The Leaderless Revolution : How ordinary people will take power and change politics in the twenty-first century

Notes
“The Flash Crash: Autopsy,” Economist, Oct. 7, 2010. Alex Evans of Chatham House originated this term. “Food and Water Driving 21st-Century African Land Grab,” Observer, Mar. 7, 2010. “Immeasurable loss,” Economist, Nov. 12, 2008. As reported in Financial Times, Nov. 9, 2010. State Department Assistant Secretary for Human Rights Mike Posner, reported in “Clinton Defends Human Rights Approach,” New York Times, Dec. 14, 2009. Colum Lynch, “U.N. Takes Stock of Its Diminished Influence,” Sept. 13, 2010, turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com. Parag Khanna, “Future Shock: Welcome to the New Middle Ages,” Financial Times, Dec. 29, 2010. Timothy Garton Ash, “T... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Acknowledgements
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS More than a dozen people helped with the research for this book over the five years I spent preparing it. I would like particularly to thank Tait Foster, who gave me a great deal of excellent, prompt and accurate research help. There were many others who read the book, listened to its ideas and provided suggestions and helpful criticism. Many people, therefore, should share the credit for the book, and I thank them sincerely, while all errors of course remain my own. They include: Rob Akam, Ardian Arifaj, Stephanie Blair, Lyle Berman, Lili Birnbaum, John Brademas, Jake Camara, Royston Coppenger, David Cornwell, Neill Denny, Joy de Menil, Anna Dupont, Mark Earls, Susanna Emmet, Nick Fraser, Karl French, Sasha Frère-Jones, Katie Genereux, Ed Harriman, Arya Iranpour, Ian Irvine, Mladen Joksic, Tina Kraja, Jordan Kyle, Alnoor Ladha, Horatia Lawson, Ann Lee, Neil Levine, Andrew Lewis, Professor Catherin... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 9 : Kill the King!
9. Kill the King! Chess may be useless as a metaphor for international relations but it carries one very important lesson. The only point of the game is to take the opponent’s king. All other moves, and elegant plays with bishop or pawns, are but preliminary to this object. Do not be satisfied with process, but only with results. A campaign to end genocide, richly adorned with expensive video and glamourous celebrities, is worth nothing if it doesn’t save a single life. Don’t campaign for others to perform the action required to achieve change: Do it yourself. Sending a text message or signing an Internet petition is likely to achieve nothing, given that so little went into it. The measure of any political action is not how many hits you get on the campaign website, how many followers you may have on Twitter, or supporters on your Facebook page. The measure is effects in the real world on the thing you are trying to change: A... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 8 : Kill the King! Nine Principles for Action
8. Kill the King! Nine Principles for Action So much for all the theory, stories and ideas… what is to be done? Here is a short list of principles that may guide action, along with a few practical examples. The principles are by no means exclusive or comprehensive: mere pointers, not instructions. 1. Locate your convictions. This is perhaps the hardest step, and I have the least useful to say about it (apart from Gandhi’s and Claudette Colvin’s examples, cited earlier). This must be an individual discovery of what you care most about. And this is the most fundamental point: Do not let others tell you what to care about. This can only be a leaderless revolution, if it is to succeed. Make up your own mind. Examine your own reactions. This is difficult in the banality yet ubiquity of contemporary culture, with its cacophony of voices and opinion. Space for contemplation is all to... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 7 : The Means Are the Ends
7. The Means Are the Ends In colonial India, the British forbade Indians from making their own salt, and charged steeply for it as a form of indirect taxation on the subject people, a tax that hit the poorest especially hard. In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi decided to attack this injustice directly, and organized a march to India’s coast, where salt could be made from seawater—for free—directly challenging the British monopoly of salt production. Gandhi’s “salt march” or “Salt Satyagraha” is rightly renowned as one of the most important acts of political protest in recent history. Gandhi chose to attack the salt tax, against the advice of some of his political colleagues, because it was both a tool and a symbol of Britain’s oppression. Thus, the action to undermine the tax assumed both a practical and symbolic value. Gandhi carefully planned the march, choosing only his most disciplined co... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Wave and the Suicide Bomber
1. The Wave and the Suicide Bomber When American troops entered Iraq in 2003, they were briefed to expect a conventional army consisting, as such armies do, of tanks, artillery and infantry. Saddam Hussein’s army had once contained more Main Battle Tanks, a primary unit of the conventional army, than all the armies of Western Europe put together. The lead elements of the American and British armies, then, were surprised to find that most of the opposition they faced comprised not tanks and howitzers, but men in pickup trucks, bearing rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and machine guns. These bands would attempt to ambush the advancing allied columns, launch the RPGs, then flee. They were not often successful. Indeed, so desperate and da... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Pact
2. The Pact When a child is born in Britain, as in most other developed countries, its parents must register his or her birth. It is not made clear why this is necessary, but it is legally obligatory. At the local council website, it is politely explained that a new parent is required to register a birth; it is not stated—anywhere—why. You are, however, told that you will receive—free of charge!—a short birth certificate. Failure to register a birth is a criminal offense, and can incur a hefty penalty. It is an ornate and archaic ritual. The harried parent must put aside diapers and bottles in order to attend the local register office, which can be many miles distant. When the appointment takes place, the registrar w... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Importance of Meeting People
4. The Importance of Meeting People During the Spanish Civil War, more than thirty thousand people from over fifty nations volunteered to fight the Nationalist armies of General Franco. Many gave up jobs and left families in order to fight the emerging global threat of fascism, and to defend a nascent socialist, even anarchist republic. They joined Republican forces that were in many cases undertrained and equipped with antique and inadequate weapons. In Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell vividly describes the miserable conditions of the front-line troops, dug into feces-strewn trenches with neither the clothing nor arms properly to fight the Franco’s armies, which by contrast received substantial international support from Italy and ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Anarchy = Chaos
3. Anarchy = Chaos When the trouble first ignited in March 2004, I was in Geneva, at a conference designed—ironically, it turned out—to promote reconciliation between Kosovo’s Albanians and Serbs. An adviser to Kosovo’s prime minister, a friend, drew me aside: “Three Albanian children have been killed,” she whispered conspiratorially, “by a Serb.” With deliberate portent, she added, “There will be trouble.” Curiously, she seemed excited by the news. It was as if she was relieved that, at last, something was happening. Next day, back in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital where I then lived, it was clear that her premonition was correct. Tension was palpable in that city’s pollut... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Man in the White Coat
5. The Man in the White Coat The experiments conducted in the early 1960s by the Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram are a well-known demonstration of how authority can incite people to undertake heinous acts. Conducted soon after the 1961 trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann, Milgram’s experiment showed how otherwise normal individuals could be instructed to commit horrific acts including torture and murder, if commanded to do so by a person of sufficient, even if feigned, authority. But the experiment also illustrates a problem that pervades the current international system and the current practice of diplomacy. That problem has a name—amorality: the profoundly negative moral consequences of officials, in this case diplomats, of not... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)