Direct action

Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote that the term and concept of direct action originated in fin de siècle France.

[6] Activist trainer and author Daniel Hunter states 'Nonviolent direct action are techniques outside of institutionalized behavior for waging conflict using methods of protest, noncooperation, and intervention without the use or threat of injurious force.

[7] Anti-globalization activists forced the Seattle WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 to end early via direct action tactics and prefigurative politics.

[8] On April 28, 2009, Greenpeace activists, including Phil Radford, scaled a crane across the street from the Department of State, calling on world leaders to address climate change.

In the United States, direct action is increasingly used to oppose the fossil fuel industry, oil drilling, pipelines, and gas power plant projects.

[13][14] Anarchists organize almost exclusively through direct action,[15][16] which they use due to a rejection of party politics and a refusal to work within hierarchical bureaucratic institutions.

"[31] American anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre wrote that violent direct action utilizes physical, injurious force against people or, occasionally, property.

[32] Mahatma Gandhi's methods, which he called satyagraha,[33] did not involve confrontation and could be described as "removal of support" without breaking laws besides those explicitly targeted.

"[37] Gandhi and American civil rights leader James Bevel were strongly influenced by Leo Tolstoy's 1894 book The Kingdom of God Is Within You, which promotes passive resistance.

[45] In polls conducted in the United Kingdom, two thirds of respondents supported non-violent environmental direct action, while a similar percentage believed defacing art or public monuments should be criminalized.