Pax Americana

Provocation

The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are.

 - Gandhi (1982)

As with much of the dialog in Attenborough's film, I haven't seen such a direct quote from the Mahatma's mouth or pen in his Collected Works, but the line certainly reflects the spirit and intent of the raid on Dharasana and his methods of nonviolence.  In fact, Indian economist J. C. Kumarappa wrote in Young India:

Dharasana raid was decided upon not to get salt, which was only the means. Our expectation was that the Government would open fire on unarmed crowds .... Our primary object was to show to the world at large the fangs and claws of the Government in all its ugliness and ferocity. In this we have succeeded beyond measure.

That was the quintessential example of a non-violent raid.  The Freedom Flotilla represents a related tactic, the non-violent invasion:

In nonviolent invasion a group of nonviolent volunteers deliberately and openly enter a forbidden area in order to demonstrate their refusal to recognize the right of the controlling regime or agency to exercise sovereignty or control over that area or to use it for a particular purpose.  This method entails civil disobedience and the risk of severe repression.

It's probably hard for people to understand this method, as with most, thanks to our lack of education about nonviolence (a Department of Peace sure would be handy).  So in the aftermath of the IDF's murdering the activists, I see people calling the flotilla a provocation, a setup, a stunt.

Um...yes.  And?

Seriously, those words are used to diminish and denigrate the action, but the whole point of such an invasion is to set up a stunt that provokes the opponent.  This serves to highlight the injustice of the policies being protested, demonstrate the brutality used to defend the indefensible, and to get the world to notice and apply pressure to resolve the issue.

One of the reasons the IDF reaction is being deemed such a blunder is because of something Gush Shalom warned about a week before the massacre:

The whole world is looking. The State of Israel has no interest in flooding the international television screens with images of Israeli sailors and naval commandos violently assaulting hundreds of peace activists and humanitarian aid workers, many of them well-known in their countries. Whose interest will it serve when hours long dramatic live reports arrive from the Mediteranean, with the world's sympathy given to hundreds of non-violent activists, on board eight boats, assaulted by the strongest military power in the Middle East?

While nobody on the flotilla, I'm sure, deliberately courted their own murders, part of the exercise was in fact to "show to the world at large the fangs and claws of the [Israeli] Government in all its ugliness and ferocity."  It put the IDF in a terrific bind because it has no idea of how to deal with nonviolence.

Really, it's a lose-lose-lose for Israel.  They could have allowed the flotilla through, as on previous occasions, in which case they show just how much of a charade the blockade is and give the activists and Gazans a major win by getting aid where it needs to go.  Or they can block it in a non-murderous fashion, in which case they mitigate any real deterrent.  Or they can end up tactically botching a violent raid and creating a tipping point.

Predictably, Israel is following the repressive playbook page by page.  Brian Martin:

[It] is useful to look at methods used by attackers that inhibit outrage. Examination of a wide range of cases reveals a diversity of methods, which for convenience can be grouped into five categories.

    * Cover up the attack, hiding it from observers.
    * Devalue the target.
    * Reinterpret the attack, describing it as something else or as someone else's responsibility.
    * Use official channels, such as authoritative pronouncements or official inquiries, that give the appearance of justice.
    * Intimidate or bribe participants, thereby discouraging action against those responsible for the attack.

Israel did a fairly decent job of this regarding Gaza and Operation Cast Lead, I think.  They take advantage of a lot of ambiguity and have been aided by Hamas' steadfast commitment to violence and stupidity.  In this case, however, they are rudderless because the people they attacked were from the international community, in international waters, and clearly on a humanitarian mission. 

They certainly have tried hiding the attack as much as possible, but their attempts have been short circuited by ubiquitous cameras and social networking applications.  Live tweets and Youtube videos also make it hard for the IDF to devalue the target (they're terrorists), reinterpret the attack (poor defenseless commandos), use official channels (IDF Spokesperson vs Twitter legion), and intimidate participants (they've given in on show trials for the activists).

Further complicating things for Israel is the fact that violent repression rarely has the intended effect.  Generally there is a backlash, and this situation is no exception.  Beyond activists continuing the waves of aid missions, the worst case has come true geopolitically because they have not been able to spin their way out of the massacre:

    * Under severe pressure, Egypt, which has blockaded Gaza by land for its own political reasons, has opened its borders (at least for now), a move that is likely to facilitate more weapons shipments than the most extreme estimates of potential smuggling from the Mavi Marmara would have supplied.

    * Turkey, the only predominantly Muslim country that regards Israel as an ally, has recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv amid massive anti-Israeli protests in the streets of Istanbul.

    * Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on his way to Washington to discuss the resumption of Palestinian peace talks with President Barack Obama, had to go home (for obvious reasons), and the prospect for renewed diplomacy—which had gained much support in the region—has, to say the least, diminished.

    * The case for tighter sanctions against Iran, to the extent that they involve sympathy with Israel's security concerns, has been dealt a setback, just as the U.N. nuclear agency has announced that Iran has enough fuel to build two A-bombs (though the fuel still needs to be enriched).

    * The U.N. Security Council has condemned Israel's actions, and countless aid groups, including no doubt several that are hostile to Israel, are sailing toward Gaza, as if to dare the Israelis to fire on them too and, in any case, to deal another blow against the legitimacy of the blockade.

In sum, in order to keep one ship from delivering aid directly to Hamas—and, as Ha'aretz put it, choosing "the worst of all possible options" to do so—Israel has plunged itself into the deepest state of isolation that it's experienced in years.

This goes to show just what happens to a regime when it refuses to study anything except violence.  People talk a lot about "existential enemies," but while they keep harping on provocative activists delivering water purifiers and wheelchairs and Israel's need to defend itself from such dangers, they miss the only real existential enemy Israel has: itself.

ntodd

198 More Sundays: What If They Had An Election And Nobody Came?

Just over two years ago I wrote a rather controversial 198 Sundays post about Method 124. Boycott of elections:

Where there is reason to believe that an election will not be conducted fairly or where there is refusal to recognize the authority of the regime conducting the election, an opposition movement may refuse to put up candidates and may urge people to refuse to vote.  The aim of such a boycott is usually to protest the use of the election to deceive people as to the degree of democracy present; or it may be an attempt to prevent the "real" issue or issues, as seen by the resistance group, from being overshadowed by "lesser" issues.

Long and short of my point was if we had a plan of strategic escalation and the presumed Democratic President and Congress didn't respond to our demands (specifically I focused on getting out of Iraq, but HCR, bailout and other issues could be included), that a boycott of the 2010 elections would be warranted.   I stand by that assessment even today--the Majority's ineffectiveness shows that our democratic mechanism is losing legitimacy in my mind--but the reality is that we didn't collectively lay the groundwork for such a tactic so I wouldn't advocate it.

However, I do advocate people abandon the partisan duopoly and try using the electoral system in addition to direct action to effect change.  I think local and state campaigns in particular are probably the most realistic place for most regular citizens to make an impact, at least by shifting the window of our political discussions, if not actually winning office.

One broken component of our deteriorating Federal arrangement is that the States have abdicated their responsibility in our system of checks and balances.  If we can help them reassert authority, we can restore our Constitution more from the ground up.

That was part of the impetus for me to run as an independent candidate in our State House election this November.  That's not everybody's cuppa, but I hope this campaign season people consider supporting primary challenges, alternative candidates in the General, and getting more involved in races closer to home.

ntodd

198 More Sundays: Best Care Anywhere

Well, I'm not sure if this is appropriate to employ in the struggle for healthcare reform, but perhaps a kind of social intervention, Method 175. Overloading of facilities, could work:

Overloading facilities involves the deliberate increase of demands fo services far beyond their capacity, so that the operation of the institution (government department, business, social service, and so on) is slow down or paralyzed.  Such overloading may be initiated by customers, the public, or employees of the institution.  The objectives may vary and may include improved services, wage increases and political ends.

In 1965 at the Los Angeles County Hospital in California, for example, interns protesting pay policies initiated an overloading of facilities by admitting far more patients to the hospital than existing facilities could accommodate--even persons not needing hospitalization were admitted.  This was called a heal-in.  The interns' aim was to obtain a better bargaining position with the hospital administration.  The hospital was filled with patients within four days, and the action cost the city around $250,000 in increased costs.

[The Miami News reported at the time:

Representatives of resident physicians and interns at Los Angeles County General Hospital, miffed by a pay raise of less than $10 a month, said they would flood the huge facility with patients. They called it a "heal in."

County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn called it "a deliberate plan to disrupt good hospital service." Ho said a delegation of three doctors claiming to represent the 200 interns and 350 resident physicians said their strategy was to admit as many patients as possible and, at the same time, retain present patients longer.

Hospital administrators said there was a 25 per cent increase in admissions yesterday and a 40 per cent drop in discharges. The doctors had asked fot $400 monthly for interns and a sliding scale foi resident physicians from S510 to $713 a month Interns now get $330 to start and $337 after six months — plus room and board. Resident physicians receive from $435 to $645 a month.]

A similar case occurred in Massachusetts at the Boston City Hospital in 1967, where it was called an "around-the-clock heal-in."  This action was begun by 450 residents and interns at Boston City Hospital on Tuesday, May 16, 1967.  The purpose of the heal-in was to dramatize salary demands by doctors at Boston teaching hospitals; at that time the take home salary of an intern was only sixty dollars per week.  The doctors felt that it would be in violation of their oaths to go on strike, so they chose instead to practice "ultra-conservative medicine in order to overcrowd the hospital.  Dr Philip Caper, President of the House Officers' Association, said: "Everyone gets the best of care," which was ensured by having all the interns and residents work twenty-four hours a day.  "Every patient who might benefit from hospitalization will be admitted, and no-one will be discharged until he is completely well."

The heal-in was patterned after the similar action at the Los Angeles County Hospital eighteen months previously.  The Boston City Hospital doctors began their heal-in as an unannounced experiment on Saturday, with 874 patients in the hospital.  On Sunday there were 890, on Monday 924, and on Tuesday at 7am (after the main action was begun) there were 982.  An unidentified doctor stated; "With 1200 or more patients in the hospital the laundry will not be able to keep up, the kitchens will have trouble getting the food out, the X-ray and laboratory departments will be swamped, and people will begin to listen to our demands..."

By Wednesday morning there were over 1000 patients, and 1075 on Thursday.  The heal-in was supported by private doctors and house officiers at the other major Boston hospitals.  Action was taken only at Boston City Hospital because house officers there had full responsibility for medical procedure, unlike the private hospitals.

Countermeasures by the administration began Tuesday afternoon with an announcement that there were no more beds for male patients, which was disproved that evening by the admission of two more patients.  They next tried to influence the chiefs of services to override the admittances, which these doctors refused to do on the grounds that these patients were indeed getting the best of care.  The administration's final effort was to deny their competence to make salary changes.  On the evening of Thursday, May 18, they relented and promised to make salary adjustments.  The doctors ended the heal-in voluntarily that night.  Observers felt that it was a "safe, effective way of backing up demands for higher wages."

[An LTE in Psychiatric News, 2001:

I was at the time a chief resident in psychiatry on what was then a Harvard service. I recall no mention of proposed union affiliation or concern about compensation, since the vast majority of residents felt privileged to be training under such notable clinicians as Dr. Derek Denny-Brown.

At issue were deplorable conditions for patient care such as grimy, open-bay wards with water-filled grapefruit juice cans filled with cigarette butts, an absence of bed linen, and no assistants to transport patients for X-ray studies or other procedures, such that interns had to push the gurney stretchers themselves.

The city administration had turned a deaf ear to the repeated pleas of the interns and residents. The “heal-in” was a last-ditch effort to draw public attention to the plight of the patients, who were, many of whom were poor and African Americans. We were determined during the heal-in to provide superior round-the-clock care. I recall being on duty for 36 hours straight. There were no “nonpatients” admitted, as described in Dr. Avram’s article. Rather, the decision was made not to discharge patients until every outstanding laboratory or X-ray study result was on the chart—this was had also been a significant problem in the precomputer era because of an absence of lab result dispatchers.

The Boston Globe was contacted in advance, emphasizing that superior care would be provided to patients during the heal-in. Thus, there was widespread public sympathy and support for this effort.

As I recall, the patient census soared from 800 to the full 1,200-bed capacity in two days. This required that some patients seeking admission were temporarily deferred to Massachusetts Memorial and Massachusetts General, New England Medical Center, and other area hospitals.

The city of Boston finally got the message, and the necessary patient care improvements were initiated.

This was not an action taken lightly and indeed only as a last resort. The interns and residents at Boston City Hospital felt totally vindicated by these positive results.]

I wonder if, with a majority of healthcare practitioners supporting single-payer, this would be an action they could take to make a point?  Order enough expensive tests that insurance companies would have to pay out or deny, create administrative bottlenecks, etc.  Even insurance employees of conscience could assist.  Dunno.

Anyway, I've just been trying to think of other ways people involved in delivering care can get involved somewhere between sidewalk summits and civil disobedience.

ntodd

198 More Sundays: A Healthcare Revolution Without Torches And Pitchforks

Twenty-four years ago tomorrow the four-day nonviolent People Power Revolution began in the Philippines.  I find it a curious historical coincidence that Thursday--the day Obama is holding his "bipartisan" HCR summit--marks the anniversary of the people's victory over the dictator Marcos.

The spark that set it all off was a corrupt snap election called to prop up Marcos' hold on power.  All regimes require the consent of the people and crave the veneer of popular legitimacy.  The tyrant fraudulently declared victory over his opponent, Corazon Aquino (who died last August), and that was his undoing:

After the election Cory Aquino spoke to a crowd of one million people at a rally in Manila. She proposed a seven-part program of nonviolent resistance, including a one-day work stoppage and a boycott of Marcos-controlled banks, stores and newspapers. She urged people to "experiment with nonviolent forms of protest" and declared: "...if Goliath refuses to yield, we shall keep dipping into our arsenal of nonviolence and escalate our nonviolent struggle." The revolution had begun.

On February 22, 1986, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Deputy Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos defect from the Marcos government. Enrile and Ramos barricade themselves in the Defense Ministry headquarters in Manila, along with a small group of sympathetic troops. They say they are prepared to die rather than continue supporting the corrupt Marcos regime.

The revolution employed a variety of Methods, including some I've been discussing in the context of healthcare reform: withdrawal of bank deposits, boycotts and strikes.  Success was also made possible by the mutiny of regime officials.

Of course it started with 47. Assemblies of protest of support:

Opposition to the policies or acts of an opponent, or support for certain policies, may be expressed by public assembly of a group of people at appropriate points, which are usually in some way related to the issue.  These may be, for example, government offices, courts, or prisons.  Or people may gather at some other place, such as around the statue of a hero or villain.  Depending on the particular laws and regulations and on the general degree of political conformity, such an assemblage may be either legal or illegal (if the latter, this method becomes combined with civil disobedience).

...

In Berlin in 1943...about six thousand non-Jewish wives of arrested Jews assembled outside the gate of the improvised detention center near the Gestapo headquarters demanding release of their husbands.  And in the entry for March 6, 1943, Goebbels wrote in his diary: "Unfortunately there have been a number of regrettable scenes at a Jewish home for the aged, where a large number of people gathered and in part even took sides with the Jews."

One of the most common objections when I bring up nonviolent action is that the apathetic/corrupt/rightwing media won't give us coverage, so there's no point to the exercise.  Global protests of the Iraq War are often used as proof of the folly. 

That, however, is based upon a few faulty assumptions: media doesn't cover such assemblies (yes, they do), coverage is supposed to generate sympathy/shame within the regime (it isn't necessarily), without coverage it's a tree falling in the woods (depends on the type and goal of the action).  If you consider the Filipino example, nobody was trying to somehow get Marcos to give up power simply by getting a million people to show up on TV.

The point was to rally the troops, as it were--to inspire, to encourage them to not only resist but do so nonviolently, and to demonstrate that it was a collective effort so no individual should be afraid of going alone.  It would be great if we could effect social or political change just by holding up a bunch of signs, but entrenched interests are not going to be swayed by news reports of even the largest "focus groups" without follow-up and real consequences.

That's not to say having coverage, especially positive coverage, isn't welcome.  Any channels of communication to a larger audience is helpful to the cause, of course.  But folks do tend to notice the impact of action if it's massive enough (e.g., snarled traffic, lost revenue) all by themselves, so let's not grant the media some magical powers without which we would never experience reality.

Aquino educated her audience, provided them with a strategic framework and specific tactics.  Her appeal was to the people, not her opponent.  Even had there been no media coverage of that event, she reached a million citizens directly and launched a successful revolution.

The Filipinos could have reacted completely passively, just accepting the old dictatorship and the games Marcos played in stealing the election.  Or they could have opted for violence.  Instead, they doubled their chance of victory by resisting nonviolently:

Our findings [using data on major resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006] show that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.

There are two reasons for this success. First, a campaign’s commitment to nonviolent methods enhances its domestic and international legitimacy and encourages more broad-based participation in the resistance, which translates into increased pressure being brought to bear on the target. Recognition of the challenge group’s grievances can translate into greater internal and external support for that group and alienation of the target regime, undermining the regime’s main sources of political, economic, and even military power.

Second, whereas governments easily justify violent counterattacks against armed insurgents, regime violence against nonviolent movements is more likely to backfire against the regime. Potentially sympathetic publics perceive violent militants as having maximalist or extremist goals beyond accommodation, but they perceive nonviolent resistance groups as less extreme, thereby enhancing their appeal and facilitating the extraction of concessions through bargaining...We assert that nonviolent resistance is a forceful alternative to political violence that can pose effective challenges to democratic and nondemocratic opponents...

There is never a guarantee of success in any endeavor, nor is there such a thing as a risk-free revolution.  Yet I'd rather use a combination of the 198 different tactics we cover here as part of a strategic nonviolence campaign than picking up the proverbial pitchforks and torches.

Just look at the odds.  Violence dramatically favors the house.  If you go with nonviolence most of the time you beat the house and walk away from the table much, much richer.

Now we're not trying to overthrow a government when it comes to healthcare, but we are rebelling against a ruthless corporatist regime that keeps us down whilst increasing its own wealth.  We can beat the insurance companies and their thralls in DC if we extrapolate from the victorious movements that rid themselves of the worst tyrants.  No need for bulldozers or airplanes, just people.

We can begin with some assemblies on the 25th to reach out, to educate our fellow citizens and elected employees in person.  We probably can't achieve reform as quickly as the Filipinos got rid of a dictator, and a few "street summits" probably won't create enough space for Congress and the President to give us the single-payer system we need, but that's okay.  You have to start somewhere.

So no more trying to come up with reasons why nothing will work, reasons why we shouldn't try.  Instead, imagine how we can make People Powered Reform happen, andlet's get to it.

ntodd

(Post at Pax Americana, Dohiyi Mir, Green Mountain Code Pink, and Daily Kos.)

This Protest Will Self-destruct In 10 Seconds

That's one option:

Like many people, Terry Hoskins has had troubles with his bank. But his solution to foreclosure might be unique.

Hoskins said he's been in a struggle with RiverHills Bank over his Clermont County home for nearly a decade, a struggle that was coming to an end as the bank began foreclosure proceedings on his $350,000 home."When I see I owe $160,000 on a home valued at $350,000, and someone decides they want to take it – no, I wasn't going to stand for that, so I took it down," Hoskins said.

...

The Moscow man used a bulldozer two weeks ago to level the home he'd built, and the sprawling country home is now rubble, buried under a coating of snow.

Method: 23. Destruction of own property.

I suppose one could argue this wasn't Hoskins' property since the bank technically owns it, but whatever.  Whether you're burning British cloth,draft cards or your home (okay, this guy bulldozed his and to his credit didn't then crash a plane into the bank), it's still a pretty powerful statement.

ntodd

198 More Sundays: If We Take To The Streets We Can Beat K-Street

Jeannette Rankin is a hero of Ericka's and mine, and a major inspiration ("mascot" seems wrong) for Green Mountain Code Pink.  The first female Member of Congress, a leader in the suffrage movement, she became a devotee of MLK in the Civil Rights/Vietname War era.  In January of 1968 she led 5000 women in the Rankin Brigade to confront Congress and famously said, "If we had 10,000 mothers willing to go to prison, we could end this war."

I wonder what it would be like if we formed a new Health Brigade to fight for single-payer.  Perhaps the Brigade could kick things off with a day of action after some low-level electronic lobbying leading up to Obama's HCR summit. 

I was thinking March 15--the anniversary of LBJ's "we shall overcome" speech to Congress--which is a Monday, so Congressional offices in DC and every district will be open for business (in my experience the Members aren't usually around on Mondays, but staff are).  Maybe call it Operation Dignity, or Operation Hope, or Operation Health, or Operation Single-Payer, or Operation Something Else People More Clever Than NTodd Can Come Up With.

Whatever the name, I have in mind three Methods the Health Brigade could employ.  First, 15. Group lobbying:

Lobbying in the sense of personal visits to a parliamentary representative by his constituent in an effort to influence his voting in the parliament or assembly is normally simply a verbal expression of opinion.  When does as a group action, however, lobbying becomes a form of corporate nonviolent action, because in addition to persuasion of the legislator, the gathering of a fairly large group of people in order to lobby itself becomes a demonstration.  This may take the form of small group lobbying when a series of individuals or groups in moderate numbers on one occasion, or over a period of time, or on several occassions visit their representatives in an effort to influence them...Or lobbying may be organized to focus on getting very large numbers on a particular day.  This is mass lobbying.

Let's say there were roughly 5000 people nationwide who went to their Reps' and Senators' offices in-district.  Maybe 10 people dedicated to single-payer--we had 16 people in teeny Vermont show up at Peter Welch's office in August--at each office to request a meeting with staff to discuss HCR.  That would be at least 5350 citizens (I know some Senators, like our dear friend Max Baucus, have more than one in the larger states) showing their commitment to real reform.

At those meetings, people could share their personal stories, indicate why they think single-payer is the only right path, and explain how they will fight in the primaries and this November only for candidates who support HR676.  Regardless whether the Member is a Democrat or Republican, we issue our demands and promises for future action.

We could double the impact if we also had 10 people visit each Congressional office on the Hill.  Same template, different location.  Now we've 10,000 citizens making their physical presence felt, lobbying their elected employees, nationwide, all at the same time.  Of course it would be great if we could get 20 people to join in at each location, but 10 as a minimum seems reasonable and does get us symbolic, yet significant, numbers in aggregate.

After a nice chat, what if we upped the ante right then and there?  Say we demand to speak to the Reps and Senators themselves?  Force the gatekeepers off balance a little bit.  No, no, we don't want to check out the website or set up a meeting later with some other staffer, thanks, please either bring them here now or get them on the phone.  Modern technology is so wonderful that Congress surely has the capacity to connect with constituents even if Members are on a roadside in East Nowhere, VT.

If we don't get a chance to talk with our targets, a subset of the citizens lobby can engage in the next level of the action.  162. Sit-in, a form of nonviolent physical intervention:

In a sit-in the interventionists occupy certain facilities by sitting on available chairs, stools and occasionally on the floor for a limited or unlimited period, either in a single act of in a series of acts, with the objective of disrupting the normal pattern of activities.

One major problem with Congress is the fact that lobbyists are constantly making their presence felt.  As I've noted before, when Ericka were in Welch's DC office, there was a Lockheed business card in the guest log just before we signed in.

It's not just money that moves politicians--though that is most important at campaign time--but contact with people and ideas.  If the only folks in their faces are lobbyists and not their constituents, then the former wins.

The default pattern needs to be interrupted, and gumming up the normal daily function of a Congressional office can be a part of that.  What's more, it can provide some good visuals and narratives if 5000 people all across America risked arrest to highlight their dedication to an important cause. 

Even if no media are there, and I'd submit we should invite some to the events, with cellphones and blogs the other delegates not volunteering to be arrested can provide coverage that could further interrupt the default thought patterns of our fellow citizens.  Hey, these people aren't just a few fringers--more doctors like Flowers and Paris would help--but folks just like me and they want single-payer.

Having documented the sit-in and arrest, the rest of the delegations can engage in some other Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion:

Several methods may be used in attempts to put pressures on individual members of the opponent group, whether officials or ordinary soldiers, for example.  These acts may be directed against specific persons or groups of persons, or may be intended to apply pressure on individuals who are part of a large body, such as an occupation army.

Delegates--and people uncomfortable with the lobbying component--would relocate outside the offices to show solidarity and create other opportunities for visuals and interactions with 34. Vigils:

A vigil is an appeal normally addressed not to one or a few person, but to many people.  Like picketing, a vigil consists of people remaining at a particular place as a means of expressing a point of view.  It differs from picketing, however, in that it is frequently maintained over a longer period of time, sometimes around the clock, and is associated with a more solemn attitude, often of a pleading or religious character.  It often involves late hours and loss of sleep.

Part of our protest and persuasion should focus not on our opponents in government, but potential allies in the population at large.  As I said the other day, we need to get our fellow citizens to understand how important this civil rights issue is, how it impacts them, and how they might get involved.  The more people you convince to join the movement through vigils, phonebanking and canvassing, the more pressure that can be brought to bear on the President, Congress and corporations through phonecalls, letters, lobbying, boycotts and strikes.

Now the big question: how do we get this Brigade marching?

ntodd

(Post at Pax Americana, Dohiyi Mir, Green Mountain Code Pink, and Daily Kos.)

198 More Sundays: What If They Had A Super Bowl And Nobody Came?

I hear tell there's some sort of athletic contest being held today.

Hey, I like football.  I like sports in general.  But last year our nascent family (more on that in a postscript) started a new tradition and quit the Super Bowl.

As this long-lived protest marks its second year today, I thought I'd revisit the Method it's an example of even though I'm sure blog traffic will be down as everybody's watching the game and ads so nobody will read this post.  From the category of Social Noncooperation we have 61. Boycott of social affairs:

A spirit of resistance may be expressed by a corporate refusal to attend certain social affairs, such as receptions, banquets, parties, concerts and the like.  During the Nazi occupation, for example, the Danes refused to attend concerts of German military music.  In late 1940 and early 1941 a wave of "cinema strikes" occurred in Norway in which patrons boycotted cinemas.  These began in Stavanger, where the local cinema board was dismissed for refusing to allow members of Quisling's elite organization (the Hird) to enter for free.  Cinema-going was then suspended elsewhere, culminating in the Oslo cinema strike in February.  (This example is also related to the economic boycott.)

In Poland during the same period the underground forbade Poles to patronize cinemas and theaters which had been started by the Germans.  In 1942 the underground determined that Polish theaters as well as German-operated theaters should be boycotted, and that no Pole should operate such a theater.  Jan Karski reports that the predominant reason was that "no Pole could be allowed to forget, even for two hours, what was happening to his country, or to amuse himself.  It was forbidden to interrupt the fight and insurrection in permanence against the invader."

Allow me to pre-emptively protest that I'm not a soulless, puritanical revolutionary who thinks people must be Morally Pure and shouldn't have fun or socialize until we have achieved Glorious Victory in The Great Struggle.  As Emma said:

I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal...for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things."

With that as backdrop, I'll indulge in a little more modified self-plagiarism:

There is value to social events--that's kinda why we have them.  And when engaged in resistance, community is very important, so the question is what types of community-building are the most valuable.  I found the time at my first war tax resistance gathering to be one powerful example, and of course there are many others that might still be "mainstream" or could be alternatives to the expected social interactions.

Of course we weren't planning on attending the Superbowl itself, but watching on TV is still part of the system.  There are the ads that many people actually watch the game for and  products are being pushed that we might buy them.

We have no illusions that today's refusal to watch football will end corporatism in America, or even obnoxious player salaries, let alone get us single-payer.  No duh.

Yet imagine if more people joined in boycotting the NFL's crown jewel with all its militaristic displays, refused to help the media networks that don't do their duty as the Fourth Estate while gladly taking our money, and didn't purchase the products crammed down our throats...maybe something could change for the better in our consumerist society.

Ad prices are deflated this year because of our current economic morass.  I suspect a social boycott could also have similar financial ramifications.  And consider all the money that people could redirect from spending on Super Bowl parties to feeding the hungry, donating to peace and justice organizations, funding HCR lobbying trips to DC, etc.  Yeah, I know it ain't gonna happen, but it's still a useful exercise to think about such things.

With the CBS' political policy of allowing anti-abortion ads but banning gay-friendly commercials, there's an added incentive for us to skip the big show.  Beer and other products have always been sold with sexist themes, but this year struck us as a bit worse than usual so Ericka suggested we call our action a MANcott.  And that's just what we're doing, man!

Anyway, feminists like madamb have a different take.  I especially like the idea of effectively turning one's back on the Tebow ad when it comes on.  It's all good.

It's actually a Boys Weekend here since my beloved is off visiting her BFF, who is recovering from cancer surgery (another personal reason why we fight for HCR).  I admit that when the game's on I will probably check in on Twitter to see what's going on, but no ads for me.

I hope everybody has a good Sunday whatever you're doing.  Recharge and be ready to carry on the struggle!

ntodd

PS--About that family.  We were full of that hopey-changey feeling after I returned from my penultimate tour at the soon-to-be-defunct DC Pink House and Pinking the Inaugural, and it turns out the math indicates we spent time we would've watched the Super Bowl much more, uh...productively.  As I write this, I'm listening to our little boycott coo and shriek and laugh as he exercises in his pack-n-play.  There are many ways to create peace...

(Post at Pax Americana, Dohiyi Mir, Green Mountain Code Pink, Corrente and Daily Kos.)

198 More Sundays: A Day Without Insurance Employees

I'm going to stick with economic noncooperation this week since I think that's an integral part of an intervention strategy to force Congress to pass real reform, as I outlined the other day.  I've generally thought that a combination of boycotts and strikes were the real key to success, hindering our corporate overlords' ability to function.  This general tactic has been employed in a variety of struggles, including for marriage equality, Indian independence and even resistance campaigns against the Nazis.

Today's gonna be a three-fer because I'm not entirely sure if there is a single form to use.  As Sharp observed:

The broad categories which must be used in classifying the many methods of nonviolent action are too rigid to suit the reality...Consequently, in every general class and subclass--such as the strike--there are some methods which also have one or more characteristics of another class (or do so under certain conditions) or which differ in at least one respect from the general characteristics of this class.

This is especially true in the case of the strike.  Normally, the strike is a temporary withdrawal of labor, but there are methods in which the withdrawal is, or at least intended to be, permanent.  Also, some methods are combinations of boycotts and strikes.  Other methods operate by withdrawing labor but do so only symbolically, so that they might also be included within the class of nonviolent protest and persuasion.

I have in mind some application of examples from three subclasses: Restricted Strikes, Multi-Industry Strikes, and Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures.  First, Method 112. Reporting "sick" (sick-in).  This is a form of restricted strike (i.e., not a total or general work stoppage):

Where strikes are prohibited by law, decree, or contract, or are not feasible for other reasons, workers may achieve anything from a slowdown of production to the equivalent of a full strike by falsely claiming to be sick.  This is an especially useful method when sick leave has been granted in the contract or law but strikes have been prohibited.

A great deal of feigned illness was reported among African slaves in the southern United States, sufficient to have had considerable economic impact.  Sometimes the illness ratio was nearly one sick to seven well.  Slaves were frequently sick on Saturday but rarely on Sunday, which was not a normal workday; more sickness occurred when the most work was required.

Although there was a great deal of genuine illness among the slave population, it is also clear that much of it was feigned in order to get out of work, to avoid being sold to an undesirable master, or to get revenge on a master (by feigning a disability while on the auction block and hence fetch a lower price).  Women pretending pregnancy received lighter work and increased food.  The Bauers write:

Of the extent to which illness was feigned there can...be little doubt.  Some of the feigning was quite obvious, and one might wonder why such flagrant abuses were tolerated.  The important thing to remember is that a slave was an important economic investment.  Most slave owners sooner or later found out that it was more profitable to give the slave the benefit of the doubt.  A sick slave driven to work might very well die.

One population that would be very good to have join in our efforts is employees of the health insurance carriers themselves.  Of course a full-blown strike in, say...billing or customer service likely is problematic for a number of reasons, but what if they used sick-ins, perhaps in the form of a "rolling" strike, to create work slowdowns in conjunction with stoppages in other tangential industries? 

Of course I wouldn't limit this form to just insurance workers.  An epidemic of HR676 Flu could have great impact on any industry, and the government.

We might also try a tactic used quite frequently and successfully outside the United states: 117. General strike (multi-industry strikes):

The general strike is a widespread stoppage of labor by workers in an attempt to bring the economic life of a given area to a more or less complete standstill in order to achieve certain desired objectives.  The method may be used on a local, regional, national or international level.  Wilfred Harris Crook defined the general strike as "the strike of a majority of the workers in the more important industries of any one locality or region."
...
While a general strike is usually intended to be total, certain vital services may be allowed to operate, especially those necessary for health...Crook distinguishes three broad types of general strike--political, economic and revolutionary.

A political general strike has the goal of achieving specific concessions from the government.  One great historical example is the series of strikes in 1893, 1902 and 1913 in support of electoral reforms in Belgium--actually, Belgians seem to love this Method for lots of goals.

Belgium has a long tradition of mass industrial strikes. In 1886 a great series of strikes broke out first in the neighbourhood of Charleroi, then in Liége and over a large part of the Walloon provinces. The main demand was universal suffrage; but there were economic demands as well in some places.

Then in May, 1891, a mass strike of some 125,000 workers put forward a demand for changes in the electoral system. In April, 1893. another strike, embracing about a quarter of a million workers, broke out around a similar demand. The outcome was a universal, but unequal, franchise, the votes of the rich and “cultured” counting for two or three times those of workers. Dissatisfied, the workers called another mass strike nine years later, demanding a complete revision of the Constitution.

An even bigger strike – in which 450,000 workers took part – was called by the Socialist Party and trade unions to achieve electoral reform in 1902, and again in 1913.

Another general strike, which wrested a forty-hour week and paid holidays from the capitalists, took place in 1936. In 1950 a general strike led to the abdication of King Leopold.

In 1958-9 the coal-miners of the Borinage spontaneously began a general strike not merely for wage demands but for the nationalisation of the mining industry.

Our reformist tradition in the United States also includes general strikes, usually in support of labor, such as the Seattle General Strike, the San Francisco General Strike and Textile General Strike.  It wouldn't be much of a stretch for Americans to use such tactics to achieve other forms of social change like universal healthcare.

The final strike Method I've been musing about is 118. Hartal (combination of strike/economic closure).

The hartal is an Indian method of nonviolent action in which the economic life of an area is temporarily suspended on a voluntary basis in order to demonstrate extreme dissatisfaction with some event, policy, or condition.  It is not used to wield economic influence, but to communicate sorrow, determination, revulsion, or moral or religious feelings about the matter in question.  Although the form of this method is largely economic, the effect is one of symbolic protest.

The hartal is usually limited to a duration of twenty-four hours; it may rarely be extended to forty-eight hours or even longer in an extremely serious case.  The hartal is usually city-wide or village-wide, although it may occur over a more extended area, including the whole nation.  Generally speaking, there is greater emphasis in the hartal than in the general strike on its voluntary nature, even to the point of laborers abstaining from work only after obtaining permission from their employers.  Also, shop owners and businessmen fully participate by closing their establishments and factories.

This is one of the forms of nonviolent action known to ancient India, where it was used against the prince or king to make him aware of the unpopularity of a certain edict or other government measure.  The hartal is also used at a time of national mourning.

Gandhi employed this ancient method in resistance movements he led.  He often used the hartal at the beginning of a struggle with the intent of purifying the participants in the struggle, of testing their feelings on the issue, and arousing the imagination of the people and the opponent.  It was used, for example, at the beginning of the nationwide satyagraha campaign in India against the Rowlatt Bills in 1919, and at the beginning of and during the 1930-31 satyagraha campaign for independence, especially to protest the arrest of important leaders.

Gandhi emphasized the inward readiness required to begin a struggle.  Can we implement an Americanized version of hartal?  Perhaps it would lack some of the explicit spiritual aspects (attending vigils could count), but include the voluntary component (no union asking membership to strike), the notion of asking for permission to not work (maybe in the form of using sick or personal time), the limited duration (24 hours) and intent (protest more than true economic intervention). Maybe use this specifically in DC as opposed to nationwide?

As usual, I don't have a specific formulation of how to apply these just yet, and am looking for other people's thoughts on their practicality and usefulness particularly in the fight for HR676.  I do think peace and justice activists need to consider updating tactics and strategy to work more effectively in the current political, economic and media environment, and one or more flavors of strike really ought to be part of the discussion.

ntodd

PS--I appreciate the feedback from some commenters at Great Orange Satan about my timing of these posts, so introduction of new Methods might move to a day other than Sunday.

(Post at Pax Americana, Dohiyi Mir, Green Mountain Code Pink, Corrente and Daily Kos.)

198 More Sundays: Power Of The People And The Purse

I began a couple weeks ago to try introducing direct action to a wider audience by covering the Move Your Money campaign.  I followed that up the next week with a discussion of sedition, which bloggers can engage in to some extent.

My idea was that I should skip any preliminary discussion of theory and history to more quickly get into things people could easily start doing.  Going for the low-hanging fruit, I figured people would start thinking about the resistance they're a part of and start to see their inherent power, then perhaps the larger context would become more apparent.

However, I see that our educational system is so lacking in any treatment of nonviolent social and revolutionary movements, there is a good deal of misunderstanding about and bias against their application today.  I won't go tinfoil and suggest that's a deliberate ploy by our overlords to make people passive, but the effect is the same: we've been convinced we have no recourse so might as well stay at home and enjoy the consumer items corporatism bribes us with.

I guess I should therefore take a step back and present the big picture before getting into today's specific form of action.  A good place to start is whit what Gene Sharp, the person who originally cataloged the 198 Methods that I'm always going on about, explaining a bit about nonviolent action:

"If the withholding is undertaken by enough people for a long enough period of time, then the regime will have to come to terms or it will be collapsed. Nonviolent action seeks to bring about change in three ways. The first is conversion, which is the rarest. The second is accommodation, which is the most usual. The third is nonviolent coercion, which is the most extreme of all forms."

Sharp is at pains to divest nonviolent action of any semblance of passivity. He says: "Nonviolent action is a means of combat, as is war. It involves the matching of forces and the waging of "battles", requires wise strategy and tactics and demands of its "soldiers courage, discipline and Sacrifice'. Sharp also tries to make it different from anarchism. It is based on fear of sanctions as well as consent emanating extra constitutional tenor. He says that it is possible to integrate nonviolent action into a constitutional system of government. Here, Sharp at once defends the existence of the state, integrates nonviolent action as democratic and posits it as a perennial element in society capable of defending and sustaining human freedom. He detaches nonviolence from its normative life forms as Gandhi did in his critique of modem civilisation and incorporates it as a legitimate mode of action rooted in liberal democracy.

Sharp first cataloged his methods in 1973's The Politics of Nonviolent Action and revisited them in his 2005 book, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential.  They fall into three overarching categories: actions to suspend social relations, actions to suspend economic relations, and actions to suspend political submission and assistance.

When I bring up direction action, people often only think of protest marches.  They correctly observe that such demonstrations "don't work": we marched against the Iraq War, for example, and Bush still invaded.  The problem is that marches are a type of protest and persusasion, which Sharp describes in Waging Nonviolent Struggle:

Nonviolent protest and persuasion include numerous methods that are mainly symbolic acts of peaceful opposition or attempted persuasion.  These extend beyond verbal expressions of opinion but stop short of noncooperation or nonviolent intervention.  The use of these methods shows that the resisters are against or in favor of something, the degree of opposition or support, and, sometimes, the number of people involved.

The impact of these methods on the attitudes of others will vary considerably.  It is possible that where a particular method is common, its influence in a single instance may be less than in locations where the method has hitherto been rare or unknown.  The political conditions in which the method occurs are also likely to influence its impact.  Dictatorial conditions make an act of nonviolent protest less common and more dangerous.  Hence, if it does occur, the act may be more dramatic and may receive greater attention than it would where the act is common or carries no penalty.

The message may be intended to influence the opponents, the public, the grievance group, or a combination of the three.  Attempts to influence the opponents usually focus on convincing them to correct or halt certain actions, or to do what the grievance group wants.  The methods of nonviolent protest and persuasion may also be selected to facilitate a concurrent or later application of other methods, especially the forms of noncooperation.

Some Methods are designed to garner sympathy and persuade people to come to your side.  Some intend to shame those in power.  And some merely register dissent.

Other Methods are more intense and meant to tangibly threaten the opponent, which could be a regime, a particular social group or even corporations.  Those are forms of noncooperation (social, political, and economic), which Sharp describes:

Overwhelmingly, the methods of nonviolent struggle involve noncooperation with the opponents.  "Noncooperation" means that the resisters in a conflict either deliberately withdraw some form or degree of existing cooperation with the opponents or the resisters refuse to initiate certain forms of new cooperation.  Noncooperation involves deliberate discontinuance, withholding, or defiance of certain existing relationships--social, economic, or political.  The action may be spontaneous or planned, and it may be legal or illegal.

The impact of the various forms of noncooperation hinges heavily on the number of people participating in the use of the methods and the degree to which the opponents are dependent on the persons and groups that are refusing cooperation.

I've heard people say, "I'd do that, but I don't want to be the only one."  A minority of one is certainly more symbolic and less effective than a mass movement, yet you do have start somewhere.  And if you consider blogs as being a cheap and fairly wide-reaching--though admittedly still not having as the same penetration as TV or radio as yet--medium that can help coordinate collective efforts, you won't be alone for very long if you're willing to take a risk.

One type of collective noncooperation in the economic sphere has been widely used since at least the 18th Century, such as when British abolitionists responded to Parliament's failure to abolish slavery (a great early example I will cover later): Method 71. Consumers' boycott.

Again, Sharp:

An economic boycott is the refusal to buy, sell, handle or distribute specific goods and services, and often also includes efforts to induce others to withdraw such cooperation.

Just as with Move Your Money, this tactic (generally) carries less risk with it than something like civil disobedience and allows individuals and groups to flex their economic muscle.  More importantly, this is a step up from just trying to persuade an opponent to do the right thing: now you're threatening them directly by cutting off the lifeblood of their revenue.  Following a few simple rules, there have been many successful consumer boycotts just in the last 20 years, so clearly it's still a useful tool in our kit.

So when I use the word 'escalate' I don't mean getting more people to more marches.  I'm talking about upping the ante in terms of psychological pressure, physical intervention and economic impact.  Once you've issued your demands with a "down payment" of action in the form of protest and persuasion Methods, you must move on to higher-level actions and ratchet up the force brought to bear through tactics like coordinated boycotts.

Okay, people have been able to get corporations to change some policies and whatnot, but how could we use this Method for something like HCR?  Ignoring the difficult logistics for a moment, an obvious target would be the insurance companies themselves.  If we were to attack their obscene, ever-growing profits by massively refusing to pay premiums after demanding they end policy rescissions, stop increasing premiums, reduce denial of claims, etc, they would necessarily have to accommodate us.  What's more, we probably would put indirect pressure on politicians who get campaign contributions from their corporate constituents, so government policy could also be influenced.

Now, of course that would be very difficult to organize.  I'm not saying it wouldn't work, because it absolutely would.  When people say "it won't work" they're usually conflating the issues of an action's effectiveness vs mobilizing people to act, and really mean "it won't get anybody on board."  In this specific example, there is too much to risk from some folks' perspective--there's no alternative to insurance available for most--not to mention that so much insurance is through employers and trying to get them to stop paying premiums would be extremely problematic.

So regarding the insurance companies themselves we probably would be better served by sticking with symbolic acts of protests.  Perhaps sending mock rescissions along with premiums, or standing vigil outside their offices, etc.

Maybe instead we could make more of a flanking maneuver and target other corporate entities that are tangentially related.  The media is certainly part of the problem, so what about boycotting cable companies who take ad dollars from insurance companies and deliver "news" shows that misinform the electorate?  Cancel your cable TV and you will harm their revenue stream, plus you could redirect some of those savings to other forms of action, donations to groups doing yeoman's work on reform and the like.

What other corpos could we try this on?  Which targets would be the most likely to help us mobilize participation? How would we organize it?

As we experiment, we must keep in mind that we can't expect this Method alone to carry the day.  What's more, boycotts themselves can divide a movement as some factions might harbor concern about potential negative consequences, timing and other issues, so we can't count on everybody buying into the idea (which ultimately can limit effectiveness).  Thus I'll be elaborating on more tactics in the coming weeks so we can have a fuller toolkit to work with.

ntodd

(Post at Pax Americana, Dohiyi Mir, Green Mountain Code Pink, Corrente and Daily Kos.)

"I hope we shall take warning": Citizens United, Direct Action And HCR

While we were sitting around drinking Kool Aid, writing agitprop and plotting the demise of HCR, fellow unqualified progressive MBW observed that there's a possibility that the Senate bill could run afoul with SCOTUS if challenged by virtue of the Printz decision over a decade ago.  Rightwingers certainly love that idea, some lefties take issue with it.  I'm not so sure if there's an opt-out or waiver clause whether the exchange provision really falls under "commandeering".

I have previously argued that the Federal government is empowered to provide health coverage, though I once again admit I ain't got conlaw experience.  I'm pretty sure my reasoning stands, I guess so long as there is no requirement for States to implement national policy in the manner Printz proscribes.  Providing for the General Welfare is a powerful thing but it can't intrude on States' prerogatives, which is yet another reason why I'd much prefer something like Medicare for All as opposed to individual and State mandates.

The larger constitutional question on my mind is about SCOTUS' ruling this week on Citizens United.  To me that was the final nail in the "fix it later" coffin.  I just don't see how we're going to get any further reform with corporations free to use their increasing largesse to influence elections even more--unless we agitate more, that is.

Adam Smith observed in The Wealth of Nations:

[The rate of profit] is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin...As [merchants and master manufacturers'] thoughts...are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of the society, their judgment, even when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every occasion) is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of those two objects than with regard to the latter.

We're certainly going to ruin fast as the rate of profit grows ever higher.  Do we not think insurance companies will exercise their political thoughts--and now unfettered monies--about their business interests rather than that of society?

Fundamentally, a lot of folks trust the electoral process to be the sole mechanism for change.  Despite the Democrats' clearly demonstrated ability to look hapless and ineffective, for some reason party loyalists are desperate to pass the current bill...so they don't look hapless and ineffective.  That ship sailed a long time ago, I'm afraid.

Now is the time for bold action by the Majority to show they really are in charge instead of being weak and unable to govern even with a significant mandate.  Polls have shown that a good chunk of the People think the Senate offering doesn't go far enough, which is one component of the Democratic failure to keep Teddy's seat.  Shoving a shit sandwich down our throats isn't going to endear the party to the voters this November, so the worries about looking bad if "nothing" passes (as though there aren't other alternatives like, say...HR676 which is only 30-odd pages, could be read overnight and passed right over the Minority) are a bit confusing to me.

Of course the Majority isn't going to be bold.  Not without our help, anyway.  We need to take the lead and create the space for them to move into.

We do that by saying we will only accept a bill which includes women's health and coverage for all Americans.  We will only accept a bill which includes a public option and doesn't require states to establish exchanges.  We will only accept a bill that lets States establish their own single-payer programs and doesn't entrench insurance companies.

If our demands aren't met, we will do all we can to kill the simulacrum of reform that's being sold to us.  If our demands aren't met, we will push for primary challenges and in November won't support incumbents who voted for the bill.  If our demands aren't met, we will engage in escalating direct action.

I keep seeing a lot of resistance to direct action, which isn't so surprising but still disappointing.  As I've said before, a lot of it comes from a position of ignorance so I try to educate as much as I can without getting overly frustrated (with even less success on the latter than the former).  One of the biggest problems is people seem to think nonviolent direct action only comes in one flavor: big demonstrations with giant puppets and Free Mumia posters (and that ain't a straw man).

From that assumption, many other objections follow.  Marches can't work because we'll never get media attention.  Demonstrations can't shame the people in power any more.  Nonviolence only works against regime and can't bring about social change.

Never mind woman's suffrage, civil rights, collective bargaining...that's all history and Things Are Vaguely Different Now.

All power is derived from consent, whether in a democracy, dictatorship or fascist corporatocracy.  In our environment we have many ways to withdraw our cooperation and exercise our collective power.  We just need to employ some of those Methods persistently.

I started out my renewed series of tactics a couple weeks back with a discussion on withdrawal of funds from financial institutions, which has been used effectively time and again.  Tomorrow in my regular 198 More Sundays post I'll talk more about economic intervention as a tool for change.  In the meantime I echo what Thomas Jefferson once wrote:

I hope we shall take warning...and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

It's time to redouble our efforts both through political and non-electoral means.  If we mobilize now to crush the insurance industry's agenda, we can build upon a solid foundation to fight corporatism in other parts of our government and society.  For example, we can learn lessons from this struggle and with our newly energized base of grassroots activists finally get real campaign finance reform that SCOTUS can't toss aside.

The Left is not monolithic--our boon and bane, it seems--so not everybody will engage in, let alone agree on, every approach.  Yet I think we can all benefit from vigorous discussion of how to achieve our common goals by recognizing the value of our diversity, encouraging action over impotence, and respecting each other as allies who might have honest differences of opinion.

So let us take warning from Citizens United and work together for health justice instead of helping our opponents divide and conquer.

ntodd

(Post at Pax Americana, Dohiyi Mir, Green Mountain Code Pink, Corrente and Daily Kos.)