Free America

The next level below grand strategy in a prolonged struggle is strategy: the planning for a single phase or campaign for specific objectives. For a nonviolent struggle the first campaign must focus on building strength. This strength is measured in numbers of supporters and activists; their degree of training in nonviolent struggle; the resources and information at their disposal; and their ability to withstand repression.

This post presents some preliminary thoughts I have on strategy for this first campaign. What I have is incomplete and does not include detailed goals, but it is a start.

Since I live in Orem, Utah, my own goals for this first campaign include

• creating an active Free America movement within Salt Lake Valley and Utah Valley;
• creating enough publicity that most people in these two areas have heard of the movement and have some notion of what it’s about;
• building solidarity within this movement;
• gaining experience in the practical application of nonviolent action; and
• raising awareness of the violent and savage nature of the state.

Over the next few weeks I will be recruiting local libertarians to join with me in creating a local activist group. How will we achieve the above goals? Where should we start? I advocate a strategy of focusing on specific victims of local, state, and federal governments in the Salt Lake and Utah valleys: people who are threatened with or have had property seized; people who are facing or currently suffering imprisonment for victimless”crimes”; victims of police brutality; and so on. Our activity should be focused on publicizing the wrong done these people; agitating for release of prisoners, return of seized property, restitution for harm done, etc.; and doing what we can to alleviate their suffering.

I favor this strategy for the following reasons:

• Glen Allport has pointed out the need to connect love and freedom (“The Road to Compassion and Freedom”). We need to make sure that our activism actually makes somebody’s life better.
• We will learn how to take care of our own who engage in civil disobedience.
• We will build solidarity.
• As discussed in the preceding post, we must not forget that what matters is the welfare of real, flesh-and-blood human beings.
• It fits in with the grand strategy of emphasizing the state’s violent and lawless nature.
• There may be opportunities to promote the idea that disputes involving the government should not be ruled on by an arm of the government itself, but by a truly independent arbiter.

I’m not sure yet how to locate these people and investigate their cases, but I do have a few ideas and leads:

• Public records. Are there public records of cases where property is being seized for failure to pay taxes, children are seized by by Family and Child “Services”, action is taken against property owners for zoning violations, etc.? Is there a public record of all arrests?
• Copwatch maintains a database of complaints filed against police.
• The November Coalition is a group of friends and families of prisoners of the War on Drugs. They have an manual on grass-roots activism that may be useful for freedom activists in general.
• Critical Resistance is a group that opposes the massive increase in the number of Americans imprisoned over the last few years, and seeks to end the Prison Industrial Complex.
• There are a variety of websites with information on government auctions of seized assets; protests could be aimed at these auctions, or perhaps investigating these auctions could provide some leads to the victims from whom the goods were seized. Here are some URLs: www.policeauctions.com, www.governmentauctions.org, www.car-auction.com/Seized_Cars.php, www.choosecars.com, and usgovernmentauctions.net.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.