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I was part of the lightly attended Restore the Fourth protest in Minneapolis yesterday. I was also part of a much larger protest in DC that marched from the Lin

I was part of the lightly attended Restore the Fourth protest in Minneapolis yesterday. I was also part of a much larger protest in DC that marched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Chinese embassy (which had a total participation of about 3,000 marchers) on 1 October 1989. Most of those marchers, of course, had no reasonable recourse in the political system of China, and at that time were not United States citizens. It is a long, hard slog to solve some problems. China still has neither a free press nor free and fair elections. China has pervasive surveillance of the domestic population of a kind that would appall any American. It's good that people in the United States are standing up for freedom here. It will be good for all of us to stand up for freedom everywhere. A successful movement for greater freedom requires great courage, and a degree of social trust among the movement participants that is not easy to find. Allow me to repeat advice I have shared here on Hacker News before. If you really want to be an idealistic but hard-headed freedom-fighter, mobilizing an effective popular movement for more freedom wherever you live, I suggest you read deeply in the free, downloadable publications of the Albert Einstein Institution, http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html remembering that the transition from dictatorship to democracy described in those publications is an actual historical process with recent examples around the world that we can all learn from. You can find publications in Arabic, Azeri, Belarusian, Burmese, Burma (Chin), Burma (Jing-paw), Burma (Karen), Burma (Mon), Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Thai, Tibetan, and Ukrainian there to share with your friends around the world. P.S. Hat tip to the Reddit subreddit that linked to TV news coverage http://kstp.com/article/12303/?vid=4128742&v=1 http://kstp.com/article/12303/?vid=4128742&v=1 of the Minneapolis protest. (I'm visible way off in the distance in a few of the TV shots.)

koalakid 13y ago
Big media often play down the positive effect of protests against government and underestimate the numbers in attendance. They feign objectivity but subtly undermine. Either that or my tinfoil hat is too tight.
zhemao 13y ago
Oh, it's a bunch of Gene Sharp books. I've heard about "Dictatorship to Democracy" before. I suppose now is a good time to actually start reading it. I wonder how applicable his advice would be for "Democracy to Better Democracy", though.
- contingencies 13y ago
  It's not a long book. Take a look. Download the PDF (~600KB) at http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf
contingencies 13y ago
Err, so I found myself asking what exactly is this Albert Einstein institute, that goes around translating things to such languages as Kachin (that's the Burma (Jing-paw) mentioned)? The most translated item is From Dictatorship to Democracy, a book by Gene Sharp. Who is Gene Sharp? On the face of it, someone who following their youth as a conscientious objector made a career out of the academic study of nonviolence, with some strong help getting started when Albert Einstein agreed to write the forward to his first book (way back in 1960), a 316 page book with a paucity of visible reviews entitled Gandhi wields the weapon of moral power; three case histories. After that a career in academia, lots of writing, and - well - the founding of the Albert Einstein Institute (whose primary author appears to be himself, and whose primary output appears to be From Dictatorship to Democracy, the book translated in to most of the aforementioned languages). An interesting situation. I looked at the book but found it pretty dubious as a sort of distant, light touch, waffling approach to someone else's vigilance, hard work, and disciplined struggle, often at great cost... strung in to a simple, bite-size, easily digestible, ten-part recipe. Its main references are other works by the same author. Sorry, not convinced.

koalakid 13y ago

Big media often play down the positive effect of protests against government and underestimate the numbers in attendance. They feign objectivity but subtly undermine. Either that or my tinfoil hat is too tight.

zhemao 13y ago

Oh, it's a bunch of Gene Sharp books. I've heard about "Dictatorship to Democracy" before. I suppose now is a good time to actually start reading it. I wonder how applicable his advice would be for "Democracy to Better Democracy", though.

contingencies 13y ago
It's not a long book. Take a look. Download the PDF (~600KB) at http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf

contingencies 13y ago

Err, so I found myself asking what exactly is this Albert Einstein institute, that goes around translating things to such languages as Kachin (that's the Burma (Jing-paw) mentioned)? The most translated item is From Dictatorship to Democracy, a book by Gene Sharp. Who is Gene Sharp? On the face of it, someone who following their youth as a conscientious objector made a career out of the academic study of nonviolence, with some strong help getting started when Albert Einstein agreed to write the forward to his first book (way back in 1960), a 316 page book with a paucity of visible reviews entitled Gandhi wields the weapon of moral power; three case histories. After that a career in academia, lots of writing, and - well - the founding of the Albert Einstein Institute (whose primary author appears to be himself, and whose primary output appears to be From Dictatorship to Democracy, the book translated in to most of the aforementioned languages). An interesting situation. I looked at the book but found it pretty dubious as a sort of distant, light touch, waffling approach to someone else's vigilance, hard work, and disciplined struggle, often at great cost... strung in to a simple, bite-size, easily digestible, ten-part recipe. Its main references are other works by the same author. Sorry, not convinced.