Would Civil Disobedience be a good or bad idea?

[Philosoraptor]

civil disobedience
Function: noun
Date: 1866
: refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government

I remember all the worldwide bush/war protests, millions of concerned citizens making their feelings known, but the Nazis are still in charge, and still rabid and dangerous. We tried voting, but many of our votes were flushed down the toilet like the Constitution and Habeas Corpus.

What if we blocked off our White House with our own bodies, preventing anyone from going back in there until our voices are heard and our grievances acted upon? This is after all OUR nation, not theirs, they are our hired servants, though most people think it's the other way around.

I know surrounding the White House is a radical idea, that's how I think, that's how I'm built, and usually I'm too radical. So I am open for suggestions regarding Civil Disobedience.

Would acts of civil disobedience be inappropriate at this time in history? Would they be a waste of time, like protesting the bush regime? What ARE some effective methods of civil disobedience?

How can we best force concessions from this ridiculous and dangerous government of ours?

I know radical ideas are seldom welcome, and often they are associated with anarchy or violence, and we don't want that of course, we just want a radical improvement in our own government. We need to abandon all of our previous impotent methods and try something radical because these assholes are radical, big time radical. Who is in charge here...them or us?

[Bob Dobbs]

1. "Who is in charge here...them or us?"

Rather obviously, them.

Until The People can get the military on our side we are destined to the fate of China's population, de facto enslavement.

Protests are marginalized in the media and laughed at by the power elite.

It hasn't looked good for democracy since the coup d'etat of 2000. (really since the coup d'etat of 1963)

The American population is so soft and fragmented they will be useless to fight a real revolution, which is what, in reality, it will take to return Constitutional power and the rule of law to America.

Pretty grim.

[Thothmes]

2. Depends

you should be willing to accept the consequences of those actions. Pepper sprayed, tasered, maced, shot with rubber bullets, beat with nightsticks, jailed, tried convicted and sentenced. If you are willing to, go ahead. But remember these people will be out of the White house in about 6 months.
My guess is you are seven and a half years to late. I believe that it is moot at this point in time. JMO

[Philosoraptor]

6. Those people may be out of the white house, but they AIN'T going away.

[Thothmes]

11. Are you recommending that they be liquidated.

[Philosoraptor]

15. No

[Bob Dobbs]

17. Traitors SHOULD be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law.

Treason IS a capital crime.

[screembloodymurder]

3. I think we're headed for civil war.

Problem is one side has all the guns.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. Unlikely to achieve much, I suspect

The secret of succesful civil disobedience, I think, is that it works by showing that a large number of people are willing to suffer for a cause, and maintaining the moral high ground. The unifying factors of the most succesful civil disobedience movements was:

1) They were not merely non-violent, but didn't harm others.
2) The government massively overreacted, meaning that the protestors were in danger.

If your protest reaches the point where the government can look justified in using force against it (and that's a relatively low threshold - bad behaviour at a protest always attracts the most attention), you're screwed; if the government just lets it happen, you don't achieve much - lots of people walking from A to B in the sunshine does not an effective protest make.

And nowadays, I think that most Western governments have gotten smart, severely limiting the effectiveness of peaceful protest.

Possibly something could be achieved by picking areas with notoriously brutal and repressive local government and police chiefs and the like, though. Alternatively, suicidal/self-flagelatory protest might still be effective, but I don't think it's worth the cost.

[Breeze54]

7. Yes, The Boston Tea Party had NO effect and neither did

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!!!

:eyes:

(turncoat-chicken)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. You're not calling the American Revolution an example of non-violent civil disobedience, are you?

The Boston Tea Party rather neatly illustrates my point - it worked by provoking an overreaction.

[Breeze54]

10. The Boston Tea Party was an "over reaction"? We call it ... AMERICA!!

:party:

:toast:

LOL at YOU, Donald Ian Rankin!! :P


LOOKS LIKE WE WON!!! :D

[Bob Dobbs]

18. No, dumb ass, the REACTION to the Boston Tea Party, was over reaction.

From where I stand today, it looks like the power elite won.

It will take another revolution to restore democracy, but the amerikkkan people only have the will to be slaves.

Look to China, that is your future.

[Breeze54]

5. It's a fantastic and thrilling concept... REVOLT!!! ~ REVOLT!!!

:woohoo: Kick all their asses!!


REVOLT!! :D

[demnan]

9. Whatever we do

we have to remember that Blackwater thugs will be hired to control and kill some of us. Yes I said kill some of us. Don't believe me? I went to the March 15, 2007 march on the Pentagon and saw first hand what their thugs did to two women who passed too close to their ranks along Lafayette Park. These women, both in their fifties were struck and one was thrown to the ground. Also police were beating up people on the bridge over the overpass near Arlington Cemetary. Talk to the Iraq Vets against the war who got arrested for trying to walk into the Pentagon. During the last peace demonstration, people were arrested for merely posting signs about the demonstration.

So if we do something like this - nonviolent demonstration around the White House - we need to get used to the idea that some of us are going to be hurt and killed. People march and protest around the White House all the time, but if it were in numbers large enough to seem a threat, someone is going to be hurt.

[Bob Dobbs]

13. The power elite would not hesitate to kill 100 million of us.

They are doing it stealthily now with poisoned food and water and designer diseases.

The time for direct action was 40 years ago. It is far too late now, and the selection of a vice president so ludicrously unqualified is meant to rub our faces in the hopelessness of resistance. They tried to tell us when they installed little boots. I mean, who could belive an ignorant, drunk, punk asshole like that could be the leader of the "free" world. And yet, millions idolize that moron. They misunderestimated how well their media stupidification project worked.

[shadowknows69]

19. Spot on Bob

The will is there but the stakes have been raised to deadlier levels than ever. Resistance will always be met with brutal, unmoving force and if fatalites occur all the better to scare the herd for next time.

[wvbygod]

21. poisoned food and water and designer diseases

I'll bite. Where can one find some factual information to bolster this assertion? I've
heard this one for years (along with the 200mpg carb inventors suicided) and figure it's
time to follow up on it.

Where can I find more data that gives some credence to poisoned food and water and designer diseases?

[cobalt1999]

12. Think about this first.

What if a million anti-abortionist showed up and surrounded the Obama White House demanding that their grievances should be acted upon?

Would you be for that?

There are 300 million people in this country. There are hundreds of groups with demands. So what groups get to do this and force concessions from the government and which groups should be ignored?

[Philosoraptor]

14. Frightening scenario for sure.

A lot of strange things have happened in history, and we live in historical, hysterical times.

[Bob Dobbs]

16. All citizens are ignored by the power elite.

Didn't you get the message from the "elections" in 2000 and 2004?

[Solly Mack]

20. ...

Let's look at the meaning of civil disobedience

Deliberate, open, and peaceful violation of particular laws, decrees, regulations, military or police orders, or other governmental directives

The purposeful breaking of laws to protest actions by the government.

The open, deliberate, nonviolent breaking of a law. When citizens resort to civil disobedience, it is usually because they believe a law is not

The decision to break specific laws because they are unjust. This tactic of nonviolence was used by the civil rights and farmworker movements to bring about social change.

a group's refusal to obey a law because they believe the law is immoral (as in protest against discrimination)

The active refusal to obey certain laws, demands, or commands (which are pointless or detrimental) of an established authority, without resorting to physical violence


When is civil disobedience a bad word?

When government says it is...the same government making the very laws that people protest against.

The same government that imposes a very high cost for protesting the laws government makes.

How comforting it must be for government when the people fear civil disobedience.