Government

Going To Jail For Growing Pot Where It Is Legal

March 4, 2014 Carly Schwartz and Matt Ferner, Huffington Post Live Resist! Government, Marijuana, Police Ab, Politics

Robert Duncan moved from Los Angeles to Northern California in 2010 to manage marijuana growing operations for a collective of medical marijuana dispensaries. Although California voters legalized medical cannabis more than 17 years ago, the plant remains illegal under federal law, and the Obama administrationlaunched a renewed crackdown on marijuana in California in 2011. That October, Duncan’s grow house was raided. A few months later, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner indicted him and others involved in the dispensary business on the grounds that it had grown too large. Despite California’s struggle with prison overcrowding, and despite new federal guidelines that say...

Blockupy Ireland Plans Occupy Dame Street

March 3, 2014 Blockupy Ireland, www.facebook.com Resist! Austerity, Government

Ireland Says No have announced 2 days of rolling civil disobedience for Dublin city, on Thursday the 6th and Friday the 7th of March. This is in response to the hosting of the European People's Party European conference being held in the National Conference Centre, Dublin. The EPP is far from a people's party, and represents corporations and the very rich.The EPP is a collection of radical, right-wing political parties from across Europe, many in power currently, such as governments and regimes led by Angela Merkel in Germany and Enda Kenny in Ireland. EPP members encourage and engage in corruption and deception-politics through their respective national political parties, evidence of which is to be found at local, national and European level

New Forms Arising To Remake Society In More Inclusive Way

February 27, 2014 Felix Stalder, www.eurozine.com Organize! Democracy, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Government

Over the last two decades, the Internet has been a laboratory for social innovation. One of the most unexpected collective discoveries has been the existence of another mode of organization to achieve large-scale co-ordination. This mode relies neither on the market, where price signals perform important co-ordinating functions horizontally (as Friedrich Hayek famously stated), nor on public and private bureaucracies, where commands facilitate vertical co-ordination.[1] Rather, it relies on voluntary co-operation to enhance the use value of a shared resource. Yochai Benkler dubbed this mode "commons-based peer production."[2] While not all forms of co-operation need be beneficial to society at large, the structural experience of co-operation is a key element in the political project of strengthening social solidarity. This solidarity is more than an empty slogan, it is grounded in concrete, everyday experiences, renewed through collective action and guided by the conviction that one's own personal goals and aspirations cannot be achieved against others, but with and through them.

Youth Protest Against Keystone XL This Weekend

February 27, 2014 STAFF, XL Dissent Resist! Climate Change, Environment, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government

Join us in Washington DC March 1-2 to tell President Obama to reject the northern leg of Keystone XL and protect us from a future defined by climate chaos. The plan is to bring together a powerful student-led escalated action in Washington DC to stop Keystone XL on March 2nd, 2014. To participate in the action you will need to plan to be in DC for at least two days — with the unlikely possibility of a third. First, all participants will be required to join a nonviolent direct action training, which will be held from 5-9 PM on Saturday 3/1. Dinner will be provided, and it will be at Thurgood Marshall Center, 1816 12th Street NW. At the training we will discuss the plan for the action, practice key elements of the event, and go through all the legal and logistical issues involved with the action. Everyone who wishes to participate in civil disobedience on the 2nd must attend the training on the 1st.

Demonstrations Demand Erdogan Resignation Over Corruption

February 27, 2014 Manolis Kostidis, www.balkaneu.com Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Solidarity, Türkiye

Everybody in Turkey are wondering if the sound document is real or a fake as the Turkish prime minister claims. The minister of technology and science, Fikri Işık, stated that the Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (TUBITAK) will examine the sound document and decide on its validity. A few hours later there was a government intervention and five of the institution’s members were removed. The main opposition claims that Erdogan is trying to set the investigators himself, in order to come up with a verdict that will speak of a montaged document. The leader of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy political party, Selahattin Demirtaş , called the prime minister to visit TUBITAK and prove that the voice that can be heard on the recording is not his own. Erdogan however has not denied that the sound that can be heard is that of his own voice, but that the whole document is a product of montage.

Manning: Security State Is Undermining The US Constitution

February 23, 2014 Chelsea Manning via Aaron Kirkhouse, www.privatemanning.org Educate! Chelsea Manning, Government, Human Rights, NSA, Surveillance, US Constitution

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the dangers of withholding documents, legal interpretations, and court jurisprudence from the public that pertain to the right to “life, liberty, and property” of a state’s citizens is as fundamental and important to protecting against such human rights abuses. When the public lacks the ability to access what its government is doing, it ceases to be involved in the governing process. There is a distinct difference between citizens, in which people are entitled to rights and privileges protected by and from the state, and subjects, in which people are placed under the absolute authority and control of the state. In essence, this is the difference between tyranny and freedom. To echo a maxim from Milton and Foes Friedman: a society that puts secrecy – in the sense of state secrecy – ahead of transparency and accountability will end up neither secure nor free.

Toxic Legacy: Uranium Mining In New Mexico

February 21, 2014 Dahr Jamail, www.truthout.org Educate! Government, Health Care, Uranium

In New Mexico, a disproportionate number of unremediated uranium mine and mill sites are on lands traditionally used and occupied by the Navajo. Thus, a disproportionate amount of pollution from uranium sites occurs in Navajo communities, so the Navajo continue to bear the brunt of the health problems associated with these toxic sites. Navajo families have bathed in, showered in, washed clothes in, played in and drunk radioactive water. Their men worked in the mines while breathing carcinogenic gases then spread radionuclides throughout their families simply by returning home from work. But it wasn't until the spill was designated as a superfund site in 1983 that the Navajo who were being irradiated and sickened for more than 30 years learned the truth.

Uprising Against Illegal Mining Pits Villagers Against Miners & Police

February 21, 2014 Loren Bell, news.mongabay.com Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Indigenous Rights, Mining

On Tuesday (02/18) Dozens of fishing boats surrounded the ship while more protesters attempted to block the beach. Armed police reportedly leveled their weapons at protesters in an attempted to quell uprising. At least one boat was destroyed when a water-taxi collided with it. All four occupants were rescued with minor injuries. The villagers are protesting plans to mine the island under a concession permit issued to the Chinese-owned MMP by the local government in violation of Indonesian law. The permit grants mining rights to 2,000 hectares that potentially contain iron ore. The total area of Bangka Island is 4,800 hectares. Villagers claim the mining activities will force them to relocate, and will destroy the forest and ocean upon which they depend.

UK Protests Against Austerity Result In Protest Restrictions

February 21, 2014 Steve Rushton, Occupy.com Resist! Austerity, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Occupy

On January 29, Birmingham hosted a national rally as part of the growing UK student movement. The clock tower, Big Joe, was reoccupied in the afternoon, repeating the long-held student protest tradition of sit-ins and occupations. This time, however, security guards sought to throw the students out of the building and their aggressive entry wascaptured on film. Once they were forced outside, the students were kettled by police – an act which the police denied, but whose denial is directly contradicted in this footage of students chanting, “Let us out!” An interview with the senior officer on duty revealed that protesters were forced to give their names in order to leave the kettle. The use of kettling for intelligence gathering purposes has been condemned by the UN and judged unlawful in the British High Court.

White House Arrests Faith Leaders Protesting Detention & Deportation of Immigrants

February 21, 2014 Staff, www.NotOneMoreDeportation.com Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Immigration

The action includes Pilar Molina whose husband is on hunger strike at a detention center in Norristown, Pennsylvania and Hermina Gallegos from Phoenix, Arizona where families and detainees are refusing to eat until their loved ones are released from extended detention. Their individual cases highlight the urgent need for the President to take immediate action and stop record deportations.. While it is undisputed is that the President has the legal authority to expand the deferred action for childhood arrivals program and suspend deportations, he has chosen not to do so thus far. Recent polls show the majority of Americans believe that the government’s main focus should include the undocumented, not deport them. Earlier this year, Nearly 5,000 people of faith have signed a petition to the President urging him to take action that reads in part, “In all our faith traditions we are taught to love our neighbor...

Movement Victory: Obama Drops Cuts To Social Security

February 21, 2014 Reid J. Epstein an Edward Isaac Dovere, www.politico.com Resist! Barack Obama, Finance and the Economy, Government

Arguing that Republicans took no steps toward serious negotiations in response — and that they were no closer to the broad tax reform the president would want in return — these officials said they were done with that detour into using the budget as a negotiating position, and had returned to the idea of it as an expression of the president’s priorities. White House officials added that Obama’s chained CPI offer remains on the table, should the Republicans experience some sort of an epiphany on the issue — but that they weren’t counting on that development. Obama’s 2015 budget proposal comes about as Democrats and Republicans are operating under a two-year bipartisan spending agreement reached in December by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the leaders of the Senate and House budget committees.

Activist Files Suit Against State Rep

February 21, 2014 Peter Marcus, www.coloradostatesman.com Resist! Corporatism, Democracy, Government

The issue arose following a heated debate in the legislature last year over foreclosure reform. As the chairwoman of the Business, Labor, Economic and Workforce Development Committee, Williams oversaw the effort to pass foreclosure reform. Activists said they had tried to schedule meetings with Williams, but that she would not honor their requests. In a legal letter sent to Williams on behalf of O’Connor by attorney Darold Killmer, the attorney claims that Williams attempted to retaliate against O’Connor for his efforts to professionally engage with Williams. “You sought a civil protection order against Mr. O’Connor to silence his constitutionally protected speech,” surmises Killmer. “This form of retaliation and abuse of process at the hands of a public official is especially troubling.”

Operation Nazification

February 21, 2014 David Swanson, WarIsACrime.org Educate! Government, Human Rights, Wars and Militarism

After World War II, the U.S. military hired sixteen hundred former Nazi scientists and doctors, including some of Adolf Hitler's closest collaborators, including men responsible for murder, slavery, and human experimentation, including men convicted of war crimes, men acquitted of war crimes, and men who never stood trial. Some of the Nazis tried at Nuremberg had already been working for the U.S. in either Germany or the U.S. prior to the trials. Some were protected from their past by the U.S. government for years, as they lived and worked in Boston Harbor, Long Island, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, Alabama, and elsewhere, or were flown by the U.S. government to Argentina to protect them from prosecution. Some trial transcripts were classified in their entirety to avoid exposing the pasts of important U.S. scientists.

Southern Illinois Says No to Peabody Coal at Historic Hearing

February 20, 2014 Jeff Biggers, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Coal, Energy, Environment, Government

Outnumbering Peabody Energy supporters more than four to one among those willing to make public comments, outraged residents, farmers and former miners expertly broke down the inconsistencies and errors in the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s (IEPA) tentative determination to issue a water quality permit at a packed strip mine hearing on Tuesday in the heart of Illinois’ coal country. It was a historic evening in Harrisburg, Illinois—only a few miles from where Peabody Coal sank its first coal mine in 1895—and for first time in decades, southern Illinois residents brought the spotlight to issues of civil rights and the state’s spiraling crisis from a poorly regulated coal mining rush. “They are ringing the bell for the death of Rocky Branch,” said Rita Karns, whose family has farmed and lived in the famed Shawnee Forest area for generations, “and we’ve got to stop it.”

The Hunger Strike To Stop Deportations

February 19, 2014 Asher Platts, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Immigrant Rights, Immigration

In response to the 45,000 people being detained by United States Immigration Officials, the Arizona-based human rights group Puenteaz has organized a hunger strike led by family members and friends of those in detention. The hunger strike started on February 17th, and will continue until March 3rd. In Phoenix Arizona, protesters are camped out in front of the ICE office there. Solidarity actions are happening nationally as well, with 32 protesters being arrested as part of a non-violent civil disobedience action in front of the White House in Washington DC, to mark the first day of the hunger strike. This peaceful protest has already drawn the ire of intolerant community members. A frozen burrito with the message, “learn english wetback go back to mexico” scrawled on it in sharpie marker was thrown into the camp by an anonymous passerby on day two of the hunger strike.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources