Many Americans know little about the diverse methods, techniques and strategies of non-violent direct action. This is largely because the mainstream (corporate) media has no interest in Americans knowing such things. Such knowledge would be a threat to their empire of domination, abuse and destruction.
Here's a documentary which shows some of those methods.:
Blockadia Rising: Voices of the Tar Sands Blockade
https://vimeo.com/59452444
Sometimes non-violent direct action results in political or court decisions which otherwise would never have occurred, such as in the case of the Keystone XL pipeline project. But we should not think of such direct action as always leading to (or directed at) -- or "being about" -- political or court decisions. They can also be about directly stopping -- halting -- destructive industrial activity, for example.
As we should all know, our governments are committed to economic expansion at
any and all costs. They are fine with turning Earth into a dead zone as a cost of "doing business". (And they want you to be fine with that, too.) They serve big business -- e.g., oil and coal companies --, not "the people". In fact, "the people" are a terrible nuisance to them. So we should NOT ask their permission or assistance in stopping the further destruction of Earth.
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There are two basic kinds of non-violent direct action. One is
obstructive direct action, and is illustrated by the activities in the above-linked documentary film about the Keystone XL pipeline blocades. In obstructive non-violent direct action, folks use non-violent means to prevent harm to people and/or planet (animals, ecosystems, etc.). The other basic form of non-violent direct action could be called "
affirmative direct action". It is "affirmative" rather than oppositional in intent.
One could say that obstructive direct action is the "no" while affirmative direct action is the "yes" of those engaged in these practices. One can physically block and obstruct a pipeline project, as seen in the above documentary film. And one can also directly support, encourage and enact alternatives to an oil-dependent way of life as an affirmative direct action.
Examples of affirmative direct actions are, e.g., the creation of an ecovillage, the creation of a community garden, bicycling to work or taking public transportation.... Some of these are highly visible as "actions" while others are much less so. Some look like social change engagement while others look like simply living one's life.
But we can be sure of one thing. If the obstructive direct actions work against the fossil fuel industry, we're going to be needing a LOT more affirmative actions so we can meet our basic human needs without depending on fossil fuels to do that.
