There Seems to Be a Lack of Information on Civil Disobedience.

[MineralMan]

Apparently some important stuff is no longer taught to high school students, and that's a pity:

The concept came from Henry David Thoreau's 1849 Essay,"Civil Disobedience."

I guess they don't teach that in school anymore. They should. Some of the most important movement leaders ever since read that essay and understood it. I read in in my Junior year in high school. It was not optional reading, but was required, and led to a week of discussion in the classroom, besides.

1849. Think about that date, and what happened in the United States not long afterward. It is a seminal piece of writing that everyone involved in any active political activism should know well.

"Civil Disobedience" has influenced political and social movements ever since, along with people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, both of whom referred to it as influential. It should be required reading in high school for everyone. You can read the extremely interesting and influential essay here:

http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html

I highly recommend reading through it. It doesn't take all that long. In fact, reading it occasionally throughout one's life is also a good idea, along with other of Thoreau's writings.

[HardTimes99]

1. Emphatic K n R! People who read Walden, however, should remember that

Emerson's wife took Thoreau weekly care packages

[MineralMan]

4. That's true. Emerson finally paid the tax

for Thoreau, too. Pissed Henry off, that did...well, a little. Emerson looked out for Henry, who, despite his talent, was a bit of a bumbler in real life.

[HardTimes99]

6. LOL - I can only hope my epitaph also includes 'Bit of a bumbler' :) - nt

[MineralMan]

8. Me, too.

That period of American literature was my special field of interest while working on my Master's. I love all those folks. The relationships among them were fascinating. Emerson's journals are fascinating reading, if you enjoy reading wordy journals. I worked my way through the entire collection. I can't remember how many volumes they filled, but it took up most of a shelf in the University library.

Anyhow, someone had to keep an eye on Thoreau to make sure he ate regularly and didn't get lost in the woods somewhere.

[Bonobo]

2. One person misusing the phrase = a lack of information?

If that is true, you should be very bust correcting a massive amount of "lack of information".

[MineralMan]

3. It wasn't just one person. There's an entire thread above the first

correct answer to the question.

And it's not the first time the concept of civil disobedience has been raised on DU, either. Do you disagree with what I said in the OP, regarding the essay? If so, we can discuss that.

As for being busy, I do find myself posting a lot on DU. Is that what you meant?

[Bonobo]

5. I have no disagreement with your correction. nt

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Thoreau was a cheerleader for John Brown

Interesting, no?

[MineralMan]

9. Yes, it was interesting.

Thoreau did not originate the concept of non-violence. That was Gandhi, much later. "Civil" does not refer to behavior in his essay. It refers to laws. As in "civil government."

There's no disconnect in his support for John Brown at all. You just have to understand his perspective on civil disobedience, which did not have non-violence as part of the concept.

Again, the more you know, the more you know.

[Scootaloo]

52. And?

Let's be frank here - Slaveholding states controlled the legislature, and were setting it up so that this would be a permanant feature of the nation - they even brought it to the point where non-slave states had no right to have anti-slavery laws of their own. In this sort of environment, you have two choices - accept that slavery has won... or take up arms and force the fucking issue. Brown wasn't willing to concede to the former so he chose the latter.

I'd cheerlead him, too.

[backscatter712]

61. Hell yeah. Or to put it bluntly...

The kind of people that own slaves, beat them, exploit them, and abuse them DESERVE to get shot.

[MineralMan]

10. A few Quotes, etc. about Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience"

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_%28Thoreau%29

Mohandas Gandhi
Main article: Salt Satyagraha
Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi (a.k.a. Mahatma Gandhi) was impressed by Thoreau's arguments. In 1907, about one year into his first satyagraha campaign in South Africa, he wrote a translated synopsis of Thoreau's argument for Indian Opinion, credited Thoreau's essay with being "the chief cause of the abolition of slavery in America", and wrote that "Both his example and writings are at present exactly applicable to the Indians in the Transvaal."[18] He later concluded:
Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practice in himself. He was one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced. At the time of the abolition of slavery movement, he wrote his famous essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience". He went to gaol for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable.
—"For Passive Resisters" (1907)[19]

Martin Luther King, Jr.
American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also influenced by this essay. In his autobiography, he wrote:
During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.
I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.
—"The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr."[20]

Martin Buber
Existentialist Martin Buber wrote, of Civil Disobedience
I read it with the strong feeling that here was something that concerned me directly.… It was the concrete, the personal element, the "here and now" of this work that won me over. Thoreau did not put forth a general proposition as such; he described and established his attitude in a specific historical-biographic situation. He addressed his reader within the very sphere of this situation common to both of them in such a way that the reader not only discovered why Thoreau acted as he did at that time but also that the reader– assuming him of course to be honest and dispassionate– would have to act in just such a way whenever the proper occasion arose, provided he was seriously engaged in fulfilling his existence as a human person.
The question here is not just about one of the numerous individual cases in the struggle between a truth powerless to act and a power that has become the enemy of truth. It is really a question of the absolutely concrete demonstration of the point at which this struggle at any moment becomes man's duty as man.…
—"Man's Duty As Man" (1962)[21]

Others
Author Leo Tolstoy has cited Civil Disobedience as having a strong impact on his non-violence methodology. Others who are said to have been influenced by Civil Disobedience include: President John F. Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and various writers such as, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and William Butler Yeats.[22]
References

[NYC_SKP]

11. They're not going to teach that in schools.

That's the LAST thing they're going to teach in schools.

Schools are about conformity and rules and blind obedience.

Schools are about serving the interest of the PTB.

Why would they want to teach about disobedience, civil or otherwise?

[MineralMan]

12. They used to teach it in schools.

They taught it in my public school. Now, they teach other things. The thinking is apparently that 19th Century writings are too difficult for high school students to grasp, along with being irrelevant to today's world. That thinking is incorrect.

[NYC_SKP]

15. Well, often it is truly too difficult for them to grasp.

Not that they wouldn't grasp it if their years leading up to high school were more meaningful and effective, of if they had teachers who had training and time to do it well, or if admins wanted that to happen, which they don't.

Hell, the admins haven't even heard of these characters half the time.

In practice, the educational institution in America isn't able to bring learners to that point where they can think critically and globally and appreciate patterns and connections between the past and present.

When passing the California High School Exit Exam only requires passage of 55% of questions written at a 7th grade level, what do you expect?

When classrooms are packed and teachers are in place with little more than passage of a one-day CBEST test, which might be waived, what do you expect?

Finally, it's not in the interest of the institution or of the dominant players in our society that students question authority.

Teach disobedience??? LOL- not gonna happen in any broad sense.

Of course, as a teacher I taught it on day one.

I taught students that they are the single most important person in the educational system. A no-brainer to me but a surprise to them.

I also encouraged them to develop their own syllabi and to teach one another, to be active participants in their educational experience.

But you don't really think that kind of subversive approach is gonna fly in mainstream schools, do you?

[MineralMan]

16. You sound like a good teacher. That's excellent.

There were many good teachers in my small-town high school in the early 1960s. I'm sure there still are good teachers in today's schools. More's the pity that they're not allowed to actually teach.

[CrispyQ]

33. Great post.

I don't have children. I graduated HS in 1975. The difference in public school back then & today boggles my mind! I had no idea how much it had changed until I started reading madflo's posts here on DU. Several years ago I read that a 1960s HS education was the equivalent of a liberal arts bachelor's degree today. I know some colleges offer remedial reading classes for freshmen students. Wow. Just wow.

[JoeyT]

23. I'm not sure the problem is 19th Century writing being too difficult to grasp.

Animal Farm and 1984 were both required reading for me in high school in the mid-90s. They're now not only not required reading, but not optional reading either, as both have been removed from the library. I'm not sure if they're "banned", as in you get in trouble for bringing them, but it wouldn't particularly shock me to see them labeled "disruptive materials" that merited a suspension.

From what I can tell of the required reading lists I've seen, anything that teaches that authority is anything other than divinely inspired wisdom to be obeyed at all costs has been scrubbed.

[MineralMan]

25. Well, I was being a bit facetious with that.

As for no longer teaching some of the standard works we learned, that's certainly true, at least in some places. However, all of those things are readily available. Parents are often very good at offering additional materials to their children who are students. I highly recommend that practice.

I read far more out of school than what was required, and that started with my parents' encouragement. No school can insist that students read everything students should be exposed to. There's just too much.

[pnwmom]

18. Most high schools teach about the civil rights battles of the 60's.

We learned about the history and concept of civil disobedience then.

[NYC_SKP]

22. I'm loathe to say "most" but I'll bet that they only "cover" it if they address it at all.

Which is a far cry from teaching it in any meaningful fashion.

I rather doubt that many teachers treat it in a manner that would leave kids capable of applying it in their own lives or discussing the importance of it or of the historic figures behind it.

Covering a topic in a textbook is quite different from teaching!

[Nay]

28. "Covering a topic...is different from teaching" -- so true. Now everything is 'covered,' but

little is learned because there is little effort or time put into getting students to see themselves in past times, and understand what they might have done if they lived back then. By reducing living history to a boring chapter in a text, schools ensure that lessons won't actually be learned.

[pnwmom]

67. I acknowledge that I can't speak for how it's taught in most schools or today.

But in the Catholic school I attended, we read Ghandi, Thoreau, and other philosophers who wrote about non-violent resistance.

[blackspade]

62. Since the 90's the civil rights era of the 60's has largely been glossed over.....

in order to fast forward to Reagan.

It's pretty freaking sad that most 20 somethings know so little about twentieth century history.
Especially US history.

[Zorra]

13. Wikipedia has a very informative article on actual civil disobedience, not just Thoreau's concept

of it.

Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always,[1][2] defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
snip:
Ronald Dworkin held that there are three types of civil disobedience:

"Integrity-based" civil disobedience occurs when a citizen disobeys a law she or he feels is immoral, as in the case of northerners disobeying the fugitive slave laws by refusing to turn over escaped slaves to authorities.

"Justice-based" civil disobedience occurs when a citizen disobeys laws in order to lay claim to some right denied to her or him, as when blacks illegally protested during the Civil Rights Movement.

"Policy-based" civil disobedience occurs when a person breaks the law in order to change a policy (s)he believes is dangerously wrong."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_%28Thoreau%29#.22That_government_is_best_which_governs_least.22_-_.22That_government_is_best_which_governs_not_at_all.22

[MineralMan]

14. Yes. I saw that. There's tons of good info out there.

DU often sends me out to explore elsewhere on the Internet to find background on things. Not through links, necessarily, but through active searching. When it comes to Thoreau, though, he and the rest of that oddball bunch of 19th Century thinkers was my main area of study during my Master's program.

I also linked to that Wikipedia page in a post upthread. Thanks!

[pnwmom]

19. And it also says that being arrested should be expected:

Theories[edit source | editbeta]

In seeking an active form of civil disobedience, one may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming a peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally, though sometimes violence has been known to occur. Protesters practice this non-violent form of civil disorder with the expectation that they will be arrested. Others also expect to be attacked or even beaten by the authorities. Protesters often undergo training in advance on how to react to arrest or to attack, so that they will do so in a manner that quietly or limply resists without threatening the authorities.

Mahatma Gandhi outlined several rules for civil resisters (or satyagrahi) in the time when he was leading India in the struggle for Independence from the British Empire. For instance, they were to express no anger, never retaliate, submit to the opponent's orders and assaults, submit to arrest by the authorities, surrender personal property when confiscated by the authorities but refuse to surrender property held in trust, refrain from swearing and insults (which are contrary to ahimsa), refrain from saluting the Union flag, and protect officials from insults and assaults even at the risk of the resister's own life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience

[MineralMan]

21. That concept, too, originates in Thoreau's writings.

It was noted by both Gandhi and MLK. Both were jailed more than once for their civil disobedience, as was Mr. Thoreau. It is an integral part of civil disobedience, and has been from the beginning of the concept. Without being willing to be imprisoned and tried, civil disobedience does not exist.

[Zorra]

37. The definitions of civil disobedience are not altered simply because some people expect to go to

jail for engaging in acts of civil disobedience, or because of Gandhi's opinions.

[pnwmom]

39. And they aren't altered simply because some people decide to run away. n/t

[Zorra]

49. True. Neither going to jail, nor fleeing to avoid prosecution, change the definition

of civil disobedience one bit.

Those are both simply possible consequences of engaging in the act of civil disobedience, but do not necessarily constitute, nor define, the act of civil disobedience.

[pnwmom]

50. A key difference between civil disobedience and simple lawbreaking is the willingness

to stand up for one's beliefs to the extent of facing any civic consequences, including prison.

[antigone382]

63. Would you apply that to escaping slaves in the 19th century?

What message would have been sent if escaped slaves had chosen to remain in the land where their status was less than human, asserting the belief that they were owed intrinsic rights, and accepting the consequences to liberty, body, and very likely their own lives by refusing to leave?

If we accept a dichotomy wherein the only two alternatives are "civil disobedience," which implies self sacrifice in accepting punishment by the state, and "simple lawbreaking," which implies a lack of willingness to do so, which category did escaping slaves fall in?

In what way is it more meritorious to accept what one views as violations of one's own freedom and potentially bodily integrity, as opposed to violating the laws and rejecting the punishment which one views as illegitimate? I live where the Highlander Folk School first started, so I understand about being an example, offering yourself in sacrifice in order to bring attention to injustice. That is one strategy for bringing about social change, and it certainly has its merits. On the other hand it is not the only legitimate strategy. Frederick Douglass and others who escaped the realm where they were subject to enslavement, and went on to decry it from a place of relative safety, offer another strategy for bringing about justice.

I gather that this thread is a response to another thread about Snowden, although I do not know for sure. I do not at this point have a position on the nature or merit of Snowden's actions in fleeing the country, so this post is in my mind not related to that. I am merely asking about general principles, specifically as worded by you. I am interested in these issues from the perspective of environmental and economic activism; at a time when power, wealth, and resources are concentrated more than ever before in the hands of very few, I question the value in "getting caught" on principle, specifically in circumstances where one is trying to achieve strategic rather than symbolic outcomes.

[Zorra]

66. Most everyone who engages in acts of civil diobedience takes that, and other risks.

We are aware of these risks going in, and know that we might be arrested, jailed, beaten, pepper-sprayed, tased, water cannoned, or killed.

If we get busted, well, we knew it could happen. If we don't get busted, well, we know we were lucky that time.

We'll risk getting busted, but we're not stupid enough to voluntarily walk into a cage for no good reason. Cages are not fun.

I've been beaten with nightsticks twice. I have had my face ground into the dirt. I've stood next to people who were pepper sprayed. I have stood next to people who were roughly taken down to to the ground, handcuffed and arrested. I have given first aid to people who have been pepper sprayed. I have been tear gassed. Any one of those victims I mentioned who weren't me could have been me.

If you are going to tell me that I have not engaged in civil disobedience simply because I have not been jailed for it, then, with all due respect, you can go fuck yourself.

[cthulu2016]

17. But is no more limited by Thoreau than democracy is limited by Pericles

That is, Thoreau does not own the term and does not retain the ability to define what civil disobedience is or is not 150+ years later.

[MineralMan]

20. Oh, dear. Did I say he owned the term?

I didn't think I did that. He may have originated the concept and influenced many others who came later, but I don't believe I said anything about how it is applied today. Henry David Thoreau has been dead for many years, now. He can hardly lay claim to anything these days or object to how the concept is applied today.

Indeed, Mohandas Gandhi added non-violence to the concept in the 20th century, and Martin Luther King, Jr. applied it to racial injustice later in that century.

Thoreau influenced both of those people, who readily acknowledged his influence in their writings. There are some quotations from them in a later post in the thread.

As it happens, I'm very interested in the concept of civil disobedience, and have applied it a number of times in my life.

If I wrote something confusing, I apologize.

[cthulu2016]

27. You did not say that, and I wasn't meaning to criticize you

Merely anticipating the inane yet inevitable "Thoreau went to jail, and Thoreau coined Civil Disobedience, thus if you don't turn yourself in it isn't Civil Disobedience" chorus

[riderinthestorm]

31. You jumped to the point I was about to make. Like Harriet Tubman

and the rest of the Underground Railroad, or Nelson Mandela in his early years (before his unwilling arrest), many people have been active practitioners of civil disobedience and actively worked to stay free from arrest to continue their work.

We don't call them cowards because they didn't want to be imprisoned. We call them heroes.

[msanthrope]

24. Letter from Birmingham Jail is also instructive:

Snip)There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

[MineralMan]

26. Indeed. I remember reading it not long after it was written.

I'm sure I was out of the ordinary at the time, but I heard Dr. King speak in Birmingham and was deeply moved by that.

[msanthrope]

29. I have found his speeches moving, but I find this letter to be a moral touchstone. nt

[MineralMan]

30. Yes, it is.

Thanks for posting it.

[ProSense]

47. Yes, it is, but you have to

be careful in pointing that out: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023169023

[MrMickeysMom]

32. I'm so glad you posted this... I don't pretend it will invite needed comment...

... mainly from posters I've debated with today.

History must be viewed presently with the same caution we all get behind the wheel of our cars (apologies to public transit users, but you get my meaning). One must look back to consistently compare the schemes that have shaped our times so that our times can best shape the future.

Isn't that why we live and have families? How can the American people forget world history, or not begin to examine it, since we did not all have the wisdom of your classroom environment (I didn't, and I'm the class of 1971, MM)

K&R!

[MineralMan]

35. Thanks for your reply.

The fact of the matter is that most people have no interest in exploring things much deeper than the surface level. That's unfortunate, but is the reality of it. A knowledge of history and of the development of philosophies about all sorts of things is devalued in most people's lives, and that is a shame.

Even in places like DU, such a lack of knowledge is often apparent. Even with basic documents, like the Constitution, the number of people on DU who actually have a working knowledge of that short document is very small. The evidence of that is clear. While people sometimes know the contents of some portion of the document, most people cannot relate that small portion to the entire Constitution.

That leads to things like questions about why we have a two-party political system. Knowledge of the Constitution would make that clear, really, with a little thought, but that knowledge is not widespread, even here, where people are politically active and ostensibly aware of things.

Even today, students in our high schools are presented with the Constitution in the classroom, and portions of it are discussed. But, we don't insist that the entire document be understood in our schools. We teach portions, rather than the whole. That was the same when I was in high school in the early 1960s. Like some other students - a minority - I read the whole thing and learned it. Since then, I've read the entire document dozens of times. I know which section each part of our government is discussed, and the history and timing of every Amendment.

I'm unusual, though. I like learning stuff like that. It gives me pleasure. Most people don't have the same interest in such things. That's OK, but it also leads to a lack of understanding of what makes this country function as it does and why some things we might like aren't possible in our system of government. Presidents don't make laws, for example. That seems to come as a huge surprise to lots of people, and that's because they don't really know how the United States of America works.

Oh, well...there it is. I can't change it.

[CrispyQ]

34. Very interesting thread.

Kick, rec & bookmark.

[MineralMan]

36. Thanks! I wanted to get some basic information posted.

Thank you for reading and replying.

[Deny and Shred]

38. I had a professor who said

that civil disobedience only gets traction if the government you are petitioning is responsive to being shamed. In his words, "If Ghandi had a hunger strike under the Third Reich, it would not have been effective."

There are detainees in Gitmo right now who went on a hunger strike. Their concerns and issues have not been addressed by the US government. The government decided instead to force feed them.

[backscatter712]

41. Exactly. Civil resistance requires an audience.

And Snowden got a far bigger audience by fleeing than he would have if he let himself get arrested and Manninged.

[backscatter712]

40. I'll say it again: disobeying, then accepting punishment is a useful tactic in certain situations.

Thoreau certainly found that tactic useful during the Mexican-American War. Gandhi and MLK Jr. also found it useful.

But again, there's a difference between spending a few days or even weeks in prison, as part of a loud piece of political theater, with lots of support from the outside, and facing the kind of sentence normally given to a serial killer, isolated and supermaxed, with enforced silence in the media about your plight.

Another good book: From Dictatorship to Democracy, by Gene Sharp, along with his other writings.

Seeking imprisonment is one tactic that Sharp outlines in his work, but Sharp outlines almost two-hundred tactics here. "Hiding, escape and false identities" is another tactic he identifies, for example. Sharp also pointed out that sticking exclusively to one or two tactics is a very common mistake made by movements resisting out-of-control governments.

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf

[MineralMan]

42. You're no doubt correct. But civil disobedience is

a specific strategy and tactic. Snowden isn't engaging in civil disobedience. He's using a different tactic.

[backscatter712]

43. Call it part of the family of tactics of non-violent direct action or civil resistance to injustice.

At this point, it's a semantic argument.

Let's just say I'm a fan of using all the non-violent tools in the toolbox.

[MineralMan]

44. Call it whatever you want.

I'm just providing a historical perspective to the origins of the concept of civil disobedience. There is a historical perspective, and that's what I'm discussing.

[backscatter712]

45. Fair enough. Thoreau's required reading. n/t

[MineralMan]

46. Yup. That's my point.

The term comes from his essay. I'm just establishing its beginnings and relating it to other activists. It's certainly not the only available strategy for opposition to established laws and practices.

Thoreau established the concept of being willing to be jailed as part of the process of civil disobedience. That doesn't imply that it's the only way to resist or protest. It just set the stage for one form of resistance or protest.

[backscatter712]

48. Yep. And my point - Snowden shouldn't be limited to Thoreau's tactics.

In fact, for Snowden, doing what Thoreau did would be suicidal and counterproductive. Hiding, evading, and acting from exile are also perfectly legitimate tactics.

Which means that all the detractors calling him "coward" for failing to follow their narrow script are full of it.

[Little Star]

60. .

[HiPointDem]

56. civil disobedience is disobeying a law or order of gov't for political reasons.

some would love to get the public involved in debating vocabulary nuances rather than debating policy.

[MineralMan]

57. Uh, yeah. We've moved on from there, and are talking

about how it all started, you see. This thread is not about what you're saying.

[HiPointDem]

58. yes, 'moved on' to new distractions.

[valerief]

51. Schools? Real schools? Do they have them anymore? I thought everything was PUBLICLY

funded but privately profitized and privately regulated. Curriculums are whatever Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson and any Walton and any Koch think they should be.

[MineralMan]

53. Yeah, OK...nothing to do with my thread, though.

And yes, there are real schools around. I have grand nieces and nephews attending them. As near as I can tell, they're learning stuff there at a reasonable rate. Progress in their education is being made.

I don't think any of the people you mentioned are involved with any of those schools, though.

Perhaps a thread on education would be a good thing. You could start one.

[reformist2]

54. Wait, were you kidding that they don't teach about Thoreau in public school anymore???

If you weren't kidding, OMG!

[MineralMan]

55. I don't think Thoreau is on the curriculum

in many schools, actually.

On Edit: Wait. I did a search. Apparently the Miami-Dade public schools in Florida include Thoreau in the 11th grade curriculum. Here's the summary of how his writings are being used. Color me surprised:

http://languageartsreading.dadeschools.net/pdf/CCSSExemplarLessons/G11_Q2_wk13_Thoreau.pdf

[HiPointDem]

59. of course it is on the curriculum of many schools.

there was no lack of information about civil disobedience & your little history lesson was an exercise in condescending distraction.

[Bluenorthwest]

64. What I notice about DU posts across the opinion spectrum about civil disobedience is that most

seem to be purely academic, theoretical, and based on stories from history books rather than based on all night discussions prior to a day on which they themselves took such an action. Lots of people know what others did. Not many have stories of their own and that limits the scope of the conversation and seems to cause a bunch of rather stridently held opinions about what they would do if they ever did anything.
The question of arrest is the tip of the ice berg. Is it fitting to enter a guilty plea, because you are proud of your action or to plead not guilty because no wrong was done and to say wrong was done is rather questionable. Is it righteous to accept bail posted for you? How about to arrange and expect that bail? Is this arrest really such big cheese if one actually expects bail to be posted at once and spend a day at most, as Henry David did, in a cell?
Is being arrested as a method of attention seeking for a cause really for a cause or for the one being arrested? If being arrested is that which validates an action, if the authorities refuse to react is your protest invalid?
Just saying. I can tell none of the louder theoreticians here ever got dragged away in a protest. Or even thought about it. Or been the attorney for those who did. Or paid their bail. It's all about things done by the Mahatma. Because we must always be Gandhi or we are naught!

[treestar]

65. That's a good idea

Will do