- Some of the protests have turned violent. This violence has included vandalism and property destruction. (NOTE TO ANY BONEHEADS WHO SAY THAT VANDALISM AND PROPERTY DESTRUCTION ARE NOT THE SAME AS VIOLENCE: VANDALISM IS VIOLENCE!)
- The violence of some of the protests has given the Trump administration and various law enforcement agencies ample justification for an overwhelmingly heavy police/military presence in Los Angeles.
- The violence of some of the protests has given the Trump administration and the major right-wing media outlets in this country a gold-plated opportunity to portray those who oppose Trump as lovers of chaos who want to bring chaos into America.
- I strongly suspect that at least some of the violent actors in the protests were and are agents provocateurs either paid by the Trump administration or inserted by various police and Homeland Security units in order to strengthen support for the Trump regime by discrediting the critics of Trump.
- The protests were ongoing throughout the entire month of June and into July of this year - EVEN THOUGH THE PROTESTORS COULD SEE THAT THE PROTESTS HAD BECOME VIOLENT AND EVEN THOUGH THE VIOLENCE INJECTED INTO THE PROTESTS WAS BEING USED BY RIGHT-WING MEDIA TO DISCREDIT THE PROTESTORS AND THEIR CAUSE.
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Brain Failure in L.A.
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Peter Ackerman's Accuracy
"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!
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Cassandra's Sore Throat
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Non-Starlink Alternatives to T-Mobile?
Saturday, March 1, 2025
Effective Cures Versus Social Placebos
- They reject all forms of violence. This includes sabotage and property destruction!
- They employ an entire suite of tactical tools, and don't rely on just one or two tactics.
- They are able to motivate large numbers of the oppressed to withdraw as much as possible from providing any economic or political support to an oppressive regime.
- They are thus able to impose serious, sustained, long-term economic and political costs on the oppressive regime.
Friday, June 30, 2023
A Modest Objection To "The Body Keeps The Score"
Sunday, January 29, 2023
How Decent People Should Respond To The Murder of Tyre Nichols
I wasn't planning to write another blog post this weekend. And I have grown to dislike regular exposure to the news. But the police murder of Tyre Nichols came to my attention within the last few hours. Tyre Nichols was an unarmed African-American man who was brutally beaten to death by the police in Memphis, Tennessee. Tennessee is a red state ruled by Republicans and I am sure that many of its citizens are white evangelicals who loudly proclaim the name of Jesus even though they have no intention of doing anything He actually commanded them.
The question that naturally arises after yet another White murder of unarmed Black people is how we who are people of color should respond. I wrote an extensive series of blog posts on that subject a little more than two years ago. Those posts can be found on the sidebar of this blog, under the headings, "From Dictatorship to Democracy" and "Resistance In The Age of Trump." These posts deal with the subject of strategic nonviolent resistance as a means of liberation of historically oppressed peoples. Let me summarize some key points from those posts as follows:
- Strategic nonviolent resistance is an effective means of liberation - especially when it is guided by wise strategy.
- Strategic nonviolent resistance does not consist of trying to convert the oppressor by appealing to the "better angels" of the oppressor.
- Strategic nonviolent resistance works best when an oppressed population withdraws its cooperation from a system of oppression in ways that impose coercive costs on that system and its masters.
- The best kind of coercive costs which an oppressed people can impose are economic costs. Think of things like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, for instance.
- A key component of effective strategic nonviolent resistance consists of the oppressed population building their own structures for individual and communal self-reliance. This way they will not need to rely on the structures of the oppressor.
- Effective resistance does not rely solely or even primarily on mass protest marches.
- Mass protest marches are not as effective now as they were in the past, because oppressors have learned how to discredit the protests by sending agents provocateurs into the marches to cause violence and vandalism.
- One of the main strengths of strategic nonviolent resistance is its nonviolent character. Therefore beware of any people (especially from the white community) who try to persuade you to mix violence (including vandalism or property damage) of any kind into your struggle. If you listen to them, you will give the oppressor a ready-made excuse to increase his oppression. That is why the oppressor sends such people to try to infiltrate your struggle. The oppressor will use any means to try to force your struggle to turn violent. If the oppressor can successfully tempt you to use violence or to destroy property, then he can justify using force to violently crush you. Maintain nonviolent discipline! If you maintain nonviolent discipline, then any violence which your oppressor inflicts on you will backfire on him instead.
- This means that you should probably not listen to anything said by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict from 2016 onward or to anything said by Erica Chenoweth from 2019 onward. These people used to give good advice up to 2016. After Trump entered the White House, the advice of the ICNC began to turn to garbage. (I wonder - was that change deliberate?) And in my opinion, Erica Chenoweth's recent book titled Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs To Know is a continuation of that garbage.
- Effective strategic nonviolent resistance requires people to develop the art of strategic thinking and of learning to work together in long-term projects of collective self-reliance. Start developing these skills.
Sunday, December 11, 2022
A Story That Illustrates: The Sea Goddess' Bloom
Sunday, January 9, 2022
Freire's Pedagogy: 1. On Becoming Fully Human
Sunday, December 26, 2021
The Adlerian Organizer
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Strategic NVR In Action: The Colorado Trucker Boycott
Sunday, December 12, 2021
The Urgent Need for Conscientização
- "Freedom In The World 2021: Democracy Under Siege", Freedom House
- "'An Urgent Matter': Biden Warns Democracy Is Under Threat At Summit", The Guardian
- "Democracy Slipping Away At Record Rate, Intergovernmental Body Warns", Reuters
- It should show the oppressed that the world is not just some static thing over which they have no control and to which they have no choice but to submit.
- It should enable the oppressed to see themselves and their relation to the world more accurately - not as mere objects acted upon by forces over which they have no control, but as people who have the power to act to change their reality.
- It should move the oppressed to begin acting on their reality, both as individuals and collectively, as a logical consequence of beginning to see themselves in the world more accurately.
- As part of this movement toward activity, it should lead the oppressed to more clearly see the present intolerable reality of their oppression. To quote Freire (who quotes Marx), "Hay que hacer al opresion real todavia mas opresiva anadiendo a aquella loa conciencia de la opresion haciendo la infamia todavia mas infamante, al pregonarla." ("It is necessary to make real oppression even more oppressive by adding to it the awareness of the oppression...")
Sunday, November 14, 2021
The Ride Of The Gray Cowboys
At the beginning of this year, as part of the work that pays bills, I found myself checking out a book on digital logic design. The book was intriguing because it made use of a piece of open-source digital circuit simulation software. (I always like reading about how to use free tools!) As I read the preface, I ran across a paragraph titled, "How to Acquire Intuition?" The paragraph explained why instilling mathematical rigor through proofs is a key part of instilling the mathematical intuition needed to understand digital logic circuits. As a criticism of the modern way in which many technical subjects are taught, the authors wrote the following sentence:
All we can say is that this strategy [that is, the non-proof strategy] is in complete disregard of the statement: "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk" [Tuco in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly].
Let me assure you that today's post is not about digital circuits! But I have to admit that the quote intrigued me for reasons that are completely non-technical. You see, I have never watched The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly - although I have known that this movie and other movies like it helped launch the big-name careers of some hitherto obscure actors, including Clint Eastwood. So I checked out a few YouTube clips from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and I pondered the career of Mr. Eastwood.
- Cowardice and nonviolent struggle do not mix
- Cowards seek to avoid the conflict and flee from danger, while the nonviolent resister faces the conflict and risks the dangers involved
- Bravery in this technique of struggle is not only moral valor but a practical requirement
- Civil resisters ought to have confidence in the justice and force of their cause, principles, and means of action (Emphasis added)