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A series of eight t shirts celebrating Gene Sharp, the “Machiavelli of non violence”, and the 198 techniques described in From Dictatorship to Democracy that can be used to rid your country of governors and governments who should go away and play with themselves.

Gene Sharp has defined how we allow ourselves to be governed, how we grant governments power over us and particularly how we can withdraw the permission we have granted. It is in the way of things that governments and governors are reluctant to give up that to which they have become accustomed and when confronted it is to be expected governments will fight to keep their authority. Gene Sharp has codified how such governments can be peacefully resisted with 198 distinct techniques, all of them non violent.

The techniques were first used in the break up of the Soviet Union. Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan have all successfully used Sharp's methods. It is understandable Arab resistance movements might be reluctant to credit an American academic for their “Arab Spring” found freedoms but is there much doubt Gene Sharp provided the vision and the map that allowed them to escape? I understand someone counted something in excess of 100 of the 198 Gene Sharp defined techniques in the so far unsuccessful Green Revolution in Iran. Unsuccessful? Give it time, I think the Ayatollahs and their puppet, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are dead men wa*king.

On the subject of dead men wa*king what to make of the work of Al Qeada in comparison to that of an 83 yr old American academic? One lot are all bombs fatwas, jihads, up your fundament and conspicuous failure while the other is all wit, subtlety, self expression, human development and conspicuous success. I hear Al Qeada have appointed some Egyptian ex doctor/eye surgeon as their supreme leader. Violent quasi religious psychotic looking for, and only talking too, “true believers” desperate for a franchise to buy into v mannered and intelligent gentleman talking too and pretty much for everyone. Take your pick.

There is one graphic shirt illustrating the pencil is mightier than the bomb and seven that celebrate Gene Sharp's 198 techniques. These seven shirts are grouped into related techniques with the individual techniques numbered on the shirts. The groups are: Protest & Persuasion; Social; Boycott; Strike; Political non-cooperation; Intervention; And finally all 198 together.

I am inspired, but where to start? Our local authority, Hackney, is well overdue and what can you say about Haringey and their self important and useless social services staff paying themselves extraordinary sums of money while observing the people who rely on them being tortured and killed? Then there are the monolithic and largely self serving corporations. Show me the big business that really outperforms. It has long been observed big business are regulation loving/exploiting un-civil services with share options. Such monopolistic leviathans should be introduced to some Gene Sharp, I think you would only need a handful of the 198 from a significant number of customers and it would be all over.

Celebrate and admire an iconoclast and promote techniques that will give us all freedom and better self expression, wear our Gene Sharp T shirts. 10% of the purchase price of these shirts will be sent to The Albert Einstein Institute in Boston. The institute was founded by Gene Sharp in 1983 and is dedicated to advancing the study and use of strategic non violent action in conflicts throughout the world. Buy the whole set of shirts and enjoy free post and packing to any country in the world and we will send a donation of £20 to The Albert Einstein Institute.