blog — June 30

The Moment Requires Full Spectrum Resistance: A Free Guide to Direct Action

Download FREE digital copies FULL SPECTRUM RESISTANCE, VOL. 1 & 2 by Aric McBay

(And take 50% off print copies)

A guide to direct action for those disillusioned with the posturing of liberal “activism.”

The radical left is losing, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Here is the radical’s guide to activist work—the manual we need at this crucial moment to organize for universal human rights, a habitable earth, and a more egalitarian society.

Thoroughly exploring the achievements and failures of radical movements throughout history—from 19th-century anti-colonial rebellions in China and the environmental actions of First Nations and Native American tribes throughout the 20th century, to Black Lives Matter and the fight for Gay Liberation—the two volumes of Full Spectrum Resistance candidly advocate for direct action, not just risk-averse models of protest marches and call-ins. With in-depth histories and case studies of social justice and environmental movements, noted writer, activist, and farmer Aric McBay explains why passive resistance alone cannot work, and how we must be prepared to do whatever it takes to create substantial social change.

In Volume 1: Building Movements and Fighting to Win, McBay describes the need for resistance movements, and paints a portrait of what a thriving resistance movement might look like today. Citing successful movements such as the Deacons of Defense of the American Civil Rights Movement, the anti-colonial revolutions in Guinea and Cape Verde, and activist groups like Act-UP, McBay deftly illustrates how to organize activist groups and encourage enlistment, while also noting the necessary precautions one must take to secure these radical circles from infiltration and collapse. 

In Volume 2: Actions and Strategies for Change, McBay uses the successful strategies of various actions, such as the Greek Resisters of the 2008 Greek Television Takeover, to articulate the best practices for inter-activist coordination and communication with mass media to effectively spread message. Covering reconnaissance methods and other forms of intelligence-gathering, Volume 2 guides the reader in smart decision-making and damage control, such as how to recover from both covert and overt adversarial attacks, such as COINTELPRO (1971). Moreover, this manual clearly articulates the best strategies and practices for the financial, logistical, and tactical organization necessary to all successful radical movements in the long term.

    

  

A note from author Aric McBay:

It has never been so important to build powerful and transformative movements.

We live in a moment of profound struggle over the future of humanity. Will we leave generations to come a world of growing justice, of racial and gender equality, a world in which each person has what they need to thrive? Or will authoritarians and white supremacists win out as climate chaos ravages our precious planet?

It's a time of uncertainty, but a culture of resistance—rooted in the successful movements of history—can guide and sustain us in the struggle at hand.

I wrote Full Spectrum Resistance to celebrate movements that win, and to show how to build them. To dismantle a mythology of false change that keeps people immobilized. And to share the tools that brought past movements to victory.

I'm excited that this free ebook of Full Spectrum Resistance will make these tools more available at a crucial moment.

Let's fight, together, for a future worth living in.

—AM