Last week, Act Now!, The Nation’s activism blog had a nice post on the work of Food Not Bombs. Described by one of its founders Keith McHenry as a “franchise collective,” it:

…in thirty years has grown from a small idea in which eight young antinuclear protesters cooked for their friends in Harvard Square to a global food movement dedicated to the principle that access to food is a right, not a privilege. Beginning as a protest against military and nuclear spending while the basic needs of so many Americans were still unmet, Food Not Bombs now boasts more than 1,000 chapters worldwide.

FNB is not merely an activist group though, but one that re-envisions every aspect of American life.  It resists taxation and bureaucracy by organizing as non hierarchical, unincorporated collectives.  It acts on its moral imperative as well, by serving meatless meals to people who need food regardless of income. FNB is an extraordinary actor of nonviolent social change.  As the article’s author Jennifer Mahoney writes:

Each chapter provides free meals—activists collect food from bakeries, grocery stores and restaurants who agree to give them any surplus, and then cook in visible outdoor locations, keeping regular hours so that their most frequent customers, often mothers with children, know when to find them—but also organizes around local issues like affordable housing, transportation alternatives, joblessness and militarism and supports related radical initiatives being staged by other groups.

It has inspired countless groups, from Bikes Not Bombs in Boston to the Campus Anti-War Network which declares loudly at their rallies, “BOOKS NOT BOMBS.”  FNB’s influence is unprecedented for such a radical idea, but it’s one that deserves mimicking everywhere.

In his weekly online column for the National Catholic Reporter, Fr. John Dear has a wonderful piece about what transpired in court last week when he and 13 others stood trial for protesting the use of drones last year at Creech Air Force Base, outside of Las Vegas.

At the start of the trial the judge stated that he would not allow testimony on international law, the necessity defense or the drones. He only wanted to hear about the charge of “criminal trespassing.”

While the defendants were expecting that the judge wouldn’t allow their expert witnesses to speak, they proceeded to call on Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson; Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel and one of three former U.S. State Department officials who resigned on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and Bill Quigley, legal director for the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights to testify. To their surprise, the judge let them all speak, and their testimony went on for hours.

Here is an excerpt from a powerful, spontaneous closing statement made by Brian Terrell of the Des Moines Catholic Worker:

Several of our witnesses have employed the classic metaphor when talking of a necessity defense. There’s a house on fire, and a child crying from the window and there’s a no trespassing sign on the door. Can one ignore the sign, kick down the door and rescue the child?It was a great privilege for us to hear Ramsey Clark, a master of understatement, who put it best. “Letting a baby burn to death because of a no trespass sign would be poor public policy.”

I submit that the house is on fire and babies are burning in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan because of the activities at Creech AFB.

The baby is burning also in the persons of the young people who are operating the drones from Creech AFB, who are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder at rates that even exceed that of their comrades in combat on the ground.

[...]

The house is on fire. And we fourteen are ones who have seen the smoke from the fire and heard the cries of the children. We cannot be deterred by a No Trespassing sign from going to the burning children.

John Dear describes what happened next:

As he finished, Brian burst into tears and sat down. Many in the courtroom wept. Then Judge Jansen stunned us by announcing that he needed three months to “think about all of this” before he could render a verdict. He marked twenty five years on the bench just the day before, he said, and this was his first trespassing case and he wanted to make the best decision he could. There is more at stake here than the usual meaning of trespassing, he noted. The prosecutors were clearly frustrated and disappointed. With that, we were assigned a court date of January 27, 2011, to hear the verdict. As he left, he thanked the fourteen of us and the audience, and then seemed to give a benediction: “Go in peace!” Everyone applauded.

• Two Greenpeace activists climbed up the giant anchor chain of a massive oil drilling ship yesterday, stopping it from leaving to drill a deep water well off the Shetland Islands. The action is part of an effort calling on North Sea governments to adopt a ban on all deepwater drilling.

• Trade unions, university students, peasants and other groups in Peru are holding a 48-hour strike in Cusco that has suspended train services to the Inca citadel Machu Picchu due to protests over an irrigation project that critics say could leave communities without water.

• Thousands of people staged a protest in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, on Monday against the election to parliament of 20 members of a far-right party.

• Six activists chained themselves to a crane in western Turkey on Monday to protest a hydroelectric dam that will mean the destruction of an ancient city of Allianoi.

• Around 10,000 people took to the streets of London over the weekend for a Protest the Pope rally and march against what the organizers called “papal intolerance” and to condemn the state funding of the visit.

• An estimated 1500 Scouts gathered in the little town of Vlaardingen near Rotterdam on Saturday to create an aerial image of 10:10, a global campaign to cut carbon emissions by 10 percent a year starting this year.

• A group of 12 Chilean activists began an open-ended “massive solidarity fast” on Sept. 14 to support indigenous Mapuche prisoners who have been carrying out a liquids-only hunger strike since July 12. They were arrested under a Pinochet-era law that criminalizes legitimate forms of protest against the seizure of their lands.

• Thousands of protesters led by high school students marched on Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo on Sept. 16 to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the “Night of the Pencils,” when student protesters demanding free public transportation and other benefits were kidnapped and killed by the military dictatorship.

International relations scholar Andrew Bacevich has been one of the most important critics of American warmaking in recent years, not least because of the convergence of three aspects of his biography: he is a self-described conservative, a retired Army officer, and the father of a soldier killed in action in Iraq. If it is true that only Nixon could go to China, perhaps only a Bacevich can make the American center see the error of its unchecked militarism.

In a new essay in The Nation, a review of Douglas L. Kriner and Francis X. Shen’s The Casualty Gap: The Causes and Consequences of American Wartime Inequalities, Bacevich takes on the dynamics of American political culture that allow us to enter war after war, considering two very good reasons not to: (1) war’s casualties are now disproportionately among the poor, and (2) with debt and unemployment mounting, war is more expensive than ever.

Kriner and Shen provide data to show that (1) was not always as it is now:

Only in the case of the war against Germany and Japan did “the nation’s long-held norm of equal sacrifice in war” prevail. Given the reliance on conscription to raise the very large forces required for that conflict along with the military’s refusal to induct anyone who didn’t meet strict, if arbitrary, health and literacy standards, “the poorest and most undereducated counties actually suffered lower than average casualty rates.” In 1941–45, there was no casualty gap. During the cold war, fairness vanished. With the US intervention in Korea, Kriner and Shen write, “the data show a dramatic change: strong, significant, socio-economic casualty gaps begin to emerge.” The evidence they amass strongly suggests that this gap widened further during Vietnam and became greater still when the Bush administration invaded Iraq.

Read the rest of this article »

A couple months ago, we did a post about some unions that are hiring nonunion demonstrators to protest work that’s being done with nonunion labor. Last night, this ridiculous story got the Daily Show treatment.

In the segment, correspondent Asif Mandvi pays a visit to United Food and Commercial Workers local 711 in Nevada, where—after hearing about their struggle against Wal-Mart’s unfair wages and practices—he learns that the UFCW protesters are a “bunch of scabs.” Of course, Mandvi then facetiously asks UFCW 711 president Mike Gittings if he’s aware of this. Gittings squirms in his seat trying not to say “yes.” Mandvi initally lets him off the hook, assuming the union treated the hired protesters “like their own.” But, of course, he finds out this isn’t true, as the protesters make minimum wage without benefits. To make matters worse, their hours are getting cut—one of the primary grievances UFCW has against Wal-Mart. So Mandvi helps organize a protesters union, giving Gittings one last chance to set the record straight. But Gittings makes the mistake of blaming Wal-Mart again, saying that a lot of companies are following its example of low-wages and lack of health care–to which Mandvi responds, “Is one of those companies UFCW?”

The emotional journey Mandvi’s correspondent character undergoes in this segement really encapsulates the problem with hiring protesters. While Mandvi was on board with UFCW’s struggle in the beginning, he completely loses respect for them when he finds out they don’t do their own protesting or uphold the same standards they’re seeking from Wal-Mart.

As I wrote before, this shows a complete lack of understanding as to the dynamics of nonviolent action. It’s too bad some unions don’t seem to understand how they’re undermining their own cause because there are certainly a lot of people deeply affected by the poor practices of Wal-Mart. Perhaps the best thing UFCW can do is step aside from the issue until real organizers are able to bring true witness to the struggle.

Union Privilege, a  non-profit started by the AFL-CIO to provide benefits to its members, is running a contest for best “union made” union song, which includes the entry above.

If you like songs about organized labor, check out the rest of the entries by clicking here. Unfortunately, to vote for your favorite you have to be a union member.

One, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ball game, as the song goes.

But it took just one strike for Dan Moore and Sarah Szekeresh to get booted from the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Ohio, last Wednesday after unfurling a banner protesting SB1070, Arizona’s recent bill targeting immigration, over the center field wall during an Arizona Diamondbacks game against the Cincinnati Reds.

Moore and Szekeresh were then arrested for disorderly conduct and spent six hours in jail. The fourth-degree misdemeanor carries a penalty of up to $250 and 30 days in jail. The pair pled not guilty and will have a bench trial on October 4.

In an interview with Waging Nonviolence, Moore said that talking about his arrest misses the point. “Immigrant families get arrested every day for bogus reasons, and these criminal records cause significant damage to their lives,” he tells WNV. “All this talk about being arrested – when I can go home and continue my job and my life – just dramatizes the true catastrophe going on in immigrant communities around deportation. Families get ripped apart. It’s hard to pity myself.”

Szekeresh felt similarly, telling the Cincinnati Enquirer, “It’s not about me.”

The risk of arrest is a real concern for undocumented people. “It highlights the role that allies can play in the struggle for immigration reform,” said Moore. “Immigrants have owned much of it, but when it comes to tactics that would expose undocumented people to unnecessary risks and even deportation, allies must also step up. We must work to responsibly escalate the struggle.”

Protests have followed the Arizona Diamondbacks across the country. “We don’t have ambassadors between states,” explained Moore. “Baseball games are as close as we get, and these actions communicate to people in Arizona that anti-immigrant hate will not be welcome here. It won’t be normalized.” That message, disseminated by the AP, reappeared in local Arizona newspapers.

Moore and Szekeresh planned their action with the help of both immigrant communities and activists in other cities, including those promoting MoveTheGame.org, a website petitioning Major League Baseball to change the venue of the July 2011 All-Star Game, currently scheduled for Phoenix.

• Thousands of Thai anti-government “Red Shirts” massed Sunday to mark four years since a coup ousted their hero Thaksin Shinawatra and to commemorate those slain in a May crackdown on their protests.

• Tens of thousands demonstrated in Berlin Saturday against the government’s proposal to extend the life of Germany’s nuclear power plants for another decade or more.

• In Chicago, a group of parents and community members staged a sit-in at a Pilsen elementary school field house Friday to protest plans to demolish the dilapidated structure.

• Employees at France’s Piper-Heidsieck champagne maker have called an indefinite strike, in protest at plans to cut a quarter of the house’s work force. Around 80 employees have been blocking the production site in Reims since midnight on Friday.

• On Thursday, thousands of Argentine teachers and students marched from Congress to the presidential palace to mark the anniversary of student deaths in the 1970s and press demands for improved conditions in public schools.

• In the Philippines, more than a hundred political prisoners in detention centers nationwide, joined by relatives and supporters, staged a protest fast Friday to demand immediate freedom from an administration that has pledged respect for human rights.

• In California, Palomar College students expressed frustration at reduced classes and services at a sit-in Thursday to protest state cuts to higher education.

• Hotel workers at the Toronto Hilton and the Hilton Toronto Airport staged a one-day walkout on Friday to protest cutbacks at the two hotels, owned by Westmont affiliates.

From Whale Wars to the liberation of 50,000 minks, animal rights activists have a way of undermining the moral justness of their cause with actions that are morally dubious in their own right. That’s why it’s so refreshing to see an animal rights action that has the potential to inspire the general public to think differently about the way our culture exploits animals. As first reported by Greenopolis:

Members of the creative collective Neozoon, a group of artists based in Paris and Berlin, are staging a protest against using animal furs as fashion by turning the pelts and coats into street art graffiti.

Click here to see more photos of the fur-sculpted graffiti.

Yesterday, the tens of thousands of Cambodian garment workers who went on strike at the beginning of the week called off their action as the government intervened and arranged talks between the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, the main industry body, and the union on September 27, to discuss the dispute over wages. According to an article on Monsters and Critics:

Union leader Ath Thorn said 200,000 workers – more than half the industry’s workforce – had joined the strike, which began Monday.

‘This is a good result,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to strike. It is the last choice for us, so when the government and the company say they will negotiate, we feel happy.’

‘We propose a living wage as well as seniority and attendance bonuses, meals and overtime,’ Ath Thorn said of the unions’ demands.