Lessons from the Edge of Liberty

American Greatness ^ | 24 Mar, 2021 | Max Morton

[MtnClimber]

If Americans choose to fight the coming authoritarian leviathan, they should examine the history of other political movements and the resulting lessons learned at the edge of liberty and tyranny.

It is considerably less painful to learn from the mistakes of others than from your own, and it is less costly to learn from the successes of others, versus your own trial and effort. As we consider how to resist the looming effort of the authoritarian Left to transform our system of republican self-governance into an autocratic unitary state, we should examine the experiences of other resistance movements. Two ongoing struggles with very different results are the independence movement in Catalonia and the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar.

SNIP

An American Perspective

Organization is key. Nobody who wins fights alone, particularly when facing a well-resourced enemy. Intelligence and logistics are absolutely essential. Flexibility and resilience are critical to maintaining the momentum of a movement, and how you prepare your members will determine how successful the movement will perform under stress.

“Train. Equip. Lead.” That is an effective mantra for managing a resistance movement.

Train the movement to collectively achieve a unified political goal/agenda.

A movement built on a coalition that retains myriad competing political objectives is easily divided and destined to fail. Include workshops on how to properly conduct political actions, how to deal with mass surveillance, and what to do when members are detained, arrested, or facing state-sponsored violence.

Equip your people with the skills and resources to survive and navigate the struggle. If you do not build a support network to protect and care for your movement’s members, you are effectively using them as cannon fodder—and they will quickly see that. They then become vulnerable to the enemy’s blacklisting, information operations, and intelligence collection efforts.

[MtnClimber]

Important background and lessons from Catalonia and Myanmar were omitted due to word limits. An important read.