Toppling Tyrants and Big Oil

Photo by Documerica on Unsplash

Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.
– Étienne de La Boétie in his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, 1576

We want to change the world. We want to render every force that’s capable of abusing people or our planet on a large scale GONE. This isn’t simply changing leaders. They are mortal so all of them go. But systems of abuse can last much longer. Our planet is dying. Or more accurately, being murdered. These systems are destroying the biosphere and the climate.

We don’t have time to waste on such systems. We can’t be bothered to fight them because, when we fight on their terms, they usually win and all of that would take too much time. Reform is a non-starter.

The climate is collapsing right now and we don’t have time for that.
Remember the famous scene in the original Indiana Jones film, when a formidable warrior skillfully wielding fearsome swords comes at Indie? You wonder what he’ll do. And Indie simply pulls out a gun and shoots the guy.

Well, we won’t (and shouldn’t) shoot anybody. But we can dispatch dictatorships, plutocracies, Big Oil, communist parties, and multinational corporations with (relative) speed.

Our weapon is nonviolent noncooperation. It’s been more than twice as effective as violent resistance to defeat despots and other fools. And, when it works, it works quicker.

On average, nonviolent noncooperation takes 3 years to defeat an opponent. Violence, when it works which is much less often, takes an average of 9.

There is a problem. Nonviolent resistance has, in recent years, had a declining success rate. It seems that, after so many years of underestimating it and not understanding it, abusive authorities are learning how to counter it.

But don’t worry. We freedom fighters, champions of life and Earth and kindness and love are not doomed. We are getting better at our jobs. We have had trouble because we needed to sharpen our skills, to get better at strategy and tactics.

We know what to do. Yes, we will still make mistakes and still suffer setbacks and — sometimes —still fail. But, we know that when and if we do our part right, we are quite literally unstoppable.

People tell me all the time that we can’t succeed, that the current challenges are different and nonviolent noncooperation won’t work here. Or that we are already doomed. Or that people won’t do anything, they are too afraid or too comfortable or too fooled.

These are ordinary and old explanations that have been trotted out again and again BEFORE every successful nonviolent revolution. They expose understandable fears and doubts. But they are mistaken.

What happens depends on what people do. If we give up in advance, then we cede everything, including our planet, our lives, and our dignity, to cruel and foolish people and systems.

The Force Is With Us. Let’s Learn and Act.

We have the power. We ARE the power. The so-called “powerful people” or “strongmen” do nothing - they require us to be their servants, to be police and taxpayers and soldiers and enforcers of every kind for them. And to build them guns and tanks and yachts and jets. They need us to praise their fragile egos and to attribute our accomplishments to them.

We are supposed to believe that these so-called “great men” and their systems—fascism, communism, plutocracy, capitalism, whatever — do everything when, in fact, they do nothing.

Presidents and dictators don’t win - or even fight - wars. No pharaoh ever built a pyramid. These systems may decide who gets what people produce— always giving the most to an undeserving elite — but they produce nothing.
Millions and billions of ordinary people produce everything. And yet this huge number of doers are virtually enslaved and seem helpless against a few unproductive and talentless egomaniacs.

How is this possible? ONLY if we acquiesce to our oppression, if we choose to continue serving those fools and their systems. We have been hoodwinked into subjugating ourselves. We keep them in power by our obedience, by doing whatever they ask.

Now, it’s (slightly) more complex than that. There’s some sticks and carrots. You are punished for resistance and (sometimes) rewarded for compliance.

But we aren’t lab rats. We can escape this maze.

We need to learn how. This knowledge is the secret sauce that turns rare and random instinctive acts of resistance into effective world-changing nonviolent noncooperation.

So, I’ll be sharing information with you — starting here and now.

Here’s some recommended things to read and watch.

First, get your hands of a copy of Étienne de La Boétie’s book, The Politics of Obedience (sometimes called Discourse on Voluntary Servitude). He was a friend of (and greatly admired by) Voltaire—and he left us this one VERY IMPORTANT book before his early death. Ignore whatever preface appears in the book-just read La Boetie’s words. It’s astoundingly inciteful. I got a free copy on iBooks, but it’s widely available and inexpensive.

Here’s an award-winning documentary and you can watch the whole thing for free. This offers a decent introduction of nonviolent noncooperation (and a captivating history lesson)-preparing you to better understand how and why nonviolent noncooperation works.

A Force More Powerful
Part I

Part 2

And here’s another free book—one that I’m reading right now.

PDF - The Checklist to End Tyranny: How Dissidents will Win 21st Century Civil Resistance Campaigns

The Saners

Our group is The Saners. We are dedicated to harnessing nonviolent noncooperation to end climate abuse and replace the systems and values that are ruining everything with a better, more humane civilization.
Yes, it seems impossible. But it isn’t.

Read about The Saners at WeAreSaners.org and sign up for the group at WeAreSaners.org/join. We are still small, but we are growing-already in more than 20 countries—and all over the United States.

This could be one of the greatest and most heroic adventures in history. Think about being a part, even a small part—it all helps.