Here's How You Do It…

Folks,


This shy professor, living almost half a world away fro Cairo, was the brains behind the outfit of misfits that took out Mubarack without firing a shot. The following is his Simple How-To Guide to get rid of a tyrant or unruly ruler. On this handy list are the methods used by American slaves and the founders of America, Gandhi, King, Mandela, the Yippies and Hippies in the USA, and others from around the globe and over the years… methods used by reasonable, thoughtful folks that want to find their own way to some kind of Liberty.


S

Dr. Gene Sharp

198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION

Formal Statements
1. Public Speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public statements
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions

Communications with a Wider Audience
7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
12. Skywriting and earthwriting

Group Representations
13. Deputations
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
16. Picketing
17. Mock elections

Symbolic Public Acts
18. Displays of flags and symbolic colors
19. Wearing of symbols
20. Prayer and worship
21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings
23. Destruction of own property
24. Symbolic lights
25. Displays of portraits
26. Paint as protest
27. New signs and names
28. Symbolic sounds
29. Symbolic reclamations
30. Rude gestures

Pressures on Individuals
31. "Haunting" officials
32. Taunting officials
33. Fraternization
34. Vigils

Drama and Music
35. Humorous skits and pranks
36. Performances of plays and music
37. Singing

Processions
38. Marches
39. Parades
40. Religious processions
41. Pilgrimages
42. Motorcades

Honoring the Dead
43. Political mourning
44. Mock funerals
45. Demonstrative funerals
46. Homage at burial places

Public Assemblies
47. Assemblies of protest or support
48. Protest meetings
49. Camouflaged meetings of protest
50. Teach-ins

Withdrawal and Renunciation
51. Walk-outs
52. Silence
53. Renouncing honors
54. Turning one's back

THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

Ostracism of Persons
55. Social boycott
56. Selective social boycott
57. Lysistratic nonaction
58. Excommunication
59. Interdict

Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions
60. Suspension of social and sports activities
61. Boycott of social affairs
62. Student strike
63. Social disobedience
64. Withdrawal from social institutions

Withdrawal from the Social System
65. Stay-at-home
66. Total personal noncooperation
67. "Flight" of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance
70. Protest emigration (hijrat)

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (1) ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS

Actions by Consumers
71. Consumers' boycott
72. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
73. Policy of austerity
74. Rent withholding
75. Refusal to rent
76. National consumers' boycott
77. International consumers' boycott

Action by Workers and Producers
78. Workmen's boycott
79. Producers' boycott

Action by Middlemen
80. Suppliers' and handlers' boycott

Action by Owners and Management
81. Traders' boycott
82. Refusal to let or sell property
83. Lockout
84. Refusal of industrial assistance
85. Merchants' "general strike"

Action by Holders of Financial Resources
86. Withdrawal of bank deposits
87. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
88. Refusal to pay debts or interest
89. Severance of funds and credit
90. Revenue refusal
91. Refusal of a government's money

Action by Governments
92. Domestic embargo
93. Blacklisting of traders
94. International sellers' embargo
95. International buyers' embargo
96. International trade embargo

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (2)THE STRIKE

Symbolic Strikes
97. Protest strike
98. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

Agricultural Strikes
99. Peasant strike
100. Farm Workers' strike

Strikes by Special Groups
101. Refusal of impressed labor
102. Prisoners' strike
103. Craft strike
104. Professional strike

Ordinary Industrial Strikes
105. Establishment strike
106. Industry strike
107. Sympathetic strike

Restricted Strikes
108. Detailed strike
109. Bumper strike
110. Slowdown strike
111. Working-to-rule strike
112. Reporting "sick" (sick-in)
113. Strike by resignation
114. Limited strike
115. Selective strike

Multi-Industry Strikes
116. Generalized strike
117. General strike

Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures
118. Hartal
119. Economic shutdown

THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

Rejection of Authority
120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
121. Refusal of public support
122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance

Citizens' Noncooperation with Government
123. Boycott of legislative bodies
124. Boycott of elections
125. Boycott of government employment and positions
126. Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
127. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
128. Boycott of government-supported organizations
129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
130. Removal of own signs and placemarks
131. Refusal to accept appointed officials
132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions

Citizens' Alternatives to Obedience
133. Reluctant and slow compliance
134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
135. Popular nonobedience
136. Disguised disobedience
137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
138. Sitdown
139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws

Action by Government Personnel
142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation
147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
148. Mutiny

Domestic Governmental Action
149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units

International Governmental Action
151. Changes in diplomatic and other representations
152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
154. Severance of diplomatic relations
155. Withdrawal from international organizations
156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
157. Expulsion from international organizations

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

Psychological Intervention
158. Self-exposure to the elements
159. The fast
a) Fast of moral pressure
b) Hunger strike
c) Satyagrahic fast
160. Reverse trial
161. Nonviolent harassment

Physical Intervention
162. Sit-in
163. Stand-in
164. Ride-in
165. Wade-in
166. Mill-in
167. Pray-in
168. Nonviolent raids
169. Nonviolent air raids
170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation

Social Intervention
174. Establishing new social patterns
175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in
178. Guerrilla theater
179. Alternative social institutions
180. Alternative communication system

Economic Intervention
181. Reverse strike
182. Stay-in strike
183. Nonviolent land seizure
184. Defiance of blockades
185. Politically motivated counterfeiting
186. Preclusive purchasing
187. Seizure of assets
188. Dumping
189. Selective patronage
190. Alternative markets
191. Alternative transportation systems
192. Alternative economic institutions

Political Intervention
193. Overloading of administrative systems
194. Disclosing identities of secret agents
195. Seeking imprisonment
196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government

On Politics…

Folks,

Heres' a little screed I got into over online conversation with a friend. We were talking about the most recent Foo involving our Supreme Court Justice, Silent Thomas, and his flagrant disregard for fairness in his judgement and actions. The Scalia mentioned, if you are not already aware, is the most staunchly "conservative" of our Supreme Court Justices. The closing remark is, of course, in reference to the tide of history currently tossing to and fro across North Africa, the Middle East and sloshing on shores across the globe.

S

Thomas and Scalia are identified as ideological buddies. But, Thomas often seems like Scalia's puppet, as he concurs almost to a note with Scalia's opinions, yet he offers none of his own and makes no comments from the bench.

I don't think Scalia is a nice man. I vehemently disagree with his interpretation of the American Constitution and his consequent decisions. Still, the guy has a titanic mind, he speaks out, and we know what we are dealing with in that cat.

Thomas, on the other hand, has small mind and never speaks up. You can see him on TV simply shaking hands with somebody at a function and know that his testicles are all bunched up, that he really would rather be evacuating his bowels, but hasn't been able to relieve himself in almost two decades… the last time that he had a movement, his entire spinal cord up to his brain stem came spilling out in a terrible mess. Since that sad day, he has only been held somewhat erect on the bench by an improvised infrastructure of tooth picks glued together with ear wax purchased from the perfumed hookers he seeks out on U Street in the dark hours before dawn. The broom stick up his rear, happily provided by his dour wife, accounts for his rather odd stride.

Now that was just good clean fun with words on the patriotic trampoline. It is good to have such a broad, bouncy place to play as that particular creep's hide. Thomas Paine would have had a fine time over coffee and brandy with Franklin, discussing how to dispatch such an idiot as Thomas. They may have simply invited him to the nearest bordello and left the ladies to rob him blind and then send him out to the muddy street naked. There he would plead to passers-by that he was an important man, before being taken by the constables to be shipped to North Carolina after a few night's in the stockade.

We will never, nobody anywhere in the world, will ever be free of petty tyrants and sick little bastards. But, we are seeing, right here, right now and today, that folks do not have to keep their mouths shut. We can talk to our neighbors. We don't have to be rude. We must consider the opinions that we differ with. Then we reasonably argue. Satire dealt with good humor seems to help in that endeavor. I'll bet on both parts of that deal.

The Water of Love…

Folks,

I was just reading a story that included an observation by an old Hopi. The Hopi are Native Americans who have lived in the arid desert highs of Arizona for about six hundred years, having hightailed it up to the promontory to escape the crazy Spaniards looking for gold where there was none. The name Hopi means "The Peaceful Ones". They seem to have gained some wisdom in looking down on the activities of the Whites who took their land, the land where water was easier to find, and it was not so hard to farm and hunt.

Anyhow, this old man, he says, this is back in the late '60s; "You Whites. All your songs are about love. Most of our songs, Hopi songs, are about water. Water is hard to find for us here. Is Love hard for your people to find?"

Click the links below, if you're curious to know more about these Peaceful Ones, their observations, and their visions… or if you just want to take a break for a really fine old song by a bunch of white kids who came along at the right time in our History.

S

The View From A Hopi Home

 Help from Our Friends

After the Fun & Games

Folks,

More thoughts are flowing on Human/Computer interactions as things like neural prosthesis and gizmos like IBM's Watson actually do seem to be truly intelligent to our species.

When do we get to the point that a Human asks himself when it is okay to hit the OFF button on a machine… and the machine tells that person that it would be wrong, that it is aware of what is about to happen to it? We haven't even gotten to that point, many of us, in our treatment of our own. We needn't look to history. We have see it on this morning's news.

IBM's Watson's answering questions placed in puns on a TV quiz show is pretty cool, but we are a long way from perfecting our own morality, let alone "programming" such rules into computers. Yet, we are not far away from creating devices that detect and respond to and mimic Human emotions. Watson is perhaps the great grandfather of such mechanical critters.

Things are going to get very weird, perhaps even wonderful, if we Humans clear a few hurdles that are not really technical.

S

After the Fun & Games

From Mars. With Love…

Folks,

We see all sorts of patterns in nature, terrestrial and beyond. Our Human minds are pattern recognition engines built to see shadows moving in the woods, and to know whether they are just leaves falling, not the spots on a hungry Tiger. We see angels and bunny rabbits in the clouds, and gods dancing in the stars, faces and pyramids on Mars, humanoid skulls in the meteorite battered rocks within a shadowed crater on the Moon. We see our dreams and fears everywhere we look.

Now, here's a good one, appropriate for this day descended from a licentious Bacchanal long ago by the folks that brought us in the north west hemisphere of Terra the names and forms of those gods and critters we see above. Those cat's would no doubt get a kick out of actually seeing the heart of their God of War.

S

From Mars with Love on Valentines Day

Folks,

I just watched Cornel West on Bill Maher's "Real Time". The show was altogether fine and dandy, but that West fellow, crazy ass brilliant hope fiend professor that he is… well, he was just right on top the situation, speaking to the moment that we all live in with a clever tongue and agile mind. The guy lays down fire in extemporaneous rhetoric like Coltrane wailed on his horn. Brilliant!

Start with the Wiki links above, and proceed deeper into this guy's mind and work. Learn. He's a good man to have on The Team.

S

Our Obligations as World Citizens?

Folks,


The following is an excellent commentary that poses a profound question as to our obligations and capacities to be Human and humane in a networked world.


S

Are We Ready To Watch Over The World?