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Nonviolence

Building A Movement Of Peace Teams

February 6, 2014 Jessica Anderson, www.mettacenter.org , ,
Meta Peace Team is conceptualized as a way to plan, train, and deploy peace teams where invited both domestically and internationally—again not to take sides or to “fix” problems, but to create space for people to come up with their own solutions to conflicts. The teams are made up of people who are trained in violence de-escalation techniques, committed to the internal work of personal centering so as to be able to overcome fear in the midst of violence, and willing to work collaboratively and with consensus processes. They believe that conflict per se can be constructive but that the use of violence to deal with conflict tends to be destructive—and, accordingly, they see the core of their mission as protecting people from violence no matter where that violence comes from or toward whom it is directed. And, they “walk their talk.”

Man From The North: ‘Blowing Up The Armory’

February 2, 2014 Rivera Sun, www.dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
We must look starkly at the flailing status of our struggle: these institutions have been invaded by corporate control and extreme greed. We no longer have the option of blowing up these armories – too many innocent civilians are entrenched inside these conquered territories. Nonviolent struggle rejects the notions of “acceptable levels of casualties”. No loss of human life or causing of physical harm can be justified by the worthiness of our cause. We have never had the militaristic luxury of wanton destruction. But neither can we be passive. The tools of our civilization are being forged into weapons of mass destruction. Our responsibility is clear. We must help citizens to safety. We must remove the arsenal from being used to cause harm to ourselves and others.

Green Shadow Cabinet Responds To State Of The Union

January 30, 2014 Staff, www.greenshadowcabinet.us , , , , , , ,
It is astounding how much clear thinking you can find on the Internet criticizing President Obama's State of the Union address. It seems less people are fooled and more people are speaking out about the inadequacy of the speech and the over-the-top show-man-ship displayed in the made for TV presentation. The Green Shadow Cabinet has responded to the 2014 State of the Union address with a critique of the policies, priorities and omissions made by President Barack Obama on Tuesday night. The following articles represent an alternative set of principles and policies that acknowledge and address critical issues facing the United States and the world.

Radical Kindness: Inspiration From A Fearless Rebel

January 30, 2014 Rivera Sun, ,
There is nothing rebellious about violence at this point in human history; it has been normal, accepted, and constant for centuries. Rage and violence are the status quo of a socio-economic system built from exploitation and maintained by cruelty, greed, and destruction of the planet. If we wish to truly rebel against a greedy, warmongering, fear-inducing, corrupt, controlling socio-economic and political system that thrives on keeping its populace isolated, competitive, and antagonistic towards each other and the rest of the world, that rebellion requires not rage or violence, but kindness. Kindness cannot be equated with passivity, however. There is nothing kind about being passive when life-as-usual has become a march toward death. As lovers of humanity, we must admit that our leaders have severe addictions and abusive tendencies. It is an act of kindness - toward ourselves and our opponents - to stand up firmly and put an end to such abuse.

If MLK Were Alive Today (video)

January 20, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , , , , , , , ,
No one can say what King would be doing or saying if government agencies at the local, state and federal level (including the FBI and CIA with an assist from a Mafia henchman) had not conspired to murder him.

My Homage to MLK

January 20, 2014 Michael N. Nagler, www.PopularResistance.org ,
When Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. says that “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hatred cannot drive out hatred; only love can do that,” he is pointing out a simple, polar difference between the two forces that determine the quality and direction of our life. St. Augustine long before him had said repeatedly in his monumental City of God, “there are two loves’ (or basic drives), that lead respectively to two world orders.” There are times when we fail to see things because they’re too simple. It takes a kind of courage to peer into that stark, underlying simplicity, to grasp that those two forces, with their opposite character and opposite results, really make up the texture of the moral choices facing us every time we address the major issues of our lives, personal or political. It is the failure to see these two forces as the underlying criterion of our choices, almost without exception, that makes our decisions such a disastrous incompetence.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. Gave Up His Guns

January 17, 2014 Mark Engler and Paul Engler, wagingnonviolence.org , ,
King’s political genius was in putting the institutional weight of a major national civil rights organization behind an ambitious, escalating deployment of civil resistance tactics. In the case of Birmingham, this meant taking many of the approaches that had been tried before — the economic pressure leveled against merchants during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the dramatic sit-ins of Nashville, the fill-the-jails arrest strategy of Albany — and combining them in a multi-staged assault that sociologist and civil rights historian Aldon Morris would dub “a planned exercise in mass disruption.” In creating an engineered conflict that could capture the national spotlight, King took huge risks. It would have been far easier for an organization of the size and background of the SCLC to turn toward more mainstream lobbying and legal action — much as the NAACP had done. Instead, by following SNCC’s student activists in embracing nonviolent confrontation, SCLC organizers and their local allies created a dramatic clash with segregationists that put the normally hidden injustices of racism on stark public display.

At the Heart of the Problem

January 9, 2014 Rivera Sun, www.PopularResistance.org ,
While the armed insurrection of the first American Revolution replaced a unjust monarch with a small, empowered elite sitting at the helm of a Constitutional Republic (as my right-wing friends are quick to remind me), the potential of an effective, nonviolent struggle at this time points to an opportunity for a much greater democratic society than Americans have ever experienced. A growing preference for "power with" versus "power over" has brought us to an interesting moment of reflection. Have we outgrown the rationale for representative democracy? The Founding Fathers (and their contemporary fans and supporters) feared the "rule of the mob". At this point in time, however, it is safe to say that the "rule of the elite" is propelling the mass of the populace into poverty, sickness, homelessness, and environmental collapse.

Jerry Seinfeld’s ‘Heckle Therapy’ Offers a Lesson in Nonviolent Self-Defense

January 8, 2014 Bryan Farrell, www.wagingnonviolence.org
Very early on in my career, I hit upon this idea of being the Heckle Therapist. So that when people would say something nasty, I would immediately become very sympathetic to them and try to help them with their problem and try to work out what was upsetting them, and try to be very understanding with their anger. It opened up this whole fun avenue for me as a comedian, and no one had ever seen that before. Some of my comedian friends used to call me – what did they say? – that I would counsel the heckler instead of fighting them.

Resolved: Let’s Make 2014 A Year Of Nonviolence

January 4, 2014 Carol Bragg, www.providencejournal.com
Although there have been major social-change movements in this country that have used nonviolent methods, little has been done to encourage individuals to adopt nonviolence as a way of life. When acts of violence have become so commonplace as to seem normal, we need to teach nonviolence to curb the violence that plagues society: child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, gang activity, sexual assault, bullying and harassment, date rape, gun violence, racial and religious prejudice, homophobia and road rage, among others. We are a nation on edge, fear-ridden, angry, too willing to settle scores, and seemingly incapable of resolving conflicts. We’ve forgotten how to live together harmoniously.

Join The Movement To Mainstream Nonviolence!

December 30, 2013 Pace e Bene, www.campaignnonviolence.org
Campaign Nonviolence invites all of us to: Practice active nonviolence toward ourselves, toward all others, and toward the world. Join people everywhere in building and nurturing a culture of active nonviolence. Take nonviolent action together. In Campaign Nonviolence's first year, we will take public action for a more nonviolent world September 210-27, 2014 in Washington, DC and in cities across the US and beyond. Launched on the International Day of Peace, Campaign Nonviolence Week 2014 wiill call for concrete policy shifts toward reversing the climate crisis, ending poverty and abolishing war, with an initial focus on banning military drones. Beyond 2014 Campaign Nonviolence will continue to build this people power movement for peace, economic justice, healing the planet, and for the well-being of all.

Man From The North: How To Fight A Tyrant

December 15, 2013 Rivera Sun, www.dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
It is not enough to hurl your rage at tyranny . . . every bully knows how to dodge a hothead. Anger is the alcohol of emotions. We flush, courageous in its drunken heat, but our blows miss, we flail, and our opponent easily dispatches us. I’ve had my share of schoolyard skirmishes. I’ve been provoked and beaten soundly. I’ve swung my fist in honest rage . . . and missed. More times than I would like to count, my temper tripped me into fights. I won some; I lost others. I’ve come to this . . . anger is a weakness. Some claim it has its purpose. “Righteous” anger is often lauded. Righteous or not, experience warns me that while my anger has served me little . . . my loss of control has aided my opponent greatly.

Transforming Anger Into Nonviolent Power

December 9, 2013 Stephanie Van Hook, www.opendemocracy.net
As Leymah Gbowee stood in front of a crowd of women at her church in Monrovia, praying for an end to the civil war that was raging in Liberia, she had no idea of the consequences that were about to unfold. A specialist in healing from trauma, Gbowee and her allies had spent months visiting mosques, markets and churches in order to mobilize a nascent peace movement. By the late summer of 2002, she had become recognized as the leader of Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, which held daily non-violent demonstrations and sit-ins in defiance of orders from Charles Taylor, the Liberian President at the time. Eighteen months later, in August 2003, the war was brought to an end. Gbowee’s efforts, along with those of newly-elected President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, were recognized by the award of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

Militarism And Violence Are So Yesterday: It’s Time To Make Peace The Reality

November 22, 2013 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.truth-out.org ,
Many factors make this an opportune time to move toward greater use of nonviolent practices. The most obvious, of course, is that the United States and the planet can no longer support American Empire and its endless wars. We cannot continue to spend more than $1 trillion each year on the military and national security state while the basic needs of our population are not being met and our domestic infrastructure is crumbling. The empire economy quite literally is killing us. And our bloated military is not just killing us and others around the world, mostly innocent civilians, but it is killing the Earth, too. This report published by Project Censored calls the US Department of Defense the worst polluter on the planet. It states: "This impact includes uninhibited use of fossil fuels, massive creation of greenhouse gases, and extensive release of radioactive and chemical contaminants into the air, water, and soil." And that does not include the private military contractors and weapons industries. The era of American Empire is coming to an end. The signs are everywhere.

VIDEO: Nonviolent Resistance Becoming Increasingly Effective

November 6, 2013 Erica Chenoweth, www.wagingnonviolence.org , , ,
The key factor to success is the power that mass, broad-based participation provides for a movement. It turns out that, on average, nonviolent campaigns tend to attract far more participants than their violent counterparts. This allows nonviolent campaigns to create or exploit cracks within the regime’s pillars of support (economic elites, business elites, security forces, state media and civilian bureaucrats). Such cracks are difficult to create without mass mobilization with unarmed civilians, who simultaneously demonstrate their commitment, their noncooperation with the exiting order and their disinterest in physically harming those whom they oppose. In addition to imposing serious economic, political and social costs on those who resist the movement’s demands, civil resistance is also a form of psychological warfare — and a rather effective one at that.
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