Satyagraha vs. "Keeping Your Mouth Shut"

The sign in the photo reads: "Our babies are not your cannon fodder." Needless to say, the woman holding it was a popular subject of photographers at the 2006 Mother's Day peace protest in Lafayette Park.
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The Bush administration wishes this woman and all of us activists would keep our mouths shut about war and violence. At some point they may have to declare martial law to shut us up, lock us out, reject, marginalize and discredit us - especially should they bomb Iran. But we will, of course, fight back, speaking our truth, nonviolently.
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See photos and videos of DC Activists asserting their truth and refusing to shut up.
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"Satyagraha" means “truth force”-- asserting what is true no matter how much the powers that be, in the larger world or in our smaller social or political circles, forbid it and even rage against it, saying KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. Satyagraha means it's better to speak your truth, even clumbsily or angrily, than be silent. It is different from duragraha which is protest with insufficient attempt to reach a deeper level of truth or touch the conscience of the opponent!
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FIGHTING PATRIARCHY
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Thinking more about my my new email address, fightpatriarchy@carolmoore.net. Some people think my former one - "endviolence" - means "keep quiet" and "never criticize." So I adopted something more appropriate to Gandhian principles - don't be afraid to fight!
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What is war and militarism but organized violence that allows those with a patriarchal mindset to conquer and hold reluctant territories and achieve economic and political dominance?
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Mother's Day in the U.S. actually was started by Julia Ward Howe who organized a Mother's Day march for peace and disarmament in Boston after the Civil War. Increasingly feminists are using the day to remind women to fight the patriarchal institutions of war and militarism.
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One facet of patriarchal militarism is the renewal in the U.S. of mostly male street violence (aka "black bloc diversity of tactics") that developed after the "battle of Seattle" of 1999. The strategy admitted by some at the time was: at big nonviolent protests provoke police through property destruction and throwing things at police so that they will riot against nonviolent activists, thus "radicalizing liberals." That innocents, especially women with small children, were most likely to be hurt by such violence was a concern mocked by these "street fighters." While activists have mellowed since the September 11 attack, the street fighting ideology still infects small segments of progressive movements.
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Worse, its existence makes it easy for police provocateurs posing as activists to provoke police to violence. Some claim this is just what happened during the May 1, 2007 MacArthur Park Los Angeles police riot against immigrants. See my blog entry below.
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Because I was upset about the way so many nonviolent activists were bullied into keeping quiet about their opposition to street violence, a couple years back I wrote an e-book called THE RETURN OF STREET FIGHTING MAN. I'll be turning into a publishing-on-demand book and a video soon.
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PROTECTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN
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I certainly believe women must be encouraged to speak up when it comes to protecting the welfare and lives of women and children, in street protests and in interpersonal affairs. We must speak up even if that means some popular or powerful men must be embarrassed. You can't build true solidarity by silencing those who speak out to protect women and children.
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I continue to promote a nonviolent, anti-militarist radical decentralist and secessionist revolution. See my article on the interconnection of nonviolence and radical political decentralism. Or my site WhatWouldGandhiDo.Net.
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And my article Woman v. the Nation State about how women and children especially would benefit from such a society. At the end of the article is a letter from then-MS. Magazine editor Robin Morgan stating that many feminists agreed with me!
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See my site Secession.Net. It would be great if women led such a decentralist revolution, making sure it was a nonviolent one. We don't need another civil war, but between the right wing militias, left wing street fighters and military and police, we might get one!
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It's probably not yet time to start a radical decentralist feminist secessionist network, but maybe some day!