Link - All The Wiser Interview With Dawn Smith

For those readers who may still be involved in the toxic dump known as White American evangelicalism, I have a resource that may detoxify you.  Here is a link to an interview I just listened to.  The subject of the interview is a person I knew back in the day when I was involved in a toxic, abusive evangelical cult - a cult which made me for a while a toxic, abusive person until I learned to walk away.  The language in the interview is mostly family-friendly (except at the very end), and I agree with almost everything the interviewee says - especially her critique of White American evangelicalism.  As for me, as a person of color I will never join a White church again.

From D to D, Chapter 2: The Dangers of Negotiations

This post is the second installment of my "study guide" and commentary on Gene Sharp's book titled, From Dictatorship to Democracy.  For the sake of these posts, I will shorten the title to "From D to D."  Chapter 1 of Gene Sharp's book discusses the most common options to which people look when they find themselves living under a dictatorship.  Among these common options are resorting to violence in order to try to achieve liberation, hoping for liberation through military coups, hoping for liberation through elections, and hoping that foreign "saviors" will intervene to free the oppressed population from the dictator.  The point of Chapter 1 is to convince us of the inadequacy and risks of pursuing these options.

Chapter 2 explores another common option to which people resort when they find themselves suffering under dictatorship.  That option is to try to pursue negotiations with the dictator.  And here again Dr. Sharp seeks to cure us of romantic notions of what negotiations can actually accomplish in dealing with evil holders of concentrated wealth and power.

If you have read the chapter, you will note that Dr. Sharp does not say that negotiations are always useless.  Rather, he says that negotiations work best when one understands these things:

1. The magnitude and nature of the issues being negotiated, and
2. The relative balance of power between the negotiators.

And so we come back to the psychodynamics of the various sides in a conflict.  In some labor disputes in which a strike is deployed by workers, one side consists of greedy, money-grubbing slave drivers, and the other side consists of people who don't want to be worked like dogs for nothing more than dog food.  Yet if the money-grubbers look at their money-grubbing simply as a certain kind of business philosophy, they will be most willing to alter that philosophy once their employees show them that their philosophy will drive them out of business due to the withholding of employee labor.  In this case, the business philosophy of the business owners is not such a core element of their identity that they are willing to hold onto it at all costs.  Therefore, the amount of non-cooperating pressure which employees must apply tends to be limited, and negotiations are therefore frequently the end-game of labor disputes.

But it must also be noted that the outcome of such negotiations will not be settled by the rightness or wrongness of each side's claims.  Rather, the outcome of negotiations in this case is determined by how powerful the union is relative to the management - that is, the magnitude of resources that can be withheld for a long enough time by one side from the other side.  (The reason why the labor movement in the United States is so weak just now is due to the fact that many labor leaders have been co-opted by management, which has succeeded in the creation of a robust "business unionism" that can accomplish nothing.  That is why the results of labor negotiations nowadays are frequently very disappointing.  The unions of the early 20th century were much more powerful.)

There is also a category of struggle in which negotiations are practically useless, because the core interests of one or both sides in the struggle are at stake.  In such cases, at least one of the two sides will not be willing to engage in truthful, fair negotiations.  In fact, they may not even be willing to give the appearance of trying to negotiate.  This is especially true of a DSM-IV malignant narcissist dictator of the ethno-nationalist kind who refuses to share the world equitably with other people, but seeks to make his chosen people great at the expense of all the other people on earth.  This, for instance, was the reason why the imperialist Winston Churchill steadfastly refused to relate to Mohandas Gandhi as a fellow human being.

The most dangerous situation of all for people resisting dictatorship comes when they are dealing with a dictator who truly has no intention or desire to submit to any will other than his own, yet who knows how to psychologically "play" people.  For then, the negotiations will be subject to gaslighting and all kinds of other psychological tricks.  In the words of Dr. Sharp, "The offer of 'peace' through negotiations with the democratic opposition is, of course, rather disingenuous."  Those who resist dictatorship are therefore likely to be very disappointed by the outcome of negotiations with the dictator.  

One observation therefore that must be made about people's ideas of strategic nonviolent resistance is that such resistance is not, and does not depend on, negotiation.  This is a key point which is frequently missed.  People who hear the term "nonviolent resistance" frequently conjure up images of M. K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King as "spiritual" people and assume that the call to such resistance is a call to try to win your oppressor to your side by showing how "spiritual" you are.  They equate a call to such resistance with a call to the kind of "spirituality" that can "melt the hearts" of oppressors.  In other words, they see strategic nonviolent resistance as a form of negotiation.  (BTW, I am all for spirituality as long as it is the right kind.  See 1 Corinthians 2.)

It is much more accurate to view strategic nonviolent resistance (called "political defiance" in From D to D) as a means by which those under tyranny shatter the power of the tyrant without violence - and without negotiations.  For this to happen, the mass of oppressed people must become unified around a small number of extremely concrete goals, and must withdraw cooperation from the tyrant in specific, coherent, coordinated ways - ways that are determined by, and that follow, a wise grand strategy.  In this respect, strategic nonviolent resistance is very much like laser light.  Consider for a moment a typical suburban house of the 1950's.  In each room of the house, there would have been light fixtures with one or more incandescent bulbs rated from 60 to 100 watts apiece.  Thus, the total amount of power drawn by the house for the purpose of lighting might be as high as 1 kilowatt if all the lights were turned on.

Now 1 kilowatt of power devoted to lighting up such a house might make the house bright, but it would not accomplish anything else except maybe driving up the electric bill of the homeowner.  This is because the light is emitted over a wide range of frequencies and in all directions.  But the light of a laser is coherent, focused, monochromatic, and unidirectional.  This is why a 1 kW laser can cut through steel plate, whereas ten 100-watt light bulbs can only make your house bright.  The goal of the organizers of effective resistance against a dictator is to turn a large number of their fellow sufferers into a coherent, focused source of effective non-cooperation, and to focus that non-cooperation on one or more of the dictator's pillars of support until the pillars start to shatter.  How this is done will be discussed in my next installment in this series, God willing.  If you want to read ahead, read Chapter 3 of From D to D.

A 5 kW handheld laser cutter

Causes of Cognitive Dissonance and National Narcissistic Rage

Here's another "quickie" post.  And it has to do with White American foreign policy under Donald Trump and the perceptions of other nations which have been created for American consumption by its most powerful media outlets.  I want to make one suggestion and one observation.  The suggestion: the foreign policy of the United States against China is actually an expression of White supremacist narcissistic rage against China on account of the fact that a nation of over one billion non-White people has made itself an independent success.  That was not supposed to happen.  Rather, China was supposed to live forever in the thrall of the United States, because China was supposed to be forever dependent on the United States.  The United States was supposed to be forever the dominant player, dictating to everyone else on earth what they can and cannot do.  China is neatly contradicting that expectation.  You may not know this, but China has successfully orbited two space stations and sent a robot probe to the moon, and has launched a robot mission to Mars. 

And China is not the only nonwhite, non-European nation to have begun its own exploration of outer space.  The United Arab Emirates has also launched a robot probe to Mars.  China and the UAE join India in the successful development of demanding technologies for space travel.  

But the most pleasantly surprising news is much closer to home.  When COVID-19 first broke upon the world scene, many commentators in the Global North expected that the pandemic would decimate the nations of Black Africa, who were seen as perennial "savages" perennially in need of rescue by White "saviors."  However, it now appears that the nations of the African continent have done very, very well in containing the pandemic and limiting both infections and deaths.  Living on the African continent is becoming safer than living in the United States.  This is due to the commonsense approaches of various African governments to the challenge of providing health care for the common good.  (For what it's worth, I should also note that according to one source, the nations of Africa have a better airline safety record than Russia.)

In short, the rest of the world seems to have learned in large measure how to live (and to live well!) without the United States.  This will undoubtedly deprive Trump of the narcissistic supply he had hoped to enjoy by withholding access to America and its resources from people whom he deemed to be much more needy than America.  Instead of that enjoyment, Trump now finds himself in the position of the evil mother in the Grimm fairy tale Snow White.

Some Cats You Don't Mess With

The Internet seems to be abuzz lately with news stories and opinion pieces about Donald Trump's efforts and intentions to make himself President for life.  Some of these pieces cite Trump's attacks on Black Lives Matter organizers as his attempt to construct a "Reichstag moment."  (Note to BLM: If Trump succeeds in doing so, it won't be because he is very smart and very powerful.  Rather, it will be because of your repeated failures of strategic thinking, as I have repeatedly pointed out to you.  Read some books on strategic nonviolent resistance and effective community organizing!)

The tone of these stories and essays began to bother me this afternoon - first, because when people get hysterical, their hysteria can become contagious.  Hysteria prevents people from getting necessary work done and turns them into zombies glued to their screens - a good thing for advertisers and media companies, but a bad thing for the zombies.  Second, the tone of these pieces seems to subtly convey the message that Trump is such an overwhelming threat that resistance is useless.  Thus, if you can't turn yourself into a successful refugee to another country, you may as well kiss life goodbye.

I have a problem with that point of view.  I have chosen not to try to become a refugee.  I know moreover that there is an entire suite of things an oppressed people can do to shatter the power of a dictator who rises up over them, and that this suite of things is effective because it does not depend on violence to succeed.  Doing these things involves hard work and sometimes significant suffering and risk, and there is always the possibility of failure.  However, it must be realized that there is always also the possibility of success.

I am thinking just now of several YouTube videos and news stories about cat owners or members of families who own cats in which one of the family members was threatened or attacked by a dog and the cat in the house righteously thrashed the dog.  (See this also.)  If cats could talk, the cats who choose to throw down on dogs might explain themselves thus: "If I just give up and do nothing, horrible things will happen.  If I choose to resist, horrible things might still happen.  But there is also the possibility - however slim - that I might win.  So let's throw some blows!"

If a cat can be that brave, then maybe some of the humans in our midst should take a deep breath and get a grip.  In the face of the threat posed by Trump, the following questions should be asked:

1. Are we who are among his targets willing to resist?
2. Are we who are willing to resist also willing to study the most effective methods of resistance?

If you answered Yes to both of these questions, then watch this blog for my comments on Chapter 2 of "From D to D."

From D to D - An Introduction

As I promised several posts ago, today starts the first of a series of posts I would like to write as a study guide and commentary on a key text on strategic nonviolent resistance.  Today also seems to be the first day in which Blogger won't have their legacy posting interface available, so I hope I can make it through this post without too much pain and suffering on my part.  

The text I want to walk us through is From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp.  It can be downloaded for free from the Albert Einstein Institution, or you can download it by clicking on the link in the first sentence of this paragraph.  If you're too busy to be able to spend a lot of time reading, you can download a free audio recording here.  

Today we'll focus on the first chapter, titled, "Facing Dictatorships Realistically."  And it is important to note that the first edition of this book was published in 2002, while the fourth edition was published in 2010.  The period from 1989 to 2011 was indeed marked by a number of impressive victories for those who were struggling for democracy in many autocratic regimes which existed during that time frame.  However, as many scholars have noted, the period from 2011 to the present has been characterized by a period of intense democratic backsliding, defined by one source as "a...decline in the quality of democracy...caused by the State-led weakening of political institutions that sustain the democratic system."  It is important to note that democratic backsliding does not originate only from the obvious members of a State government.  When capitalism is allowed to run unchecked, private interests can become powerful enough to buy off governments.  This is called regulatory capture, and it is a game that the world's richest people can play with ease.  (You may not know this, but the world's 26 richest people "own" (or lay claim to) as much wealth as 50 percent of the world's population.)

Therefore it is quite likely that if you're an ordinary stiff like me, you either have awakened, are awakening, or will one day soon awaken to a nation and a world which you didn't sign up for, a world or a nation ruled by people who think you would look good barbecued and stuck between two pieces of bread.  You may also discover that you are a member of an entire people who have been designated for exploitation by the wealthy and powerful.  The question then becomes what to do.

Scholars of strategic nonviolent resistance have a general answer to that question, yet they realize that much of the world's population has been conditioned by myths of redemptive violence to see violence as a means of righteous and effective social change.  (For examples of this myth in action, just watch a week of American television.)  In severe cases of injustice and oppression, the oppressed may come to see violence as the only effective answer to the oppression.  Therefore, in Chapter 1 of From Dictatorship to Democracy (shortened in this series of posts to "From D to D"), Gene Sharp takes us through an exploration of the various options available to ordinary people who find themselves victims to ruling powers who want to exploit them.

Sharp examines four possible responses to repression: 

1. Hoping for change via the intervention of another rival power (or, hoping for "foreign saviors" to intervene)
2. Hoping for change through elections and other seemingly democratic tools
3. Hoping for change by forming an armed militia to achieve regime change by killing a bunch of your opponents
4. Strategic nonviolent resistance (which Gene Sharp called "political defiance" in his book)

Let's focus on response #3 for a moment.  As a Christian, I am forbidden to advocate or choose violence as a means of liberation.  However, there are people who might look at such a prohibition as unrealistic moralizing, just as such people, if they were kids, might have called me a "Momma's boy" when I was a kid because I brushed my teeth three times a day or because I looked both ways before I crossed the street.  To such people I would answer that people who refuse to brush their teeth or who refuse to look before trying to cross busy streets on foot sooner or later learn that their parents had very good reasons for admonishing us kids the way they did.  And the reasons for refusing to use violence for political or economic liberation have been very well documented by social scientists such as Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan in books such as Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.  

But in case there are people who are not convinced, let's try a little thought experiment.  Say that you are a member of a historically marginalized group in the United States, and you chafe against an environment in which the President of the U.S., the members of many law enforcement agencies, and a number of redneck militias are trying to target you because of the color of your skin or your language of birth.  Say moreover that you have decided that a violent response is your only chance of changing your situation.  Immediately you run into a problem, namely, that in order to apply violence, you'll need weapons.  Given the current state of armaments among belligerents, you'll need at the least a good assault rifle.  A decent assault rifle costs around $1,000.  So you'll need to smash your piggy bank (and maybe a few other people's piggy banks) and eat ramen noodles for a few months if you just want to equip yourself.

Now violence is more effective at achieving political change when a number of violent actors join forces and pool their resources.  But if you are just starting from scratch, equipping a decent force with assault rifles will quickly get rather "spendy" as they say where I live.  For instance, equipping a 1,000 man force will require you to spend a million dollars.  And that's not counting the cost of ammunition.  Ammo will in fact be a recurring cost, because you'll need to practice regularly with your weapons in order to get good at using them.  Where will you get the money for all of that?  

(Wanna be insurgent goes to bank to take out a loan.  Insurgent to loan officer: "Uh, I need some money..."  Loan officer to insurgent: "How much do you need?"  Insurgent: "Uh, a million and some change..." Loan officer: "What do you have for collateral?"  Insurgent: "A two-bed, one bath house, a 25 year old car, and a German Shepherd who's missing a few teeth."  Loan officer: "Ohhh,... and what are you going to do with the money???"  Insurgent: "Uh, make some noise...?")

 A further problem arises when you actually start your "revolution", namely, the very much non-zero probability that you or your compatriots will get shot.  If that happens, you lose your $1,000 per rifle!

But it gets even better.  Your opponent will have much more than 1,000 men to match your 1,000-man force.  For starters, he will have other things besides assault rifles.  Take mechanized infantry fighting vehicles such as the M2 Bradley.  Do you want to match your opponent's capability here?  You too can have an M2...for around $3.2 million.  Try taking out a loan for one of those!  Note also that many police forces in this country have similar vehicles at their disposal.  And if you somehow manage to scrape together enough for a (very small) fleet of M2s, you've still got to deal with attack aircraft ($46.3 million for an A-10, $94 million for a budget version of the F-35, $4 million for a combat drone).   In other words, if you're trying regime change through violence, the violent option is very, very spendy!

Moreover, the violent option is no guarantor of righteous, effective change, even in countries whose militaries are not anywhere near as capable as the Unites States military.  In weaker countries, low-level guerilla war very often degenerates into decades-long "conflict traps" which lower the quality of life for all citizens while leaving ruling elites still firmly in power  Far too many of these guerilla uprisings end in failure.  Just ask the Zapatistas.  

Next post (God willing): Chapter 2, "The Dangers of Negotiations."  Feel free to read ahead.

Firebugs Of A Feather

 

What a devil!

Human dysfunction tends to run in patterns.  And this blog has noted several times the similarities in the types of dysfunction that characterizes Russia in the age of Putin and the United States in the age of Trump.  So my curiosity was piqued today when I checked the stats for this blog and discovered that I had gotten a lot of hits from Russia over the last 24 hours.  "Someone over there," thought I, "must be very interested in my most recent blog post.  Or maybe they just have a general interest in my blogging!  Who could it be, and why???"

I could think of only two reasons why people in Russia might be interested in what I have to say.  Either those reading my stuff are members of the FSB who have put a price on my head, or there are ordinary, everyday Russians who are facing the same deadly dysfunction which has characterized the United States under Trump.  Because I am a very little fish in a very big pond, I concluded that it must be the latter.

So I Googled "wildfires russia 2020" and came up with the following interesting hits:

• "Wildfires in Siberia have burned down an area larger than Greece," CBS News
• "Another Intense Summer of Fires in Siberia," NASA Earth Observatory
• "Russia's Wildfires Double in Size Within Week", TASS (via the Moscow Times)
• "Nearly 300 wildfires in Siberia amid record warm weather," phys.org

To the ordinary people in Russia who want to just live and let live - to those who are not interested in building an empire or trashing people who are not white and not Russian - I extend my sympathy to you this fire season.  I hope moreover that I can provide some consolation to you, knowing that "the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished in your brotherhood that is in the world," as the Good Book says.  We have our climate arsonist to deal with, and unfortunately you have yours as well.

And to those in the United States and elsewhere who continue to drink Trump-flavored Kool-Aid, let's do Russia a favor.  Trump blames the overwhelming severity of wildfires in the United States on "poor forest management," suggesting that we ought to send people into our wildlands to rake up leaves.  Let's send Trump to Siberia to do some raking.  Just make sure he doesn't have any matches.

A Bed In Sheol

 Twilight comes early.

Sunset choked to death on clouds of ash. 

"Eat the fruit of this tree

and you shall be like God" -

but the idol of our godhood,

kindled by that pyrotechnic tree,

burns now to the ground.

I live in a city which hasn't seen blue sky or stars now for the last five days and counting.  I have been inside my house for about the same amount of time, and during that time there has not been a day in which the air has not smelled like smoke.  I should have gotten a lot done in that time (including house cleaning and repair, writing a blog post, and other business), but instead I must confess that I've been somewhat glued to websites like this:

• Portland Oregon Weather Underground
• Oregon Department of Environmental Quality - Air Quality Monitoring Data
• Oregon Smoke Information
• AirNow Interactive Map of Air Quality
• Smoke Forecast - FireSmoke.ca

Call my preoccupation a fetish, but as Samuel Johnson once said, "Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."  This year is beginning to feel to me like the run-up to a mass execution.  First, the stupidity and malignancy of Donald Trump.  Then the coronavirus.  Then the emergence of a blatant, murderous racism reminiscent of the American South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the very public murders of unarmed African-Americans.  Now massive wildfires for those of us in the American West, and a very active hurricane season for those on the eastern and southern seaboards of the United States.

A few facts about the wildfires.  First, for the last three days, the smoke has produced widespread areas of pollution levels that have been designated as hazardous by State and Federal agencies.  That's "hazardous", as in, "Any exposure to the air, even for a few minutes, can lead to serious health effects on everybody. Avoid outdoor activities."  Second, the three biggest pollutants of concern have been smoke particles with diameters of 2.5 microns and below, smoke particles in the 10 micron range, and carbon monoxide.  The presence of carbon monoxide is especially troubling because CO is only produced when there is not enough oxygen present to ensure at least a stoichiometric mix of oxygen and carbon-bearing materials.

Many of the fires have been caused by downed power lines or by lightning.  Many of the fires have also been caused by typical human activity.  But the fires have also become yet another occasion for political posturing by the American Right.  Trump claims that this season's wildfires are the result of "poor forest management," but the facts don't support him.  Many of the wildfires that have started this fall did not originate in forests.  And there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the worsening fire seasons worldwide are a consequence of manmade climate change.  Much of that evidence was compiled over the last two or three decades by national laboratories funded by the United States Government.  Names like Livermore, Berkeley, and Argonne come to mind.  These national laboratories are now the victims of Trump budget cuts.  Therefore I expect that like the coronavirus, or deteriorating social relations, or fraying social safety nets, or a declining currency, Trump will willfully and deliberately botch his response to this exigency also.

And that had me thinking at 4 am this morning.  You see, these things don't just impact me as a series of facts that fit into an analysis.  (Even though I'm rather strongly geeky!)  I am thinking of how last Monday I enjoyed an evening walk through the neighborhood and spent time in my backyard watering the veggies and playing my guitar beneath a clear twilight sky with two cats at my feet.  That was my chill time, my therapy which enabled me to cope with a world that has recently become chaotic because of rich and powerful doofuses who want to Make Themselves Great Again due to long-standing inferiority complexes.  Trump is such a doofus.  But I thought I had learned to take him in stride even as I saw through his attempts to cause chaos.  Now the consequences of his doofus chaos have flared up in new and unexpected ways - much like the re-emergence of flames from a fire that was not properly put out.  And it's not just his doofus-ness.  It's his constant gaslighting, his absolute refusal to tell the truth about anything, lest he lose what he perceives to be the advantage of pulling the wool over the eyes of those who listen to him.  It's getting to be a bit much.

So because I had a hard time sleeping at 4 am, I was searching the Web for stories of Americans who have left the country for good within the last few years.  And I was checking out what it would take for me to emigrate to Canada.  (I found out that I'm just a few points shy of the minimum needed for a technical professional to be allowed to emigrate.)  But then I thought of the people I'd be abandoning if I did such a thing.  And I thought of how even the world's best places did not start out that way.  They were built by the sweat equity of those who were willing to sacrifice to try to construct a righteous order in the midst of chaos.  I also thought of how some of the world's best places are under attack from those who want to impose their chaos on what was a righteous order.  Becoming a refugee is a temporary protection at best.  And one can't be a refugee forever.

But trying to build or defend a righteous order in the midst of the chaos that is the United States just now seems to me like trying to make my bed in Sheol.  (Or if you like the King James Bible, it seems like trying to make my bed in hell.)  At least the Good Book promises that though I make my bed in such places, there is One Who is with me.  And the art of making a sleep-worthy bed in unpleasant places will become a valuable skill as the great societies of the world run up against the reality of resource constraints and as their leaders grapple with the involuntary ending of their dreams of godhood.  On that note, I'm going to lie down and try to take a nap.

P.S. Here and here are a couple of links to some interesting articles on wildfires and climate change.