Waging struggle is a project. Like other projects, it requires stamina to keep going past the initial adrenaline of doing a new thing. Unlike other projects, by waging struggle you might become dead.

Here are some basic principles for waging struggle. Folks generally don’t resist a power figure until their lifestyles become personally affected by that power, so you may or may not be ready to wage a full-scale attack against the opponent you wish to displace. That is okay, here is some info anyway. This way, when you’re ready, you’ll know how to take effective steps.

MAIN PRINCIPLES:

Have a Clear Goal Know Your Opponent Educate Ya Team Discipline

1. HAVING A CLEAR GOAL

First, decide exactly what you want to accomplish. If your movement sounds like this -

“HE SHOULD RESIGN!”

“IMPEACH HIM!”

“KILL HIM WITH A STICK!”

-then although you will get news coverage, you won’t look very credible, and it will be hard to convince anybody that you’re the kind of folks who should have a say in power distribution. A mob is not an army. It’s just a jumble of tantrums, which is cool for two hours, and then everybody goes home to smoke weed and wonder if it worked. So your first step is to identify a single goal. For example:

“We want the president to resign.”

Once you’ve articulated your goal, you can focus brainpower on exactly how to achieve it. The most important part of setting a goal is that you will be fucking certain of whether or not your job is done. You’ll never walk away from a demonstration thinking: “We sure raised awareness tonight. Right?” while meanwhile, the power system remains exactly the same.

Another option is to have a list of demands. For example:

Official Demands:

1. The president will apologize to X, Y and Z on national television.

2. The president will leave immigration policy as it currently stands.

3. The president will kiss a nice boy and we will all get wallet pics

etc.

A list of demands can be a more diplomatic choice, offering the possibility of negotiation, once your struggle evolves towards an actual dialogue with your opponent (i.e., the president does not have to kiss a nice boy but he does have to wash his face off, etc.)

Whether you have one goal, a list of demands, or both, make sure that it’s all well-worded and catchy, so that the press can quote you.

2. KNOW YOUR OPPONENT

Power has never been relinquished voluntarily. No king has ever been like: “You know what? You guys are right, I’ve been a dick. Here’s your stuff back!”

This has never, and will never, occur.

So, as the party making a bid for power redistribution (that’s you), you’ll need to first identify the pillars which are holding this current power figure in place. And then gnaw away upon them, like a wildass beaver that never sleeps.

Pillars of Support For Your Opponent Might Include:

Corporations

Religious groups

Personal side-businesses

International allies

Political parties

Public figures

Do some research, and make a list. Next, determine why they support your opponent. In what way does your opponent help their interests? Target one pillar, which you believe is either weak enough on their stance to consider your position, or to whom you can offer a better deal. As a grassroots movement, you probably don’t have much in the way of resources, so your first targets are probably going to be ether:

A) entities who’s business you can fuck up, or

B) entities that you (or your allies) can help out, in exchange for allegiance.

Start local. Probably you cannot write to Putin and say “Putin please I am so gay”, but consider this: Maybe your opponent receives money from a specific corporation, and you can organize a boycott against that corporation. Be clear from the start that you are boycotting because you want them to change sides, and you are planning on applying pressure until that occurs.

Maybe entertainment execs who support your cause would be willing to run free ads for a business that supports your opponent, if that business would publicly change their position. Use your brain. Be a terrifyingly effective middle man.

As your movement grows, you will be able to make bigger deals. Continually update your list as the struggle evolves, as the goal is to eventually Jenga this motherfucker.

3. EDUCATE YA TEAM

A bunch of people want to help? Great! Okay: there are two kinds of events that you will need to organize.

1. Explain the plan

2. Do the plan

A lot of movements cut to the second one, but the first step is VERY IMPORTANT. So before you have any public demonstrations, make sure everyone is on Exactly The Same Page. Explain clearly your goal, and what you are doing to achieve it. Educate people on how to act under police pressure and attack.

Once the movement has begun, schedule regular meetings to teach new volunteers precisely what you are (and are not) about. Remember that any member of your demonstration may be picked by the press to give a soundbite, and this could be the only soundbite played on TV to represent your entire effort. Everyone should have something succinct and memorable on the tip of their tongue at all times, which accurately represents the intentions of your movement. Imagine if a reporter asked random people at a big demonstration what was going on, and no matter who they asked, they got this kind of response:

“We are here today, celebrating the president’s resignation!”

“Did you hear that the president is resigning? So cool!”

“I’m soooo proud of the president, for their choice to gracefully resign.”

“We are all just tickled with the president for admitting they are a bad fit for this job. What a hero. Goodbye!”

Or something. Uniformity is strength. A sense of humor helps too, since if it’s cute and on TV, Youtube will basically do your job for you.

As you educate new people, let them educate the next batch in turn. This is called horizontal leadership. Under this system, once you’ve gotten involved with the movement and understand its goal, you become just as in-charge as anyone else.

The reason horizontal leadership is so crucial is so that your movement doesn’t have an Important Main Dude. If you don’t have an Important Main Dude, then they cannot assassinate that person! It’s a lot harder for police to cripple a movement, when every member is equal.

Finally, make sure to stress that everyone stay focused on The Goal, so that it doesn’t become a liberal free-for-all fucker-fest. You don’t need some broh yelling about how he loves Che Guevara. You don’t need some burning man veteran jacking your focus to advocate ‘free love’ and the wonders of doing drugs in public. That shit is discrediting, and it will make sane, tax-paying adults want to NOT help you. You want to be making big deals with big power players, and that’s why the final thing you need is:

4. DISCIPLINE

Here’s the part that sucks: You have to be willing to die.

People are most likely going to die in your struggle, especially if it’s big. But it won’t be the bad guys dying. It will be you. Remember how power has never been relinquished voluntarily? Yeah. There will be arrests, and there will be violence. But not by your hands. You must educate your people to be ready for the worst, because you are going to annoy powerful people until they have to stop what they are doing, turn around screaming “SHUT UP”, and shoot you with a gun.

And then, you will keep being annoying.

You’re going to have to keep being annoying and hilarious, and getting fucked for it, until the whole world — especially the press — is on Your Side. Remember: you have the moral authority, and you must retain it. It’s your only upper hand, especially against, say, a major global power.

(That said, if you think you have to destroy or deface property, just be sure to do so strategically. Don’t have your folks getting slap-happy and setting a bus on fire and it turns out there was a kid in it and now your whole public image is fucked. You need that image to fucking sparkle. )

If you end your opponent’s career, it will be by sheer will and stamina. There is no shortcut. You will win by being right. It will take a long time, and it will fucking suck. But you have to prove to everyone that your proposed future is more wonderful, and therefore worth dying for. And you do that by representing it.

Those are the main things to get you started. You may still be asking:

WHY NONVIOLENCE?

“Ember, do you think my cause is not important enough for a cool gun fight??”

Violence is super cool, to be sure. But using violence against a power figure, especially the US Government, is like challenging the carnival man to his own game of which-cup-is-my-dick-under. The US army is great at ruining people’s shit. The FBI is great at ruining people’s shit. The CIA will ruin your shit, in a dark room, on a small rock, in the middle of the sea. You won’t win a game against the fuckers who wrote the rulebook, pal.

“But violence makes a statement in a way nonviolence can’t! Plus, nonviolence is gay. Not the gay I’m fighting to protect, the other kind.”

I understand. A person who sets themselves on fire, or fifty people hurling themselves against a police barricade — these are compelling, historic images. But they do not usually get people what they are asking for. Now, imagine 1,000 people barricading a major freeway, playing “99 Bottles Of Beer”, on 1,000 kazoos. As they are carted away to jail, they refuse to stop scream-singing “99 Bottles of Beer”. In the weeks that follow, people around the city begin to sing “99 Bottles of Beer” Very Loud, inside businesses that support the opponent. It’s not long before folks who were on the fence begin thinking they’d do just about anything to never hear “99 Bottles of Beer”, ever again.

Too annoying? Here’s another one: Picture a crowd of 100 people, standing silently, staring at the opponent’s front lawn. For a month.

As people drop in exhaustion, their bodies are placed on the opponent’s door step. As police cars cart them away, more come to take their place. Just standing, staring. Not breaking even one law.

It’s fucking terrifying.

“But Ember, that sounds sooooo much harder!”

Yes.

Violence is ultimately a selfish choice, in protest scenarios. It allows a movement to make a big noise, exhaust itself, get shut down, and then say: “We tried!”

Nonviolence, while it does sound lame, is much more effective in terms of generating results, as opposed to just fleeting news coverage.

WHAT EXACTLY IS NONVIOLENT STRUGGLE?

Imagine an obnoxious kid in the back seat of your car, who is doing everything they can to make you want to Stop Driving The Car.

This kid is you.

There is a magic place between flaccid flower-power protest, and raging unorganized rioting. That point sounds like a kazoo playing 99 Bottles of Beer, right next to your opponent’s ear.

Nonviolent Struggle can look like:

Refusal to leave a place you have been asked to leave.

Refusal to stop making a noise you have been asked to stop making.

“I’m not touching you” style presence.

Impeding normal municipal function

Mock governments, mock money, mock laws

Anything you can think of that is infuriating in an annoying kid way — you know, stuff that would make a parent want to pull over, rip off their clothes and run away to a life in the woods. Remember that while you are doing these things in public, you are also gradually eroding their pillars of support. Soon, you will still be playing a kazoo, AND the gas light will be on.

HAS THIS SHIT EVER WORKED?

Yes!

Here’s one, where peeps in the Baltic States literally would not stop singing in public until they got what they wanted (yeah, it was the 80’s). Eventually the USSR kicked them out of the car, and they got their independence!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_Revolution

Here’s one where Serbian college students in 2000 were just really annoying for two years until the leader they didn’t like resigned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otpor!

Here’s one of their adorable ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEZYdGDkkV4

In 2004, the Ukrainian people were hella annoying, until they got a re-run election. And that time, they got their guy in office. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Revolution

This is the one where America’s black people were so annoying they just would not stop being where they weren’t supposed to be in public places oh my God:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1954%E2%80%9368)

This is the one with that guy Gandhi, from the 1930s. He was super duper annoying to the British. Oh man, they hated that guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cooperation_movement

Here’s an old one, from 1834. These guys wouldn’t stop chanting and it was so annoying that they were freed from slavery:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Trinidad_and_Tobago#End_of_slavery

WHO WILL HELP?

If your cause is awesome and represents the downtrodden, chances are you can wrangle a lot of really sick allies in the arts, liberal sciences, and third party candidates. Some of these people have pretty big audiences of their own. Write to them or approach them in person, and explain succinctly the aim of your struggle. Suggest exactly how they could help and endorse you. Contact animators, columnists, musicians, churches, and anybody else who agrees with you and commands a following. Being persistent is good. You are asking for support in a righteous cause, not for a selfie.

(Although, a selfie with their endorsement is probably a good plan.)

DUDE. WON’T THIS PUT MY WHOLE LIFE ON HOLD??

Yeah, again, if you aren’t serious, that’s okay. If you just want to stomp the streets for one night, to feel collectively upset and tire your legs out, that’s okay. In fact, it’s good! It raises awareness, and provides hope and emotional support for those who may feel isolated, or literally afraid to take action. And that isn’t nothing.

But guess what? Dictators don’t fall because of raised awareness. Strikes are called off all the time, and the power figures suffer minor economic losses. People riot, are imprisoned, and get shot dead all over the world for things they believe in. And the next day, the oppressive systems wipe flecks of blood off of their spectacles, and business continues as usual.

This is a game of stamina. And if you’re not ready to start building sustained tension and imposing pressure, that’s okay. Just hold onto this link, in case you are, sometime soon.