Harry Targ
Gandhi once wrote, “Even the most powerful cannot rule without the cooperation
of the ruled.” A Trump tyranny will not be able to continue without the support
and acquiescence of those whose lives and future it is destroying. It will only
be able to pursue its destructive course if they enable or acquiesce in it. A
movement can overcome the most powerful regime if it can withdraw that
cooperation. https://pdacnm.org/2025/02/08/defending-society-against-maga-tyranny/
So as we begin the
latest phase of educating, agitating, and organizing the multitudes we might
reflect on the patterns of resistance that have been used in the past and may
still be useful today. Jeremy Brecher has recently published a lengthy
discussion of forms of “social self-defense” which give direction to how
progressives, the multitudes, might resist the onslaught of President
Trump/Musk’s new policies and parallel policies imposed on people at the state
and local levels.
In addition, peace
traditions as well as the labor left have engaged in patterns of resistance at
various points in history. Gene Sharp’s 198 forms of non-violent resistance
provide a useful checklist which may have applicability to today’s struggles.https://commonslibrary.org/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/
Moving Ahead in 2025 the
Following Questions Remain
1.How do we organize
locally and statewide, particularly in “red states”
2.How do we develop in
our literature and public agenda the view that what we are struggling against is
a forty-year program of austerity, redistributing the wealth and power from the
many to the few. And how can we effectively show that our local struggles
parallel those in other states and countries.
3.How can we
effectively link our theoretical understanding of history, much like Rev.
Barber’s provocative discussion of the three reconstructions, to the concrete
campaigns we are engaged in
4.How can we take the
general worldview and discuss:
-the
threat to voting rights
-racist
police practices
-the
transformation of a 150-year tradition of public education into for-profit
charter schools
-the
deregulation of environmental controls at the very same time that fires,
floods, draughts are increasing
-the
rationing of health care and the rising cost of medication
-the
use of state enticements to bring investors who create low wage jobs that
worsen income inequality
-the
use of government to destroy the right of workers to form unions of their
choosing and to honor the work of those unions to defend worker rights
-the
support for war and violence everywhere and the danger of nuclear war
Below are the
substantive strategic issues that we face, now with a brutal new billionaire
racist oligarchy.
-the proportion of
work devoted to inside and outside strategies
-the relative
weight and autonomy to be given to national, state and community organizations
-the connections
between socialist, labor, environmentalist, peace, anti-racist, feminist,
educational and other organizations
- the relationships
we need to create between varying decision-making bodies, local organizations
and issue committees
- finally thinking
tactically such as relating to Gene Sharp’s 198 forms of non-violent activity.
https://www.brandeis.edu/peace-conflict/pdfs/198-methods-non-violent-action.pdf
Conclusion
The world is in turmoil.
Protests across the globe have some common origins, causes, and solutions.
While communities have their own problems, they are not too different from
those elsewhere. The ongoing work must involve addressing specific issues while being cognizant of the general, building coalitions of shared
responsibility and respect, organizing people power from the streets to the
centers of power, and reconstructing institutions that serve, not oppress the
people.
