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Civil Disobedience

Learning The Jails

I've never had much experience with jails. I was briefly introduced to a holding cell in Washington D.C.'s Anacostia police station in March of this year after refusing to move from the White House sidewalk while protesting the KXL Pipeline. I stood in there for ten minutes with five other female college students before I was processed and released. However, I now find myself quickly becoming familiarized with the procedures and expectations of Schuyler, Chemung, and Yates County Jails as the We Are Seneca Lake civil disobedience campaign continues into December.Schuyler County does not house women. Schuyler also does not constantly heat the jail, and it often gets cold. It is important to bring in spare clothing for inmates within 24 hours of their incarceration so they can stay warm.

Jimmy Goes To Jail For Justice At Seneca Lake

The following is a positive action that I am voluntarily undertaking. Just because “jail” is used, please try to recondition your immediate aversion to this word. This is a time to quell your fears and see that there is a method and organized strategy for that which I choose to do and those with whom I work with directly. There are appropriate times to go to jail. This is one of those times, and for many people who know what is at stake, there will be specific times in the future where this type of non-violent action will be needed. It is a privilege to have a system, flawed as it is, that allows one to protest, advocate, and civilly disobey without being publicly executed. At this time, in spite of my own financial hardships, it is an honour and privilege to have the support and option for monetary support for legal fees from a coalition of phenomenal local organizers that comprise We Are Seneca Lake (WASL).

New York City Protests Eric Garner Decision

New York City residents took to the streets on Wednesday after a grand jury said it would not bring charges in the death of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who died in July after a police officer placed him in a chokehold. Garner, 43, was being arrested for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes on July 17 when New York City Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in an illegal chokehold. The medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide, but the grand jury said Wednesday it would not indict Pantaleo. Demonstrators gathered across the city, from the Staten Island neighborhood where Garner died to high-traffic areas in midtown Manhattan. They assembled in Times Square, Union Square and Lincoln Center. They marched down Broadway and blocked traffic on the West Side Highway. Police scrambled to keep the crowd from disrupting the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center. Nearly three dozen demonstrators were reportedly arrested, though the protests remained largely non-violent.

Nonviolent Action: Minimizing The Risk Of Violent Repression

If you want a nonviolent action to be maximally effective, there are two preliminary points to consider. First, spend time developing a carefully elaborated nonviolent strategythat will guide each and every aspect of your campaign. And second, make sure that each nonviolent action that your group undertakes is governed by its strategic goal, not its political objective. If your nonviolent tactic (demonstration, strike, blockade…) is the strategically chosen and focused tactic for this stage of your campaign, and you undertake it with the strategic goal (not political objective) clearly in mind, then, irrespective of the immediate police response (including if it is illegal, violent and/or makes use of provocateurs), your strategic goal will be achieved, your campaign will be advanced and any violent response by police or the military will be either politically irrelevant or strategically advantageous to your campaign.

Four Burnaby Mountain Caretakers Locked To Supreme Court

Early this morning four Burnaby Mountain Caretakers have locked themselves to the Supreme Court entrance in Vancouver. The action was taken to draw attention to the role of the courts in ongoing colonial occupation of Indigenous territory on Burnaby Mountain and across the country. In granting Kinder Morgan’s request for an injunction and enforcement order on November 14th, the courts are once again ignoring aboriginal rights and title and breaching their constitutional duty to obtain consent on unceded Coast Salish territory. These decisions by the BC Supreme Court continually dispossess indigenous people of the territories they have occupied and governed for thousands of years. Squamish elder Sut-lut was arrested last Thursday while protecting a traditional totem pole.

Anti-Fracking Warriors Steingraber And Boland Released From Jail

Steingraber and Boland are among the first wave arrests as part of a sustained, ongoing, non-violent civil disobedience campaign against the storage of fracked gas along the shores of Seneca Lake, a source of drinking water for 100,000 people. There have been 73 arrests so far. Calling themselves “We Are Seneca Lake,” those risking arrest—and their supporters—wear blue during blockades. Sandra Steingraber: "We can’t find the path to victory; we have to CREATE it. That’s going to require a lot of work from all of us over a sustained period of time. What Colleen and I just did is only a tiny part of the struggle. So, please don’t thank us. Tell us what YOU are going to do."

The People Behind Kinder Morgan Protest

Quarmby, a science professor at Simon Fraser University and chairwoman of SFU’s molecular biology and biochemistry department, was arrested on Friday. She is named as a defendant in a Kinder Morgan lawsuit and has been the public face leading the opposition to the pipeline in Burnaby. Quarmby has been quoted as saying that the National Energy Board process “is a sham.” She argues the process does not allow any consideration of climate change at a time that climate change is the biggest problem facing society. A mother and an environmentalist, Quarmby’s concerns lie with the environment and protecting it for future generations.

I Am A Patriot

On Thursday, November 13, I dropped down in my seat at the hearing room of the House Armed Services Committee on the Administration’s Strategy and Military Campaign against ISIL, a little depressed at what was to come. More war, less hope for peace. Just two days earlier, on Veterans Day, I was at the widely advertised and well attended “Concert for Valor” on the National Mall. Veterans Day was previously known as Armistice Day, started after WWI as a day to celebrate an end to war. Now it’s a day to glorify warriors, and I was threatened with arrest for having a sign that read “Celebrate the Peacemakers”. The moment I sat down in the Congressional hearing and heard the conversation between Chairman Buck McKeon and the witness Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a warm rush of thoughts came over me that made me feel very nostalgic.

‘We Are Seneca Lake’ Civil Disobedience Enters 4th Week

Ten people were arrested earlier today for blockading Texas-based Crestwood Midstream’s gas storage facility gates on the shore of Seneca Lake. This marks the fourth week of the ‘We Are Seneca Lake’ civil disobedience campaign to stop the gas storage facility, which has seen a total of 35 people arrested so far, including Dwain Wilder who just finished serving 8 days in jail after refusing to pay the fine following his arrest. There have also been multiple rallies with hundreds of people and numerous winery owners, local businesses and health professionals. Beth Peet of Hector, NY, said, “My government is not standing up for me. I am here, taking a personal day from work, because my government has failed me.”

Chokepoint: How To Stop Oil And Gas Pipelines

For the past four years Submedia has been visiting a camp of the Unist’ot’en of the Wet’suet’en Nation in so-called British Columbia in Canada. The Unist’ot’en continue to fend off intrusions to their land by rapacious oil and gas companies. The threats are large and systemic and involve the very base of life itself. This two-part series of short films document the direct actions that are effective in keeping the threats of oil and gas out. Stopping the corporations physically is paramount, as they’ll stop at nothing. This series follows on from the past series on the same topic by Submedia, Stop The Flows. The Unist’ot’en have built a protection camp to block the Pacific Trails Pipeline or PTP, in so-called British Columbia in Canada. The PTP pipeline would bring natural gas obtained through fracking to the Pacific ocean and would cross through the Unist’ot’en’s traditional territory. This is the third time the Unist’ot’en have called for a convergence in their land. This year’s camp attracted over 150 people who came from as far east as Montreal and as far south as Florida.

#AfterFerguson: Organizing 104 – The Workshop

Local residents and grassroots activists expressed their disappointment with their local officials, and have been planning and training for civil disobedience. Concerned individuals and activists in dozens of cities and towns across the nation plan to hit the streets the day after the grand jury decision is reached. Black Agenda Reports is running a series of instructional primers directed at activists who want to be organizers. Activists are people who just show up, but life changing and society-changing movements are put together quite intentionally by people we call organizers. Organizing 101 instructed would be organizers to ALWAYS collect the names, phone numbers and email addresses, the essential digits of those who turn out for any meeting, flash mob or demonstration of any kind.

Occupying Public Spaces & Democratized Dialogue: 21st Century Protests

According to Kalev Leetaru, creator of the GDELT Project, “the elevated protest activity of the past three years is only noticeable because it comes on the heels of two decades of relatively reduced protest action.” Using data collected from various news sources in nearly 100 different languages over the past 30 years to measure protest activity month by month, this “protest intensity” measurement corrects for the exponential rise in media outlets in recent years. Our general sense that there are so many more protests now than ever before may be somewhat of an illusion. However, while this may measure the number of protests, it does not measure their impact. In a map by Haisam Hussein of Lapham’s Quarterly showing political revolutions through time, it is clear that the number of highly politically significant protests has reached an all-time high in the past decade.

Mexico: Protesters Take Airport For 3 Hours

Hundreds of normalistas in Guerrero accompanied by teachers from CETEG marching towards the Acapulco airport were blocked by elements of the Federal Police. Students walked down the Boulevard de Las Naciones and sought to take the terminal to protest against the disappearance of 43 of their colleagues, when federal police blocked their way. Previously, students clashed with soldiers in front of “La Isla” commercial plaza located in the Zona Diamante area. Dozens of riot police state sector dispersed through the hotel zone, to ensure the safety of citizens. Acapulco “Zona Diamante” is a big tourist area of Acapulco consisting of modern hotels, luxury condos, and private villages. It is located about 15 minutes of Acapulco International Airport.

Stand By Those Who Stand In Way Of Fracking

The narrative of the Seneca Lake 12 is becoming all too familiar, as concerned residents across the nation are often finding no legal means of resistance against the incessant development of dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure spurred on by fracking. Thanks to the decimation of campaign finance laws by the U.S. Supreme Court, state and federal politicians have become increasingly bought off by the unlimited wealth of the oil and gas industry. As such, pleas from desperate local officials and community groups to reject hazardous infrastructure projects fall on deaf ears. As for FERC, the federal commission charged with regulating the construction and operation of our nation’s energy supply, forget about it. The faceless, bureaucratic agency is simply a machine-like rubber stamp for the whims of the fossil fuel industry and a president who usually backs them.

100+ Arrested At Beyond Extreme Energy’s Week-Long Protests At FERC

As the participants in the Great March for Climate Action ended up in Washington, DC, on Nov. 1 after a six-month trek across the country, they joined with other environmental groups to launch a week of action under the banner Beyond Extreme Energy. The actions revolved around a series of blockades at the DC headquarters of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with more than 100 people arrested. Nonviolent direct actions began on Monday with 25 protestors arrested outside FERC’s office while blockading the entrance with a giant sign depicting families impacted by frackinginfrastructure greenlighted by FERC. Today was the final day of the actions intended to call attention to FERC’s approval of projects that endanger communities and drive climate change, and demand a more inclusive and open hearing process.

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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