Police arrested 37 people for entering a Tennessee nuclear weapons plant on Monday during a demonstration marking the anniversary of the landmark Plowshares protest in 1980 at a missile plant in Pennsylvania, where Dan and Phil Berrigan were able to get inside the General Electric facility, damage a missile nose cone and pour blood on various documents. Four of the original “Plowshares Eight,” each of whom served time in jails or prisons for their actions participated in the protest: John Schuchardt, Molly Rush, Anne Montgomery and Carl Kabat – as well as Liz McAlister, Phil Berrigan’s widow.
Merchants in Tehran’s main bazaar gathered in protest on Tuesday to protest a government plan to dramatically increase taxes on their businesses. With threats of a general strike looming, authorities were forced to back down.
Hundreds of people staged a demonstration in Rome on Wednesday to demand help from the government for the reconstruction of places damaged by the April 2009 quake.
Religious and immigrant rights activists gathered outside the White House yesterday to urge the Obama administration to approach immigration reform and voice support for the Justice Department’s recent challenge of Arizona’s hardline immigration policy.
Four Earth First! protesters were arrested today after they temporarily stopped a semi-truck carrying a 140-foot wind turbine blade to Kibby Mountain in Maine. The protesters oppose alternative energy projects that profit corporations at the expense of sensitive ecosystems.
The boycott of Arizona by a growing number of musicians has been one of the most high-profile acts of resistance to the state’s new anti-immigrant law. But like most boycotts it has been the subject of great scrutiny in terms of its potentially damaging effect on perceived innocents. For instance, Arizona concert promoter and activist Charlie Levy recently explained that: “By not performing in Arizona, artists are harming the very people and places that foster free speech and the open exchange of ideas that serve to counter the closed-mindedness recently displayed by the new law.”
A reaction such as this, however, is only understandable to those who don’t understand how boycotts work. Their intent is not to harm people or places, but to catalyze segments of a society that have the ability to influence the repeal of an unjust law or policy. Much like the sterilization of a wound, any harm to people or places along the way should be looked upon as part of the healing process. The harm that is caused during a boycott is only temporary and, unlike the injustice it opposes, never terminal. A boycott that’s based on a just cause, such as the repeal of a racist law, is a tactic that resurrects humanity and ultimately improves the quality of life for everyone.
One of the musicians who seems to get this point is Conor Oberst, who fronts the band Bright Eyes (and is featured int he above video). Oberst wrote an intelligent and heartfelt response to Levy, saying that he regrets “any of the collateral damage the boycott is causing” and realizes “that the people of Arizona did not vote on SB1070,” but sees a far bigger picture—one that is “a threat to our basic ideals as Americans and Humans.”
Oberst has already seen a town in his home state of Nebraska adopt a similarly racist immigration law and is “in the process of organizing a fund-raiser for the NE chapter of the ACLU who is suing the town of Fremont.” But should the law pass statewide, he is fully prepared to “be the first to call for a boycott of my home state.”
More than 1,000 Italian journalists gathered in Rome last week to protest a law that curbs police wiretaps and imposes fines on news organizations that publish transcripts.
At the Fletcher Summer Institute a couple weeks ago Hardy Merriman gave this insightful presentation on strategy and tactics for nonviolent resistance. For anyone new to the field, watching this video would be an easy way to get the basics.
Clashes erupted at the Puerto Rico Capitol in San Juan on Wednesday after police forcibly prevented protesters from attending a legislative session on the State budget. Officers used batons, physical force and pepper spray to block a large group that included many students seeking a voice in the Puerto Rican budget. Student organizers say over two dozen protesters were treated for injuries.
A Salvadoran-born clergyman has set up a camping tent in a Chicago public park where he intends to continue the hunger strike he began 16 days ago to demand immigration reform. The protest is part of a series of fasts, hunger strikes and acts of civil disobedience organized in Illinois by groups defending undocumented immigrants to pressure Congress to enact immigration reform.
A strike at Tianjin Mitsumi Electric Co., a Japanese-owned electronics factory in north China, crippled production on Thursday, extending the industrial unrest that has put manufacturers at odds with increasingly assertive workers.
Last week, the US Supreme Court upheld a law that criminalizes giving any advice, including instruction on human rights law or nonviolent conflict resolution, to any group that the State Department classifies as a foreign terrorist organization.
The case was brought by the Humanitarian Law Project, a group that had advised the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka on peacemaking and advocacy before the UN.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said that even this type of peaceful activity lends legitimacy to terrorist groups and “frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends.”
“Hezbollah builds bombs. Hezbollah also builds homes,” then Solicitor General Elena Kagan told the court as she argued the government’s case in February. “What Congress decided was when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs.”
Needless to say, the ruling is seen as a blow to freedom of speech and will further complicate the work of activists with groups like the Free Gaza Movement, who critics argue support Hamas by attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
“The ‘material support law’ – which is aimed at putting an end to terrorism – actually threatens our work and the work of many other peacemaking organizations that must interact directly with groups that have engaged in violence,” said former President Jimmy Carter.
