Archivo de la etiqueta: strategy of non violent action

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Proposal to the Bernie Sanders Movement:

A Call for the Establishment of National and Local Strategy Centers for a  People Power USA Political Revolution


By Kathleen Lynch
MSW                                                                                                                             June 2016


Summary:  This paper proposes that the Bernie Sanders movement create at the national and local levels “Strategy Centers for People Power USA Political Revolution” to strategize and draw plans for strategic nonviolent warfare using people power to bring about the political revolution.”

Current situation: Despite Bernie not being a 2016 presidential candidate, Bernie’s 12 million supporters are mobilized and desire to keep fighting for a political revolution.  Yet they are not utilizing, and most are not aware of, the other 198 + specific methods of nonviolent struggle available, in addition to, the important yet limited range of electoral politics, street demonstrations and civil disobedience.


Utilizing these additional 198 powerful methods can craft a strategy for a serious USA nonviolent political revolution with the real capacity to topple the power elites.  The power of Bernie supporters will increase to a level where they are not only asking for change, but are actually implementing it.


“How does nonviolent action work?  (from Dr. Gene Sharp, Albert Einstein Institution, Boston)

Nonviolent action works by getting a population to withdraw its support and obedience from the opponents. By getting key groups to withdraw their consent, nonviolent action is able to remove the sources of power for a regime or opponent group.

These sources of power are:



1. Authority—the belief among the people that the regime or opponent is legitimate, and that they have a moral duty to obey it;



2. Human resources—the number and importance of the persons and groups that are obeying, cooperating, or providing assistance to the regime or opponent;


3. Skills and knowledge—needed by the regime or opponent to perform specific actions and supplied by the cooperating persons and groups;


4. Intangible factors—psychological and ideological factors that may induce people to obey and assist the regime or opponent;


5. Material resources—the degree to which the rulers control or have access to property, natural resources, financial resources, the economic system, and means of communication and transportation; and


6. Sanctions—punishments, threatened or applied, against the disobedient and non-cooperative to ensure the submission and cooperation that are needed for the regime or opponent to exist and carry out its policies.


All of these sources of power, however, depend on acceptance of the regime or opponent, on the submission and obedience of the population, and on the cooperation of innumerable people and the many institutions of society. When this obedience, acceptance, and support are withdrawn, the regime or opponent can be severely weakened or toppled.”

“What is the role of strategy in nonviolent action?” (from Dr. Gene Sharp)


“Historically, nonviolent action has often been an improvised type of action—sometimes even a spontaneous occurrence—with little or no advanced strategic planning to guide it. However, just as strategic planning is used in military conflicts and other types of activities, strategic planning can also be used in nonviolent action to increase its effectiveness. Strategic planning involves choosing clear objectives, devising a grand strategy (or master plan), more limited strategies for specific objectives that fit within the grand strategy, tactical (or short-term) planning, and the choice of specific methods to achieve tactical and strategic objectives.”

To wage nonviolent warfare, Bernie Sanders movement can create at the national and local levels “Strategy Centers for People Power Political Revolution”.  The national strategy center would engage top experts to outline the overall strategy, with ample training in these nonviolent warfare strategies and methods provided to local affiliate organizations.  Much encouragement will be given to the local strategy centers and multi-issue affiliated groups to apply the national strategy in creative, locally targeted ways appropriate to their issue specific goals, always within a framework of no physical violence.


Bernie’s political revolution could flex its 12 million muscles in powerful ways throughout the country to build real people power not dependent on changing the minds of elected officials and the financial elite. This People Power strategy can withdraw cooperation from below, while the Bernie political revolution electoral arm continues to demand government mandated reforms from above.   One example of this two pronged fighting strategy could be the following:

 

Bernie’s political revolution electoral branch aims to persuade government to break up the big banks.  It also pressures for government to finance the creation of worker owned co-ops and have a national minimum wage of $15/hour.


The people power arm of the revolution can begin the actual process of breaking up the big banks by asking 12 million Bernie supporters to move their bank accounts out of Wall Street banks to credit unions and local banks.  This could be coupled with all manner of social boycotts against named big bank criminals, such as a Political Revolution “No Serve” list in which restaurants and businesses would not serve these un-convicted financial felons.  Bernie supporters’ money invested in now wealthier local financial institutions could be used to fund worker owned co-ops and small businesses to create jobs for unemployed minority youth and other people which pay a minimum of $15/hour.


Next steps to implement this “People Power Political Revolution Strategy Centers:  Bernie Sanders National Campaign convenes as soon as possible a meeting of its top people, top strategists in the field of nonviolent conflict, leaders of diverse issue affiliated groups, as well as pro-Bernie retired military leaders (they know how to do a war strategy) to evaluate this proposal with the idea of actualizing it.

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Credits:  Dr. Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institute in Boston is the foremost pioneer and researcher on nonviolent methods and strategies.  Italicized quotes in this paper are from Dr. Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institute document:   What is Nonviolent Action?  http://www.aeinstein.org/nonviolentaction/what-is-nonviolent-action/.    For more information on historical uses of the 198 methods of nonviolent action, see The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973), by Gene Sharp.


Free Online Resources on Nonviolent Struggle:     http://www.aeinstein.org/free-resources/free-publications/english/        Books/Movie on Nonviolent Struggle      http://www.aeinstein.org/bookstores/

International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, Washington D.C.      https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/ 

Attacks on Gene Sharp and Albert Einstein Institution Unwarranted:     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/attacks-on-gene-sharp-and_b_109526.html