Preparatory Reading

[marjaerwin]

I won't be able to participate in any protests, let alone resistance, unless my health improves. But I'm planning to read a few more works on effective nonviolent resistance:

* Why Civil Resistance Works, by Erica Chenoweth & Maria J. Stephan,

* Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow, by Daniel Hunter,

* On the Salt March, by Thomas Weber.

And to re-read a few works I'd read for earlier projects, such as:

* Some of the public records from the Seattle Accountability and Review Committee.

* The Battle in Seattle, by Janet Thomas.

* Netwar in the Emerald City, by Paul de Armond.

Before my illness, I prepared a transcript of the first several hours of the police radio recordings which were among those public records. I don't have a suitable place to post the public records and the transcripts, but if I did, other people might be able to use them.

Comments

[marjaerwin]

Started reading On the Salt March. Gandhi would march to Dandi, with a small disciplined cadre from the ashram and the nearby school, and publically violate the British salt monopoly. He wanted more of the people to join in violating the British salt monopoly, and undermining the salt tax.

It doesn’t seem like a model for near-term resistance in America.

[marjaerwin]

Finished On the Salt March. It's hard to say how successful and sustainable Gandhi's salt campaign was. The march to Dandi was a symbolic victory, the salt tax resistance throughout India was a more important practical victory, and the raids on Dharasana were a disaster with 1,300 protesters wounded and 4 killed.