Snowden, who seems clear about the personal consequences he will likely face for taking this action, felt driven by what he learned about this vast surveillance system to jump ship. By so doing, he not only brought more sunlight into yet another murky corner of the infrastructure of the ever-expanding U.S. global and domestic control — part of the dizzying flurry of recent revelations about drones, special operations and kill lists — he has taught us, just as Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg did, the critical importance of breaking ranks.
Successful nonviolent movements depend on people breaking ranks: questioning, demurring, disobeying, defecting and withdrawing support. In most cases, this entails a slow process in which a significant percentage of the population gives up its fidelity to the status quo and finds itself shifting. As the late social movement theorist Bill Moyer put it, the population may not agree with the movement’s answer, but it is beginning to question — and even gradually abandon — the traditional one.
This can be more than switching positions. In some cases it can herald a transformation of identity. To no longer support a policy, an institution or a whole system can signal a profound metamorphosis. We no longer identify with this policy. We no longer draw meaning or comfort from going along. At times we break ranks not only with a particular social issue but also from the system, and its assumptions and values, that created and sustained it.
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