Resisting Donald Trump’s Violence Strategically
By
Robert J. Burrowes
February 28, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- It is already clearly apparent, as many
predicted, that Donald Trump’s election as
president of the United States would signal the
start of what might be the final monumental
assault on much of what is good in our world.
Whatever our collective gains to date to create
a world in which peace, social justice and
environmental sustainability ultimately prevail
for all of Earth’s inhabitants, we stand to lose
it all in the catastrophic sequence of events
that Trump is now initiating with those who
share his delusional worldview.
Starting with the appointment to his
administration of individuals, such as Steve
Bannon, Rex Tillerson and Scott Pruitt, who
share his warped view of the world, and
continuing with the policy decisions he is now
implementing via executive orders, Trump
threatens our biosphere with ecological
catastrophe (through
climate/environment-destroying decisions and
perhaps through nuclear war) – see ‘US election:
Climate scientists react to Donald Trump’s
victory’
https://www.carbonbrief.org/us-election-climate-scientists-react-donald-trumps-victory
and ‘It is two and a half minutes to
midnight: 2017
Doomsday Clock Statement’
http://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/Final%202017%20Clock%20Statement.pdf
as well as ‘Trump pledges “greatest military
build-up in American history”‘
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/02/24/511926/Trump-delivers-speech-at-CPAC
– exacerbates military violence in existing war
zones – see ‘Obama Killed a 16-Year-Old American
in Yemen. Trump Just Killed His 8-Year-Old
Sister’
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/30/obama-killed-a-16-year-old-american-in-yemen-trump-just-killed-his-8-year-old-sister/
– increases regional geopolitical tensions in
ways that inflame the possibility of political
unrest and military violence in new theatres –
see ‘Worried Over Trump, China Tries to Catch up
With U.S. Navy’
http://europe.newsweek.com/china-navy-budget-increase-trump-unpredictability-560985?rm=eu
– supports violent and repressive regimes
against those who struggle for liberation – see
‘The Middle East “peace process” was a myth.
Donald Trump ended it’
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/18/the-middle-east-peace-process-myth-donald-trump-ended-it
– and is generally implementing decisions that
reverse progressive outcomes from years of
peace, social justice and environmental
struggles. See, for example, ‘Trump’s
Immigration Crackdown Is Likely to Bring a Flood
of Lawsuits’
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-22/trump-s-immigration-crackdown-likely-to-bring-lawsuit-flood
and ‘One of Donald Trump’s first moves in the
White House strips women of abortion rights’
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/one-of-donald-trumps-first-moves-in-the-white-house-strips-women-of-abortion-rights/news-story/0b958833c3356ad3a00b785a6bfc21ef
as well as ‘President Trump Breaks a Promise on
Transgender Rights’.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/opinion/president-trump-breaks-a-promise-on-transgender-rights.html
Moreover, Trump, and those like him, further
criminalize our right to dissent. See ‘North
Dakota Senate passes bills criminalizing Dakota
Access Pipeline protests’.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/02/21/dapl-f21.html
Why
does Trump ignore overwhelming scientific
evidence (for example, in relation to the
climate) and want to ‘lock out’ people who are
desperate to improve their lives? Why does he
want to prepare for and threaten more war and
even nuclear war?
Is Donald
Trump sane?
According to Dr John D. Gartner, a practising
psychotherapist who taught psychiatric residents
at Johns Hopkins University Medical School,
‘Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and
temperamentally incapable of being president’.
See ‘Temperament Tantrum: Some say President
Donald Trump’s personality isn’t just flawed,
it’s dangerous’.
http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-01-27/does-donald-trumps-personality-make-him-dangerous?src=usn_tw
Moreover, Chris Hedges argues, Trump is
dangerously violent. See ‘Trump Will Crush
Dissent With Even Greater Violence and
Savagery’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GU0JD7eKhY
But why
is Trump ‘dangerously mentally ill’ and violent?
For the same reason that any person, whether in
the Trump administration or not, ends up in this
state: it is an outcome of the ‘visible’,
‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence
that they suffered during childhood and which
unconsciously determines virtually everything
they now do. In brief, Trump is utterly
terrified and full of self-hatred but projects
this as terror and hatred of women, migrants,
Muslims… and this makes him behave insanely. For
a brief explanation, see ‘The Global Elite is
Insane’.
http://www.countercurrents.org/burrowes050214.htm
For a more comprehensive explanation of why many
human beings are violent, see ‘Why Violence?’
http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence
and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology:
Principles and Practice’.
http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless-and-fearful-psychology/
So what
are we to do? Well, if you are inclined to
resist the diabolical actions of Donald Trump
(and his insane and violent equivalents in the
United States and other countries around the
world), I invite you to respond powerfully. This
includes maintaining a large measure of empathy
for the emotionally damaged individual who is
now president of the US (and his many
equivalents). It also includes recognizing that
this individual and his equivalents are the
current ‘face’ of a global system of violence
and exploitation built on many long-standing
structures that we must systematically
dismantle.
Here
are some options for resisting and rebuilding,
depending on your circumstances.
If you
wish to strike at the core of human violence,
consider modifying your treatment of children in
accordance with the suggestions in the article
‘My Promise to Children’.
https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/strategywheel/constructive-program/my-promise-to-children/
If you
wish to simultaneously tackle all military,
climate and environmental threats to human
existence while rebuilding human societies in
ways that enhance individual empowerment and
community self-reliance, consider joining those
participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save
Life on Earth’.
http://tinyurl.com/flametree
If you
wish to resist particular elite initiatives that
threaten peace, justice and environmental
sustainability, consider planning, organizing
and implementing nonviolent strategies to do so.
But I wish to emphasize the word ‘strategies’.
There is no point taking piecemeal measures or
organizing one-off events, no matter how big, to
express your concern. If you don’t plan,
organize and act strategically, you will have
wasted your time and effort on something that
has no impact. Remember 15 February 2003? Up to
thirty million people in over 600 cities around
the world participated in rallies against the
war on Iraq in what some labeled ‘the largest
protest event in human history’. Did it stop the
war?
So if you are inclined to respond powerfully by
planning a nonviolent strategy for your
campaign, you might be interested in the
Nonviolent Strategy Wheel and other strategic
thinking on this website – Nonviolent Campaign
Strategy
https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/
– or the parallel one: Nonviolent
Defense/Liberation Strategy.
https://nonviolentliberationstrategy.wordpress.com/
And if
you wish to join the worldwide movement to end
violence in all of its forms, you might also be
interested in signing the online pledge of ‘The
People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com
Donald
Trump has formidable institutional power at his
disposal and he and his officials will use it to
inflict enormous damage on us and our world in
the months ahead.
What
most people do not realize is that we have
vastly greater power at our disposal to stop him
and the elite and their institutions he
represents. But we need to deploy our power
strategically if we are to put this world on a
renewed trajectory to peace, justice and
sustainability.
Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime
commitment to understanding and ending human
violence. He has done extensive research since
1966 in an effort to understand why human beings
are violent and
has
been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the
author of ‘Why Violence?’
http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence
His email address is
flametree@riseup.net
and his website is at
http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com
