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Nonviolence

Shifting Systems With Nonviolent Strategy

April 6, 2018 By Rivera Sun, Transcend.org ,
The secret to successful nonviolent struggle lies in understanding strategy and systems. All systems require participation and resources to survive. Deny those things, and the system will wither away … or concede to meet your demands. Strategy can be that simple. Cut off the water and the plants will die. Block all other exits and the rabbit will come out the hole in front of you. Surround the castle and cut off the food supply and the people will surrender – or starve. Give Archimedes a lever long enough (and a pivot upon which to place it) and he can move the world.  If workers can sustain a strike and keep out scabs then the business owner must raise wages – or lose productivity. If all investors divest from fossil fuels then the industry has no capital with which to continue operating. If everyone boycotts palm oil then there’s no profit in clear-cutting the rainforest.

Why Training Women In Nonviolent Resistance Is Critical To Movement Success

March 3, 2018 Marie Berry and Erica Chenoweth, Wagingnonviolence.org , ,
In the year since Trump’s inauguration, we have seen an outpouring of popular mobilization in resistance to his administration’s policies. Crowd estimates suggest that 5.2-9 million people took to the streets in the United States to protest Trump’s policies or points of view over the past year. Many more have mobilized worldwide in reaction to the rise of right-wing populist movements across the globe, using people power to contest entrenched authority and confront oppressive regimes and systems. Women have been at the forefront of these efforts. The 2017 Women’s March on Washington — whose Sister Marches spanned all 50 states and dozens of other countries — was likely the biggest single-day demonstration in recorded U.S. history. The momentum continued in 2018, with between 1,856,683 and 2,637,214 people marching in Women’s Marches this year.

Gene Sharp, Godfather Of Nonviolent Revolution Dies At 90 Years Old

January 31, 2018 Ruaridh Arrow, Howtostartarevolution.org   , ,
The Albert Einstein Institution has announced that Dr Gene Sharp passed away peacefully on the 28th January at his home in East Boston. He had recently celebrated his 90th Birthday. For almost seven decades Gene dedicated his life to researching and writing on nonviolent means of struggle that might replace violence and war, his central thesis, that political power is held, not by rulers themselves, but by the willing consent of the people and institutions that support them. By studying techniques to undermine these institutions and pull them over to the democratic side, the ruler could be left powerless. Born on the 21st January 1928 to the Reverend Paul Sharp, a traveling minister and Eva Sharp a school teacher, Gene studied first at Ohio State University where he received his undergraduate and masters degrees in political studies...

Movement Strategy For Our Times

January 2, 2018 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, ClearingTheFOGRadio.org , ,
In 2017, more people became activated for social justice. At the same time, white supremacist groups became more visible, marching with torches and chanting words of hatred. There were conflicts between people who disagreed over what tactics would be most effective in stopping the rise of white supremacy and fascism and achieving greater equality and justice. We speak with Rivera Sun about her novels, which use fiction to teach lessons of movement strategy, and about organizing for social change in our times. Her newest book is "The Roots of Resistance: Book Two of the Dandelion Trilogy."

Net Neutrality: Gandhi’s Salt For US

December 16, 2017 Rivera Sun, www.popularresistance.org , ,
Net Neutrality is the keystone issue in the movement of movements. It is poised to become as pivotal to our interconnected struggles as the Salt March was for Gandhi and the Indian Self-Rule Movement. Gandhi's Salt Campaign offers us a model of how to get out of this mess - not just from the odious injustice of the end of Net Neutrality, but also from the tyranny of corporate rule.  In 1930, salt was a keystone, yet stealth issue. When the Indian National Congress tasked Mohandas K. Gandhi with planning a new campaign against the British Empire's colonial rule, no one expected the Salt Satyagraha would unravel the empire that the sun never set upon.

Day 6 Of Countdown To Launch: Rivera Sun

December 5, 2017 Staff, www.popularresistance.org ,
By Popular Resistance. Rivera Sun is an author, activist and movement strategist living in New Mexico. She writes fiction that teaches nonviolent strategy through compelling stories for people of all ages. Her current project is The Roots of Resistance, a sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection, which comes with a nonviolent action study guide. Popular Resistance has published many of Rivera's "Man From the North" articles, written in the voice of one of the characters from the series. She explains her support for Popular Resistance, "Popular Resistance is the place to go if you want to find out what the problems are, what the solutions are and how you can be a part of that solution."

Only Nonviolent Resistance Will Destroy Corporate State

October 19, 2017 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com ,
By Chris Hedges for Truth Dig - The encampments by Native Americans at Standing Rock, N.D., from April 2016 to February 2017 to block construction of the Dakota Access pipeline provided the template for future resistance movements. The action was nonviolent. It was sustained. It was highly organized. It was grounded in spiritual, intellectual and communal traditions. And it lit the conscience of the nation. Native American communities—more than 200 were represented at the Standing Rock encampments, which at times contained up to 10,000 people—called themselves “water protectors.” Day after day, week after week, month after month, the demonstrators endured assaults carried out with armored personnel carriers, rubber bullets, stun guns, tear gas, cannons that shot water laced with chemicals, and sound cannons that can cause permanent hearing loss. Drones hovered overhead. Attack dogs were unleashed on the crowds. Hundreds were arrested, roughed up and held in dank, overcrowded cells. Many were charged with felonies. The press, or at least the press that attempted to report honestly, was harassed and censored, and often reporters were detained or arrested. And mixed in with the water protectors was a small army of infiltrators, spies and agents provocateurs, who often initiated vandalism and rock throwing at law enforcement and singled out anti-pipeline leaders for arrest.

Campaign Nonviolence Organizes Over 1,600 Events For Week Of Actions

October 5, 2017 Maria Benevento, www.ncronline.org ,
By Maria Benevento for NCR - A grassroots movement to bring nonviolence into the mainstream has been quietly but exponentially growing, resulting in 1,600 nonviolent actions in all 50 U.S. states and 16 other countries during the week of Sept. 16-24. For the fourth year in a row, Pace e Bene, an organization founded by Franciscan Friars in 1989 and dedicated to promoting peace, justice and well-being for all, sponsored the Week of Actions as part of Campaign Nonviolence, a long-term movement to build a culture of peace. "We have started this with the hope to get people to 'connect the dots' on issues of violence," said Fr. John Dear, nonviolence outreach coordinator for Pace e Bene, "but also to promote the vision of a new culture of nonviolence, to try to get the movement moving." Campaign Nonviolence asked local event organizers to take a holistic approach, drawing attention to the interconnection of four main issues — poverty, racism, war and environmental destruction — as forms of violence and promoting a positive vision of a culture of nonviolence. Common events included vigils, marches, public lectures, teach-ins, nonviolence trainings and prayer services. In Cincinnati, the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center worked with Dear to launch "Nonviolent Cincinnati" as part of the Nonviolent Cities Project.

Campaign Nonviolence Mounts Nationwide Week Of Actions

September 16, 2017 Aggie Perilli and Jeanine Genauer, www.paceebene.org ,
By Aggie Perilli and Jeanine Genauer for Pace e Bene - Corvallis, OR (September 15, 2017) –Over 1000 marches, actions, events and rallies are poised to take place in all 50 states nationwide as part of Campaign Nonviolence Week of Actions September 16-24. This unprecedented campaign of grassroots activism calls for nonviolent action against racism, war, poverty, and environmental destruction. In its inaugural year of 2014, 230 events took place. In response to the hate speech presently dividing our nation, this year people will join together in more than 1,000 rallies, to spread the word of unity and peace. “People across the United States and beyond are taking Campaign Nonviolence to the streets to end violence and injustices, and begin peacemaking,” said Dr. Ken Butigan, co-founder of Campaign Nonviolence and professor at DePaul University. “This unified voice calls for concrete policy shifts to build peace, economic justice, and environmental healing—and insists on being heard.” Campaign Nonviolence is sponsored by Pace e Bene, a non-profit organization committed to building a culture of peace through active nonviolence and shared understanding and partnerships to protect human rights, abolish war as well as nuclear weapons, end poverty, challenge injustice, heal the planet—and meet today’s profound spiritual task: to build a just, peaceful and nonviolent world.

Is Violence The Way To Fight Racism?

August 27, 2017 Peter Singer, www.projectsyndicate.org , , ,
By Peter Singer for Project Syndicate. PRINCETON, NJ – Should rallies by neo-Nazis and white supremacists be met with violence? That question was raised by the tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12. White supremacists held a rally to protest the planned removal from a public park of a statue of Robert E. Lee, the leader of the Confederate army during the Civil War. A counter-protest was organized, and street fighting broke out. A woman, Heather Heyer, was killed and 19 people injured when James Fields, a white nationalist, drove his car at high speed into a crowd of counter-protesters.

Noam Chomsky: AntiFa Is ‘A Major Gift To The Right’

August 24, 2017 Maya Oppenheim, www.independent.co.uk , , ,
By Maya Oppenheim for The Independent. Noam Chomsky has criticised the anti-fascist movement and argued its actions are wrong in principle and it is a “major gift to the right”. The eminent intellectual, who is described as the father of modern linguistics, argued the movement was self-destructive and constituted a tiny faction on the periphery of the left. Antifa, shorthand for anti-fascist organisations, refers to a loose coalition of militant, decentralised, grassroots groups which are opposed to the far-right. The movement, which was founded in Europe in the 1920s, has dominated headlines in the wake of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville earlier this month. Neo-Nazis, KKK members and “alt-right” supporters clashed with anti-fascists and a woman was left dead after a car ploughed into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters.

Beyond Violence And Nonviolence

July 4, 2017 Ben Case, www.roarmag.org , ,
By Ben Case for Roar Magazine. The argument over violence and nonviolence — one of the oldest and most divisive on the left — is back. Broken windows, mass arrests and one well-timed punch marked Donald Trump’s inauguration alongside massive nonviolent marches. In the weeks since, demonstrators converged on international airports, adding weight to a heated judicial fight over a sweeping ban on refugees and immigrants from seven countries, and fiery protests outside a famed hate-monger’s talk at Berkeley cancelled the event and forced the speaker to flee under police escort. Against the backdrop of a renascent fascist menace, the mix of tactical approaches has brought renewed fervor to the violence-vs-nonviolence debate. The dispute has been calcified into fixed positions, where it becomes less about persuading others to a strategic position and more about winning a point for one’s team.

Authoritarianism Is Making A Comeback

June 25, 2017 Maria J. Stephan and Timothy Snyder, www.theguardian.com , ,
By Maria J. Stephan and Timothy Snyder for The Guardian. It is time for those who support democracy to remember what activists from around the world have paid a price to learn: how to win. Modern authoritarians rely on repression, intimidation, corruption and co-optation to consolidate their power. The dictator’s handbook mastered by Orban in Hungary, Erdogan in Turkey, Maduro in Venezuela, Zuma in South Africa, Duterte in the Philippines and Trump here provides the traditional tactics: attack journalists, blame dissent on foreigners and “paid protestors,” scapegoat minorities and vulnerable groups, weaken checks on power, reward loyalists, use paramilitaries, and generally try to reduce politics to a question of friends and enemies, us and them.

Mobilizing For A Culture Of Nonviolence This Fall

June 9, 2017 Staff, www.paceebene.org , , ,
By Campaign Nonviolence. The time has come for powerful nonviolent resistance to challenge the calamity we face at this critical moment and to set our society on a new course. The time has come for all of us to pool our nonviolent power to resist the tragedy we face and to signal, once and for all, our determination to build a world of peace, racial justice, economic equality, and a healthy planet for all. We call on you—and all people everywhere—to join us in training for nonviolent action, in creating community for nonviolent action, and in taking nonviolent action in this challenging time. The power of this movement will not be rooted in fear or hatred. It will be grounded in our love for the earth and all its inhabitant. It will be nourished by courage and compassion. And it will be fostered by the great way of nonviolence, which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the love that does justice.”

April Showed Huge Increase In Nonviolent Protests Across The US

June 2, 2017 Alexandra Rosenmann, www.alternet.org ,
By Alexandra Rosenmann for AlterNet - April showed a huge increase in nonviolent protest activity across the U.S. As co-director of the Crowd Counting Consortium, Erica Chenoweth has been collecting political crowd data since the Women's March in January. She also produces a monthly breakdown for the Washington Post on political activism trends based on the numbers. Based on Chenoweth's data for April, here are five signs indicating engagement in the resistance to Trump is on the rise. 1. The reported crowd size increased more than 60 percent. According to Chenoweth's report, "April had a 62 percent increase over the number of reported crowds in March [as well as] a major increase in participation—between eight and 13 times greater than the estimated number who participated in March." The largest event was the March for Science, in which approximately half a million Americans participated.
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