As the OWS protests continue to grow, those that have the most to lose, the 1% and their Republican lackeys, are becoming more and more desperate to quash this movement. They had not anticipated the staying power that the anger of the 99% has inspired. The more desperate the 1% become, the more likely it is that their minions will strike out even more violently against the demonstrators and that their saboteurs will commit false flag operations to make the demonstrators look bad. In the following article, Laurence Lewis explains why maintaining and enforcing nonviolence is imperative.

…As Hunter noted earlier this week, the powers that be seem to have assumed that after a while the Occupy movement would just go away. They got some attention. They blew off some steam. Now back to business as usual. But that’s beginning to change. The powers that be are beginning to realize that this movement is not going anywhere but forward. The demands are serious. The depth and breadth of change needed to satisfy those demands are paradigmatic. A bare awakening is only beginning. This is for real. There is no going back. And the response has begun to get nasty. It will get nasty. Sadly, that is one measure of the Occupy movement’s initial success. But the Occupy movement’s success thus far is but initial. The continuing path forward will grow more difficult and more complicated. And the Occupy movement needs to be prepared. And given that the Occupy movement has no leadership or hierarchy, is spontaneous and organic, and is both diverse and diffuse, that means that every single person involved with or supportive of the Occupy movement needs to be prepared.

Non-cooperation is not a movement of brag, bluster and bluff. It is a test of our sincerity. It requires solid and silent self-sacrifice. It challenges our honesty and our capacity for national work. It is a movement that aims at translating ideas into action. The more we do, the more we find that much more must be done than we had expected. The thought of our imperfection must make us humble.”

A non-cooperationist strives to compel attention and to set an example by his unobtrusive humility. He allows his actions to speak for his creed. Neither in the Koran nor in the Mahabharata was there any sanction for and approval of violence. If the science of war leads to dictatorship, the science of non-violence leads to democracy. Today, more than ever before, there is a need to practice non-violent conflict resolution skills. Hence, at an individual and at a collective level, we have to seek viable alternatives to violence before we make our world an extremely hostile and unfriendly place.

Those who would destroy the Occupy movement will attempt many means, but one of the most obvious will be to attempt to marginalize the movement as extreme and irrelevant. Given that the economic issues driving the Occupy movement enjoy wide popular support, these attempts to marginalize will not focus on the issues, the facts or the goals. It will be an effort to undermine the movement as a movement, regardless of what it is about. What it is about seems too threatening to name. Therefore the attempts to destroy it will be about behavior. They will include attempts to provoke and to publicize any acts that can be construed as vandalism or violence perpetrated by anyone who can be construed as a member of the Occupy movement. And if history is precedent, that also will include such acts perpetrated by infiltrators. But whatever happens, the Occupy activists can only be responsible for their own behavior. And that not only must include refraining from any acts of vandalism or violence, no matter how abusive the tactics of authorities; it also must include attempts to condemn every possible such act as it happens. Even and especially when resisting new laws passed specifically to suppress the Occupy Movement… [emphasis added]