Over at the Guardian‘s “Comment Is Free” blog, I have an article about the recent trend of violent labor protests in France. Last month workers at an auto-supply factory threatened to blow up their plant if their demands for higher severance pay weren’t met. Then, a little over a week ago, workers at a transport company theatened to pollute the Seine river for essentially the same reason. In both cases, workers told the press that violence was their only option. Such reasoning not only flies in the face of the labor movement’s long and successful history with nonviolent protest, but also many recent actions by layed-off workers around the world. My article delves into the latter, citing two recent factory occupations—one in the US and the other in the UK—that exemplify why nonviolent tactics work and why they are more effective than violent ones.
None of this is to say that all French workers have resorted to violence when protesting. On a lighter note, Reuters reported last week that “Workers at a crisis-hit boiler factory in France have stripped off for a nude calendar in a bid to save 204 jobs slated for redundancy.” The proceeds from the calendar will go toward funding a protest at the parent company’s headquarters in Italy. It may not be the greatest of ideas, as it seems like a bit of a distraction—not to mention the fact that they don’t need to travel to wage an effective protest. But it is certainly creative.
Also last week, Time magazine wrote about a new youth movement in France that isn’t “just winning support for their various causes — they’re challenging the very social and economic pact that has defined the country for the past 60 years.” By using “creative and often wickedly funny new ways to focus attention to their issue,” says Time, they’ve “discovered the type of protests that have been used in places like the U.S. and Britain for years.” This is certainly positive news, as it means alternatives to violence are already in place and hopefully ready to become the dominant trend.
At the Blue Mountain Center in the center of New York’s Adirondack region, I got the opportunity to talk with Will Bates, one of the young organizers of 350.org. Guided by the writer and activist Bill McKibben, they’re working to orchestrate a worldwide day of action on October 24th that will pressure leaders as they go into the upcoming United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen. We discuss 350.org’s goals, their methods, and how this handful of young activists is working to build a global movement.
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Last Saturday, about 30 activists demonstrated outside of the Los Angeles Air Force Base (LAAFB) in El Segundo, CA. The “Space and Missile Center” located there is used to monitor launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) about 160 miles northwest of LAAFB. The timing was set to precede the test of a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) from VAFB early the next morning. The Vandenberg and El Segundo bases are also used to receive and distribute communications via satellite for the targeting of conventional weapons by ground forces and airplanes as well as hunter-killer Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These air-strikes are increasingly implicated in widespread civilian casualties despite attempts by the military to downplay them and reduce their number.
There hadn’t been a demonstration at LAAFB for many years, so this was seen as groundbreaking by the organizers. Given the obscurity of the base, and the lack of recent organizing about its mission, the turnout was seen as encouraging. More actions will probably be forthcoming.
From midnight until 3:30am Sunday morning about a dozen people also demonstrated outside the main gate of VAFB. Despite the late hour, there was a fair amount of traffic as some members of the base community and press arrived to watch the launch from an official viewing site. At 1:30 am, Fr. Louis Vitale, OFM and Sr. Megan Rice, SHCJ tried to enter the base to present a letter to the base commander from Japanese opponents to such missile tests. A guard did take the letter, though she did not unequivocally state that she would deliver it. When the two activists were stopped from entering the base they knelt and prayed. The citations mentioned “entering federal installation without permission.” They were released about an hour later and escorted across the highway from the base entrance. Future legal proceedings are “to be determined;” no date for court appearances were set.
The Japanese letter, signed by over 150 people and groups, made the point that the US frequently tests ICBMs that in fact are functional, can travel over 6,000 miles, can be launched on a moment’s notice and can carry three nuclear warheads. Such tests make it hypocritical to seriously reprimand or sanction North Korea for its recent missile tests, which would actually take 2 to 3 days to prepare for launch, only can travel several hundred miles, are not inter-continental, and as yet aren’t able of being loaded with nuclear bombs. Until the actions opposing Sunday morning’s test launch, they were unaware that the US was testing ICBMs too.
About 150 migrant children left to survive on their own in Greece have gone on a hunger strike to protest their imprisonment on a Greek island where conditions have been described as “abominable” by one European human rights body.
About 50,000 people in the Baltic states marked the twentieth anniversary of the ‘Baltic Way’ – when two million people formed a human chain to protest against Soviet rule – with a relay along the original 678km route that runs through Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
A group of senior lawyers resorted to a day’s token hunger strike in front of the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court on Thursday to protest against the alleged caste bias in appointment of government pleaders at the court.
International climate activists floated two roof tops in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool early Thursday afternoon in anticipation of the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. One of the roofs read, “HELP,” the other, “The Water Is Rising.” The 30 ft. banner behind the roofs declared, “Prevent the Next Katrina, Restore the Gulf, Stop Global Warming.”
Nothing I’ve seen has captured the inane logic of most town hall protesters better than the satirical website angrytownhall.com, which claims to be organizing a day of nationwide protests against our “socialist fire departments.”
“The Mission Statement of Angry Town Hall is to guarantee fully privatized fire departments throughout the United States, while promoting a “zero tolerance policy” towards government funding/operation of fire safety through grants, loans, local taxes, state taxes, county taxes, and estate taxes.”
Our aim is that by 2011, all fire services will be provided and funded through private fire companies, including but not limited to: Blackwater (XE), Halliburton, Monsanto, Lockheed, and China.
The site also contains some rather hilarious photos and sayings, such as “The tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time with water from PRIVATE fire departments” and “This truck is red for a reason.” But my favorite, which appears on their Facebook page is: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in asbestos and carrying a fire hose.”
Others have chimed in on the Facebook message boards with some rather ingenious comments, such as this imagined conversation between a person whose house is on fire and a private insurance company handling the 911 call:
Claim Representative: OK, Mr. Smith. I’m sorry, it appears that we have not received your last payment, and therefore under Article 32, Section U, paragraph 76, coverage is suspended until payment is received.
Caller: WHAT? I paid the bill. I even saw this morning that the check cleared! Oh my God! The roof is falling in! Holy S—!
Claim Representative: Sir, there is no need for profanity. If you can fax me a copy of the cancelled check, we can reinstate your policy within three business days of receipt of the fax.
Caller: MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE RIGHT NOW!
It will be interesting to see if the absurdity revealed by this satirical campaign will amount to more than just an online presence. It seems as though the organizers have hopes for more. They’ve set the day of action as September 9 at 4pm. Further details have yet to be announced.
London’s Climate Camp will begin today, when thousands of protesters stationed at seven locations around the city converge on the now top-secret location. A camp will then be set-up for one week and participants will learn how to live more sustainably, build a wind turbine and take part in direct action training. At the end of the week protesters will engage in mass action against a climate change target.
The reason for the top-secret location stems from police harassment at April’s G20 Climate Camp in front of the Bank of England. Several protesters sustained severe injuries after police encircled the camp with riot gear and refused to let anyone in or out. A newspaper vendor, caught up in the mess, was also struck by police and later died.
The incident has become a major blemish on London’s police force. According to a recent poll, half of UK adults now think that “policing of environmental protests is too heavy handed or involves too many officers.” As a result, the Metropolitan Police have made extraordinary efforts to prove that they will be handling this protest differently.
For one, they have promised to use a more “community-style” policing operation and limit the use of stop-and-search of protesters and surveillance units. They’ve set up a Twitter account to send out “operational information” to the protesters.
The most interesting change to procedure, however, is that they’ve decided to put female officers in charge of the operation, relying on new research that shows (not surprisingly) female officers are less likely to use excessive force than their male counterparts because they favor deescalation tactics over authoritarian behavior. (Check out this fascinating Guardian piece for more info).
Climate Camp organizers have mostly balked at these changes in procedure. In the above video, they state, “Judging from past experience the best thing the police could do to ensure the health and safety of Climate Camp in 2009 would be to stay as far away from it as possible.”
While that seems unlikely, a peaceful interaction between police and protesters will be a good thing for everyone, except the big polluters. But that’s OK.
Within 300 feet of the Massey Energy’s Edwight mountaintop removal blasting site, two protesters scaled massive trees and unfurled banners from their 80-foot-high platforms to call on federal agencies to crack down on the scandal-ridden West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WV DEP) and stop the unsafe and reckless blasting in the area.
On Monday, hundreds of Zelaya supporters rallied near the hotel where an OAS delegation is holding talks with the coup government in an effort to seek the return of the ousted president.
The Federation of Workers’ Unions of Niger, which represent the country’s seven trade unions, and an opposition coalition plan a three-day general strike starting today. The strike is in support of a demand for a 50 percent increase in the salaries of government workers and a 50 percent increase in the state’s contribution to their pensions.
Argentine farmers will launch a seven-day strike starting on Friday that will freeze grain and beef sales from one of the world’s biggest suppliers of corn, beef and soybeans, to protest the government’s farm policy.
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) activists staged a die-in yesterday at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)’s newly opened downtown banking centre to protest its continued financing of Alberta tar sands production.
In Gibraltar, workers with a subcontractor on the Waterport Terraces estate walked out yesterday in protest at not being paid for three months.
Around 100 employees of the cash-strapped public carrier Air India joined their counterparts from other parts of the country yesterday on a three-day hunger strike over delay in payment of salaries.
More than 300 native Hawaiians marched through the streets of downtown Honolulu on Friday afternoon to protest a commemoration marking 50 years since Hawaii became a state. Protesters chanted in Hawaiian, blew on conch shells, waved ti leaves and yelled, "We are not Americans! We want our country back!" They also carried an effigy of a 12-foot-tall Uncle Sam, eventually knocking off its hat with colonial feathers representing countries that fell under the US imperialism. They then cut off the 50th star on an American flag and set it on fire.
About 600 protesters blocked operations in and around Dublin Port for three hours yesterday in an escalation of the eight-week long protest at Marine Terminals, where new owners are attempting to replace the existing workforce with lower paid, non-unionised employees.
The site also contains some rather hilarious photos and sayings, such as “The tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time with water from PRIVATE fire departments” and “This truck is red for a reason.” But my favorite, which appears on 
