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Direct Action The notion of direct action, while overly broad in definitions and interpretations, can be simplified to summarize one idea – effectiveness. An action is direct if it is the most effective step taken to stop an act of injustice or oppression. At times direct action may include collecting signatures on petitions, setting up an information table, talking to friends and neighbors, and voting. And at other times, direct action may mean engaging in civil disobedience, sabotage, violence and other illegal activities. Which activity and tactic chosen at a particular time and place should directly relate to that which is going to be the most effective, period. Why this incredibly simplistic idea is overlooked and rarely acted upon today in US social and political movements is not so much a mystery as it is a disgrace. Here it is, late March of 2006. Inside the United States we have over 37 million people living under the federally established mockery of a poverty line. Millions more beyond that still cannot acquire the necessary finances to have basic needs met. Since the 1960s, we have allowed 90% of our old growth forests to be destroyed, and our water and air to be increasingly contaminated. Today, over 45 million people live without health care in the United States, including over 8.5 million children. And we continue to sit back and watch – as though it were another episode of the 5:00 news or our favorite sit-com – our pseudo-democratic political machine become further dysfunctional and unjust. For a country that prides itself on being the super-power of freedom, democracy and opportunity, the statistics above are embarrassing. Yet, even more inexcusable is the fact that we, the American public, allow these atrocities to continue. By and large, we continue to live our daily lives in a business as usual state, numb to the reality that our own laziness, our own privileges, our own refusal to confront the political structure of this country are allowing increasing levels of injustice and violence to exist. The minimal and overwhelmingly futile resistance that is offered against injustice and oppression in this country has little, if any chance, to ever be successful. By continually engaging in state sanctioned tactics, that have been proven ineffective in past historical applications, these “resistance” movements perpetuate the endless cycle of failure. But when privileges allow a continued failure to exist, it becomes apparent that engaging in a different course of action and strategy may threaten the very security that those within these movements dearly possess. Similar to the pharmaceutical industry that would rather profit off treating symptoms of problems than stand to lose financial security by producing cures, the large, mainstream social justice organizations in the US find it quite safer to only promote and engage in those tactics and strategies that are deemed non-threatening by the governmental infrastructure. When millions of dollars are at stake within these organizations, and, more importantly, the livelihoods and security of involved individuals, it becomes a conscious and, often times, even unconscious decision to forgo effective tactics and strategies for those which don’t threaten the very way of life that most of those involved with resistance movements cherish. Of course to ever admit this publicly, we would first have to come to terms with it personally. Three years ago, on the very date President Bush told the nation that the bombing of Iraq would officially begin, I wrote and published an essay on the anti-war struggle. It was summarized in a question at the end of the first paragraph, “How far is the anti-war movement in the United States willing to go to stop the US government and its unceasing atrocities?” It provided a brief, yet sound analysis of the anti-war movement in the US and what direction that movement might take to actually become successful. At the time of the essay’s release, the US government was already responsible for the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children through sanctions imposed throughout the 1990s. Now, on the three-year anniversary of the US invasion, when Iraqi casualty rates number as high as an additional 100,000 people, the question I posed evidently has been answered. Once again we, as a nation, have failed to come to terms with the necessity of effective action and have placed a higher priority on our own privileges rather than on stopping injustice caused by the US government. I have personally learned through a very difficult path that my strongest opposition is not any one of the evil corporations and their CEOs, it is not the US government or its institutions or those that subscribe to right-wing philosophies. My most difficult enemy, that which applies the most brutal force preventing political and social change in this country, are the very privileged individuals within the so-called “justice” movements in the United States. Instead of concentrating on effectiveness in terms of truly creating justice, these factions will engage in nearly any strategy to preserve their own security and way of life. Backstabbing, rumor-spreading, event hijacking, message control, and other subversive activities are commonplace within social justice movements, only the targets are not the perpetrators of injustice, but typically those who are attempting to do whatever it takes to actually stop an injustice caused by our government. The reason given, almost unanimously, by those engaging in such horrific activities, is that they disapproved of the strategies or people in question because they could hurt the movement. In reality, if a movement is not using direct action and interested in optimum effectiveness in stopping an injustice, than that so-called movement is nothing more than another problem preventing change from occurring. Again, the real fear is whether the security of the privileged “activists” will be threatened, not whether the movement will be compromised. There comes a time in life when each individual must look deep inside their own heart and question their values, beliefs, and their role in society and whether they are a part of the problem or part of the solution. If when doing so you are not prepared to take part in, or at least support, direct action as defined above, you are a part of the problem. We have the ability to change the way our government treats its own people and those internationally. We have the ability in doing so to gain international respect and admiration for stopping unprecedented injustice. We have the ability and responsibility to use whatever means are necessary to remove this government and create a better and just country and society. But in order to do that we must stop working against one another and fighting each other because we are too afraid of losing our security. We must begin to listen to our own hearts and hear our own voices and follow our own paths, not those only dictated by the mainstream justice organizations and their leaders. We must make it a priority to learn from history, what worked, what didn’t and what will be more effective today and in the future. We must be willing to devote our lives to justice. We must begin to truly care. We must begin to truly act. |