Wormelings in action and play in Latvia.

I have a new
BLOGSPOT. See: http://mywealthvirus.
blogspot.com/

Many years ago, I was active in an anti-nuke non-violent direct action group known as Clamshell. This was in the early to mid 1970s. Clamshell's centre, to the extent that it had one, was located in Cambridge, Massachusetts; its mother, to the extent it had one were the Quakers; while its Action Committee often met in my apartment at Newton Corner, Mass.

When Clamshell and I parted ways, I was conflicted about, on the one hand, the risk that non-violent direct action implied, and, on the other hand, the not so serious attitude of many of the student participants in the group. Quite a few were ready to provoke violence by going beyond peaceful protests and cut and climb fences in order to provoke the police to violent response.

I was not of the opinion that provoking violent reaction from the authorities was the way to go. IMO the mind-space of United States politics seemed like that of a Pop Culture that had swallowed a perpetual "growth" pill, rather than a society that had come to an in-depth understanding and political antagonism with regard to its delusions and profligate ways. The delusion of our Pop Culture of having a perpetual right to be a perpetual consumer at the expense of the rest of the planet were likely to rise in self-righteous wrath and smother the anti-nuke movement with accusations of violence. I was not persuaded that the time had come to test non-violent direct action to such a degree.

Wormelings in a carousel fly high over Riga.

That the establishment of the U.S. is still living in a Pop Culture environment is evidenced by the acts of its violence.

Today I noticed on Google a header that suggested that the Navy Seals who are said to have killed bin Laden are now the heroes of the more vehement sector of this culture in the U.S.

However, in the rest of the world things may be changing, and non-violent direct action may be coming of age. To better understand the point that I am making, please read the following http://www.undispatch.com/israel-shootings-and-the-start-of-a-non-violent-protest-movement-for-palestine

Incidentally, not-voting, too, is an act of non-violent direct action or what--in another series of blogs (see esoschronicles)--I have called not-violent terror. Such non-violent direct action acts as described in the above link, may indeed popularize not-voting as a tool of resistance to a democracy gone morbidly decrepid.