One of the hardest things in the world is, if I may borrow a biblical phrase, to read the signs of the times.
A new call to action has been issued by leaders of 350.org, Rainforest Action Network, the Hip Hop Caucus and others, to stop President Barack Obama’s possible approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Signers promise, if necessary, “to engage in serious, dignified, peaceful civil disobedience that could get you arrested.” The call has already attracted over 50,000 signers to a pledge to engage in arrestable actions if the president says yes. I’m a signer. But I wonder whether we could be called to a higher level of action than the current pledge promises and therefore have a greater deterrent effect.
This kind of tactic has been used before. A previous pledge of resistance in the 1980s attracted tens of thousands of signers and probably prevented then-President Ronald Reagan from sending U.S. troops into Nicaragua to overthrow the democratically-elected government there. Preparations were underway in neighboring Honduras to launch a U.S. invasion. The CIA was already implicated in the killing and torturing of Nicaraguans through the Contras, and the U.S. had already broken international law by laying mines in the harbor of Managua. President Reagan wanted all Latin American countries to understand that only governments approved by the U.S. empire would be allowed to stand.
A mass outcry arose in the United States around the pledge organized by my fellow WNV columnist Ken Butigan, Sojourners editor Jim Wallis, American Friends Service Committee staffer David Hartsough and others. It promised major civil disobedience in Senate offices and elsewhere around the country should the commander-in-chief give the invasion order. The 1 percent was aware that their dream of 1,000 nuclear power plants in the U.S. had been foiled by mass direct action at plant sites in the 1970s, only a decade before. Reagan found it prudent not to give the order. (These campaigns can be found in the Global Nonviolent Action Database and provide inspiring reading: search in the title line for “pledge” and “nuclear.”)
The failure of timidity
How do we know in the moment of decision, that such boldness will attract enough support to be effective? I was personally involved not only in that pledge campaign in the 1980s but also in the failed 1993 campaign for health care reform. The second-rate quality of the U.S. health care system was apparent then (as now); Harris Wofford came from behind in 1991 to win a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania based on that issue. The new president, Bill Clinton, knew it was hot and assigned his partner Hillary to the task of creating a plan for reform — in that way raising the stakes even more.
The coalition that for years had been pushing for health care reform believed, correctly, that its moment had arrived. Dominated by inside-the-Beltway groups with an affinity to the Democratic Party, the coalition played footsie with Hillary Clinton. As they continued their insider game (“We have the ear of the White House”), they watched themselves get squeezed by the power of the 1 percent.
Finally, the coalition called me, asking for a strategy session on civil disobedience, acknowledging it was their last gasp before defeat. I took the train to Washington and found them in a large room — top leaders of national groups — ready to consider direct action. I asked a diagnostic question: “Who in this room represents groups with considerable rebellious energy?”
People looked at the ceiling, and at the floor. No one met my eyes. Finally they started to recall how over time they had lost ACT UP and other groups with a grassroots base and rebellious energy.
“Well,” I said, “we can save ourselves some time. No nonviolent direct action campaign ever succeeded without being fueled by rebellious energy.”
I looked at my watch, realizing I could still catch a movie before my train back to Philly. The leaders were shocked, somehow imagining that a strategic direct action campaign can be summoned out of thin air by the blowing of a trumpet.
Their coalition failed utterly. In 2007 their previous disaster did not prevent some of the same actors to repeat the same failed strategy, again ignoring and even fighting against their most passionate nonviolent health care warriors. By the beginning of President Obama’s administration, when the historic window opened once again for health care reform, the coalition’s so-called realism led to an economically unviable compromise that has left tens of millions of people without adequate care. The coalition created a vacuum that the Tea Party gladly filled, manifesting rebellious energy, stealing the drama and spotlight away from left.
Is the pipeline the threshold to a bolder movement?
Everything Bill McKibben has taught us emphasizes the urgency of the climate crisis. At the same time, leaders of front-line communities teach us the urgency of stopping the extreme extraction that is harming their children’s health and threatening their future. Often bolder actions and mass movements are seen to be in tension: If we call on people to take more risk, fewer people will respond. But how many of the more than 50,000 people who have signed, I wonder, would have also signed to a bolder call, one that promised resistance that wasn’t so “dignified,” that didn’t marginalize the rebellious energy that is manifestly rising for climate justice?
An inside-the-Beltway perspective on movements is notoriously unreliable; in my lifetime that perspective was flatly wrong about civil rights, anti-nuclear power and health care reform. Lobbyists know their stuff when it comes to tweaking the system, but they simply lack expertise when it comes to social movements. That’s because their job is to look for the common ground; a social movement’s job is to pay attention to opportunities offered by polarization.
The evidence is clear: Political polarization in the United States closely follows the curve of economic inequality. The country is now experiencing the greatest inequality since the 1920s (and most of Europe is starting to follow thanks to the 1 percent’s strategy of austerity). The opportunity for a movement that economic forces provide is to galvanize the increasing number of radical voices and join with them, rather than marginalize them. Some New York City unions wisely saw that need, for instance, during the heyday of Occupy Wall Street.
This opportunity will become even more real if the president says yes to the pipeline, since that is likely to unleash a nonviolent guerrilla war on the model of the Tar Sands Blockade in Texas, which has employed tree-sits and construction-site lockdowns to slow the Keystone XL’s progress. National environmental organizations will all the more need to support that fight, and they need to start getting ready to do so.
Perhaps it would be smart to have a second draft of the pledge ready — one that provides common ground with the rebellious energy that every movement needs to challenge the status quo. This doesn’t need to negate the 49,000 initial signers of the pledge as written, but it might to speak to a higher level of indignation in the population. Or maybe someone should initiate a “plan b” pledge that acknowledges the fact that many people want to step up their resistance beyond what Washington will deem to be dignified.
An earlier version of this article called the Hip Hop Caucus the Hip Hop Network and said that Harris Wofford came from behind to win a Senate seat on health care reform in 1992, rather than 1991.
What kind of rebellious energy? If that ends up meaning ‘what suits me and my friends already in the movement,’ it’s certainly not going to be necessary, or sufficient. Considering the largest civil disobedience action in the climate movement’s history was precisely the kind of dignified affair mentioned in the letter, I think there’s a stronger precedent for that tone to work in this context.
It’s important to remember that our movement needs to grow, substantially, and that means drawing on people who haven’t been professional activists since the 70s, who haven’t yet been a part of civil disobedience, and it seems like a more dignified, elevated tone would be the best way to meet them where they’re at.
However, one thing in favor of a rebellious spirit, whatever that is: even large actions coordinated by groups like those that wrote the letter shouldn’t be too carefully scripted. There needs to be a kind of ferment involved that encourages everyone who participates to take the resistance home with them. That’s a rebellious spirit we definitely need.
The immediate sign-ups to the current pledge (nearly 50,000 in five days) is a useful temperature-check. The moderate NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that if Obama approves the pipeline, “I hope that Bill McKibben and his 350.org coalition go crazy” – in other words, some mainstream people watching us hope for more than a bland response.
First, a stronger pledge would have rigor, structured with a clear “if-then.” “If the President approves, then . . . .” That makes the deterrent more credible.
Second, the words following “then” would indicate a range of nonviolent tactics including those that are less tame, a range that includes disruption of fossil fuels business as usual. Because 350.org does have a track record of bland, the words need to indicate a clear escalation while of course emphasizing its nonviolent character.
My personal practice of civil disobedience has been consistent with my dignity, but I’m obviously concerned that “dignified” in the pledge gets read by too many people as “bland” or “tame.” We need the variety of nonviolent tactics brought by clowns and the Serbian movement Otpor that brought down dictator Milosevic, and calls to decentralized action — rather than highly orchestrated central action — opens up more creative disruption that is harder for fossil fuels companies and banks to handle. (I’m not talking here about blocking traffic, which I’ve done and find to be extremely un-creative and unproductive for our goal of persuading people to join us.)
Here’s the link to the current pledge. I hope everyone will sign it, as I have.
[http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/kxl_pledge/index_split_name.html?r=12364207&id=55679-2190311-TqiOBZx]
The civil rights movement taught us that most people don’t step out of their comfort zones all at once, so the current pledged action might be implemented soon as a kind of warm-up. Nothing in the wording prevents that. The decentralized character of the plan invites people to discover and lean on local resources rather than count on under-resourced national players. The result: tens of thousands will be ready for the more rigorous pledge, strengthening the deterrent to the President’s yes.
That all sounds spot-on to me. Not totally sure there should be a second pledge, but rather a willingness to continue escalating and push boundaries when lines are crossed by our targets. I think as a first step off the curb (so to speak), we’re on our way.
While I also respect (and I personally feel) the craving for more aggressive action, I admire 350 and your allies for standing firm in making this movement inviting and accessible to a really broad range of people. It seems to me that the key right now is to build a diverse topography of resistance, based on what different communities can and want to take up — from Beltway lobbying (we need that too), to thousands of people circling the White House, to those willing and able to fight on the front lines in Texas and Utah and elsewhere. It’s also really important that those of us at each of those levels support one another, recognizing that we can’t and shouldn’t all do the same thing at any given time.
As George articulated in another column, we need the movement for climate justice to exist on many levels:
http://dev2.wagingnonviolence.org/feature/how-to-create-a-multi-level-movement-for-climate-justice/
The current need for more radical political action represents the convergence of three realities. First is the urgency to effectively deal with the catastrophic threats to the planet’s life support systems. Second, is the complete failure of the capitalist economic system and its shamocracy governments to deal with the threat. Third is the survival necessity of effective resistance for both regime and system change.
Let me speak to the latter two realities. An increasing number of people like myself see our system of governance as a shamocracy not democracy – something false or empty, not what it purports to be; a spurious imitation, fraud or hoax. Or, as is the case of their elected “representatives” and leaders, aka the President, exhibiting the quality of empty pretense and deceitfulness. Many people now see our governing system for what it really is: a contemporary form of fascism, the merger of corporate-financial and state power. They see their participation in the traditional political activities, voting, grassroots lobbying, calls, letters, emails and even peaceful protests as not only ineffective but lending legitimacy to the fraud. These people thus see traditional political action as being co-dependents in the systemic destruction of the planetary environmental support systems and web-of-life.
More radical forms of direct action serve several purposes (among others). First, they move people’s consciousness away from reliance on ineffective traditional political action to more empowering forms of direct action. Second, they serve to engage the already radical who have lost all confidence in the existing system and mobilize them to take effective political action. In both cases, radical direct action serves to further radicalize people’s consciousness and expose the truth about the existing political-economic system and the absolute need for change. In this way, radical direct action demonstrates the power of truth force – satyagraha the fight for truth.
While noting the lack of control of government is real, few seem to want to aim at the heart of their complaints. Is the never ending amount of maintenance too much to bear? It seems there’s a never ending amount of Activism required.
Bailing water forever may be fun, but so is fixing the continual number of leaks.
Why is there an extreme reluctance to acknowledge the founding reason for Activism?
If I’m wrong in understanding the situation, then feel free to educate me. My ignorance and stupidity are well known to myself; my feelings are irrelevant.
I find myself thinking about that word “dignified” and wanting to explore what that means. When I think of dignified civil disobedience, I think of the students who sat at segregated lunch counters and kept their dignity, despite insults and brutal treatment by police. In this case, however, George is hearing “dignified” as safe, quiet, not quite rebellion enough. What if we kept our civil disobedience dignified, but did it in riskier places, like Appalachia, where the police are not as friendly as the Park Police, who don’t feel very threatened by protesters in front of the White House? Or in our own communities, finding appropriate targets? I agree with George’s call to become bolder, though I think we’re still searching for the language to articulate what we want to see.
I am caught up in the same waste and corruption as most. We all drive too fast, too much, and without regard. We know we have tried to make individual efforts and have to some degree but not enough to save our children and now the planet. Thus the recognition we need to have collective action and government could servet their purpose of the common good and we can continue to beg, demand, and point to the shame of their actions. Should it continue to fail I hope we continue to work for the idea of a National slowdown. This creative non violence could make many angry at those participating but with the right awaremness and numbers the shame and purpose would convert most to the benefits. Pres. Kennedy said he was an idealist without illusion. He may have been shot for standing up to the steel industry or he may have pulled us out of Viet Nam had he lived and our Peace Corp may have replaced the military industrial complex as I think he did realize the ideal can’t be subjegated to timidity and the pragmatic tendency we see the present administration siding with. Some benefits of a slowdonwn would be…….
1. Saved lives and people being maimed. During last slowdown in 70’s we saw a reduction of 25% for deaths.
2. It would put people back into control and save the gas needed that combined with a coming glut would make TarSands so expensive that it would be too costly to extract.
3. It would make everyone aware that our past runing around like chickens with our heads off was just that. Like any drug the addiction once broken gives one a tremendous sense of other intrinsic joys we just rush past. Bike ridders know this, hikers know this, and slow driving with one car as our family puts more quality time for the family or just entertainment if alone. I felt this during a slowdown at the Airport where being extremely consciencious and thus frantic as most are today the break from this fever would have intrinsic rewards for our mental state beyond measuremnet of lives saved from global warming and car deaths but is real no less.
i am not saying we are ready yet and that every other form of creative non violence isn’t needed but along with shaming our government this seems what we should be working toward anyway.
Dear George,
Loved the history reminders in this article and so grateful you have been working for a better world for many years.
I certainly appreciate your emphasis on bold action. Demonstrations are important, but apparently they are not enough. Heck, our President wasn’t even in Washington when 40 thousand people came to talk with him (he was in Florida doing what???) about our environment. Gandhi understood the need for bold work: “I was a believer in the politics of petitions, deputations and friendly negotiations. But all these have gone to the dogs. I know that these are not the ways to bring this Government round. Sedition has become my religion.”
Yet, as a mother and grandmother, I am concerned about the young people who will most assuredly be in the forefront of the direct action. Arrested with prearranged bail (are there funds for such?) and rides home? Or left to their own resources?
Additionally, learning from Gandhi’s experiments, can we teach those in direct action to not hate those who are involved in the system which we are working to stop? He witnessed and lamented that nonviolent action could be a just cover – a lid – for aggressive, violent behaviors.
One more thing:
“That’s because their job is to look for the common ground; a social movement’s job is to pay attention to opportunities offered by polarization.”
This sentence doesn’t make sense to me; it sounds exclusive. Yes, a social movement -whether Tea Party destructive or a Gandhian experiment – does fill the gaps created by polarization. But, like the lobbyists, do we not also look for and work with common ground? You say as much with “…one that provides common ground with…”.
Please forgive me if you think I am being hypercritical about your writing. Either I am a compulsive editor (of everything but my own writing! :-D) or I am dim-witted and need concrete, crystal clear thoughts to understand.
Again, many thanks. Blessing your work,
Julianne
Thank you, George Leakey, I agree with everything you say. Now, let me try to expand it a little, if I may. I will use the Russian puppets metaphor. Let us assume that resistance to the Keystone XL Pipeline is the smallest Russian puppet. The next one in size could be imagined to be the fracking that’s going on on large parts of the continental U.S. It has two big components: the Bakken formation in South Dakota over 8,000 wells have already been drilled for oil; and the Marcellus shale deposit in Pennsylvania, with some 5,800 wells drilled, for gas. It’s anticipated that 40,000 to 50,000 wells will be drilled in South Dakota, and perhaps an equivalent number in various states for gas. In twenty years or so, there will be in the continental U.S., probably, over 100,000 wells. Nobody knows the long-term consequences of fracking. But it can be reasonably assumed that it’s going to be bad, even very bad. So that’s the second puppet. I’ll consider the financial economy based on speculation – hedge funds, private equity funds, all sorts of derivatives – as the third and bigger puppet. And the fourth and biggest puppet, the 5,000 or so billionaires and ‘serious multimillionaires in the U.S. who are slowly, but surely, transforming, for all intents and purposes, the American democracy into an oligarchy. These oligarchs need to be stopped. How? A Second American Revolution is the only way, it seems to me.
Undoubtedly, this is an important conversation. But symbolic shows of dissent like civil disobedience are an old hat. Even though many Americans have not participated in a potentially arrestable action or protest, I think it’s clear that the state (or the 1 percent – however we choose to characterize that), has become quite adept at “handling” civil disobedience — particularly the kind that does not involve disruptive direct action. Media, politicians, the mainstream are no longer shocked when someone is arrested, even in a dignified manner, for voicing their beliefs.
I think nonviolent direct action needs to engage in the economics of dissent — make it too costly for State and energy companies to continue down the Keystone XL path. Because of our pithy reliance on energy and government subsidies of it, we are totally beholden and dependent. That is why our protest can be so easily ignored, because we keep shelling out for the lifestyles that demand intensive and extractive energy production. Until we threaten the continued existence of that paradigm by causing economic disruption, no real polarization is created because we have no where else to go besides the energy companies.
“Because we have no where else to go” pretty much sums up the “economics of dissent.” Other than the very few engaged in a subsistence lifestyle, most people exist in a state of colonial dependency on the corporations, banks and governments for the basic necessities of survival. The brutal fact is that we all need “money” to survive and except for the criminal class – banksters, politicians, corporatists etc. – we must “work” as wage slaves to get it. This colonial dependency greatly limits both the scope and effectiveness of any political action we might undertake. That is why some sort of constructive program to at least help provide a part of our basic needs is crucial to increasing the effectiveness of political action. In this context freedom might well be defined as the extent to which we can meet our basic needs without having to resort to wage slavery.
A more recent historical antecedent to this pledge was the Climate Pledge of Resistance, launched on the website BeyondTalk.net shortly before the 2009 Copenhagen summit. Its goal was to gather 10,000 people willing to “engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and risk arrest in order to get our leaders to make the right climate-change choices.” But nothing ever came of it. First off, only 6,280 people signed on. Then, when our leaders actually did fail to make the right climate-change choices in Copenhagen, no effort was made to mobilize those 6,000+ people (that I know of).
On the one hand, it has to be extremely encouraging that the KXL pledge has garnered close to 10-times as many signers in just a week. That says a lot about how much the climate movement has grown in just a few years. On the other hand, there is certainly a lesson to be learned from the Beyond Talk failure.
Knowing a few of the people who worked in it, my (anecdotal) understanding is that a clear plan of action was never decided upon up front, and the many organizers who were involved disagreed on where to take it. So, with no sense of what the civil disobedience would look like, the whole thing fell apart.
It is interesting, then, that we are now wondering if the KXL pledge is too clear on what CD should look like. While George has a point about its attempt to influence the spirit of the actions, I think Eileen makes a strong case for interpretation. Since the pledge doesn’t actually name any specific CD tactics, it actually is a bit hard to interpret what is being expected of the signers. In that sense, it’s similarly ambiguous to Beyond Talk. Is that more of a potential pitfall than whether the spirit of the pledge is dignified or rebellious? I’m sure these arguments aren’t mutually exclusive, but in light of Beyond Talk, I’m wondering more about what it takes to get people to follow-through.
The good news here is that the climate movement is better organized, more united, and more experienced with CD than ever before. And based on the pledge it seems more ready to take advantage of its clear target (the KXL pipeline) and more-or-less set time frame (a few months) than Beyond Talk was with the Copenhagen Summit. It may be that these end up being bigger motivating factors than the overall tone of the pledge.
Great conversation! I do share Nathan’s admiration for the job 350.org and their allies have done to broaden the movement. As I said in my piece a few weeks ago, I think the trick is to keep this broadening going while providing opportunities for those ready to show more courage. Looking over these comments again, I’m realizing that’s the word I’d use rather than rebellious. Rebellious could connote people who might be undisciplined in ways that trained organizers might find unhelpful. Courageous, on the other hand, could tap the yearning some people feel to go farther, while keeping the “dignified” tone of the lunch counter sit ins. As a Quaker, I like the idea of polite, dignified, and courageous–it gives a whole different feel than just polite and dignified.
I’LL DO ANYTHING TO GET US OFF CARBON AND ON A SAFER TRAJECTORY.
Thanks, George. I am proud to be a part of this effort. I noticed a lot of critical analysis, but little stepping up to offer a higher level of personal commitment.
My first (or second, after joining EQAT’s climate justice fast with George and Eileen, who posted below) additional level of commitment is to offer at least two CD training sessions between now and May. My third level of pledge is to recruit at least a carload (plus replacements for last minute dropouts) of people to join me on the frontline of the pipeline. I expect most people will be ready for a day or two of action, but I am asking for a deeper commitment.
Oh, who am I? Just another of the 1253 arrested in the Tar Sands Action (#95 on 8/29/11), and one of 26 arrested at Tim DeChristopher’s sentencing hearing. That’s just to let you know that I am serious about dignified action.
If 10% of those 49,000 petition signers can add a more extensive commitment and recruit 10 more people each, we can double the size and increase the impact, because it will not only be rallies in major cities, it will be a huge increase in the numbers ready to stop the pipeline at the construction sites, for example. Before you jump on, remember what this entails – putting your personal lives on hold for days or weeks at a moment’s notice, sometime between the end of the draft EIS and a few months from now to be ready to get to the pipeline route. I have been there, and have friends reporting back.
It means gathering your camping gear, all of it, because someone else will need some, finding fiscal supporters, bail and belonging holders, lawyers, phone/twitter trees, saying bye to loved ones and jobs, arranging for someone to feed the pet, get the mail, water the plants (you get my point) and a host of other details. Let’s get the list going.
Oh, and while organizing and waiting, make your comments on the draft EIS at:
http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/ by April 15.
Oh, and you can email your comments to keystonecomments@state.gov – daily, if you like 😉 – oh, sorry, I didn’t say that!
PS. I thought of using a pseudonym, but if I end up in trouble, or criticize, so be it.
Yes, all forms of non-violent action are needed for change. Members of the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate are at the White House for direct action at Noon, Thurs 3/21/13. Read more from the planners including Rabbi Arthur Waskow and others at http://theshalomcenter.org/palms-matzah-our-planet-and-white-house