SELF-Liberation : a guide to strategic planning for action to end a dictatorship or other oppression

This strategic planning guide is intended to assist people who wish themselves to plan a grand strategy, or super plan, to achieve their liberation from oppression and to build a more free and democratic system. This document is not only relevant to people facing internal dictatorships. It is also meant to be useful to people facing any kind of oppression. This short document cannot include adequate in-depth presentations of all the knowledge and ideas needed for strategic planning of a nonviolent struggle for liberation. Therefore, interspersed in this text are references to selected published readings covering those important topics. Careful study of these selected readings, available for download below, in the sequence recommended is essential. They contain much of the understandings, knowledge, and insights that may be useful in the preparation of strategies of liberation. Which way to liberation Moving beyond past experiences Pragmatic and strategic Gaining new knowledge Baltic and Balkan experiences Earlier planning A new model for self-reliant planning? Three types of knowledge Basic strategic considerations: the sources of power of the opponents Basic strategic considerations: the balance of dependencies Basic strategic considerations: what is the status of civil society Basic strategic considerations: do the campaign objectives and activities aggravate weaknesses of the oppressive system Basic strategic considerations: the importance of the initiative in the conflict Selecting the strategy drafters Basic strategy decisions Formulating a grand strategy Self-empowerment Escalating liberation Steps toward the possible Blocking a new dictatorship Liberation not perfection.