Indivisible or someone was politically active in our region this AM. Protesters with banners against standing against ICE, protecting democracy, and defending the Constitution were on overpasses along I5 as we traveled from Ashland to Medford and back.
My wife is disinclined to protest and demonstrate this year. “Those are asking for permission,” she said. “We need active restistance, standing up and refusing to back down.” This is something she’s recently adopted from historian Tad Stoermer.
As Mr. Stoermer says, “There’s no normal to return to. There’s only what do we do next.”
Michael Seidel, writer 
I don’t understand that “asking for permission” idea. Do you? (Not that I want to create friction between you and your wife!)
We were on an Indivisible call today with Erica Chenoweth, know as the 3.5% political scientist, though it’s more complicated than a magic percentage. The goal is of course, to keep growing the resistance.
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This is the best response I found for your question.
In his story for Mother Jones, Harris paraphrased a speech by Dale A. Smith, a delegate for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, at a 1968 Berlin conference about Vietnam:
Protest is when you say you don’t like something, he said. Resistance is making sure no one likes it. Protest is when you say, I will not tolerate what they do. Resistance is preventing them from doing it. Protest means to detest the inhumanity of others. Resistance means to suppress their inhumanity to let humanity triumph.
https://defector.com/the-difference-between-protest-and-resistance
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Thank you. I believe protest is building the muscle for resistance. We’re working to awaken more people to the horrible things being done in our names. Resistance is the next step. That’s what Indivisible’s “One Million Rising” is intended to do. I don’t think resistance according to that definition is possible without protests first.
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I believe you’re right about that, Annie. To me, a progression must exist from protests and demonstrations to resistance. I don’t expect historic institutions or the traditional political parties to bring about change. It’ll begun at grass roots protests and advance.
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