...and how to defeat it.
This is our first reading everyone: "From Dictatorship to Democracy: A conceptual framework for liberation" by Gene Sharp.
The reason I've chosen this text is to bring a bit of light and hope, direction and scope to what we want to accomplish in this group. Our ideological objective is liberation, but what does that mean? How does it look? How do you move from where we are, to where 'liberation' is?
To answer these questions, we must develop real strategies and tactics to materialize that goal and bring it into workable and practicable forms.
And, first, we must acknowledge that the state in which we live is increasingly (and perhaps subtly always has been) operating as a dictatorship. Capitalist imperialism is a dictatorship of the rich and powerful, an oligarchy that must be unseated in the same ways as all dictatorships must and can be.
If you must, replace the word "dictatorship" with "capitalist imperialism" and the same effect is achieved and the information is just as valid and fits just as well.
Also, this book will start us on another crucial path for our work, that of non-violent resistance. There are many forms of combat and conflict that we are not told about or made aware of in media attempts to propagandize us around perpetual war. Humans can live peacefully without violence, and in fact, non-violent resistance is, in many ways, more powerful and more effective than violent means of waging conflict. I hope we can begin to broaden our thinking on how to unseat an opponent whose strength is war and violence without ourselves having to use violence, and further, by purposely using non-violent means.
This will probably be one of the shortest texts we read together. Yay! The author, Gene Sharp, wrote it as a primer of sorts, after decades of research, and it has been used to great effect in freedom struggles the world over. Though it may be light, it shouldn't be taken lightly.
The best part is this book offered for free by Gene Sharp's organization, The Albert Einstein Institute. Here's a link to the fourth edition: http://www.aeinstein.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FDTD.pdf
As you move through the work, please comment with any questions, observations, realizations, bright ideas, or any and all good jokes. Also, always feel free to address anything that you don't understand or that feels 'off' to you in the work. This is an open and safe space to discuss*.
*(see the "Make It Yours" post in The Round Table section for notes on how we discuss with each other in this space.)
Ready? Set? Read!