Tao_Equus
Interfaith Forums
What is the acceptable limit of civil disobedience?
Civil disobediance poll
- Thread starter Tao_Equus
- Start date
greymare
Well-Known Member
well, tao old horse i guess that depends on the interpretation of civil obedience as opposed to disobedience.
Tao_Equus
Interfaith Forums
Personally I think its a case of different horses for different courses. Its hard to justify torching the houses of parliament over cigarette taxes. That said there is simply not enough civil disobedience in this country. People do have the power to break governments that insist on taking a course that is at odds with the wishes of the vast majority of the electorate. As in the Iraq war. If we had had the same protests in France that we had here over the Iraq war they would not have remained peaceful. When the line is crossed it is dangerous yes, but passive demonstrations are routinely ignored now. It is only when a demonstration stops the normal operation of services and, most importantly, business that a government feels threatened.
A disruptive protest does not mean a violent one and violence should be avoided. Often a government will instruct the police, (like the Thatcher government did during the Poll Tax riots), to foment violence. They control the media and can paint it how they wish. So the most effective protests are not violent but hit the government where it hurts....in the pocket. I think what we need is for a new era of protest that specifically targets the major industries of a nation with the aim of bringing them to a standstill. Street protests, I repeat, are routinely ignored and usually go uncovered by the media. They are ineffective. But we are all employees with great inside knowledge on what could cripple the business machine. This is where the future is. Large bodies of independently acting spanners in the works. Often anonymous but working toward a mutual goal of wresting back power from the people who see us only as business assets or as potential consumers and not as caring people with real lives and a real sense of social justice.
Up the revolution!!
A disruptive protest does not mean a violent one and violence should be avoided. Often a government will instruct the police, (like the Thatcher government did during the Poll Tax riots), to foment violence. They control the media and can paint it how they wish. So the most effective protests are not violent but hit the government where it hurts....in the pocket. I think what we need is for a new era of protest that specifically targets the major industries of a nation with the aim of bringing them to a standstill. Street protests, I repeat, are routinely ignored and usually go uncovered by the media. They are ineffective. But we are all employees with great inside knowledge on what could cripple the business machine. This is where the future is. Large bodies of independently acting spanners in the works. Often anonymous but working toward a mutual goal of wresting back power from the people who see us only as business assets or as potential consumers and not as caring people with real lives and a real sense of social justice.
Up the revolution!!
Paladin
Purchased Bewilderment
I think here in the States the mass of people will never develop a group consciousness enough to make a difference.
As Wil pointed out in another thread, we have enough distractions to keep us fat and somewhat happy so we don't make waves. I often wonder what it would take to wake people up to the movement toward a police state our great country is taking.
The Spirit of Resistance Lives!
As Wil pointed out in another thread, we have enough distractions to keep us fat and somewhat happy so we don't make waves. I often wonder what it would take to wake people up to the movement toward a police state our great country is taking.
The Spirit of Resistance Lives!
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
Perhaps getting tickets in the mail from the red-light cameras might wake a few up...
path_of_one
Embracing the Mystery
Because I can't say what others might think "civil disobedience" entails, I went with the middle of the road approach.
As for "restricted areas," I think there are appropriate and inappropriate areas to gather in protest. Just because a protest is non-violent does not mean it cannot be psychologically damaging. I am thinking of some of the protests that happened at military cemeteries during funerals of fallen war veterans in the last couple years. While such actions may be non-violent, they are rude and insensitive to families in the grieving process, and are therefore psychologically damaging to those people.
I think government buildings, in general, should not be restricted and disruptive but passive events should be allowed. But I draw the line at certain places- anywhere that will greatly harm the environment through trampling or other problems (for the most part, I think manmade parks are fine in cities, but I don't want a crowd trampling a national park or forest) or anywhere that will psychologically damage citizens (such as cemeteries). Just my opinion-- I didn't think it out for more than a minute, either, so I'm sure if I were writing the policy or something I'd put more thought into it.
As for "restricted areas," I think there are appropriate and inappropriate areas to gather in protest. Just because a protest is non-violent does not mean it cannot be psychologically damaging. I am thinking of some of the protests that happened at military cemeteries during funerals of fallen war veterans in the last couple years. While such actions may be non-violent, they are rude and insensitive to families in the grieving process, and are therefore psychologically damaging to those people.
I think government buildings, in general, should not be restricted and disruptive but passive events should be allowed. But I draw the line at certain places- anywhere that will greatly harm the environment through trampling or other problems (for the most part, I think manmade parks are fine in cities, but I don't want a crowd trampling a national park or forest) or anywhere that will psychologically damage citizens (such as cemeteries). Just my opinion-- I didn't think it out for more than a minute, either, so I'm sure if I were writing the policy or something I'd put more thought into it.
Pathless
Fiercely Interdependent
I'm not sure if I agree with this assessment, Paladin. As disappointing as I find the group consciousness in the United States, it has been catalyzed and revolutionized before--the most salient example being the 1960's, but also during the abolitionist movement, during the workers' movement towards the end of the 19th and early 20th century, in reconstruction-era civil rights gains (when more Afro-Americans held representative office than any other time in American history), and of course during the formative years in this country--which is admittedly a bit different, but those people were also revolutionaries struggling against injustices from an unjust and autocratic government. With the current turbulence within the United States, resistance is fomenting and finding expression. Media outlets still by and large serve corporate interests, yet there are many media outlets that exist truly for, of, and by the people. Truly revolutionary forms of media are within easy grasp, waiting for people of conscience and consciousness to shape and create them. These need not be ideological propaganda machines or simple inflammatory pamphlets; with the advances in communication technology, especially with the internet, complex conversations can be engaged, which catalyze creative movements for people-powered struggles against the stale and corporate-serving status quo.
A first step is to reject the myth of helplessness that has been drilled into us by education and experience within the Corporate Nation-State. Electoral politics as usual may indeed be inadequate to create the desired and necessary changes, so rather than being completely discouraged by that state of affairs, we should recognize it for what it is and channel our energies into alternative and more effective change agents.
Equally important in the effort to actualize a life and society that is meaningful is our own self-education. The materials and resources are abundant; again only waiting to be uncovered. The educational system of the corporate culture is certainly inadequate, but that does not keep me from utilizing my local university library. Local public libraries are great, too. Bookstores are still in existence, and if you look closely, you will even find some non-corporate, independently-owned ones. Once again, the internet is also a great resource, especially if we do some digging. Documentaries and other movies can also be extremely educational. Music can be inspirational and educational. This isn't just information we are saturated with these days, but also inspiration and interactive communication. Of course, it's all just passive potential until we engage with it and let it act on us as we in turn act on it. Through a dynamic process of feedback with information and situation, and most importantly with other human beings, we can catalyze and revolutionize even this stale, deadly culture that has manipulated and acted on us for too long. We are not merely passive agents, but active intelligent individuals who have the right and responsibility to implement change in culture and government.
Paladin
Purchased Bewilderment
Tao_Equus
Interfaith Forums
Cool speech Pathless!!
gp1628
Old Man
The poll seems to miss a step. It goes from "seek permission for passsive" to "the right to disruptive". I would have preferred a "no need for permission for anything non-disruptive" level.
But good subject.
But good subject.
path_of_one
Embracing the Mystery
That's an excellent post, Pathless.
1. Ditch the "I'm a victim" mentality.
2. Educate oneself.
3. Take action!!!
Personally, I think the U.S. is slowly but surely getting there... People are waking up and realizing they don't really want/need the stuff, but rather they want fulfillment, peace, meaning...
1. Ditch the "I'm a victim" mentality.
2. Educate oneself.
3. Take action!!!
Personally, I think the U.S. is slowly but surely getting there... People are waking up and realizing they don't really want/need the stuff, but rather they want fulfillment, peace, meaning...
Pathless
Fiercely Interdependent
Thanks for the kind kudos, everyone.
Paladin, I haven't watched the Zeitgeist movie yet--it's long--but will make an effort to do so.
Ah, but we are victims--victims of a merciless, heartless, dehumanized 'culture' that has become so greedy and short-sightedly materialistic as to quite possibly set us on the road to complete financial and social collapse. While I agree that dwelling on victimization is counter-productive, I find it impossible to move at all without acknowledging how dehumanized 'culture' has become, and how arrogantly vested industrial and materialistic interests have gambled with the human condition. We should be angry; we should feel like something is deeply wrong and that we have been systematically denied some deep experience of our own humanity and community; we should be frustrated with the status-quo. Without those feelings, which don't necessarily lead to a 'victim mentality' unless they are consistently denied expression, people continue to punch buttons stupidly in a mechanized and indocrinated state, never knowing the extent to which they are imprisoned, impoverished, and denied their own rights to freedom and life.
Paladin, I haven't watched the Zeitgeist movie yet--it's long--but will make an effort to do so.
Ah, but we are victims--victims of a merciless, heartless, dehumanized 'culture' that has become so greedy and short-sightedly materialistic as to quite possibly set us on the road to complete financial and social collapse. While I agree that dwelling on victimization is counter-productive, I find it impossible to move at all without acknowledging how dehumanized 'culture' has become, and how arrogantly vested industrial and materialistic interests have gambled with the human condition. We should be angry; we should feel like something is deeply wrong and that we have been systematically denied some deep experience of our own humanity and community; we should be frustrated with the status-quo. Without those feelings, which don't necessarily lead to a 'victim mentality' unless they are consistently denied expression, people continue to punch buttons stupidly in a mechanized and indocrinated state, never knowing the extent to which they are imprisoned, impoverished, and denied their own rights to freedom and life.
Tao_Equus
Interfaith Forums
Hey!! Well who ever would have thot it!! We agree on 2 out of 3 points!! The one I highlighted I dont understand.
path_of_one
Embracing the Mystery
We are the victims of ourselves.
Culture is made up of individual action. We could choose different. So far, we've chosen (collectively) status quo.
I choose to see it that the "system" is not optimal, and it is often unjust. But I refuse to see myself as a victim. I recognize that I can opt out quite a bit, and I could opt out entirely but so far I make the choice to stay in for a variety of reasons.
I look around and I see a society that, despite all its problems, gives people the freedom to live in a commune (and some do) or as the Amish do (and some do). We *are* free to opt out. Most people just still want their car and television and private house and all the trappings. And the cost of wanting that sort of life is taxes, a work schedule, and all the system brings with it.
The fact is, if enough people opted out and changed their lifestyle, the system would collapse and culture would change. We keep it as it is- a system based on inequality and dehumanization.
Pathless
Fiercely Interdependent
Yes, we are free to do quite a bit, but it is difficult to opt out entirely. I suppose in some ways I am just stubborn and bitter about the complex reality that I find myself in. Although there is freedom, I don't yet feel free enough, and beyond that there are powerful forces that impinge on not just my personal freedom, but as I see it, the ability of anyone to experience high levels of and a high qulaity of freedom.
I also refuse to be a victim, but it's not simple. Perhaps it seems like it's just a matter of personal willpower, just a matter of saying "I don't want to be exploited," or "I want to live this particular way, because it is more free," but I've not found it to be so. My personal experience is that, at a young age, I was separated from my family for long hours of the day and thrust into a completely different social setting where children were shepherded and penned, coralled by a few adults who tried to impose some premeditated order through games and nap time. Later, it became reading and writing exercises, and then math and science; still later, it became full-scale indocrination into a system of behavior and traditions, as well as a certain (boring!) version of history, as well as a certain set of expectations of what life was to be: career, striving, saving money and making sound investments, taking vacations, observing certain strange holidays, and upholding all manner of insincere social obligations, followed by retirement.
I went along with it for a while. What choice did I have? This was the life that confronted me, and its messages were contradictory, complicated, and seemed to grate against some essential part of me. With the information I was receiving about the world, that essential part of me was irrelevant and had no place, so I began to see it as a flaw that ran through my being and should be conditioned out. But why was it so difficult to condition out? Why did this feeling of being overwhelmed, at odds, cheated, this feeling of something being not right with my daily reality not go away? Why these persistent feelings of alienation and irritability, this deeply-running sense that I was different and could not be fixed? Yet I didn't have time to introspect, or the time that I did have wasn't enough, and the track of education/indoctrination swept me along, and I was very unhappy.
Is this my fault? Is it any child's fault that they don't fit into the artificial construct that is society? Where can they turn to fit in, what are the alternatives for them if the standard education route is not serving them? There are none. You get along. You ride it out.
And then it spits you out into college, or not. And you end up with a degree or a certificate and a pat on the back and have to go get a job. But the jobs are all meaningless, and nothing quite caters to your skills or interests, because you don't know what they are, because you never got to develop them because you had to spend too much time reciting the pledge of allegiance and taking geometry and algebra and chemistry and not enough time in art classes and the art classes you took were all technique and no heart. There's no faith in the education system because it is a bunch of unrelated hour-long compartments that you shuffle through in a day, and none of them connect together very much, and some are interesting to you, but most aren't, and it's hard to relate very much to this institution that is supposed to be educating and shaping you, preparing you for "life," and then one day when you are about 16 or 17 you wake up a little bit and realize, while walking over some cracked pavement where weeds are growing through the cracks and there's an empty plastic bottle and some string and a candy wrapper all flopped there on the sidewalk like who cares, you realize that this is life, this is life, the life you are living is now and in this strange cracked concrete landscape and it's wonderful in an ugly, raw way, but you are so unfamiliar with it because you've been cooped up in schools and institutions for 12 years or more. And that's just kind of a prelude, because once you've graduated from all that school, that same oddly polluted reality is still waiting for you, stretching out in front of you, and you have to find an apartment and a job and pay bills and there's really not much time to stop and think about why, but you do when you can and it's frustrating and sad, and you get really tired, but you are resilient, too, and somehow, after a while, things aren't quite as difficult, but by that time it seems like the world is falling apart, or it already has, and there's this clamor about how we have to fix it...
pardon me if I sound like a pathetic victim. I know I'm much more fortunate than many, and I am thankful for that. And I know that we are powerful people and we can act and create change, but see, part of my deal and part of how I make change is by telling this story about this pathetic old world that got sidetracked and started putting up high-rise hotels and cranking out glitzy glamour magazines and telling people that they must work harder because of the nazis or the communists or that they should work harder because one day they will retire or they should work harder and buy more because what the terrorists want is for us to give up and stop consuming. Part of my action plan is not whining, but painting this raw vision of how irritatingly complacent and stupid and trite the american way can seem to its youth: the beatniks of the '50s, the '60s hippies, the punks of the '80s, those nihilistic gen x'ers from the '90s; and by comparison i imagine how difficult and frustrating and unfair life in this system might seem for someone who was called negro, for an indian on a modern-day reservation who is trying to navigate two worlds, for a black kid in the ghetto where education is even worse than my pathetic story, where the way to rise above seems to be to have a certain pair of shoes, or to get a basketball scholarship, or join the army, or sell drugs.
yeah i paint bleak pictures sometimes, and i don't give much credit to the american system. why should i? there are enough people out there who are already singing that jingle. i tell my story... i relate to those who have come before me and around me now who feel dissatisfied and who feel personally violated and like they have been done a huge disservice, as if life itself has been truncated, stunted, stripped of color and complex layers of meaning.
i say my piece. it's part of the change i want to see in the world.
peace,
pathless
...and so you also see, i would not make it in an amish community. commune... that i might have to try sometime.
Pathless
Fiercely Interdependent
I think what I meant to say with my last post, and I got carried away, is that I never really wanted that material stuff. I had it, sure, growing up--which may be why I decided it wasn't worth a damn. Because I had tv and video games and a car and a suburban house and it just wasn't worth anything to me--and that has become much clearer over time--because there was no love there. It was all lifeless. It was and is crap. Just stuff to maintain and worry about. Fluff. Meaningless.
I get pissed off at people who cling to this stuff. I don't understand the mentality that thinks that a 40-hour work week of wage labor for the latest gizmo gee-whiz-bang conveniences is a good swap, and I especially don't understand how people can justify high-price lifestyles when it is clear to me that such contribute to the continual degradation of everything. I think part of my personal issues with it all is that the kind of work that I am happy about doing 40-60-even 80 hours a week doesn't pay, or at least I haven't figured out how to make it pay. So the system doesn't serve me, which is my point, and why i refuse to serve it.
And I have been doing this for a long time... or should have been. I opted-in for too long, just because it seemed a matter of survival, you know? And now that I have opted-out, i don't think i could ever go back to that fake and hollow 'working' life. My heart at least, my essence, has refused to participate for as long as i've been alive, even if my body and mind felt they had to shape up to participate to survive. my own personal anguish has to do with feeling like i am resisting as much as possible, more and more with every day, and even at times figuratively yelling in the streets to get people to see my point of view and maybe understand that capitalism and this consumer-oriented, progress-fetish excuse of a society is not really worth living in, and still, the ugly behemoth rolls on, crushing lives and livelihoods, building more SUVs, tanks, planes, even shooting junked satellites out of the sky with missiles, and food rots in crates in Haiti while people eat dirt cookies.
So yeah...
i'm sad.
i'm frustrated,
i'm unsatisfied,
i'm angry,
i'm a victim,
even as i refuse to be.
Tao_Equus
Interfaith Forums
Pathless,
I am with you on this. From an early age, about 10 yrs old or earlier, I never understood why people insisted working such long hours at hateful jobs for things that only seemed to make them happy for a few minutes. I knew that this could never satisfy me, that I could not be a little cog in a great machine waiting for the occasional drop of oil. At 16 i left home, chose no home, no settled job, no 1 town or country. The birth of my son meant an end to my nomadic ways and I remain, 16yrs later, 'settled', sedentary and forced to ride the system. I am deeply dissatisfied and yearn to get back out there and feel free again.
But one thing I am really aware of is how the masses equate the status quo with their primary desire... security. Most of them do not want us to stand up and remind them how shallow their desires are, how mundane their day to day living is. The complexities and injustices that enable their way of life are not a part of the picture they wish to see and so they do not look. I believe everybody needs values, its the skeleton of the psyche if you will, and the simplest easiest and most conformist values, those already precisely manufactured, are the most popular choice. They dont just want TV, TV dinners, TV shopping, they want soundbite values too. Not mildly desire, but want, need...must have. They do not appreciate you or I upsetting their carefully manicured ignorances. They go to great lengths to furnish their lives with the facsimile individualism of the modern consumer and do not want you or I to tell them their bums look big in that outfit.
We are a minority, maybe 10 or 15% of us are deeply dissatisfied with being corralled as cattle. And most of us give in, we have kids like I, and have to provide the stability and security we see as necessary for their upbringing. Or we throw ourselves into a particular non mainstream endeavour such as the arts, literature or sciences. We try to find ways to overcome our relative impotence to effect a little good. The dissatisfaction we feel at the wider status quo is placated a little by our good deeds but remains a nagging reminder of that which can only be described as ineffectualness. We cannot escape being cogs unless we become spanners willing to throw ourselves into certain destruction for the equally certain knowledge that the machine wont stop for the even briefest instant.
I think all we can be is the conscience of society, and to give the occasional whisper in the ear when things look pretty awful. If we talk all the time we are ignored. If we wrap it in religion it is the religion that is responded to not the message. That often as not means a negative response. Event specific protests can still provide the most effective way to be heard but the establishment control of the media drives the protester to ever greater efforts. We are forced to shut down airports, scale the roof of parliament or infiltrate and sabotage to even make the news. Thats all we can do. That or do nothing, or run and hide somewhere remote and feel guilty about doing nothing.
Anybody have any serotonin re-uptake inhibitors? I need a soma holiday.
Tao
I am with you on this. From an early age, about 10 yrs old or earlier, I never understood why people insisted working such long hours at hateful jobs for things that only seemed to make them happy for a few minutes. I knew that this could never satisfy me, that I could not be a little cog in a great machine waiting for the occasional drop of oil. At 16 i left home, chose no home, no settled job, no 1 town or country. The birth of my son meant an end to my nomadic ways and I remain, 16yrs later, 'settled', sedentary and forced to ride the system. I am deeply dissatisfied and yearn to get back out there and feel free again.
But one thing I am really aware of is how the masses equate the status quo with their primary desire... security. Most of them do not want us to stand up and remind them how shallow their desires are, how mundane their day to day living is. The complexities and injustices that enable their way of life are not a part of the picture they wish to see and so they do not look. I believe everybody needs values, its the skeleton of the psyche if you will, and the simplest easiest and most conformist values, those already precisely manufactured, are the most popular choice. They dont just want TV, TV dinners, TV shopping, they want soundbite values too. Not mildly desire, but want, need...must have. They do not appreciate you or I upsetting their carefully manicured ignorances. They go to great lengths to furnish their lives with the facsimile individualism of the modern consumer and do not want you or I to tell them their bums look big in that outfit.
We are a minority, maybe 10 or 15% of us are deeply dissatisfied with being corralled as cattle. And most of us give in, we have kids like I, and have to provide the stability and security we see as necessary for their upbringing. Or we throw ourselves into a particular non mainstream endeavour such as the arts, literature or sciences. We try to find ways to overcome our relative impotence to effect a little good. The dissatisfaction we feel at the wider status quo is placated a little by our good deeds but remains a nagging reminder of that which can only be described as ineffectualness. We cannot escape being cogs unless we become spanners willing to throw ourselves into certain destruction for the equally certain knowledge that the machine wont stop for the even briefest instant.
I think all we can be is the conscience of society, and to give the occasional whisper in the ear when things look pretty awful. If we talk all the time we are ignored. If we wrap it in religion it is the religion that is responded to not the message. That often as not means a negative response. Event specific protests can still provide the most effective way to be heard but the establishment control of the media drives the protester to ever greater efforts. We are forced to shut down airports, scale the roof of parliament or infiltrate and sabotage to even make the news. Thats all we can do. That or do nothing, or run and hide somewhere remote and feel guilty about doing nothing.
Anybody have any serotonin re-uptake inhibitors? I need a soma holiday.
Tao
I'm on the disruptive but passive model.
I'm not for burning or tearing down or vandalizing, but blocking entrances, taking over streets, laying down and being hauled away.
I've been an Uncle Sam on stilts with duct tape over my mouth marching arournd the White House when the executive branch superceded the powers of congress.
I've been in die in's on the capitol lawn, sat in front of tanks stopping a parade, hauled away from the doors at the World Bank.
When many come to the capital they get to see the folks camped out at Lafeyette park. Some folks look in disgust, others bring them food or blankets to help make it through the night, the vigils have been going on for years.
I'm not for burning or tearing down or vandalizing, but blocking entrances, taking over streets, laying down and being hauled away.
I've been an Uncle Sam on stilts with duct tape over my mouth marching arournd the White House when the executive branch superceded the powers of congress.
I've been in die in's on the capitol lawn, sat in front of tanks stopping a parade, hauled away from the doors at the World Bank.
When many come to the capital they get to see the folks camped out at Lafeyette park. Some folks look in disgust, others bring them food or blankets to help make it through the night, the vigils have been going on for years.
Tao_Equus
Interfaith Forums
Then you too, Wil, know how difficult it is to make it onto a news bulletin. Britney not wearing any underwear (again) will always make it.... now how can we recruit Britney!!
Tao
Tao