Voice of the People v1.0 SMOL DOOTS

Tactical compassion, utilizing the people's microphone

A guide hand-crafted by the Small Modular Organizing Level Decentral Office Of Tactics, Strategy (SMOL DOOTS)

Living in the United States and caring about other people is very difficult these days. It's hard to maintain awareness of all the injustices and abuses going on in the world, in our country, and for some of us, in our own cities, and not be overwhelmed, or resort to shutting down. Our empathy, our compassion, these are our greatest strengths in the struggle against widespread abuse and injustice, and they are also the most difficult things to exercise in the face of those abuses and injustices. As compassionate people, when anger, fear, and frustration are directed at us, we feel those things. They resonate within us, and if we don't learn how to settle those intense emotions, and leverage them into compassion, we will be overwhelmed by them, and we may unwittingly reflect and amplify those intense destructive emotions back into the world.

Attempting to communicate directly one-on-one with hostile forces to persuade them to give up or change sides may result in those hostile forces treating that person as a direct threat and attempting arrest or detainment.

Here, I've written a guide for how an organized group of compassionate people may leverage their skills in compassion towards peacefully neutralizing hostile forces such as police, national guard, military, or counter-protestors when these forces are at a stand-off, while not exposing themselves to the risk of arrest or detainment associated with direct personal confrontation.

Recommended reading:

    Nonviolent Commuication by Marshall Rosenberg

        This is a foundational work, essential to understanding and exercising radical compassion, which this tactic relies upon. It is highly recommended for anyone to undertake this tactic, that they be well-versed in nonviolent communication, and have practiced it in their everyday lives.

    Never Split the Difference, by Chris Voss

        This takes the idea of radical compassion, and applies it to a businessman's perspective. The objective of the book is to teach businesspeople and anyone trying to make a deal how to get what they want while giving up as little as possible, utilizing radical compassion. This was written by former FBI hostage negotiator, Chris Voss. These are ideas to be taken very seriously. If we are going to survive the next decade of civil unrest, learning how to convince other people to see your perspective, and to want what you want, is essential. These are the verbal tactics that authorities use to get what they want. Even if you think the police are reprehensible, it is still very important to understand how they work.

    The Art of War by Sun Tzu

        War never changes. Some of the entries in the art of war are obsolete or irrelevant, such as the cost of raising an army. Others, such as ideas of how to conduct war, and conditions of victory, are as relevant today as they have always been. We are not aiming to kill anyone. If anyone dies, *anyone at all*, during the course of an action, this is a great tragedy.


This is a tactic for a coordinated affinity group, utilizing very few material resources. This is not a "strategy" as strategies are broad plans, enacted over long time-scales of days, weeks, or months. This is a tactic, to be enacted in the moment, in response to specific circumstances. This is not a tactic for individuals. While it can be utilized by an individual possessing the necessary compassionate mindset, an individual is very vulnerable to capture without the support of a collective.

We must let go of the idea of "winning". Our objective is not to win. Our objective is to end the fighting, to end the abuse, to end the ongoing holocaust being committed by our government. Against an armed and armored force, we are outmatched in terms of capacity for violence. This is not to say that we should give up hope. To the contrary, if we give up on the idea of "winning" then numerous tactics open up to us.

This is not a general tactic, to be used by any coordinated group or individual. If you do not understand the principles behind its operation, then that is okay, this tactic isn't for you. If the idea of these tactics angers or frustrates you, then they're not for you, and that's okay.

The objective of this is also not to say that anyone using any other tactic is wrong. This is a tool in a toolkit. Know when to use it, and know when to use other tools, other tactics.


The people's microphone AKA Voice of the People:

Anyone familiar with the Occupy protests should be aware of the people's microphone. Put simply, it is a way of amplifying someone's voice, using an assembled crowd, and no other resources.

If utilized without equipment, it is necessary for the speaker to have a good, loud voice. Anyone experienced with singing punk or other hardcore music should be able to leverage their voice skills to the sustained shouting necessary for this to work. Lacking the necessary vocal skills, it is also possible to utilize this tactic with a megaphone, although this puts the speaker at more risk, as the megaphone makes them a more visible target.

When at an action with an affinity group, it is possible, without prior planning with the larger assembled crowd, to initiate a people's microphone, so long as the affinity group is on board with it. We utilize the Crowd Mentality to get it going, with a clear announcement of what is happening. The louder and more prominent the speaker's voice is, the more people in the immediate vicinity will be able to hear the speaker, and the more chances there are for people to join in.

This is an important stage of utilizing the people's microphone. It is important that what is happening and how it works is clear to both the forces it is directed at, and the members of the crowd who are participating.

Here's an example of a way to get the People's Microphone going:
    Call: This is the people's microphone!
    The affinity group echoes.
    Call: This is the people's microphone!
    The affinity group echoes and, optimally, more in the crowd join in.
    Call: I lend my voice to the people's microphone!
    Those in the crowd joining in will echo
    Call: I will only say what I truly believe!
    The crowd echoes again. This should remind the assembled crowd that this is voluntary, that their words have weight, and they have no obligation to repeat things they do not believe. This is also important to build in a bit of skepticism to the crowd, to make it harder for hostile elements or instigators within the crowd to utilize the people's microphone for destructive ends.

If we are successful, we now have a tool to communicate with the assembled force en masse. Anyone familiar with nonviolent communication should hopefully have an idea of where this is going, but for everyone else, I will continue.

In the Art of War, sun tzu says: "to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting."

When we fight, people get hurt, get injured, people die. When people get hurt, and people die, the conflict intensifies. We want an end to the conflict. When the conflict intensifies, the end grows further away.

So our aim is to convince the opposing force to give up. Optimally, we may even convince them to join the ranks of the protests. Today's enemy may be tomorrow's ally. We will not succeed without allies. If we treat today's enemies as though they will be our enemies forever, we build the foundation of our own undoing.

How do we do this? Through radical compassion, and by labeling the emotions of the opposition.

In the book, "Never Split The Difference" by Chris Voss, the author describes a situation as a police negotiator wherein there were a group of armed people who had barricaded themselves in an apartment, and Chris Voss's job was to convince them to surrender themselves without resorting to violence. He described how, for six hours, him and his partners stood outside the door repeating the same thing: "It looks like you don't want to come out. It seems like you worry that if you open the door, we'll come in with guns blazing. It looks like you don't want to go back to jail."

Chris Voss in the book did a much better job of explaining what each part of this script does than I could, but to summarize: We label the fears, and recognize them neutrally. This also draws attention to the need for consistency and perseverance in the use of this persuasion tactic. It doesn't work immediately. It may not look like it's doing anything for a while, but if you get it right, it can break down the opposition and persuade them. It took chris voss 6 hours of repeating the same thing to convince those people to surrender. It's up to us to embody that same persistence in exercising our compassion.

Those officers and national guardsmen are barricaded behind a wall of their own authority. Our task is to give them a way out that doesn't involve committing violence.

We examine and differentiate between the different kinds of forces, and identify the motivations of the individuals, and then label these emotions and desires.

Here are some examples: National Guard forces, should they be mobilized, do not want to be there. These people, more than any other opposing force, are your neighbors and friends. These are the people who are least emotionally equipped to conduct abuse and violence against protestors. This means these are the forces most likely to be convinced to give up, and most likely to be convinced to join the ranks of the protests. When faced with national guard forces, recognize and label why they are there, why they feel they have to do what they are doing, and make a request for them to join. For example

Call: National Guard!
crowd echoes
Call: National Guard, we are speaking to you!"
crowd echoes (from here, the echo can be assumed)
Call: We know you are our neighbors!
Call: We know you are forced to be here!
Call: We know you signed up to serve your state and country!
Call: We know you signed up to meet your needs!
Call: We know you are afraid!
Call: We know you want to get home safe!
Call: We also want to get home safe!
Call: We are also afraid!
(this is very important, even if it seems silly. building common ground is very powerful
Call: Your orders are unconstitutional!
Call: You have the right to reject your orders!
Call: Please help us!
Call: Please protect us!
Call: Protect us or leave!

From here, the people's microphone can either loop back to the beginning, reinforcing all the ideas, and giving people farther away a chance to tune in and repeat the words, or turn into a chant. "Please help us/Protect us or leave" would be a very powerful thing to direct at an assembled national guard force.

I will leave it to the readers to figure out a line of persuasion that might be effective for police, as the disposition of police varies by city.

As for assembled ICE, compassion by itself is unlikely to sway their actions. These are people motivated by power and control over other people. Essentially, bullies. Against bullies, the most effective strategy is to fight back. Bullies are empowered by people giving in. You may be thinking that this seems like a contradiction of what I just said about not fighting.

This isn't about fighting directly with fists. This is about using words.

Here's an example of a line of verbal attack that may be effective against ICE agents.

Federal agents!
Federal agents, we are speaking to you!
We know you signed up to have power and control!
You will not find it here!
We know you want to hurt and control us!
We know you want to hurt our neighbors!
This is an unlawful action!
History is not on your side!
You are not welcome here!
We want you to leave!

Again, the conclusion should be something that can be leveraged into a chant, or the whole thing can be repeated. This is an example of a line of persuasion that may be effective against ICE agents. Collectives are invited to come up with their own line of persuasion.

Seeing as the motivations of ICE, border patrol, and other federal agents is different from those of other organized forces, we must take this into account in our line of persuasion. These people have a lot of practice in shutting down their compassion in order to leverage their authority, and so leveraging that compassion cannot happen until they give up that authority. For them to give up that authority, they must be persuaded that they lose more in wielding that authority than they gain from it. They must be persuaded that their desire for power and control will not be satisfied by that authority, because no one respects it.

Here, I will remind the readers, especially the more antiauthoritarian readers, that not all police are the same, and not all police have the same motivations. Some police departments, for example the LAPD, may have motivations that are largely similar to the motivations of ICE, however, if we assume that all police and police departments share those same motivations, then we invite struggle where it may be unnecessary. If we treat someone as though they are a hostile abuser bent on exercising power and authority, and they weren't already, then our treatment of them in that manner may push them to become that way.

In short, people grow to embody how they are treated. If someone is treated as a hostile threat hell-bent on abuse and control, then they may decide "well, if I'm going to be treated that way anyway, I might as well be what they think I am." While the same could be said of the ICE agents, it is the structure of federal authority above them that has more sway over their actions and behavior, so that is what the line of persuasion seeks to negate. In the case of local police, the police department is answerable to the city, to greater or lesser degrees, and if a sympathetic police department is treated as hostile by the citizenry, they may become hostile unnecessarily.

Now, we must discuss weaknesses of this tactic.
It is possible that the collective will be unable to get a large enough group of the crowd empowering the people's microphone. This is okay. Even if it's only a few dozen people lending their voices, that is still enough. Even if it's just the members of the collective, that is enough. The speaker may attempt looping the line of persuasion, in the hopes that a wider section of the crowd may hear it and repeat it.

This requires advance planning. Don't just wing it. If you are a part of a collective that would like to use this tactic, plan it out well ahead of time. Come up with your own script, for different forces you may encounter. Local/city police. County sheriffs. State police. National guard. ICE. Use your understanding of the different forces to create powerful words that will reach through to their motivations.

While this tactic is being used, the Speaker *will* become a target for hostile action. It is imperative that the speaker is protected, and if possible, that several members of the collective have a copy of the script, to pick up where the speaker leaves off.

While this is an entirely non-violent tactic, expect a response akin to if the hostile force had seen the speaker personally attack a member of the force. The enforcers will recognize the Speaker as a high-value target, and seek to bring them into custody. If possible, once the people's microphone has been activated, the collective should dedicate their focus to protecting the Speaker.

Once the speaker is done, disperse in pairs, and have a change of clothes ready.

Finally, if you've read through all this and think "that's stupid" then I'd like you to imagine yourself in the shoes of a force that this is directed at. Imagine you're some poor twenty-something who got into the national guard to pay for college. Imagine what it would feel like to hear those words. Imagine what it would look like for this tactic to succeed. Imagine yourself in the crowd as it's being used.

This has been a tactical guide from SMOL DOOTS
SMOL DOOTS will only ever publish guides on the utilization of nonviolence. Any guide that advocates direct physical violence is not a legitimate SMOL DOOTS guide. No one from SMOL DOOTS will ever disclose their identities. Anyone claiming to be a part of SMOL DOOTS or affiliated with SMOL DOOTS in any context, either at a private event or public action, is a liar and should be avoided. Be skeptical of where you receive your SMOL DOOTS guides from, and compare against other sources to verify your SMOL DOOTS guide. SMOL DOOTS will never utilize an LLM to produce a guide.

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Voice of the People 1.0 initial distribution by SMOL DOOTS