How we can make policy-makers DO it: Making mass nonviolent resistance feasible

“I agree with you. Now go and make me do it.”—Franklin Roosevelt (1943) to Civil Rights Leader, A.Philip Randolph. Winning elections and lawsuits are essential to achieving major social change. But social change history clearly proves that they are entirely insufficient without being coupled with a robust and growing nonviolent resistance movement, that essential element that is tragically still in its infancy today. Sustainability, mitigation and adaptation strategies are nice ideas for the long run. But we don’t have that long run anymore. So instead of creating tech for long-run solutions, isn’t it about time we create tech that can enable nonviolent resistance campaigns to recruit the massive numbers they need to make policy makers “do it,” and do it NOW!? Movement theory and social change history make it clear that mass nonviolent resistance is now our LAST and best hope to save what is still savable. And tech that can solve the “numbers” challenge, that can catalyze moral courage at scale, would arguably be one of the highest best uses of tech ever. This session will look at one or two such tools, but first brainstorm your own suggestions, plus explain how to get a grant if your campaign is eager to beta test one of these tools and is one of the first two qualified campaigns to apply.