http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDDN2I4GOhs
Can you imagine Gandhi executing a tactic without a clear
understanding of how it is the best possible path to the goal? I can't.
Can you imagine Gandhi doing anything that wasn't explicitly his best
understanding of how to achieve the overarching goal he was after? Inconceivable. If you at all studied the civil rights
movement, the workers with King, it seems there was never a time when they
executed a tactic for the purpose of executing a tactic, or for the purpose of
ranting, or for the purpose of expressing their rage. It was always their best, deep understanding
of the best way of moving to the goal they were trying to achieve. You can't watch the movie, Iron Jawed Angels
and reach a different conclusion. You
can't watch Freedom Riders and reach a different conclusion.
Can you imagine an activists in the last 40 years, can you
imagine activism in the last 40 years, that held themselves to strategies and
tactics that had a clear path to the goal?
I can't, except Diane Wilson, and a few others I mention, the exceptions
to the Rule. The difference couldn't be
more stark. So-called activists of the
last 40 years act, they to do something.
They've really already accepted defeat; they really already accepted
that they're not going to win, so they resign themselves to ‘doing something,’
‘anything.’ What? How could we figure out how to put a man on
the Moon, but not be able to figure out how to unviolently achieve a goal, when
Gandhi did, women suffragists did, when the Egyptian revolutionaries did, when
the forces opposed to apartheid in South Africa did? This is suicide.
Real activism does nothing except that it is the best, clear
path to the goal. If they don't see a clear path to the goal, they dwell deeper. Now, this is not to say that they never act
until they see a ‘perfect’ path to the goal.
They never see a perfect path to the goal. Until they win they always
realize they probably won't. But they
never sacrifice the advantage of not using the highest human capacities of
starting with the end in mind, starting with the goal in mind, and holding
every breath, every effort, every moment to being the best steps they can
imagine toward achieving that goal.
And that never happens anymore. If they held themselves to the rigor of real
activism, today's activists would never flit from cause to cause to cause. What is that?
They'd look at 90% of their actions and say, 'wait a minute, we are
being what we want to see in the world?
I don't think so. More tirades,
more tantrums, more ranting, more laziness, more self-indulgence. really? That’s what we want to see in the world? Really???'
Actually those that haven't gone as deep as they might, are stuck
right where my generation was, which is what brought on this whole mess; that
somehow life should be free. It isn't
for the farmer. It wasn't for the
indigenous populations in this world. It isn't for your opposition - they work
14, 15, 16 hrs. a day for what they want.
Entropy wins by default.
The strongest counterforce to the entropy, the hardest working force in
the universe, is the Unviolent warrior, never resting, always constructing with
great valor, exhaustion, discipline, metal rigor the world they want to
see. And every step, every effort is
carefully directed toward that end that they have mind.
That never happens today.
You're doomed, unless you turn that around. You can do it, but you have to do it now, or
you're doomed.
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