Nonviolence

Campaign Nonviolence Builds Across Country

September 26, 2014 Ryan Hall, www.paceebene.org/ Organize! Nonviolence

We've arrived at day five of Campaign Nonviolence Week of Actions! Reports of marches, vigils, rallies, trainings, prayers and meditations for a culture of peace and an end to war, poverty and environmental destruction continue to roll in from across the country! Today we posted a great op-ed written by CNV organizer Mary Ellen Quinn in Bangor, Maine , entitled "At home, in football, in Iraq, we dwell in a culture of violence — but we’re not paying attention." American Samoa held a nonviolence symposium at their local community college to teach nonviolent methods that address poverty, war and the climate crisis and they're preparing for a Friday anti-violence march; Merrimack, NH held a peace procession between two local weapons manufacturers including a drone facility; activists held an anti-drone rally at Volk Field in Wisconsin; and CNV organizers in Chicago, ILCNV3 held a march through downtown for peace, people and the planet that included great speakers including Pace e Bene Director, Ken Butigan, and CNV volunteer and DePaul student Nico May.

Tackling The Climate Catastrophe Strategically

September 25, 2014 Robert J. Burrowes, www.popularresistance.org Strategize! Climate Change, Environment, Nonviolence

If you like to ask or beg your oppressor to go easy on you, then you do not need to read this article. And if you like to do what makes you feel good at the time, irrespective of its strategic impact, then this article is not for you either. My interest in tackling violence, in whatever form it takes, has always been to take action myself that leaves the perpetrator powerless (but, hopefully, a convert too). I also like to be strategic so that the impact of my action is long-lasting (in fact, preferably permanent) and structurally reduces the violence in our world. Here's how I work. I never vote or lobby elites, nor do I participate in actions designed to do this, such as the recent People's Climate March in New York (and elsewhere). My analysis, reinforced by decades of casual observation, is that lobbying elites is a complete waste of time and that a strategy that focuses on engaging 'ordinary' individuals and a diverse range of grassroots groups to take action in the desired direction is far more effective.

Five Arrested At White House In Anti-War Protest

September 23, 2014 Anne Meador, DC Media Group, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Iraq, ISIS, Nonviolence, Syria, Wars and Militarism

A few dozen proponents of nonviolence demonstrated in front of the White House the morning after U.S.-led airstrikes on targets in Syria. They attempted to deliver a letter to President Obama calling for drastic changes in policy regarding militarism, poverty and the environment, and they engaged in a civil disobedience action by blocking a White House entrance. Five were arrested. At the same time, President Obama delivered remarks about the airstrikes in front of Marine One on the White House lawn, touting the strength of a multinational coalition. He then departed for the United Nations in New York. Signs at the protest said things such as "No U.S. Military Intervention in Syria,” “Reparations Not More Bombs,” and “There Is No Military Solution." Three demonstrators wore orange jumpsuits and black hoods and carried a banner protesting Guantanamo Bay prison. Several wore blue scarves, symbolizing their identification as global citizens, and expressing solidarity with women and youth in Afghanistan, where the blue scarf movement originated.

Campaign Nonviolence: Enough War!

September 14, 2014 Ryan Hall, www.paceebene.org Resist! Nonviolence, Peace

Campaign Nonviolence has now reached 170+ nonviolent actions being planned throughout the United States and beyond September 21-27! With news of unending war, the suffering of those in poverty and the tragedy of climate change, together we will raise our voices to say enough! Please check our list of actions to see if there is a local event happening near you to join in! It will take all of us to create change! If you are unable to participate in a local action or would simply like to be solidarity with those struggling for a nonviolent world, please join others across the country during the week of actions Sept 21-27for a rotating 24 hour fast organized by Pax Christi SoCal.

Online Study Of Nonviolent Action With Michael Nagler

August 30, 2014 Staff, www.mettacenter.org Strategize! Nonviolence

The Metta Center for Nonviolence will be holding a series of weekly online and in person courses on nonviolence modeled after Michael Nagler's popular class at UC Berkeley. It is an in-depth study of what M.K. Gandhi called “the greatest power at the disposal of humankind.” The greatest-and arguably, the most neglected. What can we learn from the theory, history and potential of this great force? How can we practice it safely and effectively? These and more are questions we will be looking into. Michael Nagler is Professor emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC, Berkeley, where he co-founded the Peace and Conflict Studies Program in which he taught the immensely popular nonviolence course. Among the books he has authored are The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide to Practical Action (2014) as well as The Search for a Nonviolent Future, which received a 2002 American Book Award and has been translated into Korean, Arabic, Italian and other languages.

Campaign Nonviolence Movement Growing

August 14, 2014 Staff, www.paceebene.org Organize! Climate Change, Environment, Nonviolence, Poverty, Wars and Militarism

Campaign Nonviolence is a new movement building a culture of peace by mainstreaming active nonviolence and by connecting the long-term nonviolent global struggles to abolish war, end poverty, reverse climate change, and challenge all violence. Campaign Nonviolence will launch this long-term movement September 21-27, 2014 by taking nonviolent action in hundreds of local cities across the United States and beyond. At a moment when the horror of war is palpably clear—and the ongoing violence of poverty and climate change wreaks havoc across our planet—we have a chance to say with one voice that we are ready to join together for a better way. This is the vision and foundation of Campaign Nonviolence. Campaign Nonviolence is now organizing in 50 states and the District of Columbia with 115 nonviolent actions planned for September 21-27 in every part of the country, and new ones are being posted every day. Campaign Nonviolence actions include marches, rallies, vigils, nonviolent direct action or other forms of public witness.

Shooting Sparks Call For Peaceful Gatherings Nationwide

August 13, 2014 Terrell Jermaine Starr, www.alternet.org Organize! Nonviolence, police brutality, Protest, Racism

Less than a month after the choking death of Eric Garner by an NYPD officer, police in Ferguson, Mo., shot 18-year-old Mike Brown to death in broad daylight. Many in the black community were still in shock over Garner's death when photos of Brown's body lying on the pavement began circulating on social media. Feminista Jones, a community activist and blogger, is organizing what she's calling National Moment of Silence 2014 gatherings (or #NMOS14) across the nation, so people can mourn the killings of black people at the hands of law enforcement. In less than 24 hours, Jones' efforts have led to more than 30 vigils being organized around the country, set to begin the same time Thursday at 7pm EST. Jones told AlterNet that the frustration unfolding in the St. Louis area needs to be channeled into calm spaces where people in disenfranchised communities can network and move forward with constructive ways to heal and take action against the injustices that have affected them.

Apply Non-Violent Direct Action To MIC

August 4, 2014 Sherwood Ross, www.opednews.com Strategize! Direct Action, Nonviolence, Wars and Militarism

Why is there no non-violent outcry against America's military-industrial complex?(MIC) A Congress that is complicit in its wars, surely will not reign it in. While the MIC contractors during the U.S. invasions of the Middle East and Africa have reaped billions in profit, the fact is probably a majority of Americans are war-weary and want out of President Obama's ongoing foreign entanglements, replete with drone warfare and other crimes against humanity. Yet their elected representatives in Congress continue voting $700 billion annual budgets to wage wars and to create hideous new weapons of mass destruction ranging from more lethal (if that is possible) atomic bombs to germ warfare, both illegal by treaty. Americans have been gulled into believing that the 2,000 military bases they operate around the world are "defensive", and can prevent a terrorist attack---the folly of which was proved on 9/11. In fact, they are springboards for military control of every part of the globe. The Pentagon, says The Washington Post, also has a Special Operations Command that operates in at least 65 nations that is largely unknown to Americans.

The Political Objective And Strategic Goal Of Nonviolent Actions

July 24, 2014 Robert J Burrowes, www.dkeenan.com Strategize! Activism, Direct Action, Nonviolence

All nonviolent struggles are conducted simultaneously in the political and strategic spheres, and these spheres, which are distinct, interact throughout. I have discussed this at length elsewhere.1 Despite this, only rarely have nonviolent struggles been conducted with a conscious awareness of this vitally important relationship. Gandhi's campaigns were very effective partly because he understood the distinction and relationship between politics and strategy in nonviolent struggle. And the failure of many campaigns can be attributed, in part, to the fact that most activists do not. To illustrate the distinction and the relationship between these two spheres, and to highlight their vital importance, this article discusses them within the simpler context of nonviolent actions.

The Silent Power Of Boycotts And Blockades

July 10, 2014 Kanya D'Almeida, www.ipsnews.net Resist! Nonviolence, Peace, Wars and Militarism

Peruse a few reports on global military expenditure and you will not be able to shake the image of the planet as one massive army camp, patrolled by heavily weaponised guards in a plethora of uniforms. Last year, the world spent about 1.76 trillion dollars on military activity according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The year before, arms sales among SIPRI’s ‘Top 100’ companies touched 410 billion dollars. It is estimated that 1,000 people die from gun violence every single day. The newly founded Pan African Network on Nonviolence and Peacebuilding is the first regional initiative of its kind dedicated to connecting African grassroots organisers around nonviolent resistance. But scattered amongst the barracks of this planetary war zone are scores of white flags, wielded daily by the many millions of people engaged in nonviolent resistance to the forces that threaten their existence. Nearly 120 of these peace activists are currently assembled in Cape Town’s City Hall, for the quadrennial meeting of the 93-year-old War Resister’s International (WRI), a global network of activists from far-flung regions fighting on every imaginable front, from anti-trafficking in Australia to peace and reconciliation in Rwanda.

Armed Resistance In The Civil Rights Movement

June 17, 2014 Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, www.prospect.org Strategize! Black Power, Civil Rights, History, Nonviolence, Racism

On his first visit to Martin Luther King Jr.’s house in Montgomery, Alabama, the journalist William Worthy began to sink into an armchair. He snapped up again when nonviolent activist Bayard Rustin yelled, “Bill, wait, wait! Couple of guns on that chair!” Worthy looked behind him and saw two loaded pistols nestled on the cushion. “Just for self-defense,” King said. In his new book, This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible, Charles E. Cobb, a former field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a visiting professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, explores what he sees as one of the movement’s forgotten contradictions: Guns made it possible. According to Cobb, civil-rights leaders recognized that armed resistance was sometimes necessary to preserve their peaceful mission. Guns kept people like King alive. Danielle L. McGuire, an assistant professor of history at Wayne State University, argues that armed self-defense was also far more common for black women in the South than has generally been acknowledged.

Calling ALL Knitters: Join The Rewoolution!

June 9, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Resist! Arts, Creative Resistance, Nonviolence, Peace, Protest

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org. Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action’s NO To NEW TRIDENT campaign is joining knitting needles across the sea for some major guerilla woolfare. Here are the basics: You knit a pink scarf. It gets assembled, along with other people’s scarfs, into one long section. We ship the whole thing to the United Kingdom where it joins a 7-mile long scarf stretched between the UK’s nuclear weapons factories on August 9, 2014. Then, your scarf is sent to a conflict zone to become a humanitarian blanket. Read on to learn more and get involved.

Don’t Ignore Syria’s Nonviolent Movement

June 8, 2014 Tamara Al-Om, www.theguardian.com Resist! Nonviolence, Syria

Being Syrian these days only ever elicits one response: "Oh, I'm sorry … it must be terrible for you … Have you got family there?" This reaction is understandable, given the nature of the information that emerges from the country, with coverage of death, destruction and displacement of people. While it is vital that the world is made aware of the suffering of the Syrian people, however, the complexity of the conflict can sometimes be forgotten. What we tend to hear less about is the nonviolent movement (NVM), which has been playing a significant role since the start of the uprising, and which started in early 2011 with peaceful protests. At this stage the NVM had a much wider support base both domestically and internationally, with audiences sympathetic to its struggle. The number of army defections was also relatively high. However, as the government began to take violent action against the protestors, armed resistance inevitably emerged. This was followed by the development of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The FSA's lack of real organisation and an established central command made it easier for foreign extremist groups to enter Syria and hijack the uprising. They began to subvert it from a movement about freedom and justice into something very different.

Summer Activities In Northwest To Abolish Nukes

June 7, 2014 Leonard Eiger, www.gzcenter.org Resist! Nonviolence, Nuclear Weapons, Peace, Wars and Militarism

Well, that's all for now. As you can see Ground Zero people are at it, both in front of and behind the scenes. Even though I have nothing new to share on it today, the legal effort against the Bangor Second Explosives Handling Wharf continues. And so does the rest of the work. You can keep in touch with all of it at both our website at gzcenter.org and our Facebook page (Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action). Send your questions to either me at gznonviolencenews@gmail.com or to info@gzcenter.org. Above all, please get involved in whatever way you are able. Scrapping Trident and abolishing all nuclear weapons is not something politicians will do without a huge groundswell of citizen involvement. So please share our message and work far and wide. We're all in this together, and together we CAN make a difference!!!

Roadmap To Personal Empowerment From Metta Center

June 5, 2014 Staff, www.mettacenter.org Strategize! Activism, Nonviolence, Revolution

While creating a nonviolent future is a serious undertaking, one thing remains encouraging: we are not alone. There are countless organizations, groups and individuals already doing the great work, all striving for a shared goal. If you are reading this issue of Emergence, it is very likely that you are one of them. And it is precisely because it is not an easy task, we must join our hands together. The “Roadmap” is Metta Center’s attempt to offer three things to help create an unstoppable movement of movements: unity, strategy, and nonviolent power. One very appealing aspect of the Roadmap is that we all can identify ourselves with it - we all belong here. Roadmap illustrates the interconnectedness of our work, and many issues that are often seen as separate. It also shows the trajectory of “peace from within,” starting from our “Person Power” at the center.

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