Thousands of people descended on Capitol Hill Tuesday to rally for immigration reform. The protest coincided with the unveiling of a new immigration reform bill from Democratic Congress member and Immigration Task Force Chair Luis Gutierrez. Rallies were also held in at least twenty other cities Tuesday as part of a national day of action.

• As the congressional debate continues, single-payer advocates are planning a national day of action today. The group Mobilization for Health Care for All says more than 700 people have signed up to risk arrest by holding sit-ins in front of insurance company offices nationwide. So far this month, over thirty people have been arrested at similar actions in cities including New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.

• Labor unions are calling for an island-wide strike and a march near the capital today to protest government layoffs in Puerto Rico, where more than 20,000 public employees have been dismissed as the island struggles to pull out of a three-year recession.

• In Iran, 1700 employees of Wagon Pars Company have gone on a hunger strike to protest the company’s failure to pay their wages and pension.

• In India, around 200 farmers from 20 villages around Halvad continued with their indefinite hunger strike on Wednesday to protest the ban on water for irrigation from Narmada dam.

• In Pakistan, Mastung Girls College students have blocked Quetta-Karachi highway protesting against shortage of lecturers in the college and educational deterioration Wednesday.

• Several hundred UC Berkeley students took over the anthropology library for 24 hours this weekend to protest UC-wide budget cuts, in particular Saturday closures of small campus libraries that students use for studying and research.

• Dock workers at the main Greek port of Piraeus, who walked off the job on October 1, on Tuesday extended a strike against the concession of container facilities to Chinese transport operator Cosco which has caused a massive goods holdup.

Around 30 Greenpeace activists scaled the roof of the famous Palace of Westminster in central London, unfurling several yellow banners reading: "Change the politics, save the climate". The action was intended as a greeting to MPs returning from summer break. After 28 hours the activists came down and were arrested.

• 28 people between ages 50 and 88 finished a five-day, 25-mile march to protest mountaintop removal mining when they arrived at a Massey Energy coal complex yesterday.

• Five people were arrested and charged with trespass after scaling and fastening themselves to a conveyor belt used to load coal in Illawarra, Australia on Sunday. The action was part of a Climate Camp in the area attended by over 400 people.

• Thousands of Guineans stayed at home yesterday to protest the massacre of at least 150 people who were among thousands demonstrating against the country’s military rulers two weeks ago. The strike brought the capital city to a standstill with banks, shops, markets and offices remaining closed.

• 30 Greenpeace activists entered Total’s oil refinery site, in Normandy, France on Friday to protest its involvement with the climate-changing tar sands in Alberta, Canada. They hung banners on a huge tank and two 75 meter-high chimney stacks that read “climate crime” and “Total invests in sustainable destruction.”

• More than 100 people marched around the state Capitol in Honolulu on Sunday to protest the lack laws ensuring the civil rights of gays and lesbians.

I had the good fortune of being able to catch Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno’s new film, “The Yes Men Fix the World,” when it aired on HBO a couple months ago, and thought it was fantastic.

If you weren’t able to catch it then, however, and you live in New York City, you’re in luck.  The film opened at the Film Forum last week and is currently scheduled to run for two weeks. Over the next month or two, it is set to open in other cities across the country as well. Check out the film’s site to see if it’s coming to a theater near you. (And if it does really well now – if my limited understanding of these things is correct – it has the potential to make it on to many more screens.)

For those not familiar with the Yes Men, their M.O. is to finagle their way into business conferences or onto major media outlets posing as representatives of major corporations – such as Exxon Mobil and Halliburton – or U.S. government officials. They then give speeches that either take the free-market thinking to it’s logical extreme, revealing its absurdity in the process, or make altruistic announcements for government or business action that we would only see if they were moral entities. For example:

In the film’s opening scene, Bichlbaum, purporting to be a Dow Chemical representative, goes on the BBC to announce that after 20 years of denial, his company will finally clean up India’s toxic Bhopal plant and compensate all the victims of the industrial disaster that occurred there. As people connected to the issue celebrate the news, Dow’s stock plummets.

Pundits ask whether the duo perpetrated a cruel joke by giving Bhopal survivors false hope, so Bichlbaum and Bonanno travel to India to ask residents for their reactions. Some say they were disappointed to learn of the fraud, but others seem pleased that the prank called attention to the shameful neglect of big business and government.

I think the Yes Men’s actions hilarious and at times incredibly poignant indictments of a system that thrives on greed and is – in an absolutely literal way – destroying the earth.

While some will undoubtedly see their nonviolent tactics as deceitful and distasteful, I was moved by Bichlbaum’s explanation of their work to someone confronting him after one of their pranks. What they are doing, he said, is “truth-telling where there would normally be lies.” And the lies of the powerful few have profound repercussions on billions of lives at the bottom that they see as worthless, or at least not of enough value to do anything to help.

One exciting new direction that the Yes Men are heading in, which the movie only touches on briefly, are pulling off stunts that require the collaboration of thousands of people – such as the creation and release of nearly a million copies of a fake New York Post last month that focused on what needs to be done to avert the worst effects of climate change.  The more people can be drawn in to participate in these types of creative actions, the more hope we can all have for the future.

This morning it was announced that Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I’ve been in a state of shock and am still not quite sure what can possibly be said. Only that it feels like a terrible mistake, a profound blow to an institution with so much potential for recognizing and encouraging good in the world. Obama isn’t even halfway through his first term, and one should hope that his most important accomplishments still lay ahead. In his time in office, as Jake Olzen wrote here yesterday, he has taken ownership of the disastrous wars that he inherited. We are still waiting for a definitive break with the endless militarism that has been American policy since World War II. We are still waiting for heath care reform, for a sensible energy and environmental policy, and for a real solution to the economic crisis—all things that were promised on the campaign trail.

Perhaps most troubling of all, though, is the impact that this prize could have on Obama’s ability to accomplish these vital goals. His efforts have already begun to polarize the country and Congress in profound ways. This nod from Europe—from countries deeply mistrusted by the American Right—may only inflame their fears that he is trying to implement a European-style welfare state (which, of course, is far from the truth of his disappointingly modest proposals). I imagine that the Nobel Foundation hopes to support Obama in his efforts, particularly in his work for nuclear nonproliferation and international cooperation. I’m glad they are. But they should also be able to recognize that this prize may not be the best way to do so.

At Waging Nonviolence, we try to shed more light on the remarkable work of people all over the world fighting for peace. This announcement only shows how much what we offer is needed. It shows a lack of imagination. There are so many others for whom receiving this award would have been more deserved and who could have done more good with the attention and money that it represents. I suspect that even Obama might agree.

These are just a few initial reactions. We’re still thinking through how to respond, and we’d love to hear from you. What do you think? And is there anyone else you think the prize should have been given to?

Today marks the beginning of the ninth year of war in Afghanistan.  The ongoing conflict has claimed the lives of 804 Americans and an unaccounted number of civilians.  Over 1,500 civilians have been killed since January of this year alone, the Chicago Tribune reported.   Accounts of wedding receptions and schools being bombed are no longer as heart-breaking as they once were because of how commonplace they have become, with the United States’ increased war presence in Afghanistan and no end in sight.

The United States’ has 65,000 troops in Afghanistan with military requests for tens of thousands of more troops.  NATO has 40,000 troops there, also.  On Monday of this week, October 5, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs answered questions from reporters regarding the war in Afghanistan as over 500 people gathered outside the White House to protest the war.  Gibbs was quoted as saying that pulling out of Afghanistan is “not something that had ever been entertained.”  Furthermore, CBS reports the following:

The White House said Tuesday that President Barack Obama considers it “tremendously important” to listen to Congress about the flagging war in Afghanistan but will not base his decisions on the mood among lawmakers or eroding American public support for the war.

Had Obama stepped outside of the White House and beyond the black, wrought-iron fence that Witness Against Torture had chained themselves to and onto the Pennsylvania Avenue sidewalk where folks from groups like Veterans for Peace and the War Resisters’ League mourned the dead, he might reconsider making such comments.

The famous “postcard picture zone” has historically been one of the premier locations for Americans to exercise their right to free speech and right to petition their government for redress of grievances.  Women won the right to vote from Suffragists showing up on the White House sidewalk. They were, of course, summarily arrested for their civil resistance.

So would be the small, yet determined coalition of peace groups calling for a new foreign policy that: “Mourns the Dead, Heals the Wounded, and Ends the Wars.”  The coalition, organized by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, is the smoldering embers of what was once a raging, hot peace movement until the Obama presidency (as a supposed anti-war candidate) doused out the movement.

Yet when the U.S. Secret Service abused 23 nonviolent protesters and the U.S. Park Police arrested 61 people expressing their dissatisfaction with their government’s criminal activities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo and the White House responds with blatant disregard for democratic process and public will, the reality of the Obama administration continuing the Bush legacy of imperial war and human rights abuses becomes more clear.  These illegalities belong to Obama and his supporters now.

The question that remains unanswered though, is to what lengt the American peace movement is willing to suffer abuse, jail, and humiliation through its commitment to Gandhian nonviolence as it engages the most powerful, most violent government in the world to convert it to the way of peace?  Hopefully Monday’s actions by these nonviolent resistance communities and organizations are the signs of a renewed commitment to ending the U.S.-sponsored violence and the beginning of a truly revolutionary peace movement.

Smartmeme recently released a video that introduces emerging climate justice organizing and activism. The video points viewers toward the Mobilization for Climate Justice coalition web site (actforclimatejustice.org), which serves as an online hub for projects with similar concerns and goals.

The US-based Mobilization for Climate Justice coalition was formed by various organizations, which are calling on others to help build a “climate justice movement that emphasizes non-violent direct action and public education to mobilize for effective and just solutions to the climate crisis.”

Bringing together forthright principles and on-the-ground actions, the coalition organizes around three key goals. These organizers urge others to join them:

1) To build a global movement for climate justice that encourages urgent action to avoid catastrophic climate change, and which addresses the root social, ecological, political and economic causes of the climate crisis toward a total systemic transformation of our society.

2) To promote and strengthen the rights and voices of Indigenous and other affected peoples, (including workers in energy-intensive industries) in climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

3) To expose the consequences of false and market-based climate ‘solutions’ as well as corporate domination of climate negotiations, while advancing alternatives that can provide real and just solutions and which protect biodiversity.

This climate justice organizing draws from prior environmental justice critiques and activism, as well as wider opposition towards corporations, and other international market structures. While focusing on global warming—as a consequence and a cause of injustices and market structures—climate justice organizers also are responding to other interrelated impacts of established energy systems. Here in Ontario, a climate justice group will be waging a campaign against various pollution from tar sands projects—while other climate justice organizers oppose mountaintop removal mining explosions, oil refinery pollution, biofuel land grabs, and a range of other interconnected devastation around prevailing energy systems.

Like other climate organizers, the climate justice coalition is focusing on the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15) this December. Climate justice activists will be calling on others to follow and weigh in on those negotiations—if only to question the legitimacy of the proposals or the participants.

The coalition has called a major day of action at the end of November (“N30″), but activism associated with the coalition already is underway (as you can see on their web site). Some of these related actions will be connected with the coalition more than others. Since the coalition is calling on others to take on the same concerns and strategies, it will be difficult to track where the actual coalition begins and ends. In other words, anyone who wants to join us will find many grassroots points of entry into climate justice activism.

Some 10,000 high school students here formed a human peace symbol during a mammoth rally held Wednesday in support of the call for world peace and non-violence. Meanwhile,more than 2,000 students, soldiers from the Philippine military, government officials and NGO workers joined the colorful World March for Peace and Nonviolence in Manila’s Malate district.

• About 400 teachers, students and supporters rallied outside Sweetwater Union High School District headquarters in San Diego County yesterday to push for a better contract and for stalled negotations to start up again.

• More than 5,000 Montreal blue collar workers staged a four-hour strike yesterday to press the city for a new contract.

• 1,700 employees of Iran’s Pars Wagon Company, maker of freight wagons and passenger coaches, went on hunger strike yesterday to protest delays in salary payment.

• A two-day sit-in by over 10,000 farmers from northeastern India ended yesterday with the government assuring to look into their demands.

The story of Elliot Madison—a New York City social worker who was arrested at the G20 protests in Pittsburgh and charged with essentially hindering the police crackdown on protesters by posting their whereabouts on Twitter—has quickly spread from activist circles and independent media outlets to the mainstream.

Naturally, there’s a bit of a difference in the coverage. The New York Times for instance didn’t mention, as Amy Goodman did in her most recent column, that the information Madison tweeted was public information made available by the police on the Internet. To highlight the unjust nature of his arrest, she quoted Madison comparing the situation to someone being arrested for “essentially walking next to somebody and saying: ‘Hey, don’t go down that street, because the police have issued an order to disperse. Stay away from there.’ ”

Goodman also pointed out that the State Department and President Obama took the opposite stance on Twitter, when protesters in Iran were being arrested for using it in much the same way. They demanded that Twitter delay its system maintenance so that the election protesters could have uninterrupted service.

Hopefully these points raised by Goodman will find their way into the mainstream press, which to it’s credit does not seem to be treating the story like some quirky bit about social networking tools aiding and abetting crime. Articles by the Times and CNN show that they consider it a new and serious trend in police/activist interaction. But it remains to be seen if they will consider it a precedent-setting move by the US government to challenge the limits of free speech.

C’mon, let’s get those Teabaggers riled up on this issue!

Tens of thousands of people, including journalists and media rights activists, gathered in Rome's Piazza Del Popolo Saturday to defend press freedom, accusing Premier Silvio Berlusconi of trying to silence critical voices, but the media owner magnate, Berlusconi dismissed the accusations as a "joke". (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

• Students on 25 campuses across the United States will protest eight long years of war against and occupation of the people of Afghanistan today.  Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a nation-wide student organization committed to activism for peace, justice and equality, are organizing the protest.

• France Telecom workers launched a two-day strike and staged street protests on Tuesday to protest working practices at the firm following a wave of staff suicides.

• A total of 38 Honduran farmers arrested by the putschist regime began an indefinite hunger strike, demanding their release and the return of institutionality. The farmers were arrested Wednesday when police and soldiers ousted 55 people from the National Agrarian Institute (INA).

• Thousands of people in Turkey poured into the streets and held a protest rally, condemning Israel’s closure of the al-Aqsa Mosque in al-Quds.

• In Nigeria, Medical Workers’ Union commenced a nationwide strike to protest alleged unfair treatment by the federal government on Monday.

• 19 new companies whose ads aired recently during Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck program have asked Fox to stop their ads from running or pledged to not to run ads on the show going forward, which brings the total number of companies boycotting Beck to 80.

• Zambian police on Friday detained nine protestors, including two opposition lawmakers, for blowing car hooters against the graft acquittal of ex-president Frederick Chiluba.

An estimated 500 people gathered at the White House yesterday to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to request a meeting with President Barack Obama. Some of the demonstrators chained themselves to the White House fence and some lay prone on the sidewalk as if they were dead, while others chanted "mourn the dead, heal the wounded, end the war". Sixty-one were arrested.

• Some 800,000 teachers, medical workers and other public-sector staff went on strike in Romania yesterday to protest pay cuts imposed by the government under pressure from the International Monetary Fund. Hospitals only dealt with emergencies and teachers supervised children without conducting lessons.

• About 10 people were involved in the blockade of a coal loading depot in South Lanarkshire as part of a protest against open cast coal mines in the area and 13 new mines due to open in Scotland. Five were arrested.

• About 110 protesters sang and spoke about the need for health care reform in front of UnitedHealth Group’s corporate headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota yesterday. Six were arrested for blocking the entrance.

• About 200 D.C. high school students skipped classes yesterday morning to march on the offices of Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and protest the layoff of 229 teachers last week.

• Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the West Bank capital of Ramallah yesterday to protest the Palestinian Authority’s support for delaying the endorsement of a UN report on possible war crimes committed during Israel’s Gaza offensive.

• Around 700 expatriate labourers held a protest in downtown Kuwait on Sunday to demand payment of their salaries they say are three months overdue.