• Supporters of same-sex marriage blocked the streets near City Hall in San Francisco hours after California’s Supreme Court upheld the Prop 8 same-sex marriage ban

• Environmental protesters in the UK have set up camp outside a Rolls Royce factory where the company is set to refurbish a nuclear submarine

• Staten Islanders protested a toll increase at the Verrazano Bridge by paying the $10 fee in pennies

• 2,000 Chinese gathered for Nancy Pelosi’s arrival in Shanghai to urge the House Speaker to address human rights abuses by the Chinese government

• Hundreds are protesting the planned construction of a tuna farm in Costa Rica, which environmentalists say will damage the eco-system

• Sit-in saves 184-year-old tree in Trinidad

• Ecuador’s president pledged his support for the World Without Wars Initiative and will accept large groups of peace marchers arriving from Colombia later this year

• Auckland, New Zealand was brought to a virtual standstill after protesters converged on a major bridge to demand that walking and cycling facilities be added

Few in the activist world would think of Time magazine as a font for favorable coverage on the use of nonviolence around the world, even though the editors picked Gandhi as a runner up for “Person of the Century.” But lately, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by a couple of their stories.

In an article at the beginning of May, Time’s M.J. Stephey used the story of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi’s hunger strike while she was imprisoned by Tehran to delve into a rather sympathetic history of the tactic. While at first referring to hunger strikes as “publicity stunts,” the piece goes on to mention Gandhi, Bolivian President Evo Morales’ successful recent 5-day fast, and some interesting examples of the method from past struggles in the U.S.

Jailed suffragists like Alice Paul used hunger strikes in the early 20th century to rattle President Woodrow Wilson, who denounced such tactics as appalling and “unladylike,” though he later buckled amid a public outcry over the forced feeding of the protesters and agreed to support the 19th Amendment granting women the vote. During World War II, a group of conscientious objectors at Connecticut’s Danbury prison staged a 135-day strike against segregated dining. As a result, Danbury became the first federal facility with integrated meals.

After noting that nearly one-fifth of the prisoners at Guantanamo are being force-fed at any given time, Stephey concludes with a powerful quote from Sharman Apt Russell, author of Hunger: An Unnatural History.

“What else can the powerless, the weak and disenfranchised offer up to the world but their own soft bodies?”

I’ll discuss the other Time story that caught me off guard in one of my next posts, so stay tuned…

A gorgeous bike ride along the Hudson River this Memorial Day took me past West Point. At the front gate, I happened to notice this sign:

No, we wouldn’t want cadets to know that a great many of those they’re training to protect would prefer not to have the kind of protection they’ve been in the habit of providing.

That said, on the train back this evening, I talked the whole time with two women who just finished their first year at West Point. Both were friendly and eager people—one even has the highest GPA in her class—though it wasn’t clear that they had thought through the decision to attend as much as one would hope. Then again, how could a 17-year-old, or anyone, take possession of a decision like that?

Like many military people I meet, they were quite open-minded. We discussed torture, armed drones, “black sites,” the Iraq War, and just-war theory. They thought it a shame that the humanities—which might make more reflective, empathetic cadets—are so poorly represented at their school.

I wish I had asked them: What does it feel like to pass this sign at the gate when you come to and go from the place you’ve entrusted to teach you about the world?

• Workers for India’s UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) protest privatization at company headquarters around the country today

• A National Network of Civil Resistance Against the High Prices of Electricity is formed in Chiapas

• Ten Palestinians were wounded by IDF soldiers Friday at protests against the separation wall in Bil’in and Nilin.

• Riot police forcefully break up strike by textile workers in Cairo, Egypt

• In West Virginia, activists engaged in civil disobedience at mountaintop removal and coal sludge impoundment sites

• Students in the UK walked out of classrooms and refused to return for three weeks until CCTV cameras were removed from classes

• Some 250 people, almost all African-Americans, marched in Virginia to protest racist court decision in shooting death of black teen

• Tens of thousands marched and went on strike for freedom in Kashmir

• Tens of thousands of Tawainese protest president Ma Ying-jeou in Taipei and Kaohsiung

Visteon auto parts workers in Belfast who were fired with only a few minutes notice at the end of March ended their seven week-long sit-in last Monday after winning a severance package that was 10 times larger than the company’s original offer.

“We believe we have achieved more than we or anyone else could have ever dreamed of,” said Gerry Campbell, the spokesperson for the workers. “After bringing Ford and Visteon back to the negotiating table through a moral and dignified protest we have achieved all that we can through this action.”

In these tough economic times, there was a great show of solidarity with the workers’ struggle. According to the Irish weekly An Phoblacht:

Throughout the sit-in, the workers received enormous support from the people of west Belfast and beyond. Local Sinn Féin representatives, trade unionists and the broader community supported the sacked workers by bringing food, supplies and donations.

Hundreds of people joined a family fun day in solidarity with the men and women on 5 April. Hundreds more joined a march through west Belfast to the factory site on 8 April. On 17 April, up to 1,000 workers brought Belfast city centre to a standstill in an ICTU-organised lunchtime rally and march in solidarity with the thousands affected by mass redundancies, with a special emphasis on justice for the Ford-Visteon workers.

Workers from Waterford Crystal, who began a seven-week occupation of their factory to save jobs in January, donated €5,000 to the west Belfast workers.

The worker’s victory was only partial, however, because they were not able to save their jobs, and Visteon still refuses to pay for its pension obligations. Therefore, despite ending the occupation of their factory, the workers do not see their struggle as over.

“The fight for the pensions will continue in earnest,” said Campbell.

In response to recent incidents in London where police have deleted photos that protesters or tourists have taken on their phones, a cool new remedy has been developed. According to Boing Boing:

“GandhiCam” is an application for post-8700-series BlackBerry devices that automatically emails you (or an address you set) the images, audio, or video as it is taken, with the aim to make it easy to get the data off the device before it is confiscated or destroyed…

There are other live broadcast from phones like Qik, obviously, as well as phone-to-Flickr or email gateways, but there’s something to be said for a no-click solution.

Where governments are willing to take more drastic measures to squelch dissent, however, such technology may not prove to be useful. During the 2007 Saffron Revolution in Burma, for example, the authorities disconnected the entire country from the internet and turned off cell towers to stop the flow of information about the nonviolent uprising to the outside world. After the clampdown, the Burmese were forced to resort to accessing cell service from across the Thai border, and smuggling information out of the country the old fashioned way – on CDs and thumb drives.

On Thursday, four anti-war activists from the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance were arrested after interrupting a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing chaired by Senator John Kerry on the future of U.S. policy towards Afghanistan.

“Stop pouring blood money into warfare,” shouted 77-year-old DC resident Eve Tetaz, as the group threw money that had been stained with their blood in the room.

Repeating the powerful words that John Kerry, then a prominent member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, spoke before the very same committee in 1971, another activist asked: “How do you ask someone to be the last American solider to die for a mistake?”

Members of Code Pink, Women for Peace and Peace Action – all coalition members of United for Peace and Justice – also called for an end to the war in Afghanistan during the hearing.  

• Fourteen activists shut down a coal digger at an Australian power plant

• Three University students in New Zealand were suspended for burning the NZ flag as part of an anti-war protest on Anzac Day

• NAACP considering a boycott and protest march at NASCAR events to force ban on Confederate flag

• Argentine oil company forced to shut down operations after month long blockade by Indians protecting ancestral land from developmen

• More than 200 students in Venice CA staged a sit-in to support the LA teachers union, who have been banned from striking

• Fifteen activists were arrested outside of Rep. Rick Boucher’s office for holding a sit-in to protest his support for coal

• Climate protesters gathered outside Tennessee Rep. Bart Gordon’s office to express opposition to the Cap and Trade bill going through Congress

Thousands of students from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in eastern China took to the streets Monday evening to protest the enforcement by police of restrictions on street vendors. While the national media predictably ignored the story, according to the Associated Press, it was well documented on numerous websites and blogs:

Photos apparently taken with a cell phone camera showed hundreds of people blocking streets, surrounding police vehicles and confronting helmeted riot police. Signs carried by students carried slogans in English and Chinese, including “nonviolence and noncooperation” and “help vulnerable social groups and co-construct a harmonious society,” employing a favorite phrase of communist propaganda.

As the demonstration carried on into the morning, however, violence apparently erupted. Eyewitnesses said that at least 30 protesters were injured and one police car was smashed.

There have been numerous student-led protests in China due to poor living conditions, increasing fees and high unemployment rates for new graduates. It’s estimated that half of China’s six million graduates from last year are still looking for work, a situation which is not likely to improve this year due to the economic crisis.

Despite the fear that was instilled in the population by the brutal crackdown in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago, protests in China have been widespread and at times successful in recent years. In her phenomenal book, The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein writes that:

According to official government sources, in 2005 there was a staggering eighty-seven thousand large protests in China, involving more than 4 million workers and peseants. China’s activist wave has been met with the most extreme state repression since 1989, but it has also resulted in several concrete victories: major new spending in rural areas, better health care, [and] pledges to eliminate education fees.

According to the Charlotte Observer, the D.C.-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which represents about 16,000 churches, is calling on undocumented workers to boycott the 2010 census.

The pastors say political representation and federal money don’t matter to illegal immigrants, who can’t vote and don’t get to enjoy many of the benefits of living here.

Some states could suffer serious repercussions, since the data collected from a census determines how much money gets distributed and whether a congressional seat should be added. One such state could be North Carolina, which has an estimated 350,000 undocumented workers.

Roy Crisanto, pastor of El Tabernaculo De La Uncion, a Pentecostal church in South Charlotte, is telling members not to participate until laws change.

“The government wants to count people,” he said, “but not give them the benefits that come with being counted.”

A good portion of the Latino community sees this as an opportunity to force immigration reform. They figure anti-immigration politicians will have to reconsider their stance if they want more federal money and power.