198 Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion

[yurbud]

Edited at request of moderator. Note that comments within excerpts in italics are MY words, not the original authors.

This is the kind of thing every progressive group should be passing around, adding to, and start doing trial and error until some start working.

I'm not sure how the four paragraph rule would apply to this list, so I'll just pull a half dozen of the methods I liked (my notes are in italics):

Actions by Consumers

71. Consumers' boycott This is obvious, but it has also been one of the most effective progressive methods, especially going after the sponsors of right wing TV shows and contacting the sponsors is more effective than actually no longer using their products. This has worked to a lesser extent with making politicians refuse or give back campaign contributions from certain industries and individuals, and a lot more could be done with that, especially with the DNC, DSCC, and the DCCC. Let them know that if they give money to candidates we can't trust, we can't give money to them, but must choose our candidates to fund or give to progressive groups to dole out.

Action by Government Personnel

143. Blocking of lines of command and information

147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents (slow walking)

I'm surprised this list didn't include the most high profile action of government employees: LEAKING. The defense for leaking should be the same as the government's defense for taking away our privacy rights--if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide. Clearly a lot of what our government hides is precisely because they are doing wrong and doing it for the enrichment of a few rather than the welfare of average Americans like enforcing poverty wages on Haiti or butchering Central Asia and the Middle East for the benefit of oil companies and banks.

I would add a different category here too of getting government employees to join us, especially cops and the military. The right is already doing this by trying to create an all Evangelical office corps through the Air Force Academy and preferential use of Evangelical materials by chaplains with the idea that Evangelicals will remain politically conservative.

With troops, the job is 90% done by combat itself. They see that the people they are ordered to kill are no threat to us back home and often not even a threat to the troops themselves.

With cops, simply ask them whose interests they would be protecting if they are told to beat, gas, restrain, or arrest protesters. If someone is protesting outside Goldman Sachs, does it make any sense to arrest them for holding a sign and maybe shouting while the people inside committed fraud that destroyed our and the world economy? Or should the police defend governors and legislators trying to cut their pay and health insurance and drain their pensions?

There should be a concerted effort to make overtures to cops and not just in states where the right is trying to break unions.


Physical Intervention

173. Nonviolent occupation

Since the mainstream media only gives extended coverage to protests by the handful Tea Party cranks, our protests must either be naked (to make good film) or actually physically interfere with whatever it is we don't want to happen. It would make more sense to go directly after the owners of the politicians rather than the pols, but even better might be to block and draw attention to the meeting of the masters and servants.

http://www.correntewire.com/nv">FULL LIST

The list also mentions general strikes, but since most Americans have no idea what that is, we need to come up with some creative variations that people will be willing to do, like a national flash mob or sick out or something like that.

We should add to this list here and http://www.correntewire.com/nv">on the original.

We have seen with the Wall Street scams, bubbles,trade deals that gut our manufacturing jobs, and bailouts for financial sector that committed all these crimes that rule by a corrupt, inbred, degenerate financial elite is a threat to our ability to support our families. The wars, oil spills that pollute our food supply, fracking that set our water on fire, and now the Fukushima nuclear accident that will cause cancers and birth defects, have shown that they are a threat to our physical survival.

It's time to do something different before we can't do anything to survive but sift through the sewage and garbage that trickles down from the gleaming gated community of the financial elite on the hill.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Just so you know...

This is free to share material under the Creative Commons License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

I fully agree that every progressive group should have it available and use it to effect.

Thanks for posting, K&R.

:patriot:

ETA: I have to add that the original source is here: Source: Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973).

The blog in your OP has a Creative Commons License but the Gene Sharp work might not.

:hi:

[yurbud]

2. thanks for the heads up

[yurbud]

3. .

[mahina]

4. All of Gene Sharps' peace literature is available for download at

http://www.aeinstein.org/

WELCOME TO THE ALBERT EINSTEIN INSTITUTION

The Albert Einstein Institution is a nonprofit organization advancing the study and use of strategic nonviolent action in conflicts throughout the world.

We are committed to the defense of freedom, democracy, and the reduction of political violence through the use of nonviolent action.

Our goals are to understand the dynamics of nonviolent action in conflicts, to explore its policy potential, and to communicate this through print and other media, translations, conferences, consultations, and workshops.

Please click here to read the Albert Einstein Institution's annual appeal letter. Your support is crucial!

ON THIS SITE...

Click here to make a contribution.

Click here to order Albert Einstein Institution books on nonviolent action.

This website also offers many publications to be freely downloaded.

From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp
Available for download in 25 languages

Self-Liberation by Gene Sharp, with the assistance of Jamila Raqib

On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict by Robert Helvey
Available in English, Burmese, Chinese (Simplified, Traditional), and Spanish.

There Are Realistic Alternatives by Gene Sharp
Downloadable in English, Arabic, Azeri, French, and Hebrew

Further publications on nonviolent action
Introductions to nonviolent action
Case studies: Eastern Europe, Latin America, more
198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

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Mahalo for posting the 198 methods. Gene Sharp taught at UH Manoa and directed the Peace Studies dept here for a time. How's this for a project...a Peace Studies department at every university!

aloha

[yurbud]

5. I hadn't realized he was the same guy who did FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. If there were a Stanley Cup for non-violent action/tactics, Sharp would

have it -somewhere- among his cluttered quarters in Boston.

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations98ce.html

[yurbud]

7. too true