The Resistance Languages

I have a general theme that I began in my last two posts, but this week I feel the need to digress a bit.  In my recent writings I have covered the various categories of nonviolent resistance tactics as outlined by Dr. Gene Sharp.  These include the categories of protest and persuasion, noncooperation and nonviolent intervention.  Nonviolent protest and persuasion is usually the weakest of the three categories of resistance, with the other two categories being much more powerful when skillfully executed.  However, sometimes one comes across methods and tactics which are able to skillfully and effectively express all three categories of resistance.

I'd like to present two such methods in this post.  The hostility of the Trump regime to nonwhite peoples and cultures is very well-known.  Trump represents the naked id of a certain fascist, supremacist element of the Global North.  This element is characterized by a desire to destroy all other cultures and their peoples.  This element feels intolerably threatened by the existence or close proximity of people with dark skin who speak a language other than English (or Russian or German or French if you happen to live in those countries).   Unfortunately, all three branches of the U.S. Federal Government are now controlled by members of this fascist element, who also control many of the largest corporations in the world.

So...what if those in the U.S. who are part of the resistance to this regime decided to learn some of the languages of the oppressed?  What if they decided to use these languages as their main way of talking with each other?  What if the resistance began to learn some of the cultures of the oppressed and to deliberately adopt these cultures?  What if, for instance, those in the U.S. who oppose the Trump regime learned Spanish, or Arabic, or Vietnamese, or Hindi, or Korean, or Chinese, or Swahili?  What if they began to talk publicly to each other in one of these languages instead of English?  What if they used one of these languages instead of English when writing emails, memos, and letters (o entradas de blog)?  What if, for instance, researchers and academics at universities and labs started writing technical articles primarily in Spanish or Swahili?  That's not nearly as far-fetched as it sounds.  Spanish is very well suited for technical writing.  (In fact, the Latin American School of Medicine, which trains some of the best primary care physicians in the world, does all of its teaching in Spanish.)  And for the last four decades, the use of Swahili for technical and academic writing has been growing.  (See this and this also.)  The same things can be said of the other languages I have listed.

Imagine how well such actions would serve as a means of both nonviolent protest, social (and potentially economic) noncooperation, and nonviolent intervention!  For one thing, if you and your friends started speaking and writing in one or more of the languages of the oppressed, you would annoy the living daylights out of any bystanders who happened to be bigots.  For another thing, if anyone wanted to join in the conversation, he or she would have to have the humility needed to learn another language - thus also learning to see the world from another point of view.  Seeing things from new points of view is frequently very good for people.  A third benefit is that you would drastically increase the costs which the State would have to pay in order to do surveillance on you.  A fourth benefit is that you would make a whole new set of friends - people now demonized by right-wing media would suddenly become more human in your eyes by your learning to speak their language, as the social distance between you and them was reduced and you began to see them as they truly are.  Lastly, by speaking and thinking in one of the languages of the oppressed, you would be declaring your withdrawal from the dominant oppressive culture and your intention to be part of an alternative to that culture.  Who wants to learn with me?

There is something else resisters can do as well.  The Trump regime has been breathing fire about deporting massive numbers of Hispanics from the U.S., and of drastically expanding the grounds for deportation.  Many of the targets of his deportations have been adults with small children or spouses who are American citizens.  At this time, we can reach out to the families who have been bereaved of one or both parents by deportation - by providing food, care (including foster care) and other material resources to them.  And when they are sent to deportation hearings, we can volunteer to walk with them, to go with them to their hearings, to document what is done during those hearings, and to report it to the world.  This too achieves more than one resistance goal, as it is both a method of nonviolent protest and a method of nonviolent intervention.

Over the next few months, I will begin writing about some technical, volunteer-based initiatives that I am organizing in my community to help people who are currently without help.  I will be describing in technical terms some of the approaches we are trying, and documenting the results.  When I publish these posts, I will try to publish them first in one of the languages of the oppressed.  (I know people who can translate for me.)  A few days after publishing each of these posts, I will also post an English version.  Mira este espacio.

The Road Between Before And After

Most people in America have been exposed to Before and After ads - ads designed to make you dissatisfied with the "You" of the present moment.  These ads usually contain Before and After pictures - the "You" before your desired change, before you send away money to get the thing (exercise equipment, exercise plan, financial advice book, space in an addiction treatment center, prayer cloth, etc.) that will transport you effortlessly from Before to After; and the "You" all glamorous and happy after your "change."  But there's one small catch.  Because most of these Before and After solutions don't force you to  fundamentally change yourself, your stay in the land of After is usually short.  It doesn't take long before you wind up back in "Before."

The lesson in this example is that a permanent relocation from Before to After requires a personal change - often a deep and permanent change - in the way you live your life.  Usually that change is costly.  So is the change of an oppressed people from a condition of oppression to a condition of freedom, the change of a dictatorially run society to a society free of oppression.  That change requires some necessary first steps, such as:

• Strengthening oneself and one's people to be self-reliant
• Creating your own, personally owned alternatives to the oppressive system that is destroying you
• Withdrawing your support from the oppressive system by ceasing to rely on it

These steps are exactly the same sort of steps that a battered woman must take to free herself of her batterer.  For as long as she relies on him in any way, she makes herself vulnerable to further battering.  As the steps listed above constitute the necessary first steps of "going No Contact" with an abusive intimate partner, they are also the necessary first steps an oppressed people must take in destroying the hold exercised over them by a dictatorial government.  To quote Gene Sharp:

"Under the dictatorship the population and civil institutions of the society have been too weak, and the government too strong. Without a change in this imbalance, a new set of rulers can, if they wish, be just as dictatorial as the old ones."  

And,

"Dictatorships usually exist primarily because of the internal power distribution in the home country. The population and society are too weak to cause the dictatorship serious problems, wealth and power are concentrated in too few hands. [Emphasis added.]  Although dictatorships may benefit from or be somewhat weakened by international actions, their continuation is dependent primarily on internal factors."

That second quote accurately describes what has happened, not only in the United States, but throughout the developed world.  Those who have power over the global industrial economy revised the rules of predatory capitalism to such an extent that they were able to concentrate an overwhelming percentage of that economy's wealth wealth in too few hands.  Then they started buying governments and began changing those governments into tools for lining their own pockets even further.  And they bought most of the world's media and turned it into a pulpit for preaching the propaganda that the government as a guardian and promoter of the common good was an evil thing.  The results of this include such things as the Citizens United verdict by the Supreme Court, which was the last step in turning the United States from a "one person, one vote" society into a "one dollar, one vote" society.  The results also include the presidency of Donald Trump.

What then does it look like for ordinary people to start the first steps of breaking free from a dictatorship?  Let's examine each of these steps in turn.

Strengthening yourself and your people to be self-reliant first requires the willingness to look long and hard at your situation.  It requires the willingness to do a thorough strategic assessment of your situation and the threats that you face.  You must put as much effort into this assessment as a wise general would put into the assessment of battlefield conditions before he send his troops into the fight.  Then you must have the willingness to make yourself as smart and as capable as possible in order to deal with the challenges you face.  The future does not belong to the stupid!  You've got to hit the books and learn such things as math, basic sciences (including biology), principles of engineering, and techniques of crafts and skilled labor.  You must also learn the history, strategies and tactics of nonviolent struggle - a method of struggle which is both much more complex than armed warfare and much more effective when skillfully executed.  Even the great Chinese general Sun Tzu recognized the value of being able to win without fighting.

Part of your initial assessment of your situation should consist of figuring out how much of the oppressive system you can do without, and learning to need as little as possible from that system.  Then you will be able to create alternatives to that system that are within the means of yourself and your people.  If you now believe you need as much bling as your money can buy, you may want to re-think that.  Do you really have to drive everywhere by yourself?  Do you really need a big-screen TV that can play movies and be turned into a gaming console?  Do you really have to eat out all the time?  Would it not be more sensible, rather, to live as frugally as possible so you can pay down your debts as fast as possible?

Having strengthened yourself and your people thus, you are now prepared to create your own, personally owned alternatives to the oppressive system that is destroying you.  Here I must warn you that those alternatives will require more personal time and work from you than the current system seems to require.  And they will require you to physically work with other human beings.  But they will cost you less in actual terms.  One of the attractive parts of the current system is that it is so convenient to use, and you can use it without having to interact with other people.  Indeed, one of the ways the current system induces you to depend on it is by making you addicted to "convenience."  But what if, say, instead of driving everywhere by yourself, you took public transit? Or, say that you lived in a place which did not have a good public transit system or was not easily walkable, and yet you made friends with your neighbors so that you could carpool and combine errands that required driving?  Or, say, instead of driving several miles to take your kids to basketball camp, you started a basketball league in your own neighborhood?

And these things are but baby steps compared to some of the things you could do - especially if you were willing to rub shoulders with neighbors and with people you would not normally associate with, if you were willing to reduce the atomization and social distance that separates you from your fellow humans.  (I saw a good example of social distance and atomization recently - a sign next to the front door of a not-quite-McMansion which read,

"DO NOT KNOCK OR RING DOORBELL UNLESS -

YOU HAVE  BEEN INVITED,

YOU ARE JESUS RETURNING

OR YOU HAVE A WARRANT.

DO NOT DISTURB!"

Nice neighbor, eh?!  I wonder if he's ever threatened to shoot anybody.)

Creating alternative systems which reduce social distance between diverse participants is one of the required steps in building a successful movement of nonviolent struggle.

By taking the first two steps, you are automatically taking the third step, which is withdrawing your support from the current system by ceasing to rely on it.  What might this look like?  Maybe like a group of neighbors, each of whose households has devised a strategy for living on $1000 a month or less, who rely on each other to meet as many of their collective needs as possible without relying on money, and who decide that they like such an arrangement so much that they are willing to live this way for the long haul.  (And there are a number of resources available, both on line and in many communities, for people who want to learn to live cheaply.  But be warned - cheap living will require a permanent attitude adjustment.) Groups of such people who had extra funds left over each month would be in an ideal position to help groups of people who are struggling, thus strengthening the resilience of their entire community.  They would also be in an ideal position to to begin applying what Gene Sharp calls the methods of nonviolent noncooperation and nonviolent intervention - methods which are much more powerful than nonviolent protest in waging nonviolent struggle.

The Power of Decentralized Resistance

I've been enjoying listening to some talks by Jamila Raqib, who is Executive Director of the Albert Einstein Institution and a Research Affiliate of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  In one of those talks she made a point about the nonviolent struggle waged in the American colonies for over ten years which granted de facto independence to many of these colonies months before the start of the Revolutionary War.  Her words got me thinking (and Googling) for more information.

In my search, I ran across a book (which, I must admit, I haven't read yet) called The First American Revolution - Before Lexington and Concord, by Ray Raphael.  In reading various summaries and reviews of the book, I came across some surprising information about the decentralized, grassroots nature of the vast majority of the resistance in Massachusetts to British rule.  No matter what one thinks of the aims of the revolution itself, one can't help but appreciate the wealth of information captured by recent historians about the ordinary acts of social and political disconnection by ordinary citizens which weakened and eventually destroyed de facto British rule throughout many of the colonies.

According to one source, the points made by Raphael concerning the revolution in Massachusetts are these:

• The revolution was strongly democratic, and therefore highly decentralized.
• Because the revolution was decentralized, it was ubiquitous (in other words, it sprang up everywhere, "taking place everywhere and at once without any central organization, specific times or geographical locations.").
• Many of the revolutionaries were people who had had their voting rights taken away by the British.  Hence, the strong commitment on the part of these revolutionaries to participatory direct democracy among themselves at the local level. 
• The revolution occurred without bloodshed.
• Because the revolution was decentralized and ubiquitous, it was extremely hard for centralized British authorities to counter, or even to understand.  

To the British governor and his superiors, it must have seemed as if they were being eaten by a school of piranhas - a diffuse resistance which was highly effective in drawing economic and political (but not physical) blood, yet which presented no easy target against which the British could concentrate their forces.

This presents an important lesson in the power of everyday resistance.  A grand strategy of resistance is very important, and a wise and well-executed strategy by a wise leadership insures the success of a resistance movement.  Yet ordinary everyday resistance is also very important, even though acts of everyday resistance are not likely to make it into the news or the history books.  Such everyday resistance was used by the Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles East Germans, Hungarians and Czechs in their struggle against Russian Soviet occupiers in the latter half of the 20th Century.  (See this for instance.)  Such everyday resistance is also part of a manual for civilian-based defense published by the Lithuanian government in 2015 and designed to help Lithuanians foil any future Russian attempts to invade their country, whether that threat comes directly or through "hybrid warfare."

There is just one cautionary point I want to make about everyday resistance, as it is defined and has been studied by political scientist James Scott.  His catalogue of acts of everyday resistance includes acts that most societies would consider criminal, such as arson, sabotage and theft.  I don't think these acts should be part of the toolbox of tactics of nonviolent resistance.  The reason why I would exclude such acts is that criminal acts - even if they are nonviolent - weaken the mechanisms by which nonviolent resistance removes the pillars of support of a dictatorship, in much the same way that violence weakens nonviolent resistance.  Those who engage in such criminal acts give the oppressor an excuse for his oppression.  Instead, nonviolent resisters should be guided by the following principle: "...let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil doer..." - 1 Peter 4:15.

That still leaves many very legitimate acts of everyday resistance that can be employed.  (See this and this, for example.)  Using your imagination and creativity can be a lot of fun here.  In a future post I will describe an an idea that recently came to me for just such an act of everyday resistance.  Let's explore how to take bites out of the Trump regime, shall we?

Of Sympathy And Negotiations

This last week has been less than kind to the junta which now holds the reins of the U.S. presidency.  Things have been particularly hard on the figurehead and namesake of that junta, a certain Mr. Donald Trump.  After losing his bid to exclude travelers from seven Muslim countries, his administration was embarrassed by news reports that revealed that Michael Flynn, the National Security Advisor, had tried to cut a deal with Russia before the election to remove U.S. sanctions against Russia under a Trump administration - and that Trump knew about this weeks before he took office.  As a result, the Trump team ditched Flynn and Trump had to defend himself in a Thursday press conference in which Trump's answers and comments sank to the level of word salad.  That press conference also induced Mr. Trump's first pick for a replacement national security advisor to decline the job.

One interesting thing came out of that conference, however, namely an offer by Mr. Trump to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus.  This coincided with the release of issues of some of the glitzier gossip magazines sold at the checkout counters of supermarkets across America - magazines which sought to induce sympathy on behalf of Melania Trump (and by extension, on behalf of the Donald himself) in the hearts of many of us who buy groceries.

My problem is, I find that I keep having sympathy for the many people from Arab and Muslim countries who are in the U.S. legally and who were terrorized by Mr. Trump's abortive travel ban a couple of weeks ago.  I keep feeling sympathy for Elizabeth Warren.  I keep having sympathy for the many Hispanics who have been arrested by the ICE over the last several days, and who are now threatened with deportation.  I keep having sympathy for the members of the U.S. Congressional Hispanic Caucus who this week were ordered away from a meeting with the ICE chief by the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  My sympathies are also for everyone of Hispanic descent who lives in the U.S., for they are all potentially threatened by a proposal entertained by the Trump administration to use 100,000 National Guard troops in eleven states to round up supposed "illegals."  (Do not think for a moment that they would limit themselves solely to deporting those who could be proven by due process to be in the United States illegally.  Mass deportations have occurred at other times in U.S. history, and have targeted many legal citizens as well as illegal residents.) My sympathies are for the refugees and asylum seekers who can no longer find a place of refuge in the nation of Franklin Graham.  But for the Trump junta, I have no more sympathy than I would have for Scarlett O'Hara.  And that's quite a bit less sympathy than I would have for a pile of used toilet paper.  You feel me?!

Trump's offer to "reach out" to the Congressional Black Caucus may by an attempt to gain some positive PR from supposed "negotiations."  But as far as negotiations go, I think there is a need for extremely clear thinking on the part of all decent people, as political theorist Gene Sharp once wrote.  Indeed, in his book From Dictatorship to Democracy, he makes some very wise comments on the dangers of negotiating with dictators:

"Democrats should be wary of the traps that may be deliberately built into a negotiation process by the dictators. The call for negotiations when basic issues of political liberties are involved may be an effort by the dictators to induce the democrats to surrender peacefully while the violence of the dictatorship continues. In those types of conflicts the only proper role of negotiations may occur at the end of a decisive struggle in which the power of the dictators has been effectively destroyed and they seek personal safe passage to an international airport."

 And there's this:

"Resistance, not negotiations, is essential for change in conflicts where fundamental issues are at stake. [Emphasis added.]  In nearly all cases, resistance must continue to drive dictators out of power. Success is most often  determined not by negotiating a settlement but through the wise use of the most appropriate and powerful means of resistance available. It is our contention, to be explored later in more detail, that political defiance, or nonviolent struggle, is the most powerful means available to those struggling for freedom."

We have seen that the Trump team is capable of attempting appeasement when backed into a corner, although the attempts are artless and very badly done.  Yet even well-done attempts at appeasement used by abusive persons to pacify their prey should almost always be rejected.  I have written at length of the insights that can be gleaned from viewing dysfunctional national governments through the lens of family and intimate partner dysfunctional relationships in which at least one of the parties has a personality disorder.  While others have also written along these lines, this way of thinking of national and global politics has become well known only in the last few years.  Yet, just as one can predict the behavior of a non-periodic mathematical function by modeling it as a Fourier series, one can also predict the behavior of a dictatorship toward its subjects by modeling it as an interaction between a physically abusive man and his wife or girlfriend.  The interaction goes in cycles - first, the honeymoon, then the buildup of tension, then the abuse, then the apology and honeymoon, and so on.  The cycle stops only when the woman manages to put an effective barrier between herself and her abuser - a barrier that prevents any further contact.

In the same way, those of us who are the intended targets of the Trump regime should wage what Dr. Erica Chenoweth calls a maximalist campaign against the regime.  (This is only fitting when opposing someone who himself wants to cause maximal hurt to others.)  The campaign should use nonviolent means to shatter the regime's pillars of support in order to disintegrate the regime.  That means not only Trump himself, but Mike Pence, Steve Bannon, and all the others in the legion of demons who have now possessed the American government.

The New Regime's Zero for Two

I've been more than a little grouchy this week.  I think it has to do with the regime that is currently infesting the U.S. Government (on account of which I have been avoiding reading the news, lest I read something that might make my grouchiness worse).  But today I read something that put a long-absent smile on my face.  What I read also confirmed certain hunches that I've been harboring concerning the short-term future of the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world.

The first thing I read is that Trump seems for now to have lost his bid to ban refugees from seven Muslim countries from entering the United States.  It's more than a little amusing to see him belch forth his frustration over that loss.  (May he choke on it.)  In covering this story, several journalists have also shed light on the incoherent character of Trump's administration to date.  (I mean incoherent as in, a bunch of psychotic people who forgot to take their meds.)  I think it's safe to say that what normal people would correctly regard as a teaching moment will be utterly lost on Trump and the regime he represents.

Which leads me to the second thing I read, namely, that on at least two key foreign policy issues, Trump has been forced back into compliance with treaties and diplomatic approaches adopted by earlier U.S. presidents - namely, the treaty between the United States and Iran negotiated under President Barack Obama, and the "one-China policy" negotiated between the United States and China under President Richard Nixon.  This happened after Trump's bombastic promises to bully China and Iran by American military force.  I think what has happened is that Mr. Trump has been forced to realize the following:

1. America is in no position to carry through on its threats to bully China or Iran - militarily or otherwise.
2. Should Trump actually try to follow through on his threats, he will find that Iran and China can inflict catastrophic losses on any American forces that attack them.  Even Iran is in fact unconquerable.
3. Threats against China may well cause that nation to administer a righteous thrashing to the U.S., a thrashing that need not require the firing of even a single physical weapon.  For China is one of the world's three biggest creditor nations, and the United States is China's biggest debtor.  Although Japan holds more U.S. debt than China, a trade war (or any other kind of war) with China could still yield disastrous consequences for the U.S.  Can anyone say "currency crash"?

I think the future of American domestic and foreign policy therefore lies in another direction.  Trump has been set up as a convenient point person to lead his regime in that direction, as well as being set up as a convenient scapegoat to be blamed when that direction turns out to lead to disaster.  So it is important to recognize that the current deranged direction of the United States is not the fault of Trump alone, but rather, in the words of Professor Dennis Etler (cited in the link in the third paragraph of this post), "It should be clear to one and all that Trump is not a free agent. He is, in reality, a front man for a faction within the US deep state and ruling elite that wants to impose an extreme right-wing agenda domestically and a balance of power regime geopolitically. This is seen by his handlers as the only way to maintain US imperialist rule both at home and abroad..."  (One note on the quote from Etler: In addition to the so-called American "deep state," we must not ignore the role played by the global far right and especially by Russian President Vladimir Putin in helping to install Trump in power.)

Therefore, having threatened both China and Iran, and having been told unequivocally by both of these nations to quit that mess, he and the regime he represents will search for easier prey to terrorize.  This is why I think that despite his recent legal loss regarding his travel ban, he will most definitely try again to impose such a ban.  It is also why I think he is serious about renegotiating NAFTA - because he thinks that by doing so, he can terrorize Mexico.  However, what he has succeeded in doing is to motivate Mexico and China to forge deeper trade ties, while threatening revenues of American farmers.  (By the way, his abortive travel ban cost U.S. airlines $185 million while it lasted.)

In other words, the actions of the current regime in charge of the U.S. are causing nations far and near to begin in earnest the process of "going No Contact" with the U.S.  You see, No Contact can be done even when it is employed against a national government.  And it imposes costs.  Those who supported Trump as some sort of "anti-globalist" were disingenuous in not discussing those costs, as they were also dishonest in their reasons for hating globalism.  What they would have liked is the sort of situation which British Prime Minister Theresa May is trying to negotiate in the aftermath of the Brexit - namely, a situation in which a nation that has exhausted its own resource base, and therefore its ability to earn things by manufacturing, is able by gunboat diplomacy or by providing "financial services" to continue receiving something for nothing from other nations while excluding the citizens of other nations from entering its borders.  What such people will find is that they cannot create such a situation - either in Britain or in the United States.

As for those of us who live in the U.S. and who are potential or actual targets of oppression due to skin color, language, religion or national origin, we too can go No Contact with an oppressive regime.  In fact, going No Contact is the necessary first step in a campaign of nonviolent resistance whose purpose is to impose the kinds of costs that bring down a dictatorship.  In future posts I will have more to say on this process, as well as the factors which led to economic globalism as it now exists.

What Happened During the November Recounts - An Interview with Rick Lass of the Green Party USA

This week I am pleased to be able to present an audio recording of an interview I conducted with Rick Lass, who was the ballot access coordinator for the Presidential campaign of Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, and was an instrumental member of the team which assisted Ms. Stein in attempting to obtain ballot recounts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin after the U.S. Presidential election this last November.  For the last several weeks I have been curious as to the experiences and obstacles encountered by the Green Party recount team, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have that curiosity answered in some measure.  I hope you who read will also find the interview to be helpful and informative.

To listen to the interview, click here.

In the interview, I ask the following questions:

1. What led the campaign of Jill Stein to push for recounts?  (The original question was, "What led the Green Party to push for recounts?"  Rick corrected me and informed me that it was actually the Jill Stein campaign that pushed for the recounts.)
2. You did recounts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.  Were there any other states where you considered doing a recount?  If not, why not?
3. Are there states that refuse or that are - "unenthusiastic" - about a robust audit process?
4. What was your experience of the recount process?
5. What efforts did you encounter to hinder or thwart or derail the recounts?  If you did encounter such efforts, please tell us what they were.
6. Can the official results of the recounts be considered valid?  Why or why not?
7. What functional or structural barriers do you now see to free and fair elections and to the democratic process at this time?
8. Do you still believe that the political process in the United States is viable enough for people to pursue the management of their affairs by political means (i.e., by voting, by belonging to political parties, and by participating in the American political process as it now is)?
9. Regarding activism, are you familiar with scholars and practitioners of nonviolent civil resistance, such as Gene Sharp, Jack DuVall, Professor Erica Chenoweth, and others?

The Role of Women In The Nonviolent Struggle

I feel the need to revisit some comments I made in my last post, and some points I have made several times in my posts on nonviolent resistance to the Trump presidency.  It bears repeating that civil resistance campaigns against an oppressive regime have a much higher chance of success than violent campaigns.  One main reason for this is that an oppressive state has a monopoly on the use of violence, and is much better prepared to use violence than any resisters who are not part of the state apparatus.  Waging a violent resistance campaign is fighting the state on its own terms, which means that the state usually wins.

But nonviolent struggle fights the state on a battlefield where it is weak - and oddly enough, the more oppressive the state, the weaker it is on the battlefield of nonviolent resistance.  There are four reasons for this which have been identified by Chenoweth and Stephan in their book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.  These reasons are:

• Much lower physical barriers.  Participation in nonviolent resistance does not require people to be elite wanna-be "Crossfitters".  Therefore, it is open to women of all ages, children, elderly men, and young men who are smart enough to avoid violence.
• Much lower informational barriers.  Those in violent struggles must keep most of their activities secret, whereas those in nonviolent struggles can be much more open - thus much more easily attracting others to join in the struggle.
• Much, much lower moral barriers.  A person who commits himself to participate in a violent struggle is basically making a commitment to kill people and break things.  Most people, myself included, think that such activities are immoral, and we are thus not likely to participate.  But the tactics of nonviolent struggle are not immoral; therefore, they don't require people to violate their consciences to participate.
• Much lower commitment barriers.  Once a person has involved himself in a violent campaign, he can never entirely return to his old way of life.  He may need to spend the rest of his days on the run, in hiding, living a life that is physically very difficult.  But those who participate in nonviolent campaigns can do so while leading lives that feel relatively normal.

Those whose struggle is entirely nonviolent are also more likely to separate the leaders of an oppressive regime from the pillars of support which it needs to survive.  Violent campaigns almost never achieve this separation.

In view of the above points, I want to comment on the protest marches which took place on Friday and Saturday.  The protests that took place on Friday were focused on opposing the inauguration of Donald Trump.  That is an admirable goal, and I entirely agree with the protesters.  However, the protesters are guilty of failing to plan and prepare adequately for their activities on Friday.  This allowed people who call themselves "anarchists" to infiltrate the protests and cause violence and property damage.   The actions of these "anarchists" almost certainly helped the Trump presidency by giving it a legitimate excuse for repressing future protests.  Their actions also caused revulsion and disgust even among populations who fear a Trump presidency, such as Christians who belong to immigrant churches.  It is quite possible that these "anarchists" were paid by the supporters of Donald Trump to cause trouble in order to de-legitimize the protests.  Allowing these people to infiltrate a peaceful protest was a bad tactical mistake.

The women's marches that took place yesterday, were, by contrast, entirely nonviolent.  They also attracted hundreds of thousands of participants.  The key to their success was the extensive preparation and teaching of nonviolent discipline which preceded the marches.  (See this and this also.)  To me, this shows that the women who organized and participated in these marches were wiser, more skillful, more strategically savvy and more level-headed than the marchers on Friday.  Certainly they were sharper and more on the ball than a bunch of hot-headed young male "anarchists."  Perhaps we should learn something from them.  And maybe they should be relied on to teach the rest of us the right way to do protest.

I am sure that more protests against Trump are planned.  I would just say two things.  First, any participants who resort to violence during any of the protests should be regarded as agents provocateurs, troublemakers hired by the supporters of Donald Trump in order to give him and the police an excuse for violent repression of protest.  Such people should be avoided like the plague.  Secondly, should it become impossible to conduct a mass protest without fear of infiltration by paid troublemakers, the nonviolent struggle should switch to tactics of dispersion, such as the strike, the boycott, and the stay-away.

One big target for a potential stay-away or boycott is the Super Bowl which will take place in two weeks.  What if, instead of watching - either in person, on TV in your home, or at a sports bar - you spent that time doing something more useful with your life?  Don't feed the beast that bites you.

The Nonviolent Resistance - A Grand Strategic Vision

I read today about the large number of protesters who rallied in many cities in the United States to show their opposition to Donald Trump. I am very glad to hear that the number of those participating in rallies and protests yesterday and today far exceeded the number of Trump fans who attended his inauguration.  But it is critical for those who oppose Trump to be able to formulate and present a vision of the future that stands as a viable alternative to the plans and policy of Mr. Trump.  Here I will propose such a vision.

The first element of such a vision is a realistic view of what is possible in the world that is now emerging.  That world is no longer a world in which one nation, or one segment of that nation, can command all the world's resources and rule all the other peoples of the world with an iron (or velvet) fist.

The second element of such a vision is a willingness on the part of the many to create a society that provides equal and effective access to life-sustaining resources for all its members, regardless of ethnicity, national origin or religion, by means of the following:

• Effective education (teaching its members how to think, how to understand and navigate the world in which they live)
• The best health care that its members can provide by pooling their resources for the common good
• The most equitable livelihood that its members can provide by pooling their resources for the common good
• The best use of housing and land that its members can provide by pooling their resources for the common good
• An equal say for each of its members in determining the shape and course of such a society
• The safety that arises from being insulated as much as possible from supremacist predators.

Such a society will necessarily be an alternative society, with parallel institutions, in that it is created by grassroots, bottom-up efforts which do not receive help from those now in power, and which thrive even when opposed by those in power.  The creation of such a society will manifest itself locally as a result of the efforts of the people who live in various localities.  The creation of such a society will also require hard work and serious study.  It will also take time.  Laziness, a hunger for quick fixes, or wishful thinking will not be helpful at all.  The organs of such a society must be open to everyone who wants to join in the effort to create such a society - even to those Trump supporters from among the poorer classes who become casualties and victims of a Trump presidency.  One thing is certain.  Trump will not create a healthy society for any except the wealthy and powerful.  His victims - even among those who supported him - will be many.

Those who are involved in creating alternatives to a Trump society must maintain nonviolent discipline in their struggle.  I am thinking of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict by Chenoweth and Stephan.  (I got my copy of that book on Thursday night, and have been reading it ever since.)  In the book, the authors document the negative effect that the presence of violence has on a civil resistance movement, and how violence by armed resistance wings or by government-sponsored agents provocateurs reduces the likelihood that the civil resistance movement will succeed.  It is thus regrettable that "anarchists" were able to infiltrate peaceful protests on the day of Trump's inauguration.  Those who organize protest marches should work as hard as possible to make sure that such people are excluded from future marches or rallies.  It is also necessary for the nonviolent struggle to combine tactics of concentration, such as rallies and protests, with tactics of dispersion, such as strikes, boycotts and stay-aways.  (On Friday I "stayed away" from work.  Instead, I spent the day reading and praying.  That was my form of protest.  And I did not watch the inauguration.)  Movements that rely on only one or a few tactics are easy to defeat.

The Opening Battle?

The opening moves in the battle of the next four years may have occurred on the 6th of this month.  A mass shooting occurred at the Fort Lauderdale airport, and at least five people died.  This time, the authorities did not shoot the alleged perpetrator, so he is actually alive to stand trial.  There are, however, some parts to the official story concerning this man which are rather, ah, convenient for the supporters of Donald Trump - such as the fact that the man - Esteban Santiago - was Hispanic, and that he allegedly heard voices telling him to fight for ISIS.  If one was looking for a handy sensational incident to help a mentally unbalanced President-Elect justify mass deportations or persecution of nonwhite and non-English speaking Americans, one would hope for something like this. (For a bit of context, here, here and here are links to mass shootings within the last few months that, while mentioned in local news, were not deemed worthy of national news coverage.)

Now I will try to refrain from using the phrase "false flag" in the remainder of this post.  But I'd like to propose a call to action.  I think it might be good to set up a legal defense fund for Esteban Santiago, and to push for the following things for him:

• A complete medical examination, including a psychiatric interview and examination for evidence of psychotropic substances which he may have taken or have been given (under duress or not) by others.  In order for the examination to be counted as valid, it would have to be given by a team of doctors chosen by the defense team.
• A defense team who is knowledgeable in both the tactics of the global far right and in the use of tactics developed by the state to force people to do things that they would not ordinarily do.  
• A public trial televised on C-SPAN so that any and all interested parties can verify that due process is served to Mr. Santiago, that we may see for ourselves whether or not he is in fact competent to stand trial, and we may be able to judge for ourselves whether or not he received a fair trial.

If any one or all of these demands were rejected, that would be grounds in my opinion for considering the charges against Mr. Santiago to be false.  Now don't get me wrong - I think the mass shooting was horrible, and the deaths that occurred are a terrible tragedy.  And I am hoping that the actual perpetrators are caught and brought to justice.  But I don't want this incident to be used in a crass and cynical way to advance the evil agenda of an evil segment of our society.  I like the truth to be told.  Those who also like truth should have no problem with my proposal.

Words of Light In Dark Times: An Interview with Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

I have a special treat for readers this week.  I am privileged to be able to present to you an audio interview which I conducted with Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, a Christian, theologian, and seminary professor who has applied systems thinking to the issues facing America and other First World societies, and to the response of the Christian Church to these present challenges. 

To access the interview, click here.  Then click on the speaker icon.

I have mentioned Dr. Rah in several previous posts.  Dr. Rah is the author of four published books: The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing The Church from Western Cultural Captivity, Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice In Troubled Times., and Return to Justice: Six Movements That Reignited Our Contemporary Evangelical Conscience.  He also has an additional book which is about to go to press, which he mentions toward the end of the interview.

In the interview we briefly cover the reality of the hard ecological and economic limits now being faced by the industrialized world.  Then we begin to ask how the United States and the Global North in general have responded to these limits, focusing particularly on the response of the mainstream American church to an age of limits.  We discuss the pathology that arises in people who have enjoyed unjust privileges for a long time, and how that pathology is triggered when those privileges begin to run out.  I also ask Dr. Rah what Scripture passages he has been referring to in order to understand these days.

From there we discuss how real Christians should pray in these days, and how to avoid being sidetracked by searching for easy, yet false answers in our prayers.

Lastly, we ask what real Christians should do in these days.  And we briefly discuss the role of nonviolent struggle in our response.

About the audio: you will also get to witness (or more accurately, hear) my rather thumb-fingered approach to audio technology.  So you will hear that the audio actually begins in the middle of my introduction to Dr. Rah, and the presentation of my first question to him.  I tried fixing this by recording a new introduction, then I tried downloading some free and open source audio editing software to splice the new intro onto the main body of the interview.  After a rather long bit of frustration, I became convinced that I did well to avoid a career in TV or radio!  However, I can type (most of the time).  So I will give you the text of my first question, so that you may have a more complete picture of the interview.  Here is the text:

"These days are a time of confusion and distress for many people who had hoped that by the end of 2016, the people running things in our world might have moved in a more equitable direction than that which they have taken.  Many of us might be struggling to correctly understand these days, and may need help in our understanding, so that we can plot a right course of action.  In order to help us in our understanding, I am interviewing Dr. Rah, and will be asking him several questions under three general categories:

• How to Look At These Days
• How to Pray In These Days
• What To Do In These Days

"My first question is as follows: on an economic and ecological level, the industrialized world has begun to run into hard limits, as the resources needed to expand or even to maintain the global industrial economy have begun to dry up.  Individuals and societies can respond to this reality in many ways and on many levels.  How would you characterize the response of the United States so far?"

Equipment for Nonviolent Struggle

We have only seventeen days until the inauguration of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States.  As I have written previously, it appears that Mr. Trump won the Presidency in a rigged election in which there was significant voter suppression, and in which recount efforts in some battleground states were either blocked by the Trump team or were so severely compromised that they are unreliable.  Mr. Trump campaigned on a platform that was morally repugnant to a majority not only of Americans, but of people throughout the world - especially in the Global South.

Those of us who are the intended targets of his agenda would do well, therefore, to prepare to struggle for the basic human right to live our lives in peace without being scapegoated or molested by imperialists, or white supremacists, or the most powerful members of the Global North, or the wealthiest members of our societies, or even of the dupes of these powerful people, many of whom are poor and are likely to be hurt by the very policies they have been brainwashed into supporting.  As I have said before, in order for the struggle to have maximum effectiveness, it must be nonviolent.

But some will ask, "Can nonviolent resistance actually succeed in this struggle?  Is it really effective?"   To answer that, I will refer you to a few videos and some audio books that you can chew on.  The first is from Dr. Erica Chenoweth of the University of Denver, who defines nonviolent resistance as "...a form of active conflict where unarmed civilians use a variety of nonviolent tactics like strikes, boycotts, protests, stay-aways, demonstrations, and other things, to try to effect political change without using violence or threatening to use physical violence against the opponent."

One of the great strengths of nonviolent struggle is that it is able to recruit a much larger portion of a nation's population than violent conflict.  Chenoweth shows that if the level of participation rises to between two and five percent, the nonviolent movement has at least a 50 percent chance of succeeding.  If the participation level is at five percent or above, the nonviolent struggle becomes almost unstoppable.  When we consider that the official November election results state that only 25 percent of all people of voting age in America voted for Trump, and that even that figure may be overly optimistic, finding five percent of the population that does not want to be molested by a Trump presidency should not be very hard.

Here also is a video of a talk by Jamila Raqib, in which she gives a few humorous, yet highly effective examples of successful nonviolent struggle:

(Disclaimer: although I don't agree with everything in this video, I do agree with her main point concerning the effectiveness of nonviolent struggle.)

There are also audio recordings of two books by Gene Sharp, which were provided by the kind volunteer readers at the Librivox website.  The books are From Dictatorship to Democracy and There Are Realistic Alternatives.  These books are also available in PDF form from the Albert Einstein Institution.  Mr. Sharp constantly stresses the need for comprehensive strategic planning in preparing a nonviolent struggle.  He outlines the need to focus on four planning levels: grand strategy, strategy, tactics and methods.

I hope that these materials may guide fellow resisters in planning a varied, multilevel resistance effort that uses multiple tactics for maximum effect.  One caution regarding social media: Erica Chenoweth makes the point that social media is a great tool in the hands of oppressive regimes, but that resisters should beware of relying overly much on it.

Good luck in your preparations!

The Arrival of Name and Blackeneth

You should never argue with a crazy ma-ma-ma-ma-man,

You oughtta know by now…

– Billy Joel, Movin’ Out

“ ‘And so it was in those days,’ said Brother Reader:

“that the princes of Earth had hardened their hearts against the Law of the Lord, and of their pride there was no end. And each of them thought within himself that it was better for all to be destroyed than for the will of other princes to prevail over his. For the mighty of the Earth did contend among themselves for supreme power over all; by stealth, treachery and deceit they did seek to rule...”

– Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz, “Fiat Lux”

Donald Trump created a bit of a stir over the last few days with some tweets expressing his desire to expand and modernize the U.S. nuclear weapon arsenal. As his aides tried to downplay his words, he countered by offering additional words of “explanation” which increased the alarm of his hearers. Among the things he said are the following:

• He intends to “greatly” expand the number of warheads and delivery systems.
• He does not care whether this action provokes a renewed arms race between the United States and other nations. In his words, “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” And as his soon-to-be White House spokesman said, “I think it’s putting every nation on notice that the United States is going to reassert its position in the globe.”
• Some have recalled his earlier assertions that the United States should not necessarily prevent other nations from acquiring nuclear weapons, and that they should no longer expect to rely on the United States for protection from nuclear threats. (See this and this.)

While the Donald’s words contain plenty of cause for alarm, I have to say that I don’t necessarily view his words in the same way as some of the alarmed voices see them. For many of these voices are the voices of regretful players on the losing end of empire who have pointed to the stabilizing role the United States has played for several decades as the center of empire. Their lament that this stabilizing role is about to come to an end seem to me to be a veiled plea for that empire to continue, a veiled justification of that empire. But while it is quite true that the United States has played a pivotal role in nuclear non-proliferation, and while the work that has been done in that role has been unquestionably good, it is also true that the United States has made a lot of people suffer by reason of its imperialism. Most of those sufferers have been citizens of the “developing world,” a world kept in a continual state of brokenness in order that five percent of the world’s population might consume over 40 percent of the world’s resources. It won’t hurt my ego at all if someone else assumes the role of global leadership for a while – provided, of course, that the next leader is sane, rational and moral.

Trump is not sane, rational or moral. I agree with the alarmists that the Donald’s words are cause for great alarm – for the following reasons.

First, his intention to “greatly strengthen and expand [the U.S.] nuclear capability” would almost certainly be a direct repudiation of the second pillar of the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (or NPT) which was ratified in 1970, and to which the United States was one of the signatories. (It seems that Russia may already have repudiated the second pillar.) There is no doubt that the NPT has made the world safer by greatly reducing the risk of nuclear war. Yet even now, there are non-nuclear nations which have long-standing frustrations with the five major nuclear powers (the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France) because of the refusal of the major powers to adhere to the same standard of behavior to which they hold the non-nuclear nations. A decision by the United States to abandon disarmament in favor of increasing the total count of weapons would provide these other nations with ample justification for turning their own backs on the NPT.

Second, the tone of Mr. Trump’s nuke language, combined with many of his previous statements, shows his need to approach his interactions with other nations as the dominator with the biggest stick, rather than as a humble, genuine peacemaker seeking the greatest good for all. This is not likely to go over very well in the world at large, many of whose nations may soon come to feel themselves to be under existential threat because of the actions and attitudes of our incoming Narcissist-In-Chief. And when people feel that their very lives are threatened, they will be prepared to fight back. Maybe that’s why the Donald, who campaigned on an ostensibly isolationist platform, is nonetheless seeking to drastically expand U.S. military spending, and to eliminate budget caps on future military spending. The U.S. military budget is already bigger than the next fifteen largest national military budgets combined. If Trump really is a peacenik, why do we need more troops and hardware?

Third, the creation of a global political climate in which nations felt that they were not significant or were vulnerable to domination unless they each had nuclear weapons would produce the same results on an international level that the massive promotion of gun ownership has had in the United States. (See this also.) The U.S. is not safer as a result of massively increased gun ownership and concealed or open carry laws. Instead, we have found that certain kinds of hotheads gravitate toward gun ownership, and that the fact that these people have guns has greatly increased the chances that the guns will be used – and not for good purpose! How do you feel about having a world of nuclear-armed nations whose leaders say things like, “Why do we make [nukes] if we’re not going to use them?”, or, “You want to be unpredictable [in your potential use of nuclear weapons]”? (Quotes paraphrased from source cited in paragraph.)

Fourth, Mr. Trump has promised to build a “serious missile defense system” to protect the United States from nuclear threats. Perhaps he is hoping that the U.S. could hide itself behind such a system.  However, intercepting nuclear missiles is much harder than it has been made to seem by proponents of missile defense systems.  There are three stages in the flight of a ballistic nuclear missile where the missile could be intercepted by a defense system: boost, ballistic and reentry. But trying to intercept a missile during the reentry phase is, in many respects, waiting until it’s too late. And U.S. attempts to build systems that could intercept a missile during the boost and ballistic phases have uniformly failed. (See this, this, and this.) Is Trump promising to build a system that would actually and reliably work against a modern ICBM? Fuhgeddaboudit.

To me, Trump’s recent military statements can be taken in two ways. First, I think he will treat the United States – with all of its various peoples – as nothing more than a narcissistic extension of himself. Now that he has, by means of a rigged election, graduated to the biggest of the big leagues, he will try to display the biggest persona of them all. At present he receives a great deal of narcissistic supply from his association with Vladimir Putin, who has distinguished himself as another Big Man on a Big Stage. But I suspect that there is also in Trump a feeling of rivalry and envy in his association with Putin and with Russia – an envy with Freudian overtones. A buildup of the U.S. military may be one way by which Trump seeks to resolve that envy and prove to himself that he is the bigger man. Indeed, there are already signs of instability in the relationship between these two narcissists, as indicated in Trump’s response to the thoughts expressed toward him in a recent letter from Putin: “In response to Mr. Putin’s letter, Mr. Trump said that a failure by either side to ‘live up to these thoughts’ would require the United States to ‘travel an alternative path.’” I remember reading how last year, Mr. Putin publicly lectured the West concerning American intervention in the Mideast, pointedly asking, “Do you realize what you’ve done?” However, Mr. Putin’s solution to American imperialism has been to support the political ambitions of a man who is morally unfit to be the President of the United States. Therefore Putin’s “cure” will almost certainly be worse than the disease for which it was intended. A day may soon arrive in which other heads of state pointedly ask Putin, “Do you realize what you’ve done?”

(I used to have a great deal of respect for Putin and his version of Russia, but unfortunately, his mask has slipped. Even though many of his criticisms of the West have validity, I no longer view him as the doctor to be writing prescriptions for anything.)

The second way to look at Trump is to see that deliberately sowing consternation (and confusion) is part of his overall style. He seems to take great pride in being unpredictable. Indeed, he seems to see this unpredictability as a strength. Others don’t necessarily agree. (See this, this and this.) I also have a few thoughts on Mr. Trump and unpredictability, which I will disclose in a future post. In that post, we’ll be climbing back out onto the skinny branches again.

Aggressiveness, insecurity, unpredictability, and nukes – oh, my!

When The First Amendment Is Revoked

A troubling development has surfaced in the preparations being made by the Trump team to seize the White House which they "won" in a rigged election this past November.  It appears that the Trump team issued a list of 74 questions to Department of Energy personnel, asking them to identify which employees and contractors worked on climate change initiatives under President Obama.  Among the items in the questionnaire are the following:

• "Can you provide a list of all Department of Energy employees or contractors who have attended any Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon meetings?  Can you provide a list of when those meetings were and any materials distributed at those meetings, emails associated with those meetings, or materials created by Department employees or contractors in anticipation or as a result of those meetings?"
• "Can you provide a list of Department employees or contractors who attended any of the Conference of the Parties (under the UNFCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change)) in the last five years?"
• "Which programs within DOE are essential to meeting the goals of President Obama's Climate Action Plan?"
• "Can you provide a list of the top twenty salaried employees of the lab, with total remuneration and the portion funded by DOE?"
• "Can you provide a list of current professional society memberships of lab staff?"
• "Can you provide a list of all other positions currently held by lab staff, paid and unpaid, including faculties, boards, and consultancies?"

These questions are being asked by the transition team of a President-elect who has vowed to dismantle Obama's climate action policies and who has publicly said that "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."  It is therefore understandable that the scientists in the Department of Energy are looking at the questionnaire from the incoming Administration in the same way that a flock of chickens might look at a fox who is asking for each chicken's name and address.

However, the point of my post today is not to argue whether climate change is real, or whether, if real, it is being caused by human activity.  (On these two points, the science is indisputable.  As to the consequences we are now reaping, see this, this, and this for instance.)  My point is, rather, whether the scientists who are seeking to do objective, fact-based work at the DOE have good reason to be worried about what a hostile incoming Administration might try to do to them.  For it is well known that Donald Trump is a classic narcissist, and we can also be reasonably certain that most of his inner circle shares his disease.  One of the rules for survival in proximity to a narcissist is this: Don't ever disagree with him.  If you break that rule, be prepared for retaliation.  And if the narcissist not only controls your employment, but also knows all your professional associations and positions held outside of your regular employment, he can majorly ruin your chances of finding any kind of employment in your particular field.  There are many stories around just now of people whose careers were ruined by narcissists or bullies. 

So it will be interesting to see how dissenting scientists fare in the DOE under a Trump administration.  That will tell us how the Trump administration will respond to dissent in general.  Early reports are not encouraging, as seen here, here and here, for example.  I think that it is very likely that we will have to endure an extremely thin-skinned President who is determined to live in the narcissistic bubble of his own fantasy, a President who will explode in narcissistic rage at any fact, reality or person who dares to burst that bubble.  He will be Nixon on steroids.

And for that reason, I think it is prudent for those of us who will have to live under such a President to consider two of Gene Sharp's Methods of Nonviolent Action (from his book How Nonviolent Struggle Works), under the heading of Social Intervention: creating alternative social institutions, and creating alternative communication systems.  What is more, these alternative social institutions and alternative communication networks must be tough, survivable, and able to function even when they are denied access to the resources available to official institutions and communication networks.  It might be a very good idea to ask how you would form a network of people you can rely on when your power to form networks is being interdicted by the State.  It might be a good idea to ask how you can communicate with a wider audience or an audience spread over a wide geographic area when you can't use Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger, or any other electronic Web-based social media - either because access to these media is denied, or because dissenters who try to use them might wind up getting arrested.  Message in a bottle, anyone?

The Present The Grinch Gave Himself

The post-election "fallout" is getting interesting...First, may God bless Jill Stein for forcing the issue of Donald Trump's illegitimate election victory.  Unfortunately, there are not enough independent recount observers to guarantee a fair recount.  It appears from some reports that Donald Trump's supporters have succeeded in seriously gumming up the works in a number of recount efforts, and have succeeded in getting recounts halted in at least one state.  It also appears that both the CIA and FBI are reporting unmistakable evidence of Russian involvement in influencing the outcome of this election.  However, the Donald remains closed to any such evidence.  Therefore, he is about to enter his Presidency without a shred of any legitimacy in the hearts and minds of a majority of Americans.  That's skating on some thin ice, if you ask me.  Let's see how long he lasts before the ice cracks.

The Black Hole At The Imperial Center

Warning: This will be a blatantly spiritual post, so you can decide whether you are interested enough in that subject to keep reading.  I will begin with an analogy from astronomy.  Observations of stellar motion near galactic cores explain much about what holds galaxies together.  Scientists who have observed such cores have gleaned a great deal of information about a thing that can be observed only indirectly, namely, the super-massive black hole that lies at the heart of a typical galaxy.  Those observations have enabled them to estimate the probable mass of many black holes at galactic centers and the radius of their event horizons.

Here's a question: can observations of empire tell what lies at the center of earthly empires?

A clue came to me recently.  For the last several months I've been listening to audio recordings of the Bible that I downloaded from the LibriVox website.  For some reason, I found myself obsessively listening to various readings of the Book of Daniel for several days last month, and that led me to an effort to try to figure the book out.  I am not going to give you some grand exposition today, but I will comment on a couple of things that I noticed.

First, the main theme of Daniel seems to be summarized in Daniel 4:17 - that God Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He will, and sets up over it the lowest of men - and that one day, all earthly kingdoms and their kings will be superseded by a King from Heaven whose reign will be over all, and will never end.

But before that everlasting Kingdom comes, there will be one last earthly empire.  That empire will rule the earth for a time, and will be evil.  One interesting observation is the power and motivation behind that last empire, whose ruler will "do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers."  (Daniel 11:24)  In other words, he will be an exceptional conqueror having an extraordinary degree of cunning.  What will be the secret of his success?  This: "He will not regard the gods of his fathers, or the desire of women, or regard any god, for he will magnify himself above all.  But in his place he will honor a god of fortresses, a god whom his fathers did not know; with gold, silver and with precious stones and pleasant things.  He will deal with the strongest fortresses by the help of a a foreign god; he will give great honor to those who acknowledge him and will cause them to rule over the many, and will parcel out land for a price."  (Daniel 11:37-39, various translations)

To put it plainly, behind the empire of the final earthly king will be the worship of a "god of fortresses..."  In other words, the power and foundation of this empire will be from an occult source.  This is also indicated in Daniel 8:23-24, "And in the latter period of their kingdom, when the transgressors have finished, a king will arise strong of face and skilled in ambiguous speech (or intrigue, or enigmas).  And his power will be mighty, but not by his power (emphasis added), and he will destroy (or corrupt) to an extraordinary degree and prosper and perform his will; he will destroy (or corrupt) mighty men and the people of the saints.  And through his shrewdness he will cause deceit to succeed by his influence..."

Thinking of these passages led me to formulate a hypothetical question: what if the power and foundation of every earthly empire throughout history has come from an occult source?  This seems especially likely if the empire was an extraordinarily violent and successful conqueror, and/or a severe and cruel oppressor.  What if, moreover, every conspiracy to create an earthly empire has an occult inspiration?  Where would one look for evidence to confirm or contradict such a hypothesis?  Over the last few weeks, I have been looking at the last five hundred years of the history of the Global North (Europe, the Five Eyes, and Russia), and I came up with some very interesting findings.  I will divide those findings into "historical imperial examples" and "present-day conspiratorial examples."

Under the heading of "historical imperial examples" were some obvious cases, such as Nazi Germany under the reign of Hitler.  (See this, this, this, and this for instance.  However, the author of the last source cited seems to hint that occult fascinations merely colored, and did not cause, certain aspects of National Socialism.)  There is also the case of Italy under Benito Mussolini, whose reign was influenced to some degree by occultist Julius Evola, who was also virulently racist,  According to one source, his writings have had a major impact on the development of the global far right.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

There is also at least one questionable example, namely that of Napoleon Bonaparte of France.  The limited investigation I have done has turned up no hard link to the occult in Napoleon's empire.  However, he is an ambiguous character who proclaimed his allegiance to several religions in order to facilitate his rule over the diverse peoples he conquered.

But there is also an unexpected example, namely that of Elizabethan England, where the Queen had a court astrologer and advisor named John Dee who was also the inspiration and architect of the formation of the British Empire.  Throughout his adult life he had a strong and increasing fascination with the occult (which is one thing actually that led to his eventual ruin).  There is also the example of Cecil Rhodes, who, according to Carroll Quigley, was the mastermind behind attempts by certain wealthy British interests to reconquer some of the possessions lost by the British Empire.  According to Quigley, one of the institutions arising from the activities of Mr. Rhodes is the Society for Psychical Research (The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 32).

There is also the example of the United States, if one cares to take the time to find reputable and scholarly articles concerning the faith of the Founding Fathers.  (Hint: most of them were not fundamentalist Christians.  See this also.)  Note also the significant role played by secret societies in American history. (See this and this for instance.)  Lastly, consider the hidden agenda and esotericism of certain examples of American-made religion, such as Mormonism and Dominionism.  And there is the example of Federal funding for research into the use of psychic phenomena for military purposes!

Under the heading of "present-day conspiratorial examples", the biggest and most obvious case I found was Russia and its involvement with the burgeoning far-right, white supremacist movements now at work in the Global North.  Those who are intimately familiar with Russian culture know of the prominent role of the occult in pre-revolutionary Russia, as well as the Soviet research in attempts to use psychic phenomena for Soviet governmental objectives.  (See this, for instance.)  But what is even more interesting is the place of the occult in the resurgence of post-collapse Russian society and of post-collapse Russian geopolitical strategy.  Consider, for instance, Aleksandr Dugin, the chief architect of modern Russian geopolitical strategy.  Consider the occult roots of his political philosophy, and of Dugin's fascism.  (See this and this also.)  Dugin, it seems, wants to build a global empire centered on and run by Russia.  Indeed, he believes that Russia without empire would cease to exist.

And part of his strategy (a strategy we have seen implemented quite effectively over the last two years) involves the financing and political support of far-right groups in Europe and the United States.  (For an example of involvement in Europe, see this.)

I would also say that the widespread evidence of occult involvement in the global far-right groups today transcends any individual country.  It is truly an international phenomenon.  (See this, this and this for instance.)  There is evidence, moreover, that these far-right groups are actively creating a white supremacist youth culture.  (See this, this and this also.)

So then, based on my initial findings, I think I can state that the answer to my initial hypothetical question is most likely "Yes, the foundation of earthly empires and imperialist conspiracies is occult."  Therefore I submit that thus we who are members of those people groups who have been oppressed and exploited by the Global North for the last five centuries or so can begin to understand the power and motives behind the cruelty dealt to us by our oppressors.  And we can begin to estimate the future trajectory of our oppressors, as well as understanding how we should respond to the oppression dealt to us.

As a Christian, I boldly state that our response must not be to attempt to wield the same power now wielded against us by our oppressors!  For those who wield that kind of power run the risk of losing their souls "on singularly unfavorable terms" (to quote C.S. Lewis), regardless of the earthly results they achieve.  Rather, for the Christian, it is much more relevant that, "...for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we through Him."  (1 Corinthians 8:6)  And, "A glorious throne on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.  O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake Thee will be put to shame..." (Jeremiah 17:12-13). 

My assessment also agrees with the words of Soong-Chan Rah in his book Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice In Troubled Times, where he says, "American Christians operate under the delusion that success and power provide the answer to the world's problems.  In Scripture, we see that powers and principalities are not necessarily a positive expression.  Moses stands against the powers and principalities of his time.  The prophets boldly speak against the powers, including their own king.  Jesus rejects the temptation of secular power.  Ephesians 6 portrays powers and principalities as demonic forces.  Should we seek the same type of power that the world seeks?"

Some readers may be curious as to the results which can be expected from the seeking of occult power by the far-right supremacist groups I have cited.  Some may also be curious as to the timing of the final end of the trajectory of these supremacists.  I will not comment on such matters today.  (I think I have spent quite enough time behind a keyboard this weekend!  And some of you who read today may be thinking, "He's really climbed far out onto the skinny branches with this post!")  However, I will end with a sociological question.

The quest for empire is essentially a quest for power, and the bigger the imperial dream, the greater is the underlying thirst for power.  The empires of the 19th and 20th centuries enjoyed exponentially greater power than any empires that preceded them, thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the resources - particularly, energy resources - that supplied that revolution.  Now those resources are coming to an end, and their end signals a mortal threat to the narcissistic quest for imperial power by those who have long enjoyed the fruits of that power.  Could it be that the surging interest in the occult in the Global North - especially among the supremacist elements - signifies a desperate search for another kind of (blatantly evil) power?  And will the quest for that power intensify in the months ahead?