Strategy and Tactics

 Full Spectrum Resistance, Aric McBay’s massive, two-volume, handbook for political action, covers the fundamentals of social change, offering advice on organization, strategy, tactics, security, communication (internal and external), and so on — all illustrated with historical case studies. McBay does not tell us what we should do. Instead, he helps us learn to think about what we should do, and answer the question for ourselves in light of our actual objectives and circumstances. This is by far the stronger approach, especially because one thing that holds our movements back is the failure to think carefully and creatively about what we are doing, to reexamine our theories and alter course as needed. Instead, we tend to engage in the same sort of actions as we always have, as if they were rituals or reenactments. Peaceniks march against military interventions; workers picket job sites; antifascists “deplatform” right-wing speakers.