Does Our Movement Need Music? Hell, Yes!

Photo by Lukas Eggers on Unsplash | the time is right for dancing in the street

We’ve got the people. We’ve got the enthusiasm. But we need to do better. Here’s how…I think..

American’s are going into the streets and protesting rising fascism. It’s happening, and it’s very, VERY good.

But it isn’t enough. We need a strategic movement and our protests need to advance us towards victory. We don’t have the knowledge or experience—yet—to do this thing right.

We need to try different things, to learn, and figure out how to effectively harness our overwhelming power. Yes, you heard that right: our overwhelming power.

Other movements discovered People Power and ousted tyrants and humbled empires—without firing a shot. And yet every generation seems to need to re-learn the lessons. I’ve spent some time reading about and studying the history of movements and why some work. Oh, and why others don’t. And many, many work really well until they don’t.

Let’s start with why people power is SO powerful. It’s really pretty simple.

1. There are millions and billions of ordinary people, and a few thousand thugs up top worldwide. At most. So we have a crushing advantage in numbers.
2. We have a moral advantage. We care about other people, along with ourselves. Tyrants and thugs only care about themselves. So, the thugs and all their supporters are a) hypnotized by ideology, for example neo-liberalism or objectivism, b) decent people simply doing their jobs within a sick corrupt system, c) psychopaths incapable of empathy. “a” is probably the core of passionate fascists (and other cruel ideologues), “b” is a very big group, and “c” is vanishingly small. As time goes by, our moral advantage wins more people over—because the brutality of our foes becomes more blatant and more cruel and harder even for “true believers” to take. Also, many “true believers” become victims of the clumsy cruelty of tyrants.
3. We do everything and tyrants do nothing. In fact, they are incapable of doing much of anything. We could, theoretically, end the abusive regime AND the abusive system (because we’ve been living under a cruel stupid system compromised by plutocrats BEFORE the current regime took power) by having a general strike and refusing to pay any taxes. But that’s not the way it happens, in part because we need to outwit the violent but witless regime. They have people who have guns. Since those gun-wielding people are, in fact OUR PEOPLE, our relatives and friends and loved ones, we will talk with them and remind them that they must side with us and not with the cruel nitwit who reluctantly signs their paycheck.

So we have protests, we have people in the streets, we have people who care. And our numbers are growing so these are all good signs. But what now? How can we turn mere noisemaking into something that actually overcomes our foes?

We need to grow much faster. We need to start carrying out, at first, small acts of nonviolent noncooperation. That is, to begin disempowering the regime by NOT doing what they NEED us to do. But because they have guns and no morals, we need to start small, and then continue with ever-bigger tactics.

We won’t get the numbers with the protests we have now. They get attention only if there’s violence. And the violence is always blamed on us.

We need to ATTRACT more protesters, more and more of the zillions who agree with us but don’t feel like going to a protest.

Dancing In The Streets. Literally.

We need music. Sweet music. We need music everywhere. Now there’s a precedent for this. The Serbian movement that overthrew the dictator Milosevic was started by 5 college students—one of whom was a base player. As part of the movement, they held free concerts in the main square of the capital city.

Only some people go to protests. A whole lot more would go to a concert. Well, we don’t have a band. But we can have music, and we can have fun while protesting. This doesn’t cheapen it—it helps in a big way. It attracts more protesters AND it makes it harder for abusive leaders to crack down. It looks really bad to beat up people who are laughing, singing and having fun—even if they are protesting the regime.

I’m Planning To Try A Few Things

As I said, I’ve been reading the history of movements. I understand the principles of what works and what doesn’t. I’m planning to experiment, to persuade and inspire people at protests to test out some tactics.

1. Promoting existing and very promising projects to create the changes we want and need. Right now, the most promising initiative I’ve seen is GeneralStrikeUS.com. This group has clearly studied successful movements and learned that, when a movement gets 3.5% as active participants, it usually wins. GSUS is working to recruit that number and has 300,000+ now.
   They need A LOT MORE to get to 11 million. But since this would make victory almost inevitable, I am committed to recruiting people to go online and sign a strike card at GeneralStrikeUS.com/strikecard.
   I have already started telling people at protests about GSUS and handing out papers with the URL and a request to sign. I intend to do more of this and inspire others to do the same at protests across the country.
2. We need humanize everyone. Totalitarians, fascists and other thugs inevitably need scapegoats, people to dehumanize and to label as “the enemy.” Not only are these “enemies” no threat at all.
   Sometimes they don’t even exist. For example, the “deep state” is a useful fiction which turns amiable bureaucrats who are simply doing their jobs into a great danger. I’m not sure what kind of danger a clerk at the Social Security Administration poses—because the truth is, the answer is NONE. But in addition to imaginary enemies, fascists—including the current ones—vilify pretty much anyone they can use and abuse to rile up their supporters.
   Absolutely harmless people fleeing hardship in South and Central American countries are considered dangerous invaders. As we all know, the phrase “rapists and criminals” accurately describes the high level officials of the current administration. With our without some stupid papers, immigrants are better people than all fascists. They are just people. The same is true of our foes—they are just people and we should NOT want to harm them. We need to stop them from doing evil by disempowering them. And that requires nonviolent noncooperation. NOT torching Tesla dealerships.
3. Add variation to protests, making them more interesting and appealing.
   I’m hoping that attendees will tell their friends that they actually had fun at the protest, and that more people decide to go.
   As mentioned, I’ve shared info promoting the planned General Strike—and found protesters to be a very receptive group.
   Now, I want to speak up at protests, letting attendees know about and understand how we can win with nonviolent noncooperation.
   I want to bring music and invite them to take a short break—3 minutes—to enjoy the music and literally dance in the streets. THIS they will not forget.
   I’m even considering trying to get us anti-fascists to chant our support for a beloved local sports team (in my case, the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles) along with our pro-Trump adversaries. Yes, I think this would be helpful.
   If some or all of these activities seem to work, I will try recruiting people (probably starting with my own group, The Saners) to introduce these same tactics in protests across the country—and the world.

GeneralStrikeUS.com is growing. But we need YOU to sign up!

We need to grow not only our movement, but also the number of leaders. Ironically, when we grow our leadership instead of rallying behind a few, we become a kind of leaderless movement. With tens of thousands who understand enough and care enough to each be leaders, that’s how we become unstoppable. The regime would find that it’s useless to round up the “leaders” because there are too many and every time one is arrested, ten more appear.