Activism

Occupy Radio: The Power Of Song In Protest

February 27, 2014 Rivera Sun, www.popularresistance.org Strategize! Activism, Song

When Pete Seeger died, a sense of the impermanence of life increased my urge to ask Ysaye Maria Barnwell, a Grammy Award winning, 34 year member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, to speak on Occupy Radio about the importance of song in social protest. I had met Ysaye when I attended one of her Building a Vocal Community workshops, where she riveted the room with a warning and an instruction. "Learn the old protest songs and spirituals," she said. "You're going to need them." Ysaye mentioned in our radio interview that when she went to Occupy Wall Street, she found that few people knew the old songs, and there weren't many new ones, either. Chanting and drum circles dominated the vocal space, but these are different than song.

New: Class Action – Activist Teacher’s Handbook

February 23, 2014 Editors, www.jacobinmag.com Organize! Activism, Education

Our project with the Chicago Teachers Union’s CORE Caucus and other allies ran long — the final supplement is 118 pages, more than the 50 we had budgeted for. But it was so fantastically designed by Remeike Forbes, and the photography by Katrina Ohstrom and written contributions by CTU President Karen Lewis, economist Dean Baker, Jacobin editors Megan Erickson and Shawn Gude, Joanne Barkan, Lois Weiner, and many others were so strong, we couldn’t bring ourselves to cut it down more or reduce our planned run. Unfortunately, this produced a budget shortfall, which we hope to overcome through the sale of a limited set of print booklets and the help of our readers.

Not in Our Town: Violent Threats Are Unacceptable

February 21, 2014 Staff, www.ActionNetwork.org Resist! Activism, Environment, Mining, Petition

Southern Oregon gold miners with an alarming history of advocating for violence are distributing a “wanted” poster with a photo of local resident George Sexton that includes his home address and also targets his wife, Lesley Adams. The flyer was also posted on the Facebook page of an officer of the Galice Mining District. The post included comments indicating that at least one of the miners has visited the couples’ home while several other comments call for an “open season” on the family and threaten violent physical harm. You can help stand up to these bullies. Take the pledge to stand with George and Lesley against threats of violence. This petition will be sent to elected officials, mining associations and the media to show our solidarity with and support of those who are at risk because of their work protecting our public forests and clean water.

Learning From Manitoba’s Approach to Community

February 20, 2014 MOLLY MCCRACKEN, www.rabble.ca Educate! Activism, Community, Economic Democracy, Housing

Manitoba has a long history of social justice movements. Manitoba was the first province to grant women the right to vote, home of the 1919 general strike, and is the location of one of the first Aboriginal friendship centres in the country. Our province is imbued with the spirit of solidarity and co-operation borne from a strong trade union movement and rural agricultural roots. First Nations teach us of the importance of considering the impact of our actions seven generations from now. These values inform community-organizing efforts towards social justice in Manitoba. Winnipeg's Inner City in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a place of divestment and concentrated urban decay. The rise of the suburbs had left the core of the city in trouble: boarded-up storefronts and arsons in abandoned buildings were coupled with low graduation rates and high unemployment.

Video: Legalize Democracy – Full Documentary

January 27, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Activism, ALEC, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Democracy, Finance and Economy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Video

Legalize Democracy is a documentary film by Dennis Trainor, Jr. (American Autumn: an Occudoc) about the movement to amend — why it is needed, and how you can get involved, placing the response to corporate coup of our government in the context of the growing Democracy movement emerging right here and right now. Combining interviews with Move To Amend’s national leadership team, with archival footage, and dynamic animated time lines that tell the stories of the Supreme Court cases that shaped the doctrine of “corporate personhood”, the rights guaranteed by amendments fought for by people’s movements, and the intersection of law and culture that codified and created discrimination based on race.

Globalize Liberation: 5 Stages For Social Movements

January 21, 2014 George Lakey, www.trainingforchange.org Strategize! Activism, Revolution

Late '90s Serbia was different in many ways from the situation facing activists in the U.S. or other countries. For one thing, the U.S. led a NATO bombing against Milosevic, which failed to unseat him, and in its frustration Washington decided to bet on the young rebels and help fund Otpur's leaflets and computers. Even so, Otpur's experience can stimulate our thinking. Given how many activists are tired of an endless round of protests that don't seem to add up to anything, Otpur activists' biggest gift to us might be their choice to unite around a strategy, to get creative about tactics, and to let the strategy guide which tactics make sense and which don't.

We Need A Democracy Movement To Fix This Sh*t (video)

January 17, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Activism, Amend the Constitution, Citizens United, Climate Change, Corporate Personhood, Corporatism, Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Foreclosures, Fracking, Government, Move To Amend, Overturn Citizens United

As the late populist and journalist Molly Ivins once said: “It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.” Extending those liberties and constitutional protections to corporations is antithetical to the principles of Democracy. While the Supreme Court has been slowly granting rights of persons to corporation for over 100 years, the phrase “Corporate Personhood” entered the popular lexicon soon after the January 21, 2010 Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court Case.

Confronting The Specter Of Corporate And Police Spying

January 10, 2014 Adam Federman, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Activism, NSA

Between 2004 and 2008, at the height of America’s war on terror, the NYPD spied on, infiltrated and tracked members of the pro-cycling advocacy groups Critical Mass and Time’s Up. Both groups are known for their playful and seemingly impromptu mass rides through busy parts of urban areas in order to promote alternative modes of transportation. The NYPD took an interest in the cyclists in the run up to the Republican National Convention in 2004. A few weeks before the convention, police officers arrested about 300 people participating in a mass ride and confiscated hundreds of bikes, declaring them “abandoned property.” They devoted significant resources — scooters, vans, unmarked cars and even helicopters — to disrupting these gatherings as well as attending group meetings and profiling activists.

Transformative Activist Training

January 5, 2014 Network of Spiritual Progressives, www.spiritualprogressives.org Organize! Activism

We have begun building a movement to fundamentally transform our society and nonviolently challenge global capitalism. And we need YOU to help us instigate a transformation of consciousness throughout our society that is the absolute prerequisite for making social, economic, and political transformation possible. Even when progressives win one battle through enormous expenditure of time and money, they often fail to teach their supporters a larger understanding of the world, much less to present a coherent strategy for how to change the larger picture of economic, political and social dysfunction. As a result people end up settling for their particular “win” and feel too exhausted to go on to yet another struggle. We can change that!

Make NYC Ungovernable: Lesson For Age Of deBlasio

December 31, 2013 Arun Gupta, www.truthout.org Organize! Activism, Government

One lesson is to keep up the street heat. After being elected in 2008, Obama ditched progressive rhetoric for austerity policies: protecting banks, dithering on the home foreclosure crisis, calling for Social Security and Medicaid cuts and deficit reduction. It was only thanks to Occupy Wall Street that the national debate was flipped from austerity to economic inequality. Occupy has faded but its impact is still felt in low-wage worker organizing, minimum-wage initiatives, climate-justice organizing, and the elections of Kshama Sawant to the Seattle City Council and Bill de Blasio, who will be inaugurated on January 1, 2014, as the 109th mayor of New York City.

VIDEO: Fukushima: The Beginning of The End Of Nuclear Power | Resistance Report #12

November 9, 2013 Dennis Trainor, Jr., AcronymTV, www.yuotube.com Resistance Report Activism, Fukushima, Marijuana, Women's Rights

The hear no evil see no evil attitude of mainstream media outlets here in the United States about the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan does not obscure the fact that, in the attempt mitigate future catastrophic damage, the global community is faced with challenges unique in the history of humankind. Members of the Green Shadow Cabinet traveled to the UN on Thursday to deliver a petition signed by 150,000 citizens of the world demanding that the government of Japan transfer responsibility for the Fukushima reactor site to an international engineering firm overseen by a civil society panel and an international group of nuclear experts. Additionally, the petition demanded that the global media be permitted around-the-clock access to accurate information throughout the entire process of removal of the spent fuel rods so that the international community can be informed of any risks to its health. Also covered this week’s episode of the Resistance Report:

Activist’s Handbook: A Checklist For Change

November 5, 2013 Steve Early, www.socialpolicy.org Strategize! Activism, Book Review

Throughout the new edition of the book, Shaw does a consistently good job of categorizing, in general, what works and what doesn’t and why. For example, in his dissection of the strengths and weaknesses of the “tactical activism” of Occupy Wall Street, he praises Occupiers, far and wide, for having “the audacity to launch a national debate about income inequality that still shapes public attitudes about the nation’s commitment to economic fairness and equal opportunity for all.” Yet, despite the enduring brilliance of Occupy’s framing of the problem (aka “the 1 percent versus the 99 percent”), the movement itself became bogged down, he believes, in a defensive crouch. “Occupy’s preoccupation with preserving its public encampments reflected its shift from a proactive approach.”

Activism As A Spiritual Pursuit

November 5, 2013 Pat Taub, www.pattaub.com Educate! Activism, Book Review, Spirituality

Viewing activism as sacred has broadened my perspective, making compassion and a respect for differences central in my thinking. In this respect I’ve been influenced by liberation theology as advanced by Matthew Fox, a defrocked Jesuit Priest and co-author with Adam Bucko of “Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation”–a book which calls for spirituality-infused activism. Fox cautions activists, “If we’re only acting out of anger, we reproduce the energy and momentum of destruction.” (I don’t think Fox is negating righteous indignation, which is a wake-up call for many causes, but warning against a calcified angry stance.) Fox regards community building as a soulful enterprise:

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