Domain: aeinstein.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to aeinstein.org.
Comments · 7
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Re:Guns aren't needed for a revolution
Guns aren't required for a revolution to occur.
See also 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action (from the book From Dictatorship to Democracy, available here).
Certainly you can have a revolution with guns but the notion that your little peashooter is what is keeping the most powerful military on the planet in check is pretty much laughable.
Don't underestimate the value of possessing threat capability, even if you're not going to use it. Would Gandhi, King, and Mandela have been equally successful in a society without the simmering potential for all-out race war?
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Re:Guns aren't needed for a revolution
Guns aren't required for a revolution to occur.
See also 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action (from the book From Dictatorship to Democracy, available here).
Certainly you can have a revolution with guns but the notion that your little peashooter is what is keeping the most powerful military on the planet in check is pretty much laughable.
Don't underestimate the value of possessing threat capability, even if you're not going to use it. Would Gandhi, King, and Mandela have been equally successful in a society without the simmering potential for all-out race war?
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How to really stand up to government power
Are you an "agent provocateur", or do you just have an aggression disorder, or what??
Everybody knows that governments are MUCH, much better trained and organized at inciting effective violence than civilians.
And it only takes a handful provocators in a peaceful demonstration for the government to start throwing the tear gas grenades.
This is how you REALLY do it: If you dare to read it (it can be found on-line and downloaded legally).
Gene Sharp - From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation
http://www.aeinstein.org -
Gene Sharp
I hope Gene Sharp is on the list. He wrote the book that many followed to revolution: http://www.aeinstein.org/
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Re:Free speech
Simply talking and expressing your opinion is where to start, of course. If that doesn't work, check out the free book "On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict" here, noting that despite its terminology, "democracy" does not equal "freedom." See also the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, along with reading up on the concepts of "seasteading" and peaceful secession.
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Re:*sigh*
Look into "seasteading," eg. here. Although the idea of "building an island" as alluded to below is still impractically expensive, there's some possibility of building a smaller structure or (as I think yet more practical) getting together something like a subsistence farm on a very basic ocean-going raft.
As for other means of resisting oppression, check out these guys (whose resources even include a computer game) and the book On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict here. Networking and communication are part of the way to oppose unjust laws, and in the West there's still enough freedom that they're a low-risk way to get involved. -
Re:Vote
We've subverted those mechanisms. The 10th Amendment? Irrelevant. Enumerated powers? Congress claims those, plus an all-purpose power called "interstate commerce" or "general welfare," even though the Federalist Papers explicitly called that interpretation BS. Specific rights such as freedom of speech? Those must be balanced against the need for "fairness," "redistribution of wealth," and newly invented rights such as health care. Patrick Henry rejected the Constitution, predicting that "ten thousand implied powers" would be found in it and that the other protections -- indirect election of Senators and the lack of a federal income tax -- would fail to keep the federal government in check. The US has been in an officially declared state of emergency since at least 1979. What now remains to prevent tyranny other than faith in the majority?
Armed insurrection is a terrible way to fight injustice, and complacency and voting aren't the only other options. See for instance this book. But removing the option of violence altogether eliminates what might one day be the only thing that those in power respect.