Some Lessons from Texas: The Real Power of the People

1. We do not live in a democracy 
Lawmakers are attempting to impose a policy to "virtually ban abortion" throughout the state of Texas, even though "a majority of Texans" oppose the law. Hmmm, sounds like the people are being well-represented in Texas, just as they are throughout the rest of the country on matters like drone bombings, PRISM, and corporate welfare. 

2. Strategies for resistance from within the system do not work—the system is rigged 
In an intense last-ditch effort to block the anti-abortion bill yesterday, Senator Wendy Davis attempted a 13-hour filibuster, which would have consumed all the time necessary for a vote on the law. However, Davis was subject to point-of-order "warnings" from her Republican colleagues, which, apparently, after a total of three, result in an automatic end to filibustering. (Davis's second warning was issued because she received "help with a back-brace," just to show you how serious these things were.) Anyway, Davis was eventually removed from the Senate floor and the law went to a vote regardless of her efforts. While Davis's filibuster attempt was admirable and undoubtedly helped to mobilize protesters—whose presence would prove more decisive—it was not her efforts that stopped the law from being passed last  night. The system's own rules and procedures were employed to shut Davis down as she worked from within the system. Surprise, surprise.

3.Acts of citizen disruption work 
“An unruly mob, using Occupy Wall Street tactics, disrupted the Senate from protecting unborn babies,” Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst said this morning. Straight from the horse's mouth, friends—the protesters stopped the vote, not Davis's filibuster. In the words of another account from CNN News: "The packed gallery of the session erupted in boos. And for 15 minutes—as the clocked ticked toward 12 a.m.—their raucous chants and shouts of 'Shame, shame, shame' drowned out the proceedings. Although it wasn't immediately apparent to onlookers, the disruption prevented lawmakers from completing their vote by the official end of the session—killing the bill." 

So, we now seem to have a guidepost for changing policy and taking control of our government.

Those at the helm of our political system have led so many to believe that perfunctory distractions—like voting and petition signing—are meaningful and effective forms of political action. Anyone paying attention knows they are not. However, there are real alternatives. In 1977, political-sociologists Francis Fox Piven and Richard Cloward published a landmark study on social justice movements, which cogently argued that the success of any people's movement is largely determined by the degree to which it can disrupt social and political order. Last night's events seem to bolster this thesis.

Effective, organized mass-disruption does not have to be violent but it is never a peaceful process. The intent is to create tension, to destabilize, derail, and weaken the “smooth functioning of the economic and political systems” that have blocked us from the levers of power. As the people of Texas showed us last night, it is the politics of disruption that will allow us to exercise any control over our increasingly-authoritarian government.