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Activism

Anti-Protest Laws Are Not About Safety, But About Silencing Dissent

April 10, 2023 Ashley K. Shelton, Truthout. , , ,
At least 42 people who have protested the building of an 85-acre, $90 million police training facility in Atlanta, Georgia, have been charged with domestic terrorism. While demonstrators always fear being criminalized for exercising their constitutional right to stage protests, being charged with domestic terrorism has a particularly chilling effect. The move to charge protesters with domestic terrorism comes months after one protester, Manuel Paez Terán (who went by the name Tortuguita), was killed by police. Across the United States, we are seeing a rise in laws that seek to squelch and criminalize protests.

2023 Earth First! The Gathering: July 1-9, Occupied Abenaki Territory

April 3, 2023 Earth First Journal, It's Going Down. , , ,
Earth first! is, has been, and will continue to be a think tank and proving ground of direct action in defense of the earth and those who reside here. At 43 years old, earth first! may seem like an institution, but in reality it is still created every day by those of us who show up to resist ecocide. If you show up, you’re at the table. There’s no way to sell you on earth first!, cuz earth first! is not for sale. So come to the gathering! Say your piece, make it yours, and let’s fight the bastards together. You don’t have to be an earth first!er to come to an ef! gathering – the fight for the earth is intimately intertwined with struggles against white supremacy, patriarchy, settler colonialism and all forces which oppose collective liberation.

Jen Angel Wouldn’t Want Her Death To Be Used to Incarcerate Anyone

March 9, 2023 Brooke Anderson, In These Times. , , ,
Jen Angel, an activist, journalist and baker who was fatally injured during a robbery outside of a bank in Oakland, Calif., in early February, believed in building a society without police and prisons, and she would not have wanted her assailants incarcerated. Doing so would only distort her memory and what she stood for, and many of those who were close to her have come together since she died to try and protect that legacy. Angel, 48, died February 9, three days after she was dragged 50 feet by her assailants’ getaway car, her head hitting the pavement. She spent several days in intensive care before being removed from life support.

Defending The Venezuelan Embassy, Organizing Peace For Ukraine

March 1, 2023 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. , , , ,
In today’s world, it can be difficult to find inspiring figures to look up to, especially in a time of division and uncertainty. Fortunately, there are still individuals like Margaret Flowers who embody the ideals of progress, justice, and compassion. Margaret Flowers is a leading activist, doctor, teacher, and co-founder of PopularResistance.org, a website that aims to inform and inspire grassroots movements around the world. Margaret has spent her life fighting for social justice and equality. As a physician, she has been a vocal advocate for a single-payer healthcare system that would provide affordable and accessible care to all Americans.

The Golden Rule Peace Boat And The Kings Bay Plowshares Seven

February 13, 2023 Anthony Donovan, Popular Resistance. , , ,
On Friday, February 7th, the Golden Rule peace boat gently sailed over sacred whale breeding grounds, with an ever respectful sense of protection to our beautiful fellow creatures, then bravely showed its sails entering St. Mary's River of the historic town of St. Mary's which joins the beautiful, yet ominous entrance of the East River. Along the East River exists the most deadly concentration of Ohio Class nuclear weapon laden submarines on the East Coast, if not the world, the Naval Submarine Base of Kings Bay. This base remains the most extensive single construction project ever undertaken by the U.S. Navy.  It contains the largest indoor dry dock in the world, and as a result, it services not only our own fleet but the Tridents of the United Kingdom.

In Revolutionary Times, Are Art And Music Falling Short?

February 11, 2023 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. ,
James Kennedy is a highly-regarded and accomplished Welsh singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer who is best known for his political activism through his music. With a career spanning more than two decades, he has made a name for himself as a powerful voice in the music industry, using his platform to raise awareness about important issues and to advocate for social justice. James joins “Behind The Headlines” host Lee Camp for a full, hour-long interview today. James takes us on a journey through his musical career, discussing the ways in which politics has influenced his music, the challenges of being a political musician in today’s world, and the reasons behind his decision to use music as a tool for change. His music career began with a strong focus on political issues, with songs that explored topics such as inequality, social justice, and human rights.

The Catholic Church Expelled Me For Supporting Women Joining The Priesthood

December 24, 2022 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. , , ,
As a young man, Roy Bourgeois enlisted to fight in the Vietnam War. After being injured, he became a volunteer at a local orphanage and was inspired to become a priest upon his return to the US. Bourgeois became a priest in Bolivia during the dictatorship of General Hugo Banzer. He decided he could not be an apolitical priest. He spoke out against Banzer’s political repression, leading to his arrest and expulsion from Bolivia. Back in the US, Bourgeois organized protests outside Fort Benning, Georgia where the US was training Salvadorian soldiers to fight the leftist insurgency. He was imprisoned twice for illegally entering the base during planned direct actions against the war. In 2012, Bourgeois was excommunicated by the Catholic Church for supporting the ordination of women.v

Those Who Struggle To Change The World Know It Well

November 18, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , ,
In 1845, Karl Marx jotted down some notes for The German Ideology, a book that he wrote with his close friend Friedrich Engels. Engels found these notes in 1888, five years after Marx’s death, and published them under the title Theses on Feuerbach. The eleventh thesis is the most famous: ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it’. For the past five years, we, at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, have considered this thesis with great care. The most widely accepted interpretation of this thesis is that, in it, Marx urges people not only to interpret the world, but also to try and change it. However, we do not believe that this captures the meaning of the sentence.

The Good Priest

November 14, 2022 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , ,
During the two years the cartoonist Joe Sacco and I spent on our book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, written out of the poorest pockets of America, we invariably encountered heroic men and women who — against overwhelming odds — rose up to fight lonely and often losing battles on behalf of the oppressed. Bill Means, Charlie Abourezk and Leonard Crow Dog in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Larry Gibson and Judy Bonds in the coal fields of West Virginia. Lucas Benitez, Laura Germano and Greg Abbot in the produce fields of Florida. The men and women in Zuccotti Park during the Occupy Wall Street movement. When set against the crushing poverty, environmental degradation, corporate abuse and despair they opposed, the victories they amassed were often miniscule.

Hashtag Activism And US Imperialism

October 19, 2022 Erica Caines, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
The abundance of “hashtag activism” has created a false sense of importance for the everyday individual being driven by weaponized empathy  to speak out about a cause or injustice happening internationally. This false sense of importance, brought on by the use of hashtags as awareness, is ignited by already held biases about the colonized world, which inevitably leads to both overt and covert calls for western intervention to “save” whoever has been deemed needing of saving. The use of hashtag activism has certainly all but replaced in-person community organizing. It has allowed an array of people across the country and across the world to be united in solidarity for a cause that can be summarized in as small a character limit as possible. This “connection”, of course, is oftentimes heralded as one of the more positive things about social media.

This Is Not A Drill’: The Music And Politics Of Roger Waters

October 2, 2022 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. , , ,
Roger Waters, the British rock legend and co-founder of Pink Floyd, is in the midst of his “This Is Not A Drill” tour. In his concerts he weds his musical genius to the most pressing social issues of our day, including permanent war, police violence, the crimes of Israeli occupation against the Palestinians, the killing of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and the imprisonment of Julian Assange. Waters has been an outspoken opponent of the NATO-fueled war in Ukraine, and a vocal supporter of contemporary social movements such as the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and global protests against police violence from the United States to Brazil and Britain. He joins The Chris Hedges Report for a wide-ranging conversation: from his youth and musical career to the political worldview that undergirds his provocative ‘This Is Not A Drill‘ tour.

There’s No Place For Burnout In A Burning World

August 31, 2022 Charlie Wood , Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
By the age of 10, I was terrified about the state of the world. I wanted to quit school and volunteer for environmental and human rights groups. Instead, I distributed leaflets in my neighborhood and attended rallies with my dad. At 14, I watched “An Inconvenient Truth.” At 15, I read a National Geographic article about coal — how it planted cancer in people’s lungs, stole their breath, and polluted their water. This broke my heart and, in the midst of that brokenness, I devoted my life to stopping climate change. Fast forward a decade, and I’d had the privilege of working in several nonprofits, including co-founding one. Together, we have achieved a lot — mobilizing record numbers of people to the streets, pushing dozens of institutions to defund coal and gas, building hundreds of local groups, and empowering countless people to take action.

Greater Peril, Greater Reward? A New Risk Assessment Tool For Activists

August 23, 2022 Phil Wilmot, ICNC. , ,
In March 2019, following numerous community pleas to curb graft among local police that had fallen upon deaf ears, residents of Kyere, Uganda tricked a notoriously corrupt police officer into a bribery arrangement. They caught him red-handed. Emerging from their hiding places in a community market, they seized the officer and arrested him—a man who had often used the same power of arrest to extort from them! This effective sting operation occurred without any of the usual police brutality toward activists. As democracy erodes at an Increasing Pace, slipping our species toward the normalization of authoritarianism, protesters are understandably exploring how they can stay safe. But reducing the risks of our nonviolent actions can also come at a cost—the cost of our power.

How Activism Labour Defies Capitalism

August 9, 2022 Gabriela Calugay-Casuga, Rabble.ca. , ,
It only takes one doom scroll through social media to see there is no shortage of injustice in the world. But there is also no shortage of people who have dedicated themselves to dismantle systems of violence and advance justice through activism. With how deeply entrenched injustice is in our society, the work to dismantle injustice is a full-time job. Despite the hours put in, this job does not fit a capitalist and colonial view of labour. El Jones, a prison abolitionist dedicated to fighting state violence, said that for Black people, there is a historical precedent that makes it easier for this work to go unrecognized. “Labour and Blackness cannot be separated,” Jones said in an interview with rabble. “You can’t understand any current Black problem without returning to the idea that we were property for a long time.

Why Escalation Is The Best Response In Moments Of Crises

June 29, 2022 Akin Olla, Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
Between the lack of action around police brutality, the threats to Roe v. Wade, increasing mass shootings, and the ever looming threat of climate catastrophe, desperation and despair have become the emotions of the day. Polling shows most Americans still care about these issues, but they’ve long lost faith in mainstream institutions and their capacity for change. It can be difficult to know how to respond in moments of crisis like these. Besides panicking, one traditional approach is what is called the “ladder of engagement,” which relies on a series of actions that increase in intensity over time to win over supporters and apply pressure to people in power. This usually begins with gathering petition signatures and holding educational events while gradually building the support and capacity to move towards rallies and eventually, though rarely, more confrontational protests like occupations.
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