Tags
Civil resistance, Jeremy Brecher, Social mobilization, Social Self-Defense, The One Percent, Trumpism
Los Angeles is a fascinating place to live for its diversity of peoples. In the shopping mall, on the Santa Monica pier, the Venice Beach boardwalk (above photo), and other public spaces, I blend in with the crowd. I am at home amidst the range of skin color pigments and English-speaking accents.
In spite of our rich cultural diversity, racism, misogyny, and xenophobia still circulate beneath our thin skin. At a local coffee shop, I’ve had to wait much longer for my coffee than my white companion. At a writers’ meeting, a white female club member told me not to touch her. “It’s offensive,” she said with an angry tone.
On a sunny, windy, Sunday morning in Santa Monica, someone in a passing vehicle threw water in my face as I crossed the busy boulevard. Was it the color of my skin that the stranger considered offensive or was it the colorful Indian print dress and shawl I was wearing? I’ll never know.
Our president-elect is well skilled in excreting these divisive and destructive toxins stored within the glands of our thin skin. At the same time, he has gathered around him a team of corporate and military power elite whose only interest is the further enrichment of the One Percent. We the 99 Percent cannot tire in working together to defend and protect our families, neighbors, and work colleagues.
Social Self-Defense means we’ve got each others’ backs.
In his article, “‘Social Self-Defense’: Protecting People and Planet Against Trump and Trumpism,” Jeremy Brecher borrowed the term “Social Self-Defense” from Poland’s struggle against their authoritarian regime in the 1970s. Under the brutal repression, Polish activists created a support network – financial, legal, medical, and other – for people harassed by the police or unjustly fired from their jobs. (Mr. Tee harasses his critics with tweets.)
Social Self-Defense is the protection of that which makes our life together on earth possible. It includes the protection of the human rights of all people; protection of the conditions of our earth and its climate that make our life possible; the constitutional principle that government must be accountable to law; and global cooperation to provide a secure future for people and planet.
~ Jeremy Brecher
Social Self-Defense is not an organization. It is the combined effort and practices of our myriad social organizations in coordination with political resistance within governmental institutions.
The success of Social Self-Defense rests upon every act of our resistance to intimidation, hate, and fear. Such acts of heroism include protecting our immigrant neighbor from attack or deportation; securing medical care for someone denied it; exposing an act of police brutality; and standing up for clean water.
If we the 99 Percent are to triumph over the designs of the One Percent gathering on Capitol Hill, we will need the engagement of millions of Warriors of the Light who walk among us.
Three Worlds One Vision 
Very nice article. I’m sorry that all this racism uprising made you a victim. Hope America will have better days soon
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Thanks for dropping by. Better days ahead will depend upon our willingness and ability to break down the divides between us.
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Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Thanks for sharing my post, Cyril. Have a great week 🙂
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Great post, Rosaliene. Have majority, will rule – the power of 99%!
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Thanks, JoAnn. Our power lies in working together as one.
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We must hold to the truth that the world can be made a better and equal place for us all by the actions of each individual.
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I agree, Bernadette. That’s why the One Percent use every means available to keep us divided.
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Finally, a coherent expression of individual power. Before I can demonstrate the benefits of freedom, I must first walk in freedom myself. Such must be visible and totally accountable.
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Sha’Tara, I’m glad that we’re on the same page regarding our individual power and, may I add, our individual responsibility to one another.
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Powerful truths here Rosaliene. I find it almost unbelievable how some people can act in such hateful ways, without realization or conscience. With this new Trump administration only days away, I guess I need to believe it. I appreciate and commit to act in solidarity with this call of social self defense.
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Bruce, thanks for your commitment to the call of social self-defense.
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And important message, Rosaliene, that has sparked an a fascinating discussion. The thought that came to mind as I read your post and the comments was how crucial it is for each one of us to stand in integrity, united and supporting others but each empowered by our own source. It’s so easy to quash a mass movement by discrediting “leaders” and by using carrot and stick divide and conquer tactics. Solidarity ultimately needs to come from within from a deep, abiding commitment to walking the path of light even if it means we must walk it alone sometimes.
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“Solidarity ultimately needs to come from within from a deep, abiding commitment to walking the path of light even if it means we must walk it alone sometimes.”
~ Thanks for that reminder, Carol. The commitment of those already standing up against corporate power gives me hope in our endless struggle.
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Reblogged this on idealisticrebel.
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Barbara, thanks for sharing my post with your readers 🙂
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Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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Thanks for sharing my blog post. Much appreciated.
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Excellent post, Rosaliene. Yesterday I attended a reading of a major play premiered in 2008, “Conversations in Tusculum.” It deals with the events Romans like Brutus, Cassius, and Cicero were dealing with as the Republic was being transformed into something they were horrified by because of the changes being made by Julius Caesar and his followers. The find themselves torn about what to do and how to do it. It is astonishing that this play essentially forecasts the dilemma we are now in. In think it will be of interest to you and your readers: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865479925/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A13DS8TN563EYF
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Thanks, Dr. Stein. I’ve added your recommendation to my To Read List.
We should remember that all great empires have fallen. Ours in now crumbling: a dangerous stage, as those at the top use all the means at their disposal for holding onto power.
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You are right. The play is instructive. It is essentially an imagined prequel to Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” unsettling in its forecast of our situation.
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I like this idea of Social Self Defense as it provides a solution. That’s what I’m looking for nowadays, solutions.
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I did, too, Kathy. Brecher’s article is lengthy, but well worth reading in its entirety. We have to be engaged in whatever capacity we can.
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I love this post: the social self-defense piece is brilliant. And I hurt for the human race: if anyone among us is oppressed – at home and abroad – then none of us can truly be free.
I consider myself a “Heinz 57” – I have so many nationalities mixed in my blood that I never quite know how to identify myself. My mom speaks Spanish. I grew up in a Latino household but my mom always tried to deemphasize it. Until I declared that I was going to study it, to never forget that heritage. But I was adopted (within my family) and raised in a nursing home around folks from all over the world.
And the heritage of African Americans – who have every right to feel angst and frustration at centuries of injustices – is such an integral part of our history that the story needs to be told over and over again so that people finally learn.
To that end, I direct an after school program that targets students learning ESL. Most students are from Saudi Arabia and Mexico. You can imagine how so much changed for us right after the election. I’m also a spiritual meditator. My life and what I stand for mean even more and are more of a statement now in the face of what’s going on.
So, this social network? Yes. I’m in. And I’ll sign up for any list that targets any one group: Muslims, Latinos – whatever.
Thank you for sharing this.
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Cynthia, thanks for dropping by and sharing a bit about your background. It sounds like you are already engaged in social self-defense ❤
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Great post. I totally agree with everything you said. It’s still so crazy to me how these thoughts of hatred can spread so easily and actually effect people’s lives. We are too evolved and smart for these differences.. well.. I guess I thought we were anyway.. Thanks for sharking.
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Thanks for dropping by, Ryan. Sad to say, we’ve still a long way to go in our human evolution.
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Do we want to talk about human evolution? I have a neighbour couple who just spent Christmas and New Years in Los Angeles. Comments: how can there be so much hatred spewed out in, and about, the US when Americans are such nice people? My neighbours have nothing but praise for the American people they interacted with during their stay in LA and these people are world travelers so they’d know. They didn’t get the same warm reception at all in Britain or France. So here we are: the US is vilified world wide, yet probably overwhelmingly made up of some of the nicest people in the world. How can that be?
It’s individual strength of character versus mob rule and the System is designed in such a way as to promote mob rule over individualism. People are not taught to become self-empowered, but to seek to join up with groups, any group, thus losing their personal common sense in the frenzy of the group. Trumpists, for example, are unthinking groupies, but so are the anti-Trumpist groupies! Doesn’t matter which side you join, all that matters is that you be joined. Only then can you be manipulated to always act against your own self-interest. Street protests are mob rule that empowers that which they protest! The Vietnam war didn’t end because of the protests; it ended because it was no longer (as) profitable and the predator’s sights had swung to a different locale, namely Central and South America and the Middle East. Contrary to popular belief it is the mobs that are easily manipulated, not individuals. Mobs take many forms, one of its most common: church goers and the military – yes those are mobs. They are brainwashed groupies and can be manipulated to perform any atrocity at any given moment. Human evolution concerns itself with the individual; with spirit and mind. Psychopathic leadership needs and encourages mobs and it couldn’t care less whether those mobs are pro or con: the serve to empower the status quo.
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sharing*
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Thanks for sharing 🙂
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