Nonviolent Method #2: Letters of Opposition or Support

Today we’re going to talk about Nonviolent Method #2, Letters of Opposition or Support, as outlined by Gene Sharp, in his seminal tome “The Methods of Nonviolent Action”, which you must buy or I will maul you.  (Nonviolently of course.)  

As lame as letters may sound, they can help the climate movement in lotsa ways. 

Let’s start with the letters of Support concept.  President Obama has indicated that at some point he’s gonna push forward initiatives designed to protect the climate.  If you don’t think he’ll be opposed, you’re living in an imaginary world of unicorns and fairies.  So, people need to make statements in support of him!   These can be private or public.  Suppose you live in a state with a senator who can reliably be counted on to vote against any action on climate change.  Well, parents, students, churches, and businesses, can send said senator letters or postcards of support for what the President is doing. The more the senator gets, the more pressure he’ll feel to do the right thing. 

There’s also Open Letters, which are generally published in newspapers, but popular blogs would work too.  Open letters can be from prominent citizens, like doctors groups, business groups, religious groups; or from pillars of society, like, I dunno, Tom Brokaw.

In Nazi-occupied Bulgaria the Union of Bulgarian Writers sent a letter to their government saying that an anti-Jewish law would “enslave part of the Bulgarian people and blemish Bulgaria’s modern history.”

Inaction on climate change is gonna completely tarnish America’s history.  God, history’s gonna HATE us for it!  Especially if civilization collapses, which it easily could.  (Course, then there’d be no one there to record history, but still….)  Anyway that could be what America’s remembered for, because America’s always been the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases – until just recently – and the biggest political obstacle to international action!  People’d be like: “Yeah, America…they did some cool things with freedom but then they went and destroyed the world!  Idiots.”

Or we could be remembered as the heroes and good guys that led the way to save the planet from catastrophe.  Our choice.

Another thing that would work is using the internet.  Famous people could post youtube messages in support of action on climate change. 

Got that?  I’m talkin’ to YOU Bieber! 

Also, groups could publish full-page ads to pressure network news organizations to do more stories about climate disruption and how serious it is.  Because that’s a HUGE part of the problem, too many people think climate change won’t be a big deal until way off future and then it won’t be all that bad.  Hello!  When the natural feedback loops kick in it will be HORRIBLE EVERYWHERE!  That could be triggered at any time!  But no one knows that cuz the news organizations aren’t doing their JOB of informing the public.

Alright, next installment we’ll talk about Declarations by Organizations and Institutions.  I can feel your excitement.


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3 Days On: How the President's Climate Push is Shaping Up (and What it Means for Us)

I just read a couple articles that talk about how the president’s push to save the world from climate change is shaping up, three days after he unveiled it in the inauguration.

First of all, it’s going to be “deliberately paced”, and activists are being cautioned to not expect anything before the president is done dealing with immigration reform, gun control, and the budget.

Duh!  Though climate change is by far the most important and urgent issue, ultimately the political issues of the day will force Obama to deal with the budget first, then gun control (while people are still outraged about Sandy Hook), and immigration reform (because if it wasn’t for the immigration issue we’d have had Romney’s inauguration on Monday). I get it, we can’t expect action just yet, BUT we have to start pushing harder than ever so the president will have wind at his back.  And we know the other side will be screaming "Tyranny!" like they always do, but this time our side needs to strap on a pair and stand up to them.  Nonviolently, of course.

The biggest risk that faces the climate movement right now is that people will assume Obama’s gonna take care of it and we’ll go right back to doing nothing. 

But remember how he finished the speech:

“You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course.

“You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time – not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.

“Let each of us now embrace, with solemn duty and awesome joy, what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history, and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.”

Cool.  I'm reminded of something Charles Stuart Parnell, the great Irish Member of Parliament, once said: “The measure of the Land Bill next season will be the measure of your activity and energy this winter…It depends therefore, upon yourselves, and not upon any Commission or any Government.”

Same thing here guys.  If  you want nonexistent climate reforms, don’t engage yourself.  If you want Obama to pull off great reforms, make lots and lots of noise.  And if you want Obama to pull off the changes that are really necessary but seem impossible even to Obama, then learn how nonviolent struggle works and help us take it to a whole ‘nuther level!

We in the climate movement have been so marginalized and ignored for so long, but the president’s going to be giving us an outstanding platform.  Let’s be ready when that day comes!


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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

Starting a Nonviolent Climate Movement? Great! But Expect a Bumpy Liftoff!

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Excuse Me, But Saving the World is Pretty F***ing Cool!

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Pete the Pissed-Off Polar Bear Chimes in on Nonviolent Openness vs. Secrecy

So I wanted to talk about Openness and Secrecy in Nonviolent Struggle. 

It basically boils down to this: Openness is smart, secrecy is dumb.  

Let me elaborate.

First of all, anything you write in an email, or say on the telephone, might be read by

government agents.  George W. Bush made sure of this with his so-called Patriot Act. 

 “Oh look at me I’m a patriot!  You now have no privacy, just like the founders intended!” 

That naked picture you sent to your boyfriend?  It’s made the rounds at Langley.

Also, if you really were to become a concern to anyone really powerful, like, say, the

richest companies in the history of the world, they would soon have people joining your

organization.  “Hello!  I want to help!  I have money, what would you do to the richest

company on earth if you could get away with it?  Shoot for the moon, dude!  Let’s do

something illegal.  Hee hee hee!  You can trust me, honest!”

So, you should expect spies.  If you’ve got secrets, then everyone would get all paranoid! 

“Is it you?  Are you the mole?”  “I think it’s him!”  “I think it’s you!”  “I trusted you, ratfink!” 

This is no way to run a popular uprising!  Just be open and honest, “Here’s what we’re

 doing?  Ya hear me, Koch Brothers?”  “Hey Glenn Beck, guess what we’re gonna do!”

Now of course if you lived in, say, Kas-beck-i-stan, you’d need to be secret or your

opponents would kill you!  But the U.S. and Canada, are free!  If you’re a human

anyway.  There are some places polar bears can’t go or they’d shoot us with

tranquilizer darts, which is worse than it sounds.  You don’t just fall asleep, when you’re

out they do anal probes and stuff like that, or put big collars on you.  Try sneaking up on

a seal with a big black collar around your neck! 

Anyway, here no one’s gonna kill you unless some crazy Tea Party dude with an arsenal

decides to take matters into his own hands, but that would really make their side look bad

so they’ll try and discourage that, prob’ly anyway.  It’s hard to figure out that kind of

crazy.

Another thing that’s dumb about secrecy is only the inner circle knows what’s going on

next.  We Pissed-off Polar Bears wanted to help the climate movement with their protests

during the elections last year.  Turned out they had no protests planned.  They’re very

opaque, they don’t do a good job of laying out their strategy, so you don’t know if they

have it handled or not.  These are important things to know!

  

If you want a lot of people to help you demonstrate, you should be really visible!

The point is, Nonviolent struggle is based on bravery and discipline.  When you’re open

about what you’re doing, you become free from the fear of arrest.

In the Indian Independence Jawaharlal Nehru or whatever his name was, I actually

know a walrus named Jawalrus Nehru, anyway this guy Nehru said that once they got rid

of secrecy their feelings of oppression and frustration melted away.  They actually felt

sorry for the guys who were spying on them because they had no secrets to discover.

This movement needs to get rid of it’s feelings of frustration and start having fun!  Ya 

hear that ExxonMobil!  The party’s over!  Gruuumph!  More tomorrow.

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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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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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Nonviolent Struggle is a Formidable System That Climate Leaders Must Take the Time to Fully Understand

        To start the New Year we’re moving on to an analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Three: The Dynamics of Nonviolent Action, applied to the climate movement. For my money this is one of the two most essential Gene Sharp books for climate activists to read.  Reading Sharp’s books are a prerequisite for anyone who wants to help save our planet. Please go to Dr. Sharp’s website, buy these books, and study them.

Sharp:  “An understanding of how nonviolent action “works,” of its dynamics in struggle, and of its mechanics of change is of extreme importance.  Without that insight our extensive catalogue of its methods (which I skipped but I’ll get to in the future) will lack the vitality which is characteristic of social change and political conflict, and the view of power upon which this technique rests will remain an exercise for specialists in political philosophy.  But with awareness of the dynamics…we can understand the operation of this technique in society and politics, and evaluate intelligently its potential utility in various types of conflict situations." 

         This book is essential for anyone who wants to give more than just lip service to the term “nonviolence”.  It goes from being vague term to being an enthralling and tremendously powerful system. 

Sharp:  “It is essential to remember that the operation of nonviolent action in struggle is always a dynamic process.  It involves continuous change in the various influences and forces which operate in that process and are constantly influencing each other….Also, the process is very complicated...more complicated than conventional military warfare or even guerrilla warfare.”

         In other words, it’s a moving, living beast.  The activists’ actions are just a part of it, the opponents actions are another part, as is society at large, the media, and, in our case, the weather.  Any person or group who decides to play a role in helping lead the climate movement had better have an eye on all these factors, and be willing to engage and evolve on an every-day basis, otherwise they’ll be ineffective.  It’s like a football team that goes into a game with a game plan, but doesn’t make any adjustments to react to how the other team is playing during the game itself.

Sharp: “If nonviolent action is capable of wielding power, it must be able with its power to act upon the power wielded by the opponent.

         “The opponent is frequently a government; where it is not, the opponent often has the support of the state machinery…in strategic terms, the nonviolent group counters the opponent’s power indirectly..weaken the opponent’s relative power position rather than strengthen it by, for example, alienating existing support and undermining the opponent’s ability (and at  times weakening his will) to continue the policy…Instead of meeting him where he is strong, nonviolent actionists rely on a totally different technique of struggle, or “weapons systems,” which is designed to operate to their advantage…Given an extensive, determined, and skillful application of nonviolent action, the opponent is likely to find that the nonviolent actionists’ insistence on fighting with their choice of “weapons system” will cause him very special problems which will tend to frustrate the effective utilization of his own forces”

         Near as I can tell, our opponents are the fossil fuel industry and the right-wing think tanks, media outlets, and government officials that work so hard to prevent action on climate change.   They’re very well-funded, sophisticated, and smart.  They’ve mastered the politics of this.  They know just how the process works, they know how many senators and representatives they need.  They know the state, federal and local laws, they know the constitutional issues, the international treaties.  They know what they want to change and they know what absolutely must not be changed.  They have friendly judges and justices sitting in courtrooms across the country. They know how the media works and how grassroots political action works and they have the money to pull the strings they want to pull.  They’re also completely ruthless.  They’ll play hardball in every aspect.  We mustn’t fight the fight they want to fight.

Sharp:   “Napolean wrote…’Never do what the enemy wishes you to do’.”

         “Nonviolent action is capable of striking at the availability of the sources of political power of the ruler; authority, human resources, skills and knowledge, intangible factors, material resources, and even sanctions themselves…Through various processes which take place in a large-scale nonviolent struggle, the supply of those sources may be threatened, curtailed or cut off.”

         The key term here of course being “large-scale nonviolent struggle”.  At this point the only leaders of the movement who could direct something on a large-scale don’t seem to fully understand how nonviolent action works.  They really need to read their Sharp to see how it’s done.   Otherwise this movement’s actions will continue to be little more than desperate darts thrown at a wall, rather than a formidable system that could overwhelm the oppenent’s capacity to respond.

CH   

I've included 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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Just Saying "Nonviolence" Won't Cut It, You Must Understand It

Today marks day 12 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. You really do need to read it all to get properly steeped in nonviolent struggle.  There’s so much to know, and all of it will help everyone who wants to help this movement and save our life-support system!

Sharp: “The nonviolent technique operates by producing power changes.  Both the relative power and the absolute power of each of the contending groups are subject to constant and rapid alterations.  This power variability can be more extreme and occur more rapidly than in situations where both sides are using violence…  Usually the results of these complex changes in the relative power positions of the contenders will determine the struggle’s final outcome.”

         This is why it’s so important to be fluid.  A 5-year campaign is not fluid, and gives the opponents plenty of time to work on the best response.  This movement needs to be able to react to immediate changes, like a super hot summer in an election year, and recalibrate their approach for maximum effect.  Not do nothing because they’d already been planning on doing something else after the election.

Sharp:  “The maintenance of nonviolent discipline in the face of repression is not an act of moralistic naivete.  Instead it…is a prerequisite for advantageous power changes.  Nonviolent discipline can only be compromised at the severe risk of contributing to defeat.”

         It’s so important that people read their Gene Sharp.  Actionists need a strong grasp of how nonviolent struggle works most effectively so that, when the rest of the movement doesn’t react to an unfolding situation, they can, and do it in a way that doesn’t make the movement look bad.

Sharp:  “The nature of nonviolent struggle makes it possible for the actionists also to win considerable support even in the camp of the opponent and among third parties.”

         The third parties are everyone else in society who isn’t part of the struggle group or the opponents.  As for inside the camp of the opponents, here’s a quote in Steve Coll’s book about ExxonMobil, Private Empire, from a former Exxon manager: “Don’t believe for a minute that Exxon doesn’t think climate change is real.  They were using climate change as a source of insight into exploration.”  Here’s a guy who worked “in the camp of the opponent” that didn’t like the smell of what they were doing. 

        

Sharp:  “Victory depends on the strength of the nonviolent actionists…if the group using nonviolent action does not as yet possess sufficient internal strength, determination, ability to act, and related qualities to make nonviolent action effective, then the repetition of phrases like ‘nonviolence’ will not save it.  There is no substitute for genuine strength and skill in nonviolent action; if the actionists do not possess them sufficiently to cope with the opponent, they are unlikely to win.”

         That to me is the biggest problem with this movement.  Stunning lack of strength and determination.  It’s like even they don’t understand how bad climate change could be.  Sure, all the groups say “nonviolence” all the time, but that seems to just mean they’re not going to hurt anybody.  Nonviolence done right is meant to “provoke a response”, it’s not standing next to a fence away from the action holding a sign.  Some of the groups in the movement get it.  Many do not.

Sharp:  “Considering the widespread ignorance of the nature and requirements of nonviolent action and the absence of major efforts to learn how to apply it most effectively, it is surprising that it has won any victories at all.”

         That’s why, yet again, people need to invest the time and energy into reading Gene Sharp’s books.       

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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For Love of Country, for Love of Planet Earth, We Need to Make Some Noise

Today marks day 11 of my analysis of Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part One: Power and Struggle, Chapter 2, applying it to the movement to save the world from man-made global warming.  As you can see I’m moving ahead to chapter 2.  Here’s the thing about these books: they’re huge!  The three volumes of this book alone are nearly 850 pages.  When I started reading I perused the table of contents and thought “I’ll need this, not that, etc.”, but I kept reading, and ended up so grateful that I’d read it all  You really do need to read it all to get properly steeped in nonviolent struggle.  There’s so much to know, and all of it will help everyone who wants to help this movement save our life-support system!

Sharp: “Subjects may disobey laws they reject.  Workers may halt work, which may paralyze the economy.  The bureaucracy may refuse to carry out instructions.  Soldiers and police may become lax in inflicting repression…When all these events happen simultaneously, the man who has been ‘ruler’ becomes just another man…The ruler’s military equipment may remain intact, his soldiers uninjured, cities unscathed, the factories and transport systems in full operational capacity, an the government buildings undamaged.  But everything is changed…When people refuse their cooperation, withhold their help, and persist  in their disobedience and defiance, they are denying their opponent the basic human assistance  and cooperation which any…heirarchical system requires.  If they do this in sufficient numbers for long enough, that…heirarchical system will no longer have power.  This is the basic political assumption of nonviolent action.”

         Our opponents are the fossil fuel industry and their allies in our government, media, and society.  These people are forcing inaction on climate change and basically putting everyone in the world’s future in grave danger. They’ve done a magnificent job of marginalizing people who want to do something about this before it’s too late.  That must stop, so we must be really, really smart about how we do this.  Nonviolence by itself won’t do it, there needs to be a grand strategy, and ultimately most of society must be on board.  Big challenge, but if you read your Gene Sharp, it all becomes doable! 

Sharp:  “Nonviolent…actionists conduct the conflict by doing – or refusing to do – certain things without using physical violence…Nonviolent action is not passive.  It is not inaction.  It is action that is nonviolent…Whatever the scale of the conflict, nonviolent action is a technique by which people who reject passivity and submission, and who see struggle as essential.”

         If you have done nothing more to stop global warming than changing your light bulbs, you’ve been pretty damned passive, haven’t you?  In the meantime nothing has been done about climate change.  Struggle, my friends, is essential.

Sharp:  “Conciliation and appeals are likely to consist of rational or emotional verbal efforts to bring about an oppenent’s agreement to do something, while nonviolent action is not verbal – it consists of social, economic, and political activity of special types…Nonviolent action is so different from…milder peaceful responses to conflicts that several writers have pointed to the general similarities of nonviolent action to military war.  Nonviolent action is a means of combat, as is war.  It involves the matching of forces and the waging of ‘battles’, requires wise strategy and tactics, and demands of its ‘soldiers’ courage, discipline, and sacrifice.”

         So you can see how, by Sharp’s reckoning, nonviolent action is a means of last-resort, only to be used when all other means have been exhausted.  We’ve been trying to stop “The Greenhouse Effect” and “Global Warming”, and “Climate Change” for three decades now.  I’d say all other means have been exhausted.

Sharp:  “Nonviolent action must not be confused with anarchism.”

         This country’s history is full of extraordinary acts of nonviolence, from the Tea Boycott at our nation’s founding to the Abolitionist Movement to the Women’s Suffrage Movement to the Civil Rights Movement to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.  They recognized the need to go to extraordinary lengths to make a more perfect union. 

         For love of country, for love of the planet earth, we need to make some noise.

CH

I’m including little snippets, but if we’re going to break the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on our democracy, 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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“Powers Are No Guarantee of Power”

 Merry Christmas!  It’s a white Christmas in Denver!  Beautiful!  

Today marks day 9 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.

Sharp: “Noncooperation and disobedience must be widespread and must be maintained… The ruler’s will is thwarted in proportion to the number of disobedient subjects and the degree of his dependence upon them.  The answer to the problem of uncontrolled power may therefore lie in learning how to carry out and maintain such withdrawal despite repression.”

         I don’t think for a second that there will be repression.  I know from my reading that tactical people within the fossil fuel industry have studied nonviolent struggle too.  They have to know that the stupidest thing you can do, at least in a free democracy, is repress the opposition.  More likely they’ll smear the opposition, and make life difficult in covert ways (remember, these guys have a lot of money).

         But noncooperation must indeed be widespread.  These corporations are publicly traded, and in many ways they have to keep a good public face.   But if the problem becomes too big for them, and too many people are springing up here there and everywhere to protest their stonewalling on global warming, they’ll have to change their business model or risk losing their energy empires completely.

         I read somewhere that “We need to quit oil before oil quits us”.  These men are determined to make sure we stay addicted to dirty energy until the last morsel is taken from the earth and spewed back into the sky.  That can’t happen.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: “the great truth that the many, if accordant and resolute, could control the few.”

Sharp: “The classic problem for the man on top of any political system: how to be on top on fact as well as name…It is a problem also for…corporate presidents…’Half of a President’s suggestions, which theoretically carry the weight of orders, can be safely forgotten by a Cabinet member.  And if the President asks about a suggestion a second time, he can be told that it is being investigated.  If he asks a third time, a wise Cabinet officer will give him at least part of what he suggests.  But only occasionally, except about the most important matters, do Presidents ever get around to asking three times’…’Powers are no guarantee of power’”.

President Harry S. Truman (on General Dwight D. ‘Ike’ Eisenhower becoming President):  “He’ll sit here and he’ll say ‘Do this!  Do that!  And nothing will happen.  Poor Ike – it won’t be a bit like the Army.”

Sharp: “Even as late as 1958 President Eisenhower still experienced ‘Shocked surprise that orders did not carry themselves out’ and that the assistance of others had to be deliberately cultivated in order to produce ‘effective power’.”

         The culture must change.  It must become terribly uncool for these companies to keep blocking political solutions on climate change.  This must be felt in their communities, and ultimately within their own workforce.  This can happen a lot sooner than people think.

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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Before You Start a Nonviolent Struggle, Read Your Gene Sharp

It’s amazing how few climate organizations have read Gene Sharp, therefore it’s also no wonder so many of them are so clueless.  Nonviolent movements have a great history.  They haven’t all been successful, but considering that virtually all of them were making things up as they went along, it’s astonishing how successful these movements have been.

Some 50 years ago Gene Sharp dedicated his life to studying nonviolent struggle groups, and he’s amassed an incredible body of knowledge regarding just how these groups have been able to succeed and what tactics they’ve used.  His pamphlets have helped train not only nonviolent struggle groups, but also were instrumental in helping tiny Baltic states with histories of being occupied draft into their constitutions methods designed to make their nations more unconquerable through noncooperation.

Next summer in Turkey, 350.org will be training youth from around the world in how to successfully create a movement.  In Sharp’s latest book, Self-Liberation (read it yourself here), he and his assistant Jamila Raquib note that “groups that received…lectures, courses and workshops have remained themselves unable to plan grand strategies for their conflicts.  Those groups have usually been unable even to to prepare strategies for smaller limited campaigns intended to achieve modest goals.”

(I recognized I’ve been a little hard on Bill McKibben and 350.org of late, but we’re running out of time to SAVE THE WORLD, and if I see them moving too slowly or proposing things that people with experience say doesn’t work, I will call them on it.  In McKibben’s Do the Math presentation, he includes a film clip of Van Jones saying McKibben's activists “did not come to Washington to pull the president down, but they did come to push him to be who he said he could be”.  I’d say we Pissed-Off Polar Bears have the same attitude toward McKibben, we’re rooting for him, and pushing him as best as we can to be a more effective leader.)

The analysis in Self-Liberation continues “The training the trainers approach is highly questionable for advanced purposes…this approach trivializes the amount of knowledge needed by a person who attempts to plan strategies. It also assumes that the necessary knowledge and understanding can be successfully trained verbally twice and then applied in strategic planning.”

What does work?  “Careful study of printed presentations and analyses…Printed materials can be studied slowly when needed, repeated, and reviewed…Significant study is required of selected printed studies of the operation of nonviolent struggle and the analyses of its potential…wide dissemination and study of the recommended public texts on nonviolent action is encouraged.  Such wide dissemination and study can counteract any possible tendencies toward elitism…This alternative route to knowledge, if followed carefully, should eventually enable persons and groups to become capable of self-reliantly preparing a grand strategy for a major conflict.”

So buy your Sharp and read it, all of it.  It’s thousands of pages and his writing doesn’t always jump off the page, but the ideas are sound and we’ve got a world to save, so do it!  

In the coming weeks and months, I will share stuff I’ve highlighted from reading his canon, not as a substitute, but hopefully as inspiration for you to buy the books yourself!

CH

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