Peter Ackerman's Accuracy

Here's another short post that is a follow-on to the post I wrote yesterday.  My encounter with the protest march in Portland yesterday got me so agitated that I actually went back to watch a YouTube video that was made by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in 2013.  As long-time readers of my blog know, I believe the ICNC went seriously off the rails from 2017 to 2020, and that as a result they gave some advice that was seriously flawed, both morally, tactically, and strategically.  So in my posts from 2020 onward, I have scrupulously avoided referring to any materials or videos published by the ICNC.  However, I must admit that the materials they published and released up to 2016 are actually quite good.  Their Fletcher Summer Institute video series is a particular example of this.  Also, I've grown to strongly dislike YouTube for reasons which I have mentioned on this blog, yet to this day YouTube remains the best place to find videos of talks and lectures by people such as Srdja Popovic, Jamila Raqib, Marshall Ganz, Zeynep Tufekci, and other scholars of people power, community organizing, and strategic nonviolent resistance.  So to use an analogy, even though I hate the taste of cheese, because I'm hungry and there's nothing else to eat, I guess I'll have to eat this cheese sandwich...

Anyway, the video I am referring to is "FSI 2013: Why Skills Can Make Civil Resistance 'A Force More Powerful'" and it is a recording of a talk which was given by Peter Ackerman, who was one of the founders of the ICNC.  (By the way, Peter Ackerman passed away around three years ago.  I'm sorry to hear of his passing.)  In his talk he makes the point that the development of skills and wise strategy among the participants in a nonviolent liberation struggle is the key to winning the struggle.  He has some interesting things to say about the lack of effectiveness of mass protest marches when those protest marches are nothing more than an expression of collective outrage:

"Well..you know, again, we're always talking about probabilities. But a strategy to go to the street because you're angry - to let off steam - recognizing you probably have a finite amount of steam - that's probably a not good use of your steam.  [Sic] And I don't believe you should...even consider a tactic without understanding its strategic context.  Why would you just go out and do something without thinking it through?...Tactics are not a strategy. [Emphasis added.]  "What makes a tactic have a strategic context is the forethought that comes to it. [Emphasis added.] 

"And the military gets this...as some of you know, I have a son who was in the military and...as a combat officer before he went out on any activity he had to write a 40-page paper about what was the purpose, what were the risks, and on and on and on! We should submit ourselves to that same kind of discipline.  If you don't do it, you're gonna lose!"

To those who want to craft an effective resistance to the autocrats who have taken over their countries (as Trump and the Republican Party have done in the United States), I say the same thing.  Educate yourselves in the theory and practice of effective strategic nonviolent resistance.  Read some books - especially the books published by the Albert Einstein Institution.  Learn to craft an effective strategy of resistance, an effective theory of change.  If you don't do it, you're going to lose! 

The "Principled" Boneheads

Today I ran into some members and organizers of the protests against Israeli violence in Gaza.  I had known about the war between Israel and Hamas, and had heard of the extremely disproportionate response of Israel, but I had not been personally involved in any protest action.  And on a certain level, today was no different for me in that my contact with the protesters was entirely a chance encounter that came about because we just happened to be in the same place at the same time.  During my encounter I saw that the protesters had printed a bunch of flyers urging voters in the Democratic primary to write "Uncommitted" in the ballot choice for the Presidency of the United States.

Now I can quite understand public outrage among many people in the United States over Israel's actions in this present war.  I can also understand why many people would characterize those actions as attempted genocide.  The brunt of Israel's violence has fallen on poor Palestinian civilians, especially women and children, and Israel has caused many tens of thousands of casualties among these.  Let me say right now that although I am a Christian and I believe Israel is God's earthly people, I most emphatically do not believe that God has created Israel to be a special pet who gets to trash the other peoples of the earth.  There is no nation on earth that has a right to make itself great by oppressing the powerless.  Therefore to the extent that I can, I am committed to such things as researching the country of origin of the things that are offered to me for sale, so that I can boycott those products which are made by nations that oppress.  That includes boycotting Israel.

However, when protesters in this country begin to urge withdrawing support from the Democratic party as a means of pressuring the Biden administration to withdraw military aid from Israel, I am reminded of how Russian operatives and propaganda organs managed to weaken and depress the Democratic vote in 2014 and 2016 by promoting "principled" spokespersons who pointed out to us all the weaknesses of Barack Obama and of Hillary Clinton.  I am also reminded of how the candidacy of Bernie Sanders weakened the candidacy of Hillary Clinton in 2016.  (Although Hillary won the 2016 popular vote by 2.7 million, evidently this was not enough of a margin to prevent Donald Trump from capturing the White House.  Go figure!)  I am also reminded of how operatives from the Right used mouthpieces such as Umair Haque in 2020 to try to do the same thing to Biden.

Such things as this make me wonder what it is that some of the present protesters really want.  If they really want to put the powerless into a better position to resist the predations of the powerful, they should consider what will happen to the powerless in the United States in the event of a wave of Republican victories in the November elections.  Among the things we are all likely to receive from such victories are the following:

• The continued erosion of the rights of women and dark-skinned ethnic minorities in the United States
• The continued concentration of wealth and corruption among the richest Americans
• The continued impoverishment of the poor and the continued expansion of economic precarity in the United States
• The continued expansion of fascism and the continued development of an American police state
• The continued erosion of American democracy
• The continued expansion of Russian power (including the possible loss of Ukraine to Russia)
• Oh, and by the way: the Republicans will also continue to support Israeli militancy, in case no one noticed.

Given these possible outcomes, why are the antiwar protesters trying to tamper with the 2024 American elections?  I can think of only two possible reasons.  First, they may be incredibly stupid in their idealism.  It is far too easy to make an emotional, yet senseless response to an evil situation.  Then, when one's emotional response turns out to have evil consequences, the person who made the response can try to comfort himself by claiming that he is paying the price of martyrdom.  To such people I say, please go to school and enroll in a crash course in strategic thinking.  Then think of some other way to put irresistible pressure (including economic pressure) on the powers that be in this country to force them to withdraw military support for Israel without engaging in actions that endanger the 2024 U.S. elections.  Just to be clear: I am all for pressuring the powers that be to withdraw military support for Israel as long as Israel continues to attempt genocide against the Palestinian people.

But maybe the attempt to tamper with the 2024 elections is itself an example of fine strategic thinking - although the strategy in question has an actual aim that is very different from the aim which its creators claim they want to see.  In that case, maybe some of the antiwar protesters are themselves being disingenuous.