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Elites Can’t Be Persuaded or Forced. But We Can Disempower Them. Let’s Begin Now.
The wealthy, the ruling class, the giant multinational corporations love it when we cooperate with them. Because when we stop, they’re history.
I’m not selling fake hope here. I’m selling reality and the genuine possibility of ending the polycrisis and creating a humane and sensible civilization. I cannot guarantee success — much depends on how well we carry out our parts, and luck, too, plays a role.
That said, we have a very good chance because we are using the most effective approach in history. We are planning an escalating series of tactics, based on the principle of nonviolent noncooperation, to change civilization at the most fundamental level for the better.
This works. It not only can work. It HAS worked. Many times. Most famously, Gandhi’s followers used this approach to eject the British Empire from India. But many times, less illustrious and virtually unknown people have done what many would think impossible, using nonviolent noncooperation. For example, in the 1990s, a small group of 5 college students decided the Serbian dictator had to go. In a few years, Milosevic was gone and Serbia had a representative government.
The application of nonviolent noncooperation—at least using it effectively—is too complex to explain…