Successful Civil Resistance & Revolutionary Movements around the World

OccupyForum with Stephen Zunes and David Solnit

Occupy Forum continues Monday Jan. 21st from 6 - 9 pm at Café Que Tal, 1005 Guerrero Street at 22nd.
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!

The Strategies and Tactics of Successful Civil Resistance
and Revolutionary Movements around the World:

What can Occupy learn, adapt, apply?

The Left needs new strategies and tactics to consolidate and focus our power. Learning from the past helps us shape the future of the movement. Stephen Zunes, veteran organizer, activist, scholar and trainer will analyze successful movements and the variety of effective tactics employed across the globe including strikes, sit-ins, blockades, small unit actions, and non-cooperation. He will speak about how and why resistance groups gain support from diverse sectors of civil society in order to launch their offensives. Case studies will focus on how movements were able to analyze the pillars of support for their opponent, select the targets of their actions, empower and educate the population, effectively maintain nonviolent discipline in the face of severe provocation, strategically sequence their tactics, and eventually emerge victorious.

Zunes will include the US anti-nuclear movement, the anti-apartheid struggle, the democratic revolution in Serbia, the uprising against the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, and popular movements against dictatorship and neo-liberalism in Bolivia, among others. Zunes will be joined by David Solnit, long-time organizer and activist, who will speak about his experience helping to organize the “Battle of Seattle” and training West Coast organizers in confronting entrenched power in the United States. Solnit will discuss in detail the “Strategic Principles” used in the Battle of Seattle, an example of what strategic, determined, and disciplined cross-border organizing can accomplish.

How can we utilize, adapt, and apply methods from the past in order to develop new and innovative ways for Occupy to achieve deep and lasting structural change?

Stephen Zunes is a veteran peace and human rights activist, a trainer and workshop leader for pro-democracy and community activists in the U.S. and globally, and is a professor and senior analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies at the University of San Francisco who has written numerous books and over 450 articles. David Solnit has been a mass direct action organizer since the early ‘80s and is currently an organizer with the Occupy movement. He is the editor of “Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World” and co-author of “Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World” and was instrumental in organizing “The Battle of Seattle” which brought tens of thousands in a mass mobilization into downtown Seattle to demand annulment of Third World Debt and successfully shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Time will be allotted for Q&A and discussion. Monday 6:00 to 9:00 pm. Cafe Que Tal, 1005 Guerrero Street/22nd blocks from 24/Mission BART. Food and drinks available for purchase! Please support our local Cafe! Donations to OccupyForum to cover our costs are encouraged.