In his most recent column for Truthdig, former New York Times foreign correspondent Chris Hedges declared his intent to take nonviolent action against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by joining Daniel Ellsberg, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern and several military veteran activists in a protest outside the White House on December 16.

Many of us will, after our rally in Lafayette Park, attempt to chain ourselves to the fence outside the White House. It is a pretty good bet we will all spend a night in jail. Hope, from now on, will look like this.

As a frequent reader of Hedges’ columns I found this particularly noteworthy because despite his pointed and passionate critiques of American foreign policy, I only ever saw an occasional reference to nonviolence. If anything, his veracious words were so devastatingly hopeless at times that I would even find myself questioning what could be done to change this violent culture of ours. So I was extremely heartened when, in this most recent column, he explicitly connected hope with nonviolence:

Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope does not believe in force. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on us all. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope’s power and it is why it can never finally be defeated.

His final thoughts about the upcoming action make for a great reminder of why so many committed nonviolent activists do what they do. It speaks to those who desire to be effective and those who simply want to do what’s right because it’s the right thing to do:

I cannot promise you fine weather or an easy time. I cannot assure you that thousands will converge on Lafayette Park in solidarity. I cannot pretend that being handcuffed is pleasant. I cannot say that anyone in Congress or the White House, anyone in the boardrooms of the corporations that cannibalize our nation, will be moved by pity to act for the common good. I cannot tell you these wars will end or the hungry will be fed. I cannot say that justice will roll down like a mighty wave and restore our nation to sanity. But I can say this: If we resist and carry out acts, no matter how small, of open defiance, hope will not be extinguished. If all we accomplish is to assure a grieving mother in Baghdad or Afghanistan, a young man or woman crippled physically and emotionally by the hammer blows of war, that he or she is not alone, our resistance will be successful. Hope cannot be sustained if it cannot be seen.

Any act of rebellion, any physical defiance of those who make war, of those who perpetuate corporate greed and are responsible for state crimes, anything that seeks to draw the good to the good, nourishes our souls and holds out the possibility that we can touch and transform the souls of others. Hope affirms that which we must affirm. And every act that imparts hope is a victory in itself.

Hopefully more information about this planned action will transpire so interested parties can show their solidarity.

An organized flash dance in Philadelphia seems to have sparked a serious movement against Sabra Dipping, hummus manufacturers co-owned by the Israeli food and beverage company Strauss Group.

The company has close ties to the Israeli military through its support of the brutal and repressive Golani Brigade, which has gained a reputation as an aggressive combat unit that routinely violates human rights and international law standards. Golani soldiers have been convicted of beating Palestinian detainees and forcing them to sing humiliating songs while blindfolded. The Israeli daily newsaper Haaretz reports that the Golani Brigade, “struggles with no small number of disciplinary problems and scandals, caused by bad behavior ranging from revolts against commanders to abuse of Palestinians.”

Before the Philly BDS flash dance video [above] circulated around the internet, the Strauss Group’s English-language website stated that its “connection with soldiers goes as far back as the country, and even further. We see a mission and need to continue to provide our soldiers with support, to enhance their quality of life and service conditions, and sweeten their special moments. We have adopted the Golani reconnaissance platoon for over 30 years and provide them with an ongoing variety of food products for their training or missions, and provide personal care packages for each soldier that completes the path.”

Soon thereafter, Strauss Group removed the reference to the Israeli military and the Golani Brigade from its English-language “Community Involvement” page.  The Hebrew-language version of the site retains the word-for-word reference to the Golani Brigade.

The campaign against Sabra hummus, the largest producer of hummus in the world, has quickly spread to numerous US universities. DePaul’s Students for Justice in Palestine was prompted to ask for Sabra to be removed from the campus when they learned that Chartwells, a large dining services company, had introduced the hummus to various campus locations.  One week after writing a letter to university administrators, the organizers were informed that the product would be removed from the shelves for the remainder of the quarter and likely for the foreseeable future.

The campaign to de-shelve Sabra has also spread to Georgetown and Princeton, where the latter’s Committee on Palestine has sponsored a referendum asking dining services to remove Sabra hummus. Unfortunately, the Daily Princeton editorial board has written against the hummus referendum, citing what they see as a weak connection between Sabra hummus and human rights abuses.

But I’ve heard first hand the apprehension and fears of Palestinians who experienced aggressive and brutal treatment at the hands of Golani soldiers. Back in November 2009, when I was with a Christian Peacemaker Team in the West Bank, the Golani brigade was stationed in Hebron. Throughout their stay I witnessed and documented the extreme and unwarranted use of violence on Palestinian residents as Golani soldiers inflicted head wounds, broke civilians’ hands, and sexually harassed women at checkpoints. The Israeli military’s occupation of Hebron is consistently inhumane, but the maltreatment of Palestinian residents by the Golani Brigade is unparalleled.

The connection between Sabra hummus and human rights abuses is not weak; it is as plain as day. Support the boycott of Sabra hummus and sign the petition letter to Strauss Group, asking them to drop their connection to Israeli army units.

• One of the largest demonstrations in the Irish Republic’s history brought more than 100,000 people on to Dublin’s streets in protest over the international bailout and four years of austerity ahead.

• Several thousand demonstrators gathered in Austria’s capital Saturday to protest government cuts in education, heath care and family allowances.

• Tens of thousands Italians marched in Rome on Saturday in a rally organised by Italy’s largest union to protest bleak job prospects and demand more rights for workers.

• Almost 100 people from Idaho, Montana, Washington, Utah, Oregon, California, Oklahoma and different parts of Canada converged outside of Missoula last week for the anti-tar sands resistance summit, which non-violent direct action trainings and network strategy development.

• More than 30 people took part in a march and rally in Thornbury, England on Saturday to protest plans for a new nuclear power plant in South Gloucestershire.

• Reverend Billy Talen of The Church of Life After Shopping was arrested after protesting (and singing) in the lobby of UBS during Black Friday. He and his church members were dressed in white robes to protest the bank’s funding of mountaintop removal.

• Hundreds of truckers staged a slow-moving convoy in British Columbia on Saturday to push for enforcement of minimum pay rates.

• Over a hundred people joined a community sit-in at Melbourne, Australia’s only aboriginal school last week to protest plans for its partial demolition.

In an article that was overwhelmingly critical of the boycott of Arizona over its draconian immigration law, AP writer Bob Christie points out that there is now an estimate for the financial impact of the boycott on the state.

Businesses have lost lucrative contracts and conventions have relocated, performers called off concerts, and cities and counties in about a dozen states passed resolutions to avoid doing business with Arizona. A report released Thursday says the boycott has cost the state $141 million in lost meeting and convention business since Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law in April.

As Bloomberg News explains:

Convention bookings for July and August fell 35 percent from a year earlier, cutting lodging revenue by $45 million, the Center for American Progress said in a report today. Lost spending on food, beverages, entertainment, local transportation and retail goods brought the total cost to $141 million, the report said.

Last month, Zack de la Rocha, frontman for Rage Against the Machine, and Salvador Reza wrote a piece for the Huffington Post, in which they made it clear that despite the fact that the federal government won an injunction blocking the worst parts of SB 1070, the boycott must continue.

So long as there is a 287(g) agreement with local police; So long as the Federal Secure Communities program is in local jails; So long as federal programs are used to make Arizona a modern apartheid state empowering the governor and state legislature to violate civil and human rights. The resistance of organizations, artists, writers and governments will continue. The boycott of Arizona will not stop, and we will expand our struggle locally, nationally and internationally asking all peoples of conscience to join. La Lucha Sigue (The Struggle Continues).

A bit of Thanksgiving news from Mark Silk at Spiritual Politics:

[O]n the day when we commemorate Puritan Gratitude it is appropriate to note that  the U.S. Navy is currently honoring this local tradition by persecuting a Quaker in these parts. The Quaker in question is Michael Izbicki, an officer in the submarine corps in New London, who since graduating from the Naval Academy has come to the conclusion that he cannot support war, applied for conscientious objector status, and joined the Quaker meeting in Westerly, RI.

In his application for CO status, Izbicki has received the support of various clergy, including a tough-minded Navy chaplain who normally takes a dim view of sailors wishing to get out of the service after receiving a free education at Annapolis. But the two Inspecting Officers charged with assessing Izbicki’s case turned thumbs down. The first did so by finding that Izbicki did not measure up the standards to a Catholic catechism. The second found that Izbicki failed to meet his evangelical terms of faith—biblical inerrancy, Rick Warren’s justification for war, etc.—and suggested that he considered the Society of Friends a cult comparable to the Heaven’s Gate suicides of a decade ago.

The ACLU of Connecticut has taken on Izbicki’s case, filing a habeas corpus petitionagainst the Navy in U.S. District Court in Hartford. In all probability, the Justice Department and Pentagon lawyers will quickly recognize that the Naval authorities have behaved in grotesque violation of longstanding rules for evaluating conscientious objector applications. I suppose it’s understandable that after nearly four decades of an all-volunteer military, memories of how to deal with COs have faded in the services. But Izbicki’s case shows that a little education is in order. Just because the Puritans didn’t like it doesn’t mean that Michael Izbicki’s inner light isn’t to be respected.

Let’s be honest about this: the world has been coming apart at the seams, and we’ve been far too complacent about it. Sure, many of us are well aware of the apocalyptic risks of climate change, the social/environmental ravages of perpetual warfare, and the harsh realities of the rise of global corporate fascism. The era in which we live is defined by an incessant news cycle that chronicles the “end of days” trope in real time. And yet, despite occasional outbreaks of resistance, we’ve mostly been content to watch it play out through the lens of detached denial.

While we may laugh at climate change deniers — including the slate of potential incoming congressional chairs who will be tasked with overseeing this issue — we might also recognize a grain of personal truth in these jocular reflections. How many of us really have taken all the steps at our disposal to forestall the drivers of climate change, from zeroing our carbon emissions to refraining from the consumption of products responsible for deforestation and mounting waste? Who among us has truly stood resolute against the war machine at every turn, from open and organized tax resistance to educating tirelessly against the fallacies of recruitment? And who has completely disavowed any connection whatsoever with the corporate conglomerate that impose their will on the world?

This isn’t an indictment, but more so a statement about the nature of the challenge before us. The array of nonviolent tactics for change at our disposal is vast and always growing, as Gene Sharp has documented. But there is a deeper problem at hand that works against the accrual of these tactics into an effective overall strategy, namely our incontrovertible reliance upon the very forces that we are seeking to alter or abolish. We might attend a protest but eat fast food on the way home. Perhaps we’ve changed our light bulbs yet still utilize fossil fuel electricity. Maybe we work with anti-war groups even as we fund war through multiple means. And so on.

We are all so thoroughly implicated in the patterns and practices of conflict and degradation that it is by now nearly impossible to extricate oneself altogether. Our utter dependency on the very system that we aim to alter necessarily imposes limits on how far we might be willing to go in order to dismantle the machinery of destruction. Metaphorically, we can liken our situation to that of being on a rapidly sinking ship and having to somehow construct a new ship out of the old materials without drowning in the process. And to make matters worse, it further appears that we are constrained to use the “master’s tools” in this already long-shot rebuilding process.

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Robert Wright in The New York Times:

[T]hough Vietnam was hugely destructive in human terms, strategically it was just a medium-sized blunder. It was a waste of resources, yes, but the war didn’t make America more vulnerable to enemy attack.

The Afghanistan war does. Just as Al Qaeda planned, it empowers the narrative of terrorist recruiters—that America is at war with Islam. The would-be Times Square bomber said he was working to avenge the killing of Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And Major Nidal Hasan, who at Fort Hood perpetrated the biggest post-9/11 terrorist attack on American soil, was enraged by the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

He concludes:

Could we please stop doing Al Qaeda’s work for it?

Wright also includes a link to a document on “Myths and Realities in the Afghan Debate” put out by his New America Foundation. It offers lots of pragmatic reasons why the war in Afghanistan is untenable: economic reasons, strategic reasons, human-rights reasons.

Left out, inevitably, are moral reasons. Left out is the repentance we’ll need to give up on our rather deadly pride and our quixotic search for Nixonesque “peace with honor.” But, in the meantime, pragmatic reasons can’t hurt.

This past weekend, thousands gathered to call for the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly known as the School of the Americas).  This was the 20th year activists gathered at the gates of Fort Benning, in Columbus, Georgia, to protest against the SOA/WHINSEC.

The history of the school, which originated in Panama in 1946, moved to the United States in 1984, and re-incarnated by a different name as WHINSEC in 2001, is one of dubious human rights violations and acts of violence and torture in Latin America.  There have been over 60,000 graduates from SOA/WHINSEC. Notorious graduates include Manuel Norriega, former Panamanian dictator, and the countless members of the Salvadoran military who were found responsible for the deaths of the four U.S. church women and the assassination of Archbishop Romero in 1980, the targeted killings of six Jesuit priest and their two co-workers in 1989, and the massacre of 900 civilians in El Mozote in 1981. The atrocities of the past continue into the present, as two-time SOA graduate Gen. Romeo Orlando Vásquez Velásquez led the 2009 military coup in Honduras.  Therefore, the movement to close the SOA is still relevant and still active.

There are varied and misleading reports about the School of the Americas Watch demonstration and nonviolent action to close it that suggest the SOAW movement is losing steam.  The New York Times reports that the protest has lost its energy and popularity, evidenced by the dwindling numbers of attendees and those risking arrest by “crossing the line” onto the base – a federal misdemeanor that carries prison time, if convicted, of up to six months.  This year four people crossed the line and will be arraigned on Tuesday, November 23 in Columbus.

It is true that in years past many more have been in attendance and crossed the line.  A remarkable increase of gate security making it difficult to cross the line and maximum penalties for line crossers have contributed to smaller numbers participating in the symbolic direct action.  Louie Vitale, OFM, who crossed the line for the fourth time, and David Omondi, of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker who crossed the line for the first time, were convicted in federal court yesterday.  They each received a six month prison sentence from U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Hyles.

In years past and under a different judge, first-time crossers and repeat crossers have received differing sentences (usually three and six months, respectively).  Even then, activists and lawyers questioned whether the punishment fit the crime.  Obviously an almost certain six month prison sentence will deter more people from crossing the line, but what becomes certainly clear is that the law is employed in defiance to justice.  Nancy Smith and Chris Spicer, the two others who crossed onto Fort Benning, will go to trial January 5, 2011 in Columbus, GA.   

While crowd estimates are difficult and controversial, the Columbus police estimated that there were 5,000 in attendance (The New York Times said organizers agree but the SOAW has yet to release its estimates).  Police and activists alike misrepresent the numbers to support their own purposes.   A major reason for the lower attendance was that the Ignatian Family Teach-In, a gathering that has brought upwards of 3,000 students and supports from Jesuit high schools, colleges, and institutions decided to gather in Washington, D.C. the weekend prior to the SOAW demonstration.  1200 gathered in Washington, D.C. to advocate and lobby congressional legislators to close the SOA.  This change in venue and strategy does not indicate that the movement to close the SOA is losing steam, but shifting direction.

However many were in attendance – I think between 5,000 – 7,000 for the Sunday vigil is safe enough generalization – what is evident is that there has been a systematic campaign against the SOA Watch to discredit the movement and break it down.  Some activists with the SOAW were terrified and angered by the random police snatching they experienced or witnessed.  News reports are still coming out and personal anecdotes are trickling in, but here is some of what I’ve heard and observed from the SOAW gathering in Georgia this past weekend:

• The FBI held consultations with the Columbus Police Department prior to the SOA Rally.
• There was a much more visible police surveillance system with multiple security cameras and increased individual police officers filming video and taking still photos.
• Riot police prepared for, and engaged in, mass, random arrests.
• Undercover police infiltrated nonviolent direct action affinity groups and encouraged and participated in direct action that resulted in arrests.
• Law enforcement intentionally targeted the media, movement leaders and the SOAW Legal Collective.
• Police in hotel lodgings engaged in racial and youth profiling.  At the Columbus Inn, the Columbus Police Department had a regular presence in hallways and the lobby.  Guests at the hotel were required to show an ID and information was copied by hotel staff.
• There were multiple charges, questionable court proceedings, and stiff penalties for arrested activists.

Many of these tactics are not new and SOAW activists have been aware of their use for years.  The FBI surveillance of the SOA has been well-documented by the ACLU.  In the past, activists entering the permitted demonstration area have been subject to illegal searches and metal detectors (the 11th Circuit Court declared such searches unconstitutional).  What is new, however, is the intensity, preparation, and specific targeting used by law enforcement authorities to discredit the movement’s legitimacy through the use of scare tactics and deterrence.  For example, the Columbus Police department had photographs and lists of members of the SOAW Legal Collective and were specifically targeting these individuals because of their capacity as organizers and their ability to offer legal support.  Charity Ryerson, a former SOA Prisoner of Conscience and Georgetown University law student, was specifically sought out and arrested for her role as an organizer.  Other members of the Legal Collective were told by Columbus Police that if they didn’t stay away they would also be arrested.

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A movement against the use of full-body scanners by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which can already be found at nearly 70 airports across the country, has exploded over the last couple weeks. Here are some of the highlights.

Activist Brian Sodegren, who is an Ashburn pharmaceutical executive by day, has called for a National Opt Out Day today, the day before Thanksgiving, and has received significant attention in the mainstream media. As Sodegren explains the campaign on his site:

All you have to do is say “I opt out” when they tell you to go through one of the machines.  You will then be given an “enhanced” pat down.  This is a right given to you by the TSA.  There is no intent or desire to delay passengers en route to friends and family over Thanksgiving.  We want people to stay within the confines of the law, and exercise their right to a pat down because of the lingering questions over the scanners.

And those concerns are many. The ACLU has denounced the scanners, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, which argues that they are “unlawful, invasive, and ineffective.”

Others are concerned about the potential health effects of the scanners. According to a Congressional report delivered by Dr. David Brenner, head of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research, the TSA seriously underestimated the amount of radiation that the scanners use to capture their images, and hence underestimated the risk that they pose of causing cancer as well.

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Adeeb Abu Rahmah, the moral giant in the above video, has now been in prison for 500 days. Abu Rahmah was arrested on 10 July 2009 during a nonviolent demonstration in the West Bank village of Bil’in. An Israeli military court later charged Abu Rahmah with incitement, defined as “the attempt, verbally or otherwise, to influence public opinion in the Area in a way that may disturb the public peace or public order.”

Incitement is a vague and politically-motivated charge that has been used in this case — and also the case of Adeeb’s cousin, Abdullah Abu Rahmah — because the Israeli military court had nothing legitimate with which to charge Adeeb Abu Rahmah. Even more important is the understanding that the Israeli military prosecution manufactured a charge because popular nonviolent resistance, of which Abu Rahmah and Bil’in are a prominent part, is a threat to the viability of Israel’s theft and occupation of Palestinian land.

On 30 June 2010, after nearly a year of languishing in prison while a sham trial proceeded, an Israeli military court sentenced Adeeb Abu Rahmah to one year in prison. Having already served the year to which he was sentenced, Abu Rahmah should have been immediately released, but was instead ordered to be held because the military prosecution had filed an appeal. Months later on 21 October 2010, the military prosecution’s appeal, which asked for a harsher sentence, was accepted by Judge Lieutenant Colonel Benisho of the Military Court of Appeals. The lengthened sentence totaled 18 months and included a 5,000 NIS (New Israeli Shekel) fine. Adeeb Abu Rahmah is due to be released in December 2010.

Amnesty International, among other human rights organizations, has called for Abu Rahmah’s release and has called into question the charges handed down by the Israeli Military court, saying “the broad scope of Israeli military orders mean that Adeeb Abu Rahma could be imprisoned solely for legitimately exercising his right to freedom of expression in opposing Israeli policies in the West Bank.”

Indeed, Abu Rahma remains in prison because of his moral courage and his determined and persistent nonviolent resistance to the takeover of his land resulting from Israeli policies. Israel considers Abu Rahma a dangerous man because he stood face-to-face with occupying soldiers and demanded that they use their brains, pick up books instead of guns, and provide a justification for their actions. Abu Rahmah is considered a dangerous man because he refuses to give an inch of his land, nor an inch of his moral conviction.