FYI - Direct Action

Direct action is a form of political activism which seeks immediate remedy for perceived ills, as opposed to indirect actions such as electing representatives who promise to provide remedy at some later date. Direct action can include such activities as strikes, workplace occupations, sabotage, sit-ins, squatting, revolutionary/guerrilla warfare, demonstrations, vandalism or graffiti. Direct actions are often (but not always) a form of civil disobedience and thus often violate criminal law. For example vandalism is illegal, while demonstrations are usually not illegal in most constitutional democracies. Less confrontational forms of this definition of direct action include establishing radical social centers, and performing street theatre.

Utilizing resources within their power, direct action participants aim to either:

* obstruct another political agent or political organization from performing some practice to which the activists object; or,
* solve problems major societal institutions (businesses, governments, powerful churches or establishment unions) are not addressing.

Some direct action participants engage in "indirect actions" (voting in elections, targeted boycotts) as part of larger campaigns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...

In seeking an active form of civil disobedience, one may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming a peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally. Protesters practice this non-violent form of civil disorder with the expectation that they will be arrested, or even attacked or beaten by the authorities. Protesters often undergo training in advance on how to react to arrest or to attack, so that they will do so in a manner that quietly or limply resists without threatening the authorities.

For example, Mohandas Gandhi outlined the following rules:

1. A civil resister (or satyagrahi) will harbour no anger.
2. He will suffer the anger of the opponent.
3. In so doing he will put up with assaults from the opponent, never retaliate; but he will not submit, out of fear of punishment or the like, to any order given in anger.
4. When any person in authority seeks to arrest a civil resister, he will voluntarily submit to the arrest, and he will not resist the attachment or removal of his own property, if any, when it is sought to be confiscated by authorities.
5. If a civil resister has any property in his possession as a trustee, he will refuse to surrender it, even though in defending it he might lose his life. He will, however, never retaliate.
6. Retaliation includes swearing and cursing.
7. Therefore a civil resister will never insult his opponent, and therefore also not take part in many of the newly coined cries which are contrary to the spirit of ahimsa.
8. A civil resister will not salute the Union Flag, nor will he insult it or officials, English or Indian.
9. In the course of the struggle if anyone insults an official or commits an assault upon him, a civil resister will protect such official or officials from the insult or attack even at the risk of his life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...

Police tactics for countering Direct Action
http://www.mnblue.com/nod...