…soft-targeting is all about the power to veto, destroy and inhibit, and is giving up on the possibility of creating or governing or having power.

I think that’s a bit unduly harsh. Taking on soft targets can often be a creative rather than a destructive process (c.f. unionization at universities, unless you think making better working conditions for grad students to be destructive), and in any case, there are a thousand things going on at any given time, and taking on a soft target in a destructive manner does not preclude any other acts.

Indeed, frankly, there have always been a majority of activists who are not interested in being part of the power structure. If you tell them that trying to change things through your ‘destructive’ means is bad, and they believe you, they’ll simply stop engaging at all. (Indeed, that’s what’s happening with a lot of protests in the US… everyone says, ‘OH MY GOD THIS INCONVENIENCED ME FOR FIVE MINUTES PROTEST IS BAD!’ and most people seem to buy that.) Because engaging to create good, stable things is hard, if not a full-time occupation, whereas engaging to try to stop an injustice, right a wrong, etc, is something that you can do after work, or in between school periods, without a degree in sociology or political science.

Your post today in FB on Naim’s End of Power really synchronized with my thinking here in this entry–that Naim is really thinking about a similar kind of problem–soft-targeting is all about the power to veto, destroy and inhibit, and is giving up on the possibility of creating or governing or having power.