That was the question posed last week to Howard Zinn, Bernardine Dohrn and several others by Stephen Dubner on the New York Times’ Freakonomics blog. Their responses were affirmative and generally quite good, especially for those who are not already very knowledgeable on the subject.

Before giving a useful, but very brief recap of some of the different nonviolent social movements in our history that have concretely affected the direction of this country for the better, Howard Zinn makes an important point, especially for activists currently struggling to make our systems a little more humane:

Do protests work? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes very soon, sometimes there is a long-term effect. Sometimes you can see a direct connection between the protest and the result, and sometimes it’s difficult to trace.

What this means is that you must not desist from protesting because you don’t see an immediate result. What immediately looks like a failure may turn out to be a success.

Bernardine Dohrn, a leader of the Weather Underground during the Vietnam War, who is now a clinical associate professor of law and director of the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern Law, makes a similar observation:

Looking backward, it seems obvious that sitting down to strike at Flint, and sitting in at Greensboro lunch counters, and standing up to enter school in Little Rock were obvious sparks to larger social movements. At the time, no one could know.

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Legal specialists in Cairo continue their sit-in,which began on July 6, in front of the Ministry of Justice to demand better pay and working conditions, as well as changes to laws that make their work more difficult.

• During last Wednesday’s demonstration in Bil’in, the Palestinian children of the town carried banners and chanted slogans like “We want to sleep,” “No more night raids,” “Let us live,” and “We want Peace.”

• Cindy Sheehan and other like minded activists are traveling to Martha’s Vineyard to demonstrate against the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as President Barack Obama and his family vacation on the island.

• A separatists-sponsored strike to protest against a statement made by Prime Minister’s Manmohan Singh paralysed normal life across Kashmir on Saturday.

• Five parishioners of Mision de Jesus Obrero Catholic Church in Fort Myers have gone on hunger strike to protest both of their priests being moved to new parishes.

• In Honduras, an estimated 5,000 people marched in the capital Tegucigalpa last Thursday in support of the ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

• In Nepal, locals staged a sit-in in front of the Basantapur Area Police Office of Madi to protest the misbehavior on Saturday night by inebriated police personnel with the locals.

A couple of interesting political graphic novels drew attention in the New York Times this week. One is a reworked online version of the 2003 award-winning graphic novel Persepolis, while the other is an updated reincarnation of the old DC Comics superhero Unknown Soldier. Both raise some serious questions in regards to nonviolence.

Persepolis 2.0, as it’s called, reshuffles the black and white drawings of the original book (which is about the 1979 Iranian Revolution) to tell the story of the mass protests that took place in Iran this year, following the disputed presidential elections. It’s an interesting concept given that the new authors (who have taken on pseudonyms) were able take images meant to depict events from 30 years ago and apply them to current events.

While it seems that much of the storyline focuses on the very legitimate protests against the repressive Ahmadinejad regime, there is also a major focus on the elections being rigged, despite there being no concrete evidence of this. Futhermore, Persepolis 2.0, does a good deal of propagandizing to make Moussavi out as the hero, when, as discussed on this blog, his corporate/upper class interests need to be challenged as well. Finally, Twitter and Facebook are referred to as providers of the “real info,” when in fact, though undeniably valuable, they have led to a great deal of misreporting and confusion.

All of this is not surprising, considering the authors, like most of us, “experienced the election and its aftermath from afar.” Much like Western media coverage of these events, which lacked on the ground reporting, their authority is rather suspect. While we all sympathize with and commend the bravery of the protesters fighting repression, there are still many questions about this so-called “Green Revolution” that need to be answered. Read the rest of this article »

• Commuters at Southern Cross station in Melbourne were surprised with the famous balcony scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as part of a flash mob put together by drama students from the Victorian College of the Arts, who were protesting job losses and courses being scrapped.

• Nearly 100 Climate Camp Ireland protesters conducted a sit-in in front of the gates of a peat power station on Wednesday. Another hundred are expected to arrive before the camp ends on Sunday.

• A dozen New York supporters of the human rights movement in Iran formed a flash mob outside of Madison Square Garden yesterday to protest Nokia, which has aided the Ahmadinejad government in its crackdown on protesters.

• Close to 150 people marched, chanted and honked horns in front of a high school in Richmond, Indiana yesterday to protest a new dress code.

• 9,000 post office workers in South Africa were expected to go on strike yesterday to seek a better salary structure.

On August 6, the day started off with a vigil outside of Camp Williams Volk Field. An estimated 30 anti-war activists were organized, holding placards calling for, in-short, the ouster our military-industrial complex and the rebuilding of what the U.S. has destroyed. The fenced-in U.S. Army base loomed in the distance while police watched us with cameras in hand. This would set the tone for the next three-day Walk for Peace through Tomah, Camp Douglas and Tunnel City, Wisconsin before ending at Fort McCoy’s main gate.

Hailing from Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and New York, the protesters ranged from war veterans to activists affiliated with Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV) and Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). By the third day, 50 civil resisters turned out at Ft. McCoy to remind others of the lack of concern the government has shown for the U.S. troops. With 21,000 additional U.S. troops being redeployed to Afghanistan – along with 130,000 still remaining illegally in Iraq – the proof of the military empire’s unwillingness to desist shows with each passing day. There’s also the skewing of Afghani and Iraqi civilian death tolls along with the widening death rate of American troops.

With each step closer to our destination, we faced more opposition. People driving by yelled out, “We’re fighting for a reason!” But none of them told us what those reasons were. Why are American soldiers risking their lives for us? The Public Affairs Officer, Linda Fournier, at the base told reporters “the soldiers that are here training at Ft. McCoy and come through here, they are fighting for the rights of the people to protest.” But were we not already free before we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan? So is it for freedom? Safety? Women’s Rights? Democracy? Or is it because if U.S. soldiers were to refuse to follow unjust orders they’d risk being lambasted by their fellow officers and face punishment?

While at a hotel, a woman came up to one of us and said, “My son’s being redeployed into Kandahar, Afghanistan.” When asked if she and her son believed in what he’s doing, she replied: “Initially, we believed in the governments cause, but now we’re not sure what’s going on. He’d rather be home.”

The nine activists who trespassed and were arrested at Ft. McCoy demonstrated how we all felt. The message was clear: We’re no longer afraid. We’re tired of the wars, the lies, the threats against peace. We’re not going to go passively into quietness. You’re going to have to physically deal with us. There will be no white flags in our hands, but just a peace banner lifted above our heads in solidarity.

• Hundreds of concerned city employees in Detroit turned out for a protest in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building to protest Mayor Dave Bing’s proposal to cut salaries by 10 percent.

• A strike by workers at John Lennon Airport in Liverpool over plans to axe 27 jobs is to go ahead today after last-ditch talks failed to resolve a row over jobs.

• Postal services in Birmingham was disrupted by another strike yesterday as a bitter row continues between the Royal Mail and its drivers. Around 80 drivers based at the Mail Centre and 100 at Coventry will join the protest by 1,500 of their co-workers as well.

• Scores of employees at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), deputies and activists on Wednesday staged a one-hour sit-in before the agency’s head office in Amman, Jordan to protest a cutback in the UN body’s services to about 1.9 million Palestinian refugees living in the country.

• A strike by city bus drivers in Cairo ended yesterday after the government gave in to most of their demands.

• Over 1,000 sacked Mongla Port workers in Bangladesh ended a sit-in Wednesday evening, after three days of protest, on the condition that their demands would be met.

• In Iran, a large number of detainees of the nationwide uprising who have been under severe physical and psychological tortures have gone on hunger strike since Saturday of Evin prison, and other detainees joined the strike on Monday. Also, some 40 members of the families of detainees have gone on hunger strike in their support outside the prison.

• A strike by employees of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) affected telecommunication services across the India on Wednesday. And the All India Graduate Telecom Officers Association (AIGETOA), with over 10,000 engineers as its members, has called for an indefinite strike.

Although she was born in Israel to Jewish parents and raised in Ann Arbor Michigan, Detroit-based MC Invincible has a pretty deep understanding of the issues facing Palestinians, as evidenced by the above music video for her song “People Not Places.” In fact, it would be near impossible for any Westerner to fully comprehend the song’s many historical and cultural references without reading her very insightful lyrics page.

Invincible (whose name is Ilana Weaver) says it took years to write the song, but that it was originally inspired by a conversation she had with her mom, who responded to a question about missing Israel, by saying, “I miss people. I don’t miss places.” But given that so many indigenous people were displaced to create the nation state of Israel, Invincible says she came to see “what a priviledge it was to not miss this place and to not prioritize that connection between people and places.”

The song and video then became a product of her recently launched project Emergence Travel Agency, which aims to create “media that resists displacement, gentrification, colonization, occupation, obstruction of movement, denial of the right to leave, and denial of the right to return.”

The “People Not Places” video follows through on that objective. In it, Invincible plays two characters, explained by her website as: “a Birthright Israel tour recruiter, styled as a used car salesman; and herself, subverting the recruiter’s mission by exposing the buried Palestinian significance of each location in the tour.” The video is also interspersed with interviews of Palestinians and people from other displaced refugee communities.

The effect is extremely moving and provocative. But not just because the message is so strong and on point. Invincible is also an undeniably talented MC. Were it not for that fact, her message could easily fall flat.

Her skills have not gone unrecognized. Last year, the Detroit Metro Times ran a cover story on Invincible, calling her “one of the best emcees in the country.” Talib Kweli has also given her a shout out as “One of the most talented emcees I’ve ever heard black or white, male or female…”

Hopefully we’ll be hearing plenty more from her.

Alumni, antiwar activists, community members and lawyers gathered on Monday outside the UC Berkeley School of Law to call for the dismissal of former Bush administration torture policy architect and new faculty member John Yoo.

• Seven security guards have been perched atop the Colosseum in Rome since Friday to protest the planned privatization of the city’s security company.

• More than 500 Louisiana shrimpers and their supporters gathered on the steps of the state Capitol yesterday to protest historically low prices for their product.

• About 20 people occupied the tarmac of Easter Island’s airport on Sunday to protest growing tourism and migration from Chile, which poses a threat to the island’s ecology and famous statues.

• Newly unionized Starbucks baristas gathered at the company’s regional headquarters in Manhattan on Monday to protest a planned rise in health premiums.

• Greenpeace activists sailed into Swedish waters last week and placed up to 180 granite rocks on the seabed in order to prevent bottom trawling in areas listed for European Union protection.

• Members of the DC Action Factory have set up a tent city in front of the US State Department to protest US insistance that climate refugees be left out of the international climate agreement being developed for Copenhagen.

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”

- Thomas Jefferson

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”

- President James Madison

For 9 years, Daniel Suelo has lived without using money.  Dwelling in a cave outside the desert town of Moab, Utah, Suelo (as he likes to be called) has chosen to live a life beyond the bounds of commercial civilization, seeking to embody what he refers to as a moneyless “Gift Economy,” one which he believes is exhibited already in Nature.

On his website Living Without Money, which he maintains at a public library in town, Suelo notes:

All creatures, all the universe, outside the walls of commercial civilization live moneyless. That’s why nature outside civilization’s constricts, is perfectly balanced. Yet no nation on earth, even with its PhD economists, can even balance its budget.

As I perused the recent article about Suelo published in Details Magazine, I could not help but feel a profound sense of respect and admiration for him, for he comes off not as an angry, radical pariah fueled by bitterness or self-righteous indignation, but rather a peaceful and gentle spiritual pilgrim seeking to tread a genuine path of Truth.

But when I shared the gist of the article with my friend’s father, the mere thought of a man living without money generated a dismissive and mocking retort, “He is selfish. What does he do? Nothing for anyone. All he is doing is mooching off of others.”

I cringed inwardly, wanting to come to Suelo’s defense, yet not wanting to be preachy or confrontational.  The only words that occupied my headspace were not my own, they were those of Jesus.  “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” “You can not serve God and mammon.”

Since the day I came across these words, I have been struggling with the fear they provoke inside of me.  The fear is not so much of the hardships imposed by poverty, but more from the hypocrisy I may embody in failing to heed my Master’s call.  A big part of me believes that if I don’t sell my possessions that I can not truly be a disciple of Jesus and that I could not in good faith call myself his follower.

Many say that these words were an attempt by Jesus to generate an understanding of detachment and internal renunciation in the heart of his listeners. Granted. Yet what if he was also getting at something deeper? What if by calling us to empty our pockets He was trying to teach us one of God’s most intimate lessons in the art of loving? What if the only way we could realize genuine grace and mutual interdependence was by depending on the provision and sovereignty of the Creator?

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Mentally ill youth routinely suffer neglect and violence at juvenile prisons.  At the Ohio River Valley Juvenile Correctional Facility in rural Ohio, reported the New York Times, a mentally ill teenager screamed obscenities into the padded walls of his solitary confinement cell.  Such scenes are as tragic as they are commonplace.

Disturbingly, the number of mentally ill youth in juvenile prisons is expected to rise – not only in Ohio but in at least 31 other states where legislatures have slashed the budgets of already-strained mental health systems.  These systems provide access to supported housing, medications, case management, counseling, diagnostic assessments, crisis intervention and crisis residential services.

I spoke with a psychiatrist at the same Ohio River Valley Juvenile Correctional Facility last fall while registering residents older than 17 to vote.  He lamented that many of his patients would lose access to psychiatric care when they returned home because their parents couldn’t afford their medications.

A strong community mental health system would defray these treatment costs for families and thus help protect these kids from re-offending for lack of health care.  Research indicates that model community-based mental health services reduce arrests, jail stays, and hospitalizations. Yet last month in its biennial budget, Ohio cut funding for such programs by an astounding 34%.

Before the budget vote, hundreds of advocates rallied on June 24 at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, warning that the proposed cuts would come at a heavy price for the state’s vulnerable citizens.  Their placards proclaimed that “Treatment works, people recover.” Ohio legislators did not heed their call.

Predictably, parents, clinicians, and courts have nowhere else to turn but to the juvenile justice system.  But that system cannot handle an influx of mentally ill youth. A class action lawsuit settled last year against the Ohio Department of Youth Services, S.H. v. Strickrath (pdf), revealed unconstitutional levels of mental health care, among other problems, in these so-called “new asylums.”

In this recession, legislators across the country have eliminated programs that support the poor and the mentally ill.  These budget decisions are not inevitable; they are our choices, our responsibilities. When we treat sick kids as criminals, we don’t just set them up to fail but intimate, falsely, that the failure is their fault.