Freedom of Speech and Assembly

A World Cup For The 1%

July 14, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Brazil, FIFA, Finance and the Economy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Indigenous Rights, Labor, Solidarity, Worker Rights and Jobs

When Germany and Argentina square off in the Word Cup Final, the whole world will be watching the culmination of what may be the most exciting FIFA World Cup Tournament ever. What most people are unaware of, however, is the brutal conditions that FIFA creates to pull off the games.

Boston Transit Authority Pulls ‘Anti-Apartheid’ Ads

July 13, 2014 Annie Robbins, www.mondoweiss.net Educate! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Israel, Media, Palestine

MBTA removed the ads on June 23rd offering no explanation and without even notifying the NGO. After Ads Against Apartheid released this press releaseyesterday, a contractor who handles advertising for MBTA informed them in writing that all three ads in the Ads Against Apartheid’s One Word series campaign, after running for over three weeks, were ”rejected pursuant to Section (b)(I) Demeaning or disparaging.” This same transit authority ran Islamophobic anti-Muslim ads by Pam Geller’s group “American Freedom Defense Initiative”. AAA president and co-founder, Chadi Salamoun noted “There is certainly a double standard here. Our ads present facts cited by respectable institutions, the MBTA has allowed anti-Palestinian groups to display opinionated messages that border on hate-speech.”

Criticism Of Israel Not Allowed On College Campuses

July 6, 2014 David Palumbo-Liu, www.truthout.org Educate! BDS, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Israel

Recently Truthout featured a piece by Chip Gibbons entitled,"'Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Signatory to a Boycott of Israel?' The BDS Movement and the Return of McCarthyism." In it, he outlines the censorious measures taken against those who support BDS, most particularly academic organizations such as the Association for Asian American Studies, the American Studies Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. Gibbons mentions the legislation put forward in New York and Maryland (note that this also occurred in Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Kansas and South Carolina), as well as the actions of the Jewish Community Center to vet and censor artistic and cultural performances. Another practice that smacks of McCarthyism is the misuse of state and federal law to pressure universities to restrict criticism of Israel on campus.

Art Killing Apathy Take on Money In Politics| Eleanor Goldfield Interview

July 5, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Democracy, Finance and the Economy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Money As Speech, Wars and Militarism

Eleanor Goldfield is a creative activist and writer based in Los Angeles. She works with organizations to create digital content as well as live events to combine pop culture and politics - art killing apathy; her political hard rock band Rooftop Revolutionaries being a primary example of this. As a writer, she writes for several political publications on our corporatocratic government and all the issues stemming from that.

American Revolutionaries | Acronym TV 009

July 2, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Corporatism, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Occupy, Police abuse, Protest, Wars and Militarism

Adam Kokesh, who recently served four months in prison in connection with an Independence Day incident in which he videotaped himself loading a shotgun in Freedom Plaza, near the White House, sits down with Dennis to discuss Libertarianism, performance art in protest, and the book he wrote in prison, Freedom. In part 2 of the show, Eleanor Goldfield, the front woman of the band Rooftop Revolutionaries, joins Dennis to discuss the movement to get Money out of Politics, and her new venture Art Killing Apathy.

From Cairo: Everyone’s Right To Protest

June 22, 2014 Comrades from Cairo, www.roarmag.org Resist! Egypt, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Protest

Having hijacked the popular protests of June 30, 2013 against the Muslim Brotherhood to ride back into power, the military establishment is now using every means at its disposal to silence all forms of dissent and annihilate the hard-won political space of the past three years. Violence and intimidation have always been the principal tools of the police force, but in Sisi’s Egypt the judiciary has been given a new leading role in the suppression of freedoms. Their tool is the Protest Law, which in its seven months of life has been used to round up, detain and sentence thousands of participants in peaceful protests — and to target specific and influential activists within them. The most noted example today is Alaa Abd El Fattah. On November 26, 2013, around two hundred protesters gathered outside Egypt’s Parliamentary Upper House were attacked by police with water canons, batons, plainclothes thugs, and tear gas. Fifty people were arrested, and once the women, journalists and lawyers were released, twenty-four men were left in jail. The following night, the police violently arrested Alaa from his home. Now, Alaa and the twenty-four have been sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

After Occupy, Reform or Revolution? | American Autumn Excerpt

June 18, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Climate Change, Corporatism, Democracy, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Human Rights, Occupy, Occupy Wall Street, Protest, Solidarity, Student Activism, Wars and Militarism, Worker Rights and Jobs

A year after the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City, writer, director and producer Dennis Trainor, Jr. made a full-length feature documentary capturing the fervor and passion that spread through the nation in fall 2011, fueled a street revolution and introduced the concept of “the 99%” to define the corporate greed that has crippled the U.S. American Autumn lets the protestors and organizers tell in their own words why they joined the protests and what they hoped to accomplish. Shot at the birthplace of the Occupy movement at Zuccotti Park in New York City, as well as on location at protests in Washington, D.C., Trainor offers a Ground Zero view of the movement and its participants. On camera, protesters strive to define the goals of Occupy as well as how to achieve them. “Imagine that a single voice carries as much weight as the CEO of Goldman Sachs” the film posits, distilling one of Occupy’s core beliefs.

MAM 2014: New Ordinance May Threaten First Amendment Rights At March Against Monsanto St. Louis

May 12, 2014 Revolution News, www.revolution-news.com Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Monsanto, Protest

March Against Monsanto is gearing up for another worldwide protest against the agrochemical giant. Almost 300 protests are scheduled on May 24, 2014 from Alaska to New Zealand. You can view all the events scheduled here or check the live map for MAM 2014 protests in your area. A protest is scheduled for Monsanto’s world headquarters in Saint Louis, MO, the same location where protests were held in January 2014. Several protesters from the Fishy Fleet along with the Seralini rat were arrested then. Monsanto HQ is located in the municipality of Creve Coeur, MO. A new ordinance amending section 345.080 of the Code of Ordinances seems designed to limit protesters’ free speech. The ordinance which would make it illegal to stand on the medians in Creve Coeur, went through its first reading at the Creve Coeur City Council meeting on April 28, 2014. It will go through its second reading on Monday, May, 21, 2014. If the ordinance passes it will be illegal for MAM STL protesters to stand in the median during the May 24th protest at Monsanto headquarters. Without the ordinance, police still have the authority to make protesters leave the median if they deem it a safety issue.

Just In Time: New Know Your Rights Videos

April 22, 2014 Lauren Regan, www.cldc.org Organize! Activism, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Immigrant Rights

Just in time for Seven Days of Action: Global Climate Convergence, CLDC launched a new way for people everywhere to access the essential information needed to assert their rights! The well-known Know Your Rights for Activists training by Lauren Regan offers basic legal information for activists what to expect from law enforcement. As with all of our trainings, this video is not intended as legal advice and does not form an attorney-client relationship. We also published a Know Your Rights for Immigrant Communities training video, in both English and Spanish. The purpose of this training is to build solidarity with immigrant communities at risk for police and government harassment, and to prevent the deportation and destruction of families and communities.

India, Turkey Lead In Facebook Censorship; US Tops Data Snooping

April 12, 2014 Staff, www.rt.com Educate! Facebook, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Internet Freedom

According to Facebook’s latest transparency report, India and Turkey are the most frequent censors of the social network, blocking thousands of users’ content, while the US is the country that has requested most information about user accounts. Between July and December 2013, Indian authorities censored 4,765 Facebook posts which allegedly violated Indian laws that forbid criticizing religions or the government. "We restricted access in India to a number of pieces of content reported primarily by law enforcement officials and the India Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) under local laws prohibiting criticism of a religion or the state," Facebook said. In India, a nation of 1.2 billion people, Facebook has over 100 million registered users. Only the US boasts a higher number of FB users.

Managing Disorder: Towards A Global State Of Control?

March 31, 2014 Jerome Roos, www.roarmag.org Resist! Brazil, Egypt, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Human Rights, NSA, Police abuse, Spain, Türkiye

It’s not just right-wing or military regimes that are leading the assault on hard-fought popular freedoms. In Brazil, the ruling Workers’ Party announced this week that it would send the army into Rio’s favelas to pacify the slums ahead of the World Cup. Ostensibly targeted at violent drug gangs, this pacification scheme has led to a situation in which hundreds of slum dwellers are killed by state troops every year. Under President Rousseff — a former Marxist guerrilla who was tortured and imprisoned by the military dictatorship — state brutality against the “unruly” poor and excluded remains the order of the day. Just last week, Brazilian military police were caught on camera after shooting and killing a 38-year-old mother of four and dragging her lifeless body 200 meters down the street in their police van. It is no coincidence that the intensification of long-standing patterns of state repression appears to be particularly acute in the countries that experienced large-scale street protest in the past three years.

Austerity Is Crap: A Brief History of the ‘#USM Future’ Protest Movement

March 28, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Acronym TV, Asher Platts, Austerity, Cuts in higher education, Democracy, Education, Finance and the Economy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Occupy, Poverty, Resistance Report, Solidarity, Student Activism, Student protest, The Punk Patriot, USM Future, USM Protest, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth

For this round of cuts and consolidations, a solidarity between students and faculty had been well established, and grew and flourished under the recognition that we had shared goals in preserving the University of Maine System, not only for their jobs, or for our quality of education, but for the broader benefit of society that a liberal arts education provides, in allowing all working class people to lift themselves up into an intellectual realm that had until only recently in human history been reserved for priests and nobility. A vote of no confidence was issued forth from the Faculty Senate, and Selma Botman resigned, only to be replaced by President Theo Kalikow, who has continued forth advancing the austerity agenda on the University of Southern Maine. Selma Botman, while vacating the seat of the President, was allowed by administrators to continued to draw her salary for the duration of her term, and was in fact hired back as a consultant, and paid an additional $300,000 to write a paper, putting her annual earnings well into the realm of the top 1%. As though to thumb their noses at the student protestors, Administrators gave themselves a raise of $20,000 and upwards.

Students & Faculty In Maine Continue To Organize Against Cuts

March 27, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! Austerity, Democracy, Education, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Human Rights, Student Activism

Hundreds of students and university workers rally outside of the law building at the University of Southern Maine Portland campus on Monday, March 24. When University of Southern Maine administrators announced mass faculty firings and departmental cuts, students, faculty, and staff protested by taking over part of a university building last Friday. A few days—and sit-ins and walk-outs—later, their continued mobilization against the "national corporate war on public education" appears to be resonating with students and university workers across the country. Earlier this month, USM president Theo Kalikow and Provost Michael Stevenson announced a push to cut four academic programs—American and New England studies, geosciences, arts and humanities at the school’s Lewiston-Auburn College facility, and recreation and leisure studies—and up to 50 faculty and staff. The first round of lay-offs took place Friday when a dozen faculty members—including tenured professors—were handed "retrenchment" or layoff letters.

The Afterlife Of The Free Speech Movement’s Mario Savio

March 23, 2014 Clancy Sigal, www.alternet.org Educate! Democracy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Mario Savio, Student Activism

Veterans of the 1964 Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, Calif., an event that electrified young men and women the world over, will return to campus for the 50th anniversary reunion this October. FSM’s most famous leader, Mario Savio, won’t be there because he died in 1996. Savio held fast to the end: radical, reasonable, intransigent. He married and had children, had a nervous breakdown, went back to school, taught math and philosophy and had an early heart attack. Personally, I see his afterlife at least as heroic as his big moment on campus. Normal life ain’t that easy for any of us especially if you’ve been lightning-struck by media attention and peer popularity.

Police Attack Student Protesters in San Fransisco

March 19, 2014 Tyler Kingkade, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Human Rights, Police abuse, Student Activism

The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges said that unless CCSF shows remarkable improvement, the commission will proceed with revoking its accreditation in July 2014, effectively shutting down the school. Demonstrators claim that Agrella does not have their best interests in mind, in light of a tabled proposal that would've raised administrators' pay by 19 percent. Agrella said there are no plans to hand out raises, while three vice chancellors are getting 10 to 13 percent more than their approved salaries, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Meanwhile, faculty have seen their salaries cut in recent years. Campus and city police on Thursday blocked the entrance to Conlan Hall, where the protesters had planned to stage a sit-in. In the clash that followed, two protesters were arrested, including one who was pepper sprayed.

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