March 29, 2010

The Virtues of Non-Violent Resistance


"The military man gains the civil power in proportion as the civilian loses the military virtues." - G.K. Chesterton


The refusal to accept that we live in a very control-oriented, politically suppressed, and untruthful society is reaching the level of psychosis in a lot of people, regardless of their political orientation, economic background, or education level. Such denial is hard to understand, the problems are psychological and above my current comprehension.

To me it is clear that an unresponsive and authoritarian government is being set up deliberately in North America and Europe, and the reasons that will be given in the future for its establishment are not the real reasons. The police-state mechanisms that are being unleashed on the people have very little to do with providing indefinite security, and keeping the civil peace. If those were the goals, noble as they are, then why not create avenues whereby political and economic justice is brought into being, why not be truthful with the people about the government's role in past terrorist attacks, why not put forward real solutions for peace?


Establishing order in a community is not a difficult thing to do, all it requires is for the political leadership to be honest with the people, and that they be held to account in the same manner as everybody else if they commit a crime, or participate in a conspiracy or fraud against the public. It is really that simple. We go wrong when we abandon the rule of law.

But Western governments are not interested in solving the root problems of terrorism because their "secret-intelligence" seeds can be found at the very bottom of the modern terrorism dilemma. And that revelation will put everything on its head. Indeed, a new order will need to rise, but what kind of order will it be, and who will create it? It certainly can't be the same men who help caused the political and social crisis, or men who didn't raise their voices before it occurred.

There are those who still view the opinions that I hold as conspiracy theories. I have nothing to say to those people. I am concerned with the converted, and the committed. The loss of civil liberties in the West was a historical guess in Orwell's time, but not anymore. Today, we don't have the luxury to assume our shadowy decision-makers will reform, nor can we make guesses about our condition in ten years time. Our bleak future has already arrived. Most of us are just beginning to wake up to the apocalyptic situation. Western despotism, marked by corporate power and a glamorous Big-Brother surveillance system, is a fact of life. We must deal with it, and hopefully one day we can overturn it.

Habits of trained indifference to intimidating evidence about government-corporate corruption occurring at the highest levels must be broken. We can no longer deceive ourselves about the grave political reality inside the United States, Canada, England, and Western Europe. Freedom of speech, and the freedom to resist, are no longer allowed in any of these countries. It is as if the soldiers who fought for these countries in WWII died for absolutely nothing. Shame on us if we don't reverse the Western dictatorial police state, and maintain the legacy of those who bled and died for liberty before us.

I realize the fight for freedom will be hard, and long. I can't put faith in a single Messiah who will come down and save us from economic hardship, ecological catastrophes, political control, and psychological domination. Nor can I put faith in the majority of people to confront the troubling obstacles facing them, let alone engage in a peaceful and spiritual fight against the financial occupiers. Besides a huge societal-wide revelation that could only be described as apocalyptic and religious, the general public's ignorance will in all likelihood continue, and probably get worse as conditions in day-to-day life reach an even poorer state.

The only faith I have is in a fierce and independent minority that practices non-violent resistance, and becomes an example to the whole community. Richard B. Gregg, an American social philosopher and a student of Gandhi, wrote in the beginning of chapter eight in his most famous book, The Power of Nonviolence, "Nonviolent resistance is the key to the problem of liberty in the modern state." Gregg's thoughts and research about peaceful resistance are more timely today than it was in Martin Luther King Jr.'s time.

If the liberty of the individual and the world is to survive coming attacks, then a spiritually disciplined and peaceful minority of world citizens must organize across national boundaries, and work together to enrich the lives of each other's country, in all manners possible. We need to work towards political and economic liberty for all, specifically, the issuing of currency must become a public and national right; draconian laws must be repealed through each country's various democratic processes; anti-democratic and anti-capitalist institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, WTO must be terminated; and free economic competition must be enforced worldwide with as little state regulation as possible.

Those who stand in for the financial occupiers, from the wise-cracking elitist journalists and snobby politicians, to the brainwashed Stormtroopers, are not the enemies of the people. Whether they knowingly or unknowingly do the elite's bidding is a matter of debate, with the exception of the bottom-level enforcers, who need to be educated and warned of the implications of their support for NWO-induced political repression. What these puppets need to realize is that sooner or later "We The People" will overpass them at every step. They can decide to either support the present unlawful and evil system through their actions and compliance, or resist with us. The choice is for them to make.

If you are unconvinced that a police state is upon us, then you haven't read the McCain-Lieberman "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act." You can read it here. "A close reading of the bill," writes Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic, "suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity." The bill is not law, yet, but with the way things are going, there is a high probability that America's fine representatives will pass it. As Stephen Lendman writes, "in a climate of fear and intimidation, everyone is potentially vulnerable to legislative lawlessness if congressional timidity lets S. 3081 pass in an election year."

We are not yet in a state of full-blown martial law, but it is coming. All the signs are leading to a 'happy dictatorship." Washington, Ottawa, and London will rule through fear and force, but also with love and kindness. Normal life will be no more. The only way a police state can be maintained is in an indefinite state of emergency, in which detention centers are filled to full capacity with political non-compliants, curfews are regularly enforced in the most sensitive areas, and everybody's daily movement are monitored by government and private authorities. How long such a state is going to last is anybody's guess.

But pursuing the strategies of propaganda, force, divide/conquer, and political demagoguery has its limits, and practicing such strategies in spite of an active and peaceful worldwide resistance movement will not work. The spirit of man is too mighty and powerful. As Napoleon said: "There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit." Napoleon's prediction has already been proven true in the cases of India's peaceful victory against the British Empire, and the achievements of the civil rights movements, so it only makes sense that a non-violent resistance campaign in our era will also be victorious.

II. An Active Commitment to Non-Violent Resistance

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.” — Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787

It is my feeling, as it is of many others, that tyranny grows when resistance to it falters. There are other reasons for it, of course, but it is the failure to rebel in the face of brutal terrorism and over-extension by the State that gives men in power the confidence to do anything under the sun. Murder. Lying. Stealing.

But as Gandhi revealed to us, violent resistance is not the only way to beat tyranny, in fact, it is the least desirable. A gun is not a symbol of defiance, it's just a tool, what is of greater important is the spirit of resistance. And both Jefferson and Gandhi were born with the same spirit of resistance.

But love of liberty is not enough. We must also sacrifice. And suffer. What I'm asking you, most of all, is to risk your life in the hope that liberty will be won peacefully. I intend to take the same path because it has shown to be the most effective and least bloody path in the historical pursuit of liberty and justice.

Will non-violence work against a hardened and equally committed United States Marine? Most definitely not. The professional military is well-noted for its discipline and execution of orders, which I have great respect for, but there are times when someone must take a risk. Will violence be done on the patient and the just? Yes. Will some peaceful resisters suffer unfair treatment at the hands of the Stormtroopers? Yes. But it's their job to "clear the area of all hostiles and non-compliant protesters," so it's not honest to hold it against them. Non-violent resisters take the oath to trade good with evil, and generosity with meanness. If I can't keep the oath at the most trying of times then I had no right to take it in the first place.

Non-violence demands of us our whole mind, body, and soul. When violence is being done to you, your spirit can't flinch. It also demands that we remain active, and focus on the ultimate goal at hand. Even soldiers aren't capable of doing this, they withdraw into their own heads in the heart of a battle, and go into a 'killer mode' where all discrepancy is removed from their actions. Minutes later, they can't register what exactly they did to defend themselves. When you are being attacked, your first reflex is to defend yourself, so it requires great awareness to keep on the track of non-violence, and not lose sight of your being, and aim.

If you fail even one time to remain non-violent, then there is a good chance that you will fail a second, third, and fourth time. I find it hard to contemplate the spiritual discipline and bodily courage that Gandhi and King each had. I respect them more than most military leaders. Gandhi couldn't have been passive even for a day when he was fighting to win rights for Indians in South Africa, and political independence for India. We have to be actively committed to non-violent resistance just like Gandhi and King were. "Passivity," writes Ken McLeod, "is insidious. It kills your mind (your attention, your intention, and your will) without you knowing it."

Although we are not yet in the same situation as France under Nazi rule, or of Japanese immigrants under American rule, anyone who dares to look can see that the road we're on leads directly towards a New-World dictatorship. The precedent of illegally arresting individuals for political behavior has already been set at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, the SPP meeting in Montebello, Quebec, and elsewhere. Protesting global economic and political policies in any North American and European city has been essentially outlawed. Even more disturbing is that assisting protesters via social networking sites can also get you fined and arrested, which is what happened to Elliot Madison and Michael Wallschlaeger.

But such actions by our various governments shouldn't deter us to publicly express our disapproval and rage. Resistance to tyranny is what made the modern world so prosperous. Men cannot flourish as slaves. William Norman Grigg writes in his most recent article "Resistance" that submission in Russia was guaranteed for generations because the Russians failed to resist a Communist dictatorship in its early stages. It went all downhill after the first shot was fired and people fearfully laid down to the Communist thugs. According to Grigg, liberty will be but a theory in a book, and a memory in the mind, if "the right to resist," is not practiced openly. But how shall we in America, Canada, and Europe go about it? Grigg says:
Wherever possible, resistance should be peaceful. Where violence is used it must be strictly governed by the non-aggression principle. Prudence has its proper claims to make as well: The right to resist unlawful violence may not be exercised in every appropriate circumstance, but it must be recognized as valid in all cases.
Going up against overdressed men with guns is a scary thing. I don't know I can face up to my fear if such an occasion as I have described is in store for us. Will a state of martial law be publicly enacted in the future? Will Stormtroopers rule the streets? Maybe. Or maybe not. But we should be ready just in case. And if we do find ourselves one day under a military occupation, we can take solace in the words of mankind's greatest resisters. Sartre would be a good start.


"We were never more free than under the German Occupation. We had lost all our rights, above all, the right to speak; we were insulted daily and had to remain silent, we were deported, because we were workers, because we were Jews, because we were political prisoners. All around us on the walls, in the newspapers, on the screen, we met that foul and insipid image that our oppressors wanted us to accept as ourselves. Because of all of this we were free. Since the Nazi poison was seeping into our thinking, each accurate thought was a victory; since an all-powerful police was trying to force silence upon us, each word became precious as a declaration of principles, since we were hunted, each gesture had the weight of a commitment. The often frightful circumstances of our struggle enabled us finally to live, undisguised and unconcealed, that anxious, unbearable situation which is called the human predicament." - Jean-Paul Sartre