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So what are you doing about oppressive violence in our world? Maybe you’re already doing a lot. Maybe you feel you need to do something, but you don’t know what to do, or you don’t feel there’s anything you can do. Whatever you’re doing, do you hear about these problems from the people around you, or do you feel like you’re alone when you care?

There are just three things you need to do to get the ball rolling:

1. Take a small action, right now, to galvanize your intent.
2. Make a plan, now, that details what actions you’re interested in taking in response to what kinds of escalating oppression.
3. Talk to another person about your feelings, your goals, and, if they’re feeling the same way, what actions you’re considering.

One of the foundational tactics of oppressive institutions is convincing each individual that nobody else cares about their transgressions. Combined with the threat of violence against anyone who speaks up, this creates a feeling of hopelessness that’s hard to overcome, and which helps prevent collective action that could lead to change. While there’s a lot more to effective collective action than just awareness, we can erode the foundations of engineered apathy by breaking the silence with each other. These actions may feel scary or uncomfortable, but they’ll also feel good once you’ve done them.

Galvanizing Action

Part one of breaking out of apathy is to do something small right away, because once you’ve invested even a little effort in a cause, your psychological defense mechanisms help justify more effort. Ideas include:

1. Find a victim of oppressive violence online or in your town and donate some money to help them. If you’ve got even a little cash to spare, this is depressingly easy. Even better would be to volunteer to help them in some tangible way beyond a cash donation. Don’t let this donation feel like an end in itself: it’s only the beginning of something bigger and more meaningful.
2. Less helpful for your own sense of community but still okay would be to donate to a non-profit that helps victims of oppressive violence, like a local bail fund, food bank, or legal defense fund. It’s better to donate directly to a person in need, because that helps create more of a psychological connection with that person, but donation to a non-profit can still help prime yourself for action. Again: this kind of action is not the end goal, and it’s not going to solve any problems, but it can help prime you for more meaningful actions.
3. Display an unambiguous symbol of solidarity with an oppressed group on your clothing, car, or on some other accessory like a purse or briefcase. This is also a small action, but one that can help you find potential allies and/or identify potential enemies, and it can help victimized groups feel less alone.

Making a Plan

It’s easy to feel paralyzed, and keep waiting for a moment of resistance that never arrives. Making a plan for resistance ahead of time can help avoid this. Write down specific tactics you plan to engage with, along with escalations that you’ll perform in response to increasing oppressive violence. Note existing organizations you can join, coordinate with, or support, as well as plans for community-building and making your cause visible.

If you like, you can use this resistance worksheet to organize things. See the section on tactics below for suggested tactics you can use in your plan. Remember: if you’re planning illegal/violent actions (which could well be necessary), it’s best not to leave a written record, so don’t use this worksheet for those.

Along with actions of direct resistance aimed at forcing oppressive institutions to change or dismantling them, include sustaining actions in your plan, like signs of solidarity, community-building events, etc.

Talking to Others

This could be listed in your action plan already, but it’s important to build community rather than acting alone. Most nonviolent resistance tactics only work when everyone acts together at the same time, but by the same token, if enough people take even very simple actions simultaneously, their power is incredibly hard to resist. One-on-one or small group conversations about oppressive violence help build stronger networks of resistance and prevent others from feeling alone in the struggle.

The social pressure not to talk about oppressive violence can be intense. It’s a depressing topic and one that’s also usually politically charged, so it’s hard to bring up and others may try to shut down the conversation, even if they don’t actually support the violence. The good news is: there are probably others around you who also want to talk about this stuff. It’s also easier to talk about if you can suggest concrete actions, which is one way your action plan can help.

To get started on this, pick a co-worker, family member, or other person you interact with on a weekly basis, and plan a time to talk with them. Depending on what you know about their attitude and coping strategies, you could start the conversation anywhere from asking what they think about recent news to asking what their plans are for resisting oppressive violence. Feel free to share your resistance worksheet or a link to this website if you feel it would be useful.

Once you’ve had one conversation, think about planning more.

Tactics

What can be done against the overwhelming violence we see in our world, and the powerful forces that direct it?

A variety of tactics are needed to oppose transgressive violence, possibly up to and including defensive violence against oppressors. Nonviolent tactics are often easy to start with, and can still be helpful to support and encourage more direct resistance when that’s necessary. Here are some nonviolent tactics that are relatively easy to get started with which you can include in your action plan:

Community-building.

Hand out fliers, post to your chat group or email list, throw a block party, or host a skill-share. Get together with your neighbors and your online communities and let them know about this website and other organizations you support. While you’re recognizing shared values, do something fun or useful, like pick up trash in your neighborhood or read stories at the library. The goal is to form real interpersonal connections both to help build confidence towards collective action and to grow your network of people you can depend on in an emergency.

Public shaming.

Publicly call out supporters of oppressive violence, wherever they show up online or in the world. Post on social media in response to news of a transgression. Post in response to every post by an organization that supports oppression. Post in public spaces and near businesses. Post responses to statements by authority figures who are denying or attempting to justify their transgressions. Find the workplaces of individuals that carry out violence, and post notice there. This tactic by itself accomplishes little, but it helps sway public opinion, especially if you can highlight specific transgressions of an individual or institution that most people would consider wrong. It can also add a social cost to participation in oppressive violence that will make less-fervent adherents think twice. Make sure that you target specific institutions and individuals, and not just those incidentally associated, since this tactic can also become a harassment campaign and lead to misdirected violence if it targets the wrong people.

Peaceful assembly.

Gather together. Exercise the right that you’re trying to defend. Demonstrate to the world that you will use your time and resources to show up for a movement, so that they know it is strong. Plan a gathering/march/protest with people in your town or city, or join one that others are planning. Include specific demands: what must stop? Plan for disruption: what violence will your assembly draw attention to or interrupt? Plan escalation: if the violence does not stop, what will the consequence be? The purpose of peaceful assembly can be to recruit others to join the movement, demonstrate solidarity and power so that transgressors can see what the consequences will be, and prepare for more disruptive action. It can also be a disruption itself, if you directly block oppressors from their victims. In that case, be prepared to face the same violence we’re all opposing. Also consider separating times/places for a march so that there can be a family-friendly/safe gathering followed by or in a different place from a more direct confrontation. One goal is to have the gatherings get bigger until the specific transgressions that motivated them cease. Make it clear when your demands will be met from the outset, so that those perpetuating transgressive violence have every incentive to stop.

Just stop.

As an escalation from assembly or alongside it, stop working, playing, buying, and/or participating in a society which normalizes oppressive violence. This can be a narrow targeted boycott of institutions affiliated with a specific transgression, or a general strike, refusing to carry on as normal in a world where horrific violence is tolerated. Make specific demands, and set clear conditions for the end of the strike or boycott. Name specific people who need to be held accountable, and spell out what accountability looks like. Name organizational policies or laws that need to change and what those changes are, so that you don’t turn a blind eye to a systemic problem after a single leader gets sacrificed to distract you.

You might be thinking: “How can we expect nonviolent tactics to succeed against the very violence routinely used to control them?” The answer comes in several parts:

1. Nonviolent tactics aim to arouse the sympathy of a broad section of the population who don’t necessarily participate directly. They have been successful in the past despite horrible violence against them, precisely because when enough of the population is sympathetic to a cause, the few powerful people who oppose it can no longer enforce their will.
2. Part of this effect is to inspire defection among the enforcers. While some of them may love violence and the sense of power they gain, many of them didn’t think they were signing up to be oppressors, and when confronted with their role will become less enthusiastic or even quit.
3. Nonviolent tactics inspire and are symbiotic with other tactics. From the American Civil War to the Syrian Revolution, there were times where open conflict was unavoidable, but nonviolent tactics also played a role. Embracing violence comes with the danger of becoming the oppressor, but at some point, there are no other options, and that danger is not absolute.
4. We will be smart about what we target. Nonviolent tactics like boycotts, in addition to building sympathy, can erode economic and other popular support for oppressors, leaving them with canceled contracts and absent allies. A seemingly unstoppable violent regime can crumble when the common people turn against it and refuse to do business with it or become its foot soldiers. All regimes need large numbers of low-level enforcers, and when said enforcers feel the ire of their neighbors, they can be made to desert their posts.

In many situations, as has happened in the past, our nonviolent actions may inspire and be defended by people who take up arms against oppressors. We do not condemn any tactic of liberation, but it’s important not to tolerate any group that reaches too far and begins to use violence to intimidate non-combatants and suppress peaceful assemblies.

An Example

An example of what escalating action could look like:

Demands

1. Withdrawal of all military and national guard forces from any deployments on U.S. territory where they carry weapons and are tasked with suppressing civilian populations or preventing “unrest” or “crime.” These deployments directly defy the US constitution, whose drafters wanted to prevent exactly this scenario, so perfectly reminiscent of the British troops deployed during the American Revolution to suppress the legitimate grievances of the colonists.
2. Local and nationwide bans on the use of tear gas, pepper spray, “rubber” bullets, acoustic devices, and any other “less-lethal” munitions by local, state, and federal police forces, as well as national guard and the military. These tools are used to stymie the will of the common people, and police forces today intentionally use them to maim and kill protestors in order to prevent free expression and assembly through fear. Tear gas specifically causes lasting harms, and should be considered a chemical weapon. The first amendment establishes a right to peaceably assembly and to petition the government for redress, but the modern state routinely denies this right, firing on peaceful protestors even before deploying the pretext that an assembly is “unlawful.”
3. An immediate halt to all Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention activities. These brutal raids are sweeping up innocent victims, including US citizens, and sending them to detention centers without any accusation or trial, in direct violation of the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth amendments to the Constitution. The necessity of due process to establish innocence or guilt is the bedrock upon which any semblance of justice must be built, and at minimum the current tactics of arbitrary and indefinite detention without warrant need to stop immediately. Those claiming that such tactics are legal when deployed against non-citizens ignore the fact that whether someone is a citizen is a fact for a court to decide, and the widespread ICE detention of US citizens demonstrates the importance of this principle.

Walkout & General Boycott Schedule

1. On Saturday, August 30th, 2025, participate in rallies in the common areas of our local cities and towns. Find an event via the 50501 organizing page or the labor day 2025 page, or use their toolkits to organize one yourself. Hand out leaflets or have conversations pointing people to the Bright Line movement, and let them know that there’s a group with specific, actionable demands that intends to move beyond one-day rallies.
2. On Friday, September 5th, 2025 we will leave work or school at noon, walking out as a refusal to participate in a society that turns away from violence against the innocent. We will not work or study for the rest of the day. Have a conversation with someone else who walks out with you, and share your demands. If possible, get your boss to give your whole unit the afternoon off to participate, or to close your workplace and put up Bright Line signage indicating why it’s closed.
3. On Friday, September 5th, 2025 and Saturday, September 6th, 2025 do not buy or sell anything. If you run a business, close it down. It’s fine to stock up beforehand, but use these two days as a signal of our economic power, making sure that everyone notices how many people don’t feel they can go on with business as usual. If 1% of the population participates, this will be a success. If 5% participate, it will be in the news. If 30% participate, our demands will be met shortly. Talk to your friends or post on social media to let people know what is going on and what demands need to be met before it stops.
4. Every Monday, starting Monday, September 8th, walk out of work or school at noon, and don’t go back that day. If you don’t work on Mondays but still want to participate, do this on the first day you work each week. Keep doing this until the demands you picked are met.
5. Every Friday and Saturday, starting Friday September 12th and Saturday, September 13th, don’t buy or sell anything. Reach out to others to explain what you’re doing and why, and invite them to join you.
6. On Monday, December 15th, we will plan another series of rallies to amplify our visibility and prepare for the next level of escalation. Look out for event planning resources as we get closer to that date, and consider hosting your own event.
7. For the whole week from Monday, December 15th to Friday, December 19th, do not work, attend school, or purchase non-essential items (yes, this is Christmas shopping time). A 1-week walk-out/boycott will be a demonstration of the movement’s power building towards more intense action in January.
8. Hopefully, regular small-scope walk-outs and boycotts will be enough to get meaningful change given the threat of stronger action if no change is forthcoming. If change doesn’t happen, they’re only a taste of what will come next. Starting in January 2026, if our demands are still not met, we will cease working and going to school for the entire month of January, and we will buy only essential goods during this month. No toys, no event tickets, nothing beyond basic food, shelter, and other survival necessities. Business as usual cannot continue when it is built on the blood of the vulnerable.
9. At the end of January 2026, we will take a pause in February to let a return to normal demonstrate the full cost of refusing these demands. Then starting in March 2026, we will again completely avoid work and school, and avoid non-essential purchases, continuing indefinitely until our demands are met. All of the previous actions are mere demonstrations of our collective capabilities, but this one is the true test. Ideally, our demonstrations are clear enough that there will be no need to go this far.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. I disagree with some of the demands others are making, and I think that they’re unreasonable. Should I still participate in their action? You’ve got to judge your own comfort level with the community a movement becomes, but if you support its core goals, consider participating in at least some ways. If you don’t feel comfortable participating in movement actions, consider whether there are other actions you can take that advance the goals you agree with.

   We may disagree on a lot of things. We may disagree about who should lead our country, what kind of God might or might not exist, even what are appropriate limitations on institutions like police and armies. But we just agreed on one simple thing: that uninhibited violence of the powerful against the innocent crosses a bright line, and we want it to stop.

   Some of our disagreements are probably important. Some of us may not be able to work alongside each other directly. Some of us may draw our lines in different places. However, we can all recognize that our lines are being crossed with impunity by state authorities, and we can all contribute in different ways towards our shared goal: derailing oppressive violence that crosses our collective line.

   Even if we all have different lines when you zoom into the details, we can all recognize that clear, unambiguous transgressions are happening all around us, carried out not by random criminals, but by the government itself. Where groups of us agree the line has been crossed, we can work together to oppose those crossing it.

2. What if I can’t afford to participate in these actions? You should participate only to the level that you can afford, and only as long as your actions feel safer than inaction. Consider participating in less-costly ways only. Not everyone has the privilege to be able to walk out of their job or limit their purchases on certain days. Do consider that there is also a cost to inaction.

3. I’m afraid. What if participating in these actions will get me put in jail or otherwise targeted by the government? Participating in small ways at first can help you judge the value of a movement to you and help you find the courage to participate more deeply. Consider doing safer things to start with. Also consider that inaction has its own risks, and it may be safer to boldly oppose a regime that is still consolidating power than to keep your head down and hope it will pass you over.

   Members of the most-actively targeted groups may choose to run rather than fight in this moment, and we should respect that decision, but it is definitely time for those not yet actively targeted to at least stand up peacefully for everyone’s basic rights. Obviously there is safety in numbers as well. If everyone decides it’s too risky to act, even in the face of blatant transgressions, then they will all be subject to whatever authorities choose in the future. If on the other hand, a substantial number of people overcome their fears, then they will be able to make real change and keep themselves safe now and in the future.

See Also

• It’s Safer in the Front on some unexpected benefits of taking bold action against tyranny.
• Bright Line Watch - A project assessing the trajectory of American democracy. Not affiliated with this website.
• Article on tear gas companies and Safariland in particular.
• Latino Freeze.
• The People’s Union.