activists have been using, unsuccessfully, for the past thirty years.  Until people really start putting themselves on the line, this movement will continue to be ineffectual.

Sharp:  “The coward seeks to avoid the conflict and flees from danger, the nonviolent actionist faces the conflict and risks the dangers involved in pursuing it honorably.  ‘Cowardice is impotence worse than violence,’ concluded Gandhi.

“The nonviolent actionist must have confidence in the right and strength of his cause, in his principles, and in his technique of action.”

         That should not be hard, when you’re attempting to save the world.

Gandhi:  “The Government takes advantage of our fear of jails.”

         In America, businesses refrain from hiring people who have any kind of a criminal record.  Think of it, fighting to save the world can give you a “criminal” record.  We cannot be afraid of that! We can not let a system designed to do something else work against our saving the future for everyone, including the very businesses that supposedly won’t be hiring us. 

In his Do the Math tour, Bill McKibben correctly pointed out that older Americans, especially tenured professors, can be the first ones to be arrested, jail fodder, as it were.  But younger Americans can make a great statement by fearlessly being willing to risk jail.  During the Freedom Rides, Mississippi’s jails became flooded with idealistic young people from all over the country who flocked to the state to take on segregation laws, until Mississipi’s system couldn’t handle it anymore and the Freedom Riders won a change in the unjust laws.  During the Otpor struggle, it became a point of pride to be arrested, as it was in Montgomery, Alabama, during the bus boycotts.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:  “Those who had previously trembled before the law were now proud to be arrested for the cause of freedom.”

We can’t be afraid of jail guys, just remember to be nice to the police, we’re fighting for their futures too.

Sharp:  “Gandhi repeatedly emphasized the importance of this inner psychological change from fear and submission to fearlessness and self-respect as a necessary prerequisite of real political freedom… Gandhi wrote: ‘We have to dispel fear from our hearts.’…Also, participation in nonviolent action often seems to lead to a loss of fear….

         “Courage in this technique is not simply a moral virtue; it is a practical requirement…Courage is required if the nonviolent struggle is to…lead to the increasing strength of the nonviolent group and an undermining of the opponent’s power.”

Rachel pointed out in her Save Face or Save the Planet post that the biggest roadblock we in the movement face is simply putting ourselves out there, for the world to see, as very visible activists.  That does take courage. Don’t hide behind “slacktivism”.  Get fearless and get active.

CH   

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold you need to read Gene Sharp’s stuff.  Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action. You can order it HERE.

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Gandhi’s Example Can Help Guide the Climate Movement

Day 14 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part One: Power and Struggle, Chapter 2, applied to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who wants to help save our life-support system. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “It was Gandhi who made the most significant personal contribution in the history of the nonviolent technique, with his political experiments in the use of noncooperation, disobedience and defiance to control rulers, alter government policies, and undermine political systems.  With these experiments, the character of the technique was broadened and its practice refined.  Among the modifications Gandhi introduced were greater attention to strategy and tactics….”

         To me, nonviolence without a systematic strategy is like football without teams and games.  I love watching football, but not if it’s just some guy tossing a football into the air.  So while it’s true that all the climate organizations are “nonviolent”, if they haven’t taken the time to really educate themselves about strategic nonviolent struggle, they’re not doing it right.

Sharp: (quoting Gandhi) “’In politics, [power’s] use is based on the immutable maxim that government of the people is possible only so long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to be governed.’. This constituted the basic principle of his grand strategy.

“In Gandhi’s view, if the maintenance of an unjust…regime depends on the cooperation, submission and obedience of the populace, then the means for changing or abolishing it lies in the noncooperation, defiance and disobedience of that populace.  These, he was convinced, could be undertaken without the use of physical violence, even without hostility toward the members of the opponent group.”

Gandhi: “We hold it a crime against man and God to submit any longer to a rule that has caused this…disaster to our country.  We recognize, however, that the most effective way of gaining our freedom is not through violence…The matter resolves itself into one of matching forces.”

“Gandhi had it so much easier than us,” an exasperated climate activist I know once quipped.  Yes, Gandhi’s task was to free a nation of hundreds of millions from the oppression of a few hundred thousand British troops, and yes, most of those hundreds of millions were aware of and not happy about their servitude, but climate change is going to devastate everyone in the world.  India schmindia!  We just need to awaken people to that fact.  Unfortunately, we will have to awaken practically everyone in the world.  But Mother Nature is already spiraling out of control.  People are clueing in.  They just don’t know how bad it can get, or how fast it can happen.  No one’s talking about that.  Anywhere.  That has to be a big part of our job, and we have to do it credibly and doggedly.

It’s also helpful to remind ourselves of the need to not just be nonviolent, but also without hostility.  It’s easy to bear resentment toward those who’ve deliberately manipulated public opinion toward climate skepticism and who’ve giddily high-fived one another with every defeat of proposed solutions.  But this is personally toxic and it fortifies the other side.  In the movie Gandhi he says “we must defy, not with violence that will inflame their will, but with a firmness that will open their eyes.”

Sharp; “Gandhi set out with disciples on a 26 day march to the sea to commit civil disobedience by making salt.  This was the signal for mass nonviolent revolt throughout the country…there were mass meetings, huge parades, seditious speeches, a boycott of foreign cloth, and picketing of liquor shops and opium dens.  Students left government schools.  The national flag was hoisted.  There were social boycotts of government employees, short strikes (hartals), and resignations by government employees and Members of the Legislative Assembly and Councils.  Government departments were boycotted, as were foreign insurance firms and the postal and telegraph services.  Many refused to pay taxes.  Some renounced titles.   There were nonviolent raids and seizures of government-held salt, and so on.”

         Now THAT’S a movement!  We need to be more like that.  To do so we need a lot more people who understand nonviolent strategy.  

CH   

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold you need to read Gene Sharp’s stuff.  Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action. You can order it HERE.

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How We Can "Match Forces" With the Richest Corporations On Earth

Today marks day 13 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part One: Power and Struggle, Chapter 2, applying it to the climate movement. Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who wants to help save our life-support system.

Sharp: “Nonviolent action…is a technique of struggle involving the use of social, economic, and political power, and the matching of forces in conflict.”

         It’s hard for some people to envision just how we intend to “match forces” with the richest companies in the world.  They have all the money and all the political power.  But they’re hugely unpopular and they don’t have a moral leg to stand on.  They’re putting everyone’s kids in grave danger, including their own.  They ‘re basically f***ing up the planet for every other person and every other business in every country on Earth.  And even their own workforce won’t escape the catastrophe that’s coming.  So, if we can get all those other people, including their own workforce and their own families, to stand up and say “No more”, we can very handily “match forces” with them.  It's about figuring out where they're at a disadvantage and playing to that.

Sharp:  “People using nonviolent action do not have to be pacifists or saints; nonviolent action has been predominantly and successfully practiced by ‘ordinary’ people.”

In America the two great nonviolent practitioners we know are Gandhi and Martin Luther King.  So it’s easy for people to think you have to be some kind of religious leader to do nonviolence right.  Not even.  Anyone can do it.  Even you!

Sharp:  “When efforts to produce voluntary change fail, coercive nonviolent measures may be employed.”

         Describes the climate movement’s situation to a “T”.  They have tried and tried to do it the usual way for 30 years and no progress has been made.  So we’ll have to create scenarios where we can “match forces” with the fossil fuel industry.

Sharp: “In nonviolent action there is no assumption that the  opponent will refrain from using violence against the nonviolent actionists; the technique is designed to operate against violence when necessary.”

         “Casting off fear” is a big part of nonviolence done right.    You’re taking a big chance when you step into this arena.  But isn’t it worth it to save the future from an unthinkable disaster?  Humans evolved as tribal creatures, and they would do anything to protect their tribe.  That’s why people will often risk their necks to save complete strangers from gunfire or oncoming traffic or whatever.  It’s hardwired in us. 

Those of us who get it, those of us who understand just how bad this is likely to be, need to willing to take great risks in order to save the world from catastrophe.

CH

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold you need to read Gene Sharp’s stuff.  Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase all three volumes of The Politics of Nonviolent Action. You can order it HERE.

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What if People Knew They Could Prevent Unwanted Policies?

Today marks day 10 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part One: Power and Struggle, applying it to the movement to save the world from a changing climate.

Some of the nonviolent scenarios Sharp writes about aren’t terribly relevant to our situation in trying to save the climate, others are more so.

        

One of my favorite nonviolent struggles defeated the Kapp Putsch in 1920.  A right-wing coup d’etat was defeated "principally by the general strike of the workers and the refusal of the higher civil servants to collaborate with their rebel masters".  When the bad guys took over people all over Berlin simply refused to do their work for days on end.  Even the banks refused to turn money over to the new government.  The coup collapsed within a few days.

Of course it won’t be easy to crack the internal system of Exxon-Mobil.  They’re famous for their corporate discipline and for hiring true-believers (and probably climate deniers as well).  But they’re also part of our culture at large, and, again, they are living in “drought central”.  Yes, they work in air-conditioned offices, but they watch the news and weather reports, they must have nagging doubts about climate change.

Another inspiring nonviolent struggle fought for Indian Independence.

Sharp: “Jawaharlal Nehru’s experience with noncooperation in the Indian struggle led him to conclude:  ‘Nothing is more irritating and, in the final analysis, harmful to a government than to have to deal with people who will not bend to its will, whatever the consequences.’  Gandhi wrote: ‘If we are strong, the British become powerless.’”

         A major difference between their struggle and our struggle was they basically had all the time in the world to get it done.  Climate change is rushing upon us like a tsunami, and our time to break through is very limited. 

         That said, Gandhi was a tactical genius, always testing his movement’s capacity for larger actions and working toward making it stronger and stronger.  Our movement is, at this point, small and weak.  But that can change.

Sharp: “What would happen if people…on a wide scale, knew that they could prevent the imposition on them of unwanted policies and regimes, and were skillfully able to refuse to assist, in open struggle?”

Remember, all of our futures, including the futures of the fossil fuel industry’s families, hinge upon whether we are able to this successfully.

Sharp: “Generalized obstinacy and collective stubbornness are not effective enough.  General opposition must be translated into a strategy of action, and people need to know how to wage the struggle…They will need to understand the technique based on this insight in to power, including the methods of that technique, its dynamics of change, requirements for success and principles of strategy and tactics.  The implementation must be skillful.”

         Read your Sharp, people!

CH

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on U.S. Energy Policy you need to read Gene Sharp’s stuff.  Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action. You can order it HERE.

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Power is Based on Consent, Which Can be Withdrawn

Our 8th day of examining Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part One: Power and Struggle, and connecting it to our need to stop climate change:

Sharp: “All government is based on consent…Consent can be withdrawn… Power ‘can never be exercised without…the direct cooperation of large numbers of people and the indirect cooperation of the entire community’…The attitudes and beliefs of the ruler’s agents are especially important here.  Destroy the opinion of the supporting intermediary class that it is in their interest to support the ruler, ‘and the fabric which it is built upon falls to the ground’… The reasons for obedience are variable and may be strengthened or weakened….An army…may be influenced by the opinions and sentiments to the people at large.”

         We need to convince the populace in places like Dallas, Houston, and Wichita, that climate change is a crisis which demands urgent action.  Then, it would follow that the fossil fuel industry’s employees, as well as the legislators who do that industry’s bidding, would begin to be less supportive of the men who are running these corporations.  Sounds impossible, I know, but, again, this region of the country has been crippled by devastating heat and drought for two years now.  The climate is ripe, so to speak.

         But first, of course, we need to convince the population at large that this is an urgent crisis in the first place.  I had two conversations with friends yesterday, people who say we should do something about climate change, but it was obvious that they had no idea how bad this could get, or how soon.  One said that global warming couldn’t be stopped, and that it wouldn’t really impact people’s lives in a noticeable way, and would take several generations.  This appears to be how most people see it.  People really need a dose of the entirely plausible worst-case scenarios, triggered by impossible-to-predict natural feedback loops, to awaken them to what’s at stake here.

Sharp:  “Gandhi…emphasized the importance of a change of will as a prerequisite for a change in patterns of obedience and cooperation….He argued a need for; 1) a psychological change away from passive submission to self-respect and courage; 2) recognition by the subject that his assistance makes the regime possible; and 3) the building of a determination to withdraw cooperation and obedience.  Gandhi felt that these changes could be consciously influenced, and he therefore set out to bring them about.  ‘My speeches,’ he said, ‘are intended to create disaffection as such, that the people might consider it a shame to assist or cooperate.’”

         Of course we have a conundrum here in that anyone who fills up their car’s gas tank is, in a way, cooperating.  We live in a modern society that was planned around the car, so it’s very difficult to get around without one. So we need to push to create great mass transit systems in our cities, and transition to electric vehicles in a hurry.  The fossil fuel industry does not want this, so they have fought it all the way, and will continue to.  We need to shame them, and force these companies and our government to invest the capital needed to transition to cleaner energy.  And fast.

Sharp:  “Changes in the attitudes of workers in factories or of citizens…which result in withdrawal of obedience and cooperation can create extreme difficulties for the system.  It can be disrupted or paralyzed. The sheer difficulties of maintaining the normal working of any political unit when its subjects are bent upon an attitude of defiance and acts of obstruction are sufficient to give any ruler cause for thought.”

Again, we must withdraw our consent.

CH

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break Dirty Energy’s stranglehold you need to read Gene Sharp’s stuff.  Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action.  You can order it HERE.

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The Only Thing We Need to Do is Get Everybody REALLY Riled Up!

        Happy Sunday!  As soon as I get a little time I’ll start livening up the blog with polar bear videos and the like, but for now I’ll continue to examine Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part One: Power and Struggle, and connect it to our need to stop climate change.

Sharp: “Obedience is not inevitable…The most powerful ruler receives only the habitual obedience of the bulk of his subjects…People are generally law abiding, except when ‘unmoored by catastrophic events or by social convulsions’.  At any point in a given society there are limits within which a ruler must stay if his commands are to be obeyed.”

         Think of the “ruler” here as the fossil fuel corporations, and how, by funding climate denial and using their political influence for twenty years to stop action against climate change, they have strayed beyond those limits. 

Sharp: “Obedience is essentially voluntary…although highly influenced by various social forces…The will or opinion of the individual is not constant and may change in response to new influences, events, and forces.”

        Consider the stranglehold the National Rifle Association has had on American politics for decades now.  Columbine didn’t have any affect on their power, Virginia Tech didn’t either, nor did Aurora, but the horrific slaughter of all those little kids at Sandy Hook suddenly has the NRA very much on the run.  Just like that, a political titan is on it’s knees.

Sharp: “In certain situations the subject may even conclude that it is in his self-interest to disobey a regime – especially if he foresees its collapse.  The degree of his lack of self-confidence also varies and may be influenced by changes in the attitudes of other subjects.” 

         The biggest hurdle we face is not the fossil fuel industry, it’s actually getting everybody riled up enough to stand up to that industry.  Once that happens, the fossil fuel industry will be on the run in a hurry.  But what will it take to make that happen?

Sharp: “Even in sanctions, there is a role for an act of will, for choice.  The sanction must be feared and its consequences be seen as more undesirable than the consequences of obedience.”

         I think this could be a huge motivating factor, because nothing’s worse than the consequences of climate change.  Nothing.  So what are we waiting for?

Sharp: “Gandhi, on the basis of his efforts to produce large-scale disobedience and voluntary acceptance of imposed sanctions, observed that feelings must be very intense to make possible the acceptance of such sacrifice.”

         So our challenge is to find how to arouse those intense feelings.  I know we Pissed-Off Polar Bears feel them, but few others do, even within the climate movement.  We have one great ally that will really get people’s attention: Mother Nature.  With the incredibly mild December we are having, it’s virtually certain we’ll face another scorching summer. 

CH

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break Dirty Energy’s stranglehold you need to read Gene Sharp’s stuff.  Please muster up the $34.85 (plus shipping) and purchase The Politics of Nonviolent Action.  You can order it HERE.

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The Tar Sands Blockade: Playing an Essential Role for the Climate Movement

A blog about the Climate Movement would be incomplete without mention of the Tar Sands Blockade.

For the past 82 days, tree-sitters have blocked part of the southern section of the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if fully implemented, would ensure “game-over for the climate”, as renowned climate scientist James Hansen has stated.

While I think these amazing activists would have had a greater positive impact for the climate if they’d concentrated on the U.S. elections first and then got around to the Tar Sands Blockade, I cannot deny their courage and their importance.  And at least they’re doing something!

Gandhi was a big believer in the importance of the quality of activists versus the quantity.  Activists who are willing to do bold things and really put themselves on the line are likely to inspire others, and are indispensable to a movement.  

The people of this blockade are, at this juncture in time, walking their talk more than any other activists in the movement.

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Openness Vs. Secrecy in Nonviolent Movements

In the movie Gandhi, a group of Indians, Hindus and Muslims, meet in a crowded hall to plan their resistance against the British / South African government.  Several white constables sit in the front row, with helmets and batons.  Gandhi greets them with a smile as the meeting commences, and tells them "We have no secrets".

The climate movement is now in a position where we are taking on the fossil fuel industry and their allies to save our civilization and life on Earth as we know it.  These are huge stakes.  They have so much power, so much money.

The temptation, certainly, must be to conspire plans in dark rooms to take them down.  This is foolish, naive, and it undercuts how nonviolent struggle works.

We're the good guys!  We, like Gandhi, have nothing to hide.  We need to openly talk about them and what they are doing to the planet.  We need to frankly put forth our plans to stop them from destroying the world.

Yes, they will use this knowledge of our intentions to fight back, but they'd know our intentions anyway.  Years ago a British environmental group found out that one of their most trusted members was a spy.  Any group that becomes a threat to the fossil fuel powerhouses should expect to soon have moles on the inside, so it's best to adopt a position of openness, and let the whole world know what you're up to.

It actually serves to give your movement more power.

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What We're Talking About When We Talk About Nonviolent Struggle

What we’re facing here is what is called an “acute conflict”.  Acute conflicts are not open to compromise. Politics as usual works best on compromise.  But global warming is not something where compromise is going to work.  We need to make the fossil fuel industry give up on it’s basic business model.  They have to stop forcing us to use the kind of energy that puts heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere (and further seals our doom).  This has to end.  There’s no nice way around it.  That’s why we need a very effective and very determined nonviolent strategy.

When I first started studying nonviolent struggle, I was surprised to learn that it was actually a means of last resort.  You were supposed to exhaust every other avenue of solving the problem before you employ the drastic technique of nonviolent action.  

People don’t really understand what you mean when you say “nonviolence”.  They think it means “Oh, they’re peaceful, isn’t that sweet,” and underneath that they think “They’re naive.  They won’t be effective.  They’re wasting their time.”  So. when I read that nonviolence should only be undertaken as a means of last resort, I couldn’t help but think “Huh?!  How could something that harmless be a means of last resort?”

Well the truth is nonviolent struggle is scrappy and aggressive.  It’s a very confrontational way of engaging an opponent.  It’s not about being nice, it’s not about being passive, and it often requires activists to put themselves in harm’s way.

You do nonviolent action because it’s the fastest, most effective way to get what you need to get done done.

Violence doesn’t work.  When you’re taking on an opponent that has all the machinery of the state behind it, you’re taking on opponents who have the police and the military there to defend it (to say nothing of all the private security forces that money can buy), so any attempt at violence would quickly result in defeat.

Sabotage doesn’t work either.  Basically nonviolent struggles are popularity contests with the public as the judge.  So if your side commits actions that cast your side in a bad light, you’re harming your cause.  

In nonviolent struggle you have to be really smart and careful about what you do.

There are a lot of organizations in the climate movement, and all but one that I can think of are committed to “nonviolence” (Deep Green Resistance put out a book a couple years ago that advocated secrecy and sabotage, which are both no-no’s when it comes to nonviolent action).   But, with only a couple very recent exceptions, the movement hasn’t applied a systematic nonviolent strategy to it’s actions.  (I worked with one organization who never had time to work out an overall strategy, they were always frantically consumed with the very next action – as a means to grow their membership.  That was their goal for the year:  Grow membership.  Not Stop Global Warming.)

You need a strategy, a carefully thought-out strategy.  You need activists that are really committed to doing this.  And you need people with a deep understanding of how nonviolent struggle works.  That’s one of our main goals with this blog.

Gandhi believed nonviolent struggle was a means of matching forces.  This movement needs to create a playing field where we are in a position of advantage that our opponents cannot break.   

CH

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Obama's Not Ready to Act on Climate Yet...How About You?

Yesterday in his press conference the President spoke at length about climate change.  He said he would be engaging in a wide-ranging "conversation" over the coming months and years to see what we can "realistically" do to deal with the problem.

I'm not surprised but I am disappointed.  Hey, there's been a lot of talk since the election that he would make a major push to address climate change, but he himself never said it, as he has about immigration reform and tax reform, so no one should be surprised he's not yet wagering any of his political capital on the issue.

The president went on to point out that climate change had become a "partisan" issue and that it lacks the bipartisan support necessary to pass major legislation.

Not his fault.  It's the climate movement's fault.  They made no noise during the political campaigns, when they could have created quite a stir after the drought and summer heat.

It's also the movement's responsibility moving forward.  In April of 2011, during the Energy Action Coalition's PowerShift conference in D.C., a handful of youth leaders were invited to the White House to talk about the climate.  They thought they would be speaking with some lower-level staffers, but were amazed when the conference room door opened and President Obama came in.  He told them that he cared just as much  about the climate as they did, but he wouldn't be able to get anything done about it unless they created a  groundswell of popular support that politicians could not ignore.  FDR did the same thing in the 1930's, when he told labor activists that he could only deliver on needed reforms if they created popular support.  (They did and he did.)

It's foolish to think that by electing this president our work is done and we can go back to being passive.  In Gene Sharp's The Politics of Nonviolent Action, he writes about a tendency in populations "to avoid responsibility, to seek to delegate it upward and to attribute greater authority to superiors in the hierarchy than is in fact merited".  (This comes from what he calls a "lack of self confidence".)

In other words quit waiting for the "leaders" to lead.  YOU are the leader, with every bit as much power to make change as any president or dirty energy CEO, so own up to it.   We need to lead the leaders.

Gandhi said "The function of a civil resister is to provoke response. And we will continue to provoke until they respond.  They are not in control.  We are."

So it's on us.  If our collective actions are in alignment with the severity of the crisis, then we will be able to create that groundswell.

CH

Update:  Arianna Huffington has a similar post today about how the president said "Only you have the power to move us forward" at his convention speech and made similar comments on election night.  She even included the exact quote FDR issued to the labor leaders: "I agree with you.  I want to do it.  Now make me do it."  Finally, she includes this link to a Guardian UK piece about how progressives need to follow Obama's example and start pushing for change.


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