Axiom

The State of Civil Disobedience on the Left and the Right

Washington’s Blog
Monday, August 10, 2009

In a new article published in The Nation entitled “We Need More Protest to Make Reform Possible”, professor of politics Peter Dreier shows that change cannot happen unless people engage in civil disobedience:

Why is there so little protest in response to these hard economic times? …
Public opinion polls reveal that Americans are angry … And to be effective politically, that hope has to be mobilized through collective action–in elections, meetings with elected officials, petitions, e-mail campaigns, rallies, demonstrations and even, at times, civil disobedience…

Since Obama took office, there have been very few public expressions of discontent. We’ve heard very little about everyday Americans–workers facing layoffs and the loss of health insurance, jobless Americans exhausting their unemployment insurance, renters facing eviction, homeowners facing foreclosures, farmers losing their farms, high school students facing cuts in school programs and college students facing rising tuition–mobilizing to demand immediate action to end their hardship and suffering…

Lobbying and meetings with members of Congress. E-mails to politicians … purchasing TV and radio ads … occasional rallies and public forums … bloggers and supporters [are not enough].

These polite activities are necessary, but they don’t create a sense of urgency or crisis. With some exceptions, they don’t generate TV stories and newspaper headlines. They don’t put pressure on Congressional fence-sitters to fear a groundswell of negative publicity or a threat to their re-election chances. They are not sufficient to balance the influence of corporate campaign contributions…

The protests that occurred after FDR was elected, and that accelerated after he took office, were not spontaneous bursts of action by angry people. They were organized by people who were willing to take risks, acting somewhat on faith and suspecting that if they acted courageously, others would follow.

As Marshall Ganz points out in Why David Sometimes Wins, a brilliant new book that focuses on Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers movement, the instigators of social movements don’t wait for the time to be “ripe.” They find people and invent or reinvent tactics to help them make the most out of what is typically an awful situation. They make their own opportunities, hoping, almost as a matter of faith, that at some point the crack will open wider and they will be able to take advantage of it. Often they fail and are thus lost to history. But as Ganz says, sometimes they win. And small victories whet their appetite for further change. If they have the skills, persistence and imagination, initial gains can become steppingstones to bigger victories as more people get involved.

At the core of an effective social movement, Ganz explains, is a diverse group of leaders with a variety of skills, a deep commitment to their cause and a willingness to take chances without being foolhardy…

FDR was initially ambivalent about protest and about radicals. For example, he wasn’t happy about the pressure exerted by Upton Sinclair–the muckraking journalist, novelist and onetime Socialist–to endorse him after Sinclair shocked everyone by winning the Democratic Party nomination for governor of California in 1934 on a platform to “end poverty in California.” But FDR understood that Sinclair’s primary victory, and his impressive campaign and narrow loss in the runoff, helped change the nation’s political climate and made his own success more likely, since he could be seen as more moderate.

Likewise, FDR wasn’t enthusiastic about the mounting protests by farmers, workers, veterans, community groups and the advocates of the Townsend Plan (for old-age insurance), but he understood their utility.

FDR once met with a group of activists who sought his support for legislation. He listened to their arguments for some time and then said, “You’ve convinced me. Now go out and make me do it.”

He understood that the more effectively people created a sense of urgency and crisis, the easier it would be for him to push for progressive legislation.





So – according to Professor Dreier – if progressives want the Obama administration to stop acting George Bush – carrying water for the giant banks, defense contractors and other powers-that-be – liberals have to stop being so “polite” in their protests. I’m sorry to tell my friends on the left, but – according to Professor Dreier – Obama is not going to be progressive unless he is forced to do so by less-than-polite means.

On the other hand, conservatives have to guard against being co-opted by people who don’t have the best interests of the American people in mind. For example, I hate to tell my friends on the right, but – according to Rachel Maddow – the town hall protests were organized by the same people who organized the “Brooks Brothers” riots who stopped the Bush-Gore recount in Florida.

And I’d like to remind my friends on both the left and the right that the powers-that-be are always trying to divide and conquer the American people by creating a fake democrat versus republican dichotomy. Don’t fall for the old divide and conquer trick.

The enemy is not the guy on the other side of the aisle. We all have to remember that the enemy is giant financial corporation, defense contractor or other powerful player trying to manipulate the system and subvert the rule of law.

Alex Jones’ Prison Planet.com » The State of Civil Disobedience on the Left and the Right

Axiom

Why Do You Submit to the People Who Rule You?



Karen De Coster
LRC Blog
August 7, 2009

These are the people who rule you, and they are carrying out their “donor maintenance.” Political donors are the people who buy politicians so they can have a piece of your pie redistributed to them through the application of a cascade of unconstitutional decrees.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moves in a rarefied world of high society and high-level politics — and nothing underscores that fact quite like her plans for the August recess.

Pelosi will spend next weekend quietly tending to top party donors and political allies at a series of private events in Northern California.

The two-day “issues conference” starts next Friday night with a dinner for roughly 170 guests on the back lawn of Pelosi’s multimillion-dollar home in the fashionable Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco.

The following day, Pelosi will shepherd her guests to a Napa Valley winery with buildings designed by world-famous architect Frank Gehry; the speaker and her husband, investor Paul Pelosi, own a nearby vineyard worth between $5 million and $25 million, according to her annual financial disclosure report.

…To be invited, one must have raised money for the DCCC, been a longtime friend of Pelosi’s or contributed $30,4000 to the DCCC this cycle. The maximum an individual may give to a national party committee in any one year.

A donation to the DCCC of that size qualifies a donor to be part of the “Speaker’s Cabinet,” a fundraising program that gives supporters expanded access to Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi, a multi-millionaire, is destroying your life and freedom through her control of the governing body that lords it over all of us. Powerful and wealthy people are not buying access to this wrinkled, old hag because they like her or the Democrats. They do so because they get special favors and access to the redistribution booty at the expense of you, the middle-class wage earner or entrepreneur. Politics is coercion, and still, no matter how much people learn about the establishment and its reason for existence, they sanction it. They sanction it each time they concede to the government’s arbitrary decrees and go along with its mandates. And especially, the masses consent to total control and tyranny each time they vote for any one of these swines.



When the economy tanks and inflation runs rampant, forcing Mom and Pop into food lines and unemployment lines, begging for tidbits, Mrs. Pelosi will be comfortably ensconced behind the walls of her California mansion, complete with servants, crystal, and fine wine. When Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class are lying in an overcrowded, musty, appalling medical clinic somewhere, being ignored for days under a socialized health care plan, Mrs. Pelosi will have private and immediate access to the best doctors and best hospitals in the world.

These monsters, who have been given extraordinary powers to rule over you, have become so used to ramping up their powers and stomping their legislative jack boots down on your head, that they are not the slightest bit tolerant of resistance. They loathe your disobedience, your verbal challenges, your hostility to their supremacy.

In a prior blog post (”Town Halls Gone Wild“), I pointed out that some town halls had gotten so out of hand that frightened politicians were escorted out by police protective squads. Now, Nancy Pelosi, the repulsive, arrogant bitch that she is, has likened the middle class resistance to her socialist-fascist agenda as an “astroturf” movement. Ha Ha. She didn’t like the very appropriate swastikas stuck in her face as she tries to ram her perverted health care plan down our collective throats. In fact, the Dems are certain that there is no real resistance at all. They believe it’s just a big setup, with the Republican Party hiring stand-ins to show up and to protest. The term used to describe the resistance is “manufactured outrage.”

Meanwhile, the overlords who rule our lives tell us – and want to force us – to drive little (”fuel-efficient”) crap cars, use filthy mass transportation, turn down our thermostats, and turn off our lights, while they thrust their arrogance in our faces by ordering up $200 million worth of Gulfstream jets to cart their pompous asses all over the world to lofty gatherings, spending our money so they can trip the lights fantastic with powerful and wealthy special interests, grabbing more and more power, while making us all poorer.

Let’s give these hubristic rapscallions the one thing that they detest most – resistance. And plenty of it.

Why Do You Submit to the People Who Rule You?

Axiom

Axiom

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience



Henry David Thoreau
Infowars.com
Posted January 18, 2010

I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe – “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.
constitution On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

This American government – what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.

But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? – in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniment, though it may be,

“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero was buried.”

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others – as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders – serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few – as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men – serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be “clay,” and “stop a hole to keep the wind away,” but leave that office to his dust at least:

“I am too high born to be propertied,
To be a second at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world.”

He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.

How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also.

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of ‘75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is that fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter on the “Duty of Submission to Civil Government,” resolves all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say that “so long as the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniencey, it is the will of God. . .that the established government be obeyed – and no longer. This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other.” Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well and an individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.

In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does anyone think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis?

“A drab of state,
a cloth-o’-silver slut,
To have her train borne up,
and her soul trail in the dirt.”



- > On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

__________________
"Sometimes the obligation of the intelligent is to restate the obvious. None more important than emphatically stating that there is a : ' Naked Emperor Elephant in the Room' " Axiom

Axiom

Activist Post: 5 Reasons NOT to Pay Your Credit Cards

John Galt -- Activist Post

We live in a matrix that goes to unspeakable expense to nurture us from the teat to be good consumers. You are issued a tax collection number at birth (SS#), another artificial number for your credit worthiness (FICO), and then you're extended a certain amount of tokens to play "life" based on those numbers. This virtual currency, not unlike your earned Farmville coins, only has value because you give it value.

It is a brilliantly designed game: the banksters create a unit of money out of thin air; lend it to people with interest attached; get them to buy real items; then raise the rates, force people to work harder, hover like a vulture until expected default occurs, and rake in the forfeited assets. Best of all, when the whole Ponzi scheme comes crashing down because they drunkenly gambled with your interest payments, the very people who destroyed you get bailed out by you with tax money. And they call you the thieves when you can't pay them back. The game is rigged for the house and it's always a Win/Win for them and a Lose/Lose for you.

Sure, you get to "rent" a flat-screen TV, a car, or a home from them, making life in the matrix almost worth it. But, ultimately, you only temporarily use that stuff at great expense to you and massive profits to the banks. After years and years of paid interest, you still never truly own anything. The TV is now obsolete and worthless; you still must pay increasing property taxes and insurance on your homes and cars, even when your done paying the bank three times their value, all while they bought your years of servitude with nothing real or tangible.

In truth, if there was real justice in America, the criminal banking cartel would be arrested under the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, and their assets should seized and returned to their victims. After their arrest and the unconditional release of all debt prisoners, a new, fair, and sound money system should be put in place for the benefit of all (See The Secret of Oz).

For the many who are contemplating dropping out of the corrupt debtor system, the least impact from the mafia will occur by ignoring your unsecured credit cards. Before you take this action, be warned that you may have to return the signing bonus gift you received when got your contract to play in the big leagues.


Here are the top five reasons not to pay your credit cards:

1. If you owe $6,000 on a credit card with a 20 percent interest rate, and you only pay the minimum payment each time, it will take you 54 years to pay off that credit card. During those 54 years you will pay $26,168 in interest rate charges in addition to the $6,000 in principal that you are required to pay back (Source).
2. Under the legal fractional reserve banking system, the banks NEVER actually had the fake money for the credit they extended you in the first place. They added you to their stable of debt slaves with a simple accounting key stroke.
3. The cartel of the large private banks are a proven criminal entity at the heart of most global problems including, but not limited to: wars, genocide, famine, and resource plundering. It's immoral to continue to support such a system on any level.
4. You won't need a good credit score to live outside of the matrix. It's a place in your mind where it is okay to not ever "use" anything with bank financing for the rest of your life.
5. Not paying your credit cards may be one of the only ways to make the matrix feel the weight of your protest without drawing too much oppression.

Since the foxes guard the chickens on Wallshington Street, the citizens may have to take justice into their own hands through peaceful resistance -- by simply dropping out of the matrix. In other words, don't pay your phony debts to criminal banksters. By not paying your debts, you should expect the system's goons to rain down fear by way of phone calls and mail to you. Additionally, you will certainly risk losing your esteemed Farmville status and, these days, you may even win a free trip to one of the oligarchy's private jails.

However . . . you could just wind up gaining some independence from your manufactured stress and servitude.

__________________
"Sometimes the obligation of the intelligent is to restate the obvious. None more important than emphatically stating that there is a : ' Naked Emperor Elephant in the Room' " Axiom

antichrist

How far did civil disobediance get you on that other chess site?

Axiom

well down the road of enlightenment .
..and thank you for asking .

__________________
"Sometimes the obligation of the intelligent is to restate the obvious. None more important than emphatically stating that there is a : ' Naked Emperor Elephant in the Room' " Axiom

Axiom

__________________
"Sometimes the obligation of the intelligent is to restate the obvious. None more important than emphatically stating that there is a : ' Naked Emperor Elephant in the Room' " Axiom

Axiom

__________________
"Sometimes the obligation of the intelligent is to restate the obvious. None more important than emphatically stating that there is a : ' Naked Emperor Elephant in the Room' " Axiom

Axiom

__________________
"Sometimes the obligation of the intelligent is to restate the obvious. None more important than emphatically stating that there is a : ' Naked Emperor Elephant in the Room' " Axiom

mike1

Because East and West sell WMD (fighter planes) to Libya, the sale carries with it the obligation to see that such weapons are not turned against civil unrest in the home country.

Gaddafi has threatened and carried out such actions. He has crossed the line in the sand.

East and West, who sold the weapons, have an obligation to step in and mitigate the use of the weapons. Of course it is a debate as to how to carry out our obligation.
Invasion? No fly zone? Embargo?

In my view the no fly zone is just about the right solution to Gaddafi's stepping over the line.

Just2Good

Its part of the solution perhaps. But the key question here is why is the West involved at all in Libya's internal issues? Either one respects the sovereignty of an evil dictatorship or one does not.

I do not understand what will be achieved through a no fly zone, but an invasion to restore democracy .... well, we've seen how well that worked out in Iraq.

__________________
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"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

~ Isaiah Berlin ~

mike1

The East and West have obligations to be involved because they supplied high-powered WMD to Gaddafi, that are now being turned against the civil population. The weapons were not sold to Gaddafi as a police weapon against his own people, but as a deterrence to risks to Libyan sovereignty from outside attackers. Basic humanity requires us to intervene to stop the misuse of WMDs against a civil population.
Thus in these circumstances we do not respect the actions of Gaddafi.

The no fly zone has essentially neutralised the worst of the WMDs; that is the Libyan air-force. We satisfy our humanism obligation to assure the weapons we have sold him are not misused.

The immediate European neighbours of Libya have a further reason to be involved. Many thousands of Libyans will seek refuge elsewhere, Egypt and Italy in particular. These neighbours can choose to close their borders, or choose to influence events with Libya. Either way, Libya has forfeited their right to be left alone to solve the uprising internally.

Iconoclast

Well, derr. What did we expect. The Gaddafi regime is a regime. Our Obligation is not to support "regimes" in the first place. If we are amoral enough to sell the arms we are amoral enough to look the other way.

The ONLY reason Libyan neighbours will get involved is to stop revolutionary contagion. Other than that no one gives a toss. It is also the ONLY reason the West is interested. We do not want any interruption for oil supplies - do we!

There is an inverse correlation between resources and morality. Understand that and you understand all of history.

__________________
The individual is hopeless without the group.
The group is hopeless without its individuals.

mike1

There is a world of difference between peddling influence and support in various diplomatic forms, and selling the awful power of WMD.
True, we may now wish that we did not sell the WMD. A mistake of the past.
But now facing the reality of use of those weapons in a massacre of a civil population we cannot escape our obligation to neutralise the weapons. Hence the no fly zone so that the weapons (aircraft) cannot be used.



I think you grossly misjudge the tens of thousands who have already fled to islands off the west coast of Italy, and to Italy itself by boats.
There is reported hundreds of thousands in transit over the Egyptian border.
These are refugees, not revolutionaries carrying contagion.
These are refugees who strain Italy and Egypt.
Contagion is simply spread by reading a newspaper these days.