In an interesting two-part series published by Nieman Watchdog, former executive director of The Fund for Investigative Journalism and reporter for the Washington Post John Hanrahan explores why the mainstream media so often ignores antiwar protests in the US.

After discussing several prominent protests over the last couple years that have recieved short shrift or no attention at all from the mainstream media despite their newsworthiness, Hanrahan asks Vernon Loeb, local editor of the Washington Post, about the paper’s policy in covering activism and why they have often not covered large demonstrations in the capital. Not surprisingly:

Read the rest of this article »

According to a press release today from the secularist Center for Inquiry:

The United States Air Force has been citing Christian teachings in its missile officer training sessions by referencing passages from the New Testament, according to recently released documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Reports show the mandatory Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare session, which takes place during a missile officer’s first week in training, is led by Air Force chaplains and includes a discussion on St. Augustine’s Christian “Just War Theory.” Also included in the PowerPoint presentation is a slide containing a passage from the Book of Revelation that attempts to explain how Jesus Christ, as the “mighty warrior,” believed war to be “just.”

The presentation goes on to say that there are “many examples of believers [who] engaged in wars in [the] Old Testament” in a “righteous way” and notes there is “no pacifistic sentiment in mainstream Jewish history.”

The CFI’s concern, of course, is that religious materials are being used in an obligatory military training course. Of course this is hardly the first time such a thing has happened; the US military makes quite a habit of infusing its literature and culture with religious tropes—to the point, in some cases, of creating a hostile environment for people of faiths other than the one being promoted.

Read the rest of this article »

In this interesting interview on the Real News Network, Center for Constitutional Rights president Michael Ratner discusses his new book, Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in Twenty-First-Century America, and the various ways that the US government has sought to undermine recent mass protests.

• Spanish activists, known as “the Indignants,” have set off from Madrid on a long march to Brussels to protest what they see as governments bowing to financial markets and ignoring the needs of their own people in the economic crisis.

• Thousands of Greek taxi drivers marched in central Athens on Tuesday to protest government plans to open up their sector to competition.

• Police in Denmark detained six environmental activists on Tuesday protesting the felling of trees in a forest to make room for a research centre for wind turbines.

• Three leaders of a Starbucks Corp union in Chile have begun a hunger strike as their members push on with the first labor stoppage at company-operated Starbucks cafes.

• Young protesters seeking to oust Senegal’s aging president filled the streets outside a central courthouse in the capital, Dakar, on Tuesday, a day after the police arrested a rapper and prominent democracy activist.

• About a dozen activists—including Illinois Representative Luis V. Gutierrez—were arrested after they sat down on the White House sidewalk Tuesday, following a rally where demonstrators denounced the Obama administration for deporting more than one million immigrants in the last two years.

• About 200 protesters gathered Tuesday morning outside the Convention Center in Philadelphia to demand wheelchair-accessible taxicabs. The rally was held on the 21st anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

• India’s biggest traders’ association held a series of demonstrations Tuesday against proposals to allow supermarket chains like Wal-Mart and Tesco into the country’s retail sector.

Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher was sentenced today to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine for disrupting a federal oil and gas lease auction in 2008 that was later deemed illegal. But don’t cry for him. Having met the man, I can confidently say the last thing he wants is pity.

At a speaking engagement earlier this year, someone asked Tim how we could keep him from going to prison. He quickly responded, “I’m not sure keeping me out of prison is a good thing. I’d rather think about having you join me.” After all, he didn’t do it for himself.

As Bill McKibben points out in a piece published on Huffington Post earlier today, “If you sweated through last week’s record heat, if your crops are withering in the southwest’s epic drought, if you watched the Mississippi swallow your town — then Tim DeChristopher acted for you. And it’s time for you take the same kind of responsibility.”

McKibben recommends traveling to Washington DC next month for two weeks of civil disobedience against the proposed Keystone Pipeline that will carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico.

This action won’t be as risky as Tim’s. People are signing up to come to DC for three days. On the first they’ll attend nonviolence training, and on the second they’ll sit down in front of the White House. No one knows for sure how the police will react, but the legal experts say jail time will likely be measured in hours, not years. Still, it’s a very real way to say to President Obama (who will make the Keystone decision all by himself) that this is the great moral issue of our time.

For motivation, consider what DeChristopher read before he was sentenced this afternoon:

“At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this is what hope looks like. In these times of a morally bankrupt government that has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow.”

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty compiled an interesting list of some of the more creative protests around the world, from Russia and Iran to Azerbaijan and Ukraine, over the last couple years. One of my favorites has happened this summer in Belarus:

Sick and tired of crushing economic hardship and political humiliation at the hands of “Europe’s last dictator,” Belarusians countered the latest clampdown over a fraudulent presidential election by utterly transforming an everyday gesture of approval. People came out in the thousands in more than 30 cities around the country to do nothing more than clap their hands, setting off a firestorm of state thuggery. Even as audiences put their hands together to welcome President Alyaksandr Lukashenka at carefully orchestrated official events, questions inevitably arose as to whether or not it was “OK” to applaud.

With Lukashenka’s plainclothed security forces frantically descending on applauders weeks into the “silent demonstrations,” activists turned to another seemingly innocuous act to register their dissatisfaction, with throngs of people setting their mobile phones to ring at exactly 8:00 p.m. on July 13.

Read the rest of this article »

While there has been a great deal of speculation around whether the nonviolent uprisings in the Arab world will spread south to sub-Saharan Africa, Alex Thurston argues in the Christian Science Monitor that in some ways it already has—with “serious protests in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Uganda, and elsewhere”—and that resistance appears to be taking a new shape.

Now it’s summer, and I’m wondering whether it’s time to start talking about a wave of strikes, rather than a wave of protests. Although many African economies are experiencing rapid growth, problems like rising food and fuel costs, economic inequality, and dissatisfaction with government taxes and other policies are driving workers to shut down businesses and take to the streets.

Last week, I wrote about strikes in Uganda by traders and taxi drivers (teachers have since threatened to strike as well). This week, Nigerian workers are preparing a national strike from Wednesday to Friday over a non-implemented minimum wage increase – though a last-minute promise by governors to pay the wage may avert the strike.

Read the rest of this article »

In keeping with our recent discussions on the power of song, it’s worth checking out Foreign Policy‘s recent piece “Rapping the Revolution.” It talks briefly about the history of rap in North Africa and its role during the Arab Spring:

There is nothing new about Arab hip-hop. Scholars point to its nexus in Moroccan youth political dissent manifested in the vibrant cultural movement known as Nayda, which means “get up on your feet,” or “wake up” in Darija, the Arab dialect spoken in the Maghreb. Dissident rappers like H-Kayne and Donn Bigg, who called on Moroccans back in 2007 to “quit fear,” captured youth while rhyming about ubiquitous corruption and misery in Moroccan suburbs. Next-door in Algeria, famous (and banned) rapper Rabah started rapping during the civil war in 1994 with his group Le Micro Brise le Silence (LBS), “The Microphone Breaks the Silence.” Palestine’s Da Arab MCs (DAM) has produced a stream of powerfully political rap since their 1998 debut.

[...]

But there is no denying the outpour of creative, intensely politicized hip-hop that has accompanied the Arab uprisings. In Egypt, Adel Eissa, known as “A-Rush” from Cairo’s group “Arabian Knightz,” recorded a song on the night of January 27 called “Rebel,” which he quickly released on Facebook and MediaFire. Mohamed El-Deeb, known as MC Deeb, dropped a track ‘Masrah Deeb’ on February 3 in the heat of the Tahrir uprisings. #Jan25, a song spearheaded by titans of the genre Syrian-American Omar Offendum (Omar Chakaki) and Iraqi-Canadian The Narcicyst (Yassin Alsalman) generated hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube. Over in Libya, Milad Faraway, a 20-year-old Libyan who created the rap group Music Masters with another young friend in 2010 tells Qaddafi to leave in “Youth of the Revolution;” in a track titled “17 February” by the group “Revolution Beat” (formerly called “Street Beat,” though their songs — due to fear of punishment — never did hit the streets) tells Qaddafi the fear barrier is broken.

“Arab rap is finally on the map,” says Amor. “And we’re blowing up the world.”

Read the rest of this article »

Last Wednesday, more than 100 DC residents and members of the Living Wages, Healthy Communities Coalition sang and danced to a revamped version of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” as part of flash mob at a Walmart in Laurel, Maryland. In a positive piece on the protest, NBC Washington explains:

The group has a serious message — it’s asking the retailer to show respect to the District neighborhoods in which it’s planning to open new stores.

They want Walmart to meet with community leaders and guarantee, in writing, to  improve the quality of life in those neighborhoods, and  pay employees a living wage.

But, you know, they did it with song! Which obviously makes everything cooler… at least when the participants have talent (plus a trombone, a sax, a set of bongos and some wicked vocals).

While this action was only seen in person by a small number of shoppers and employees, as good flash mobs do, the video has already gone viral on the YouTube, being viewed more than 50,ooo times in less than a week.

To learn more about the demands of the community—and, if you live in the area, get involved—visit the Respect DC website here.

In the negotiations for the Arms Trade Treaty, which wrapped up earlier this month, one subject that was not clearly addressed was the sale of crowd control weapons—such as tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons and electric shock stun guns—that are regularly used in cracking down on peaceful protest. The problem is that the sale of these weapons is big money for many Western governments. As the Inter Press Services reports:

AI [Amnesty International] said it has identified U.S.-made tear gas canisters and solid rubber bullets, and French tear gas grenades and solid rubber dispersion grenades in the aftermath of the attacks on civilian demonstrators in the streets of Bahrain early this year.

[...]

In Libya, AI said, UK-made vehicles were used by security forces, and in Egypt security forces drove into protestors using armoured vehicles.

The main arms suppliers to Bahrain, Egypt and Libya have been Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, the UK and the United States, according to AI.

Read the rest of this article »