Paramilitary Politics

IN the few tumultuous years since the Montgomery boycott, we have grown so accustomed to manifestations of civil disobedience and nonviolence that we forget just how radical these innovations are. Nonviolence is a type of direct paramilitary action designed to emasculate laws and topple social structures. It has the advantage of great speed compared with traditional political and juridical engines of change.

A Manual of Direct Action, by Martin Oppenheimer and George Lakey. Quadrangle, $1.65

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Richard S. Wheeler

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IN the few tumultuous years since the Montgomery boycott, we have grown so accustomed to manifestations of civil disobedience and nonviolence that we forget just how radical these innovations are. Nonviolence is a type of direct paramilitary action designed to emasculate laws and topple social structures. It has the advantage of great speed compared with traditional political and juridical engines of change.

A Manual of Direct Action, by Martin Oppenheimer and George Lakey. Quadrangle, $1.65