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FULL SPECTRUM RESISTANCE #1

Aric McBay

Building Movements and Fighting to Win

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.
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Published 2019-05-01 by Seven Stories Press

Comments

Full Spectrum Resistance is more than a comprehensive guide and a helpful handbook—it's a red-hot torch capable of scorching the banal platitudes and old orthodoxies of the Left as it lights a path forward for those whose object is to win. Aric McBay draws hard-earned lessons from decades of activism and organizing, inquiry and study, building and sustaining social movements, winning and (importantly) losing campaigns and battles, and crafts a smart and passionate argument for the gathering resistance. For anyone who understands the urgency of the catastrophe we're facing and is in search of an antidote to despair or resignation, McBay provides a lantern that will cut through the blunt blear and gritty exhaust all around, and offers this sizzling invitation to unleash your most radical imagination, to dive into the wreckage, and to risk winning a humane future. -- Bill Ayers, founding member of the Weather Underground, author of Fugitive Days, Public Enemy, and Demand the Impossible: A radical manifesto.

Aric McBay begins his newest work Full Spectrum Resistance with the words: 'I wrote this book because we are losing,' and, indeed, he presents a long list of global losses and failures in the realm of the environment, Indigenous sovereignty, women's rights, class struggle, racism and more. However, as McBay melds together meticulous research into resistance movements past and present and a lifetime of activism of many kinds, he paints what is, more than anything, a picture of hope. He notes, near the beginning of volume one that 'we fight because it is right' and, towards the end of volume two that 'we can fight and we can win.' McBay's message of activism and community building is one that should inspire all people concerned about the future of this planet to, in his words: 'fight together for a future worth living in.'" -- Pamela Cross, feminist lawyer and activist