Twenty-three-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie died seven years ago when she was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza as she stood before a Palestinian home facing demolition. Democracy Now! devoted yesterday’s show to an interview with her sister Sarah and two parents, Cindy and Craig, who are currently in Haifa for the start of a civil trial against the state of Israel over the unlawful death of their daughter. I was struck by Craig Corrie’s words when Amy Goodman asked if the family would get a chance to meet the man who drove the bulldozer.

We would like to meet that person. There are lots of victims, Amy, when you look at a war and what happens. And we lost Rachel, and that hurts every day, but that bulldozer driver lost a lot of his humanity when he crushed Rachel. We’re told by B’Tselem, for instance, that in 2004, I believe, the highest—the cause, proportionately, of deaths in the Israeli soldiers, the highest one is suicide. There’s a big toll to soldiers. And I guess I have to hold out my hand, in some way, that if that man could understand what he’s done, in terms of our loss, if he could mourn our loss of Rachel, I could mourn his loss of humanity.

There’s a lot of steps, as Sarah says, that would have to happen that way. But yeah, I’d like to meet him. And it’s not about trying to put him in jail. It doesn’t do me any good if his children don’t have a father, if he has children. But some way, like Desmond Tutu talks about, of mending the tear in society, and I think it’s more like a wound in your arm, and to expect that one half of a wound would heal and the other half stay unhealed is impossible. Both halves have to heal.

Forgiveness is obviously at the very core of nonviolence, but it is often a difficult task to carry out. The fact that someone like Craig Corrie is ready and willing to do this should motivate anyone who harbors anger toward another human to repair the divide. His gesture also shows that good has come from Rachel’s untimely death and perhaps even more is on the way, should he ever meet the driver.

The International Center for Nonviolent Conflict has a couple of interesting events coming up. The first is part of an online lecture series on topics related to nonviolent conflict and civil resistance. There have been two presentations since the series began last month, but the latest one is scheduled for this afternoon, starting at 12pm EST. University of San Francisco politics professor Stephen Zunes will be speaking about “the long history of nonviolent action throughout the Islamic world” and highlighting “case studies including Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Mali, Western Sahara, Indonesia, Pakistan, and others.” You must register to attend the Webinar.

The second event is the ICNC’s fifth annual Fletcher Summer Institute for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict at Tufts University. This week-long Institute “brings together international professionals and journalists from around the world to learn from top practitioners and scholars about strategic concepts and present applications of civil resistance.” It will take place June 20-26. Go to the ICNC website to learn more about the application, which is due March 15th.

If you want to be notified of more events put on by the ICNC sign up for their bi-weekly emails, which also include links to many great stories about nonviolence.

• A parade of Indian people from many nations gathered in Seattle on Monday to commemorate the invasion of Fort Lawton 40 years ago, when more than 100 Indian people and their allies stormed the property and took a portion of the land “by right of discovery.” After a month of protests the government decided to donate a portion of the land for a cultural center.

• About 5,000 left-wing activists and Palestinians gathered Saturday to protest the eviction of four Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

• About 30 people gathered outside the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Denver, Colorado on Sunday to protest a decision by the archdiocese not to re-enroll a child in a Catholic school in Boulder next year because the child’s parents are lesbians.

• Thousands of health care reform advocates gathered outside the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington yesterday, where the lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans was holding its annual policy conference. They chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Insurance companies have got to go!” and staged a mass “citizens’ arrest” of the insurance executives.

• Days after staging protests on campus as part of the national March 4 Day of Action, a small group of students at Stony Brook University sat down in the hallway outside of President Stanley’s office for hours and begged passersby for spare change to cover the rising costs of tuition.

• People who care for injured inmates at California’s Alameda County’s jails are went on a one-day strike yesterday to protest what medical workers call “bad faith” contract negotiations.

• Hundreds of people rallied outside a Manhattan hotel Tuesday to protest a fundraiser held by the group Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.

Peter Robinson, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week condemning the student protests in California for invoking the spirit of social justice movements from the 1960s and 70s. According to Robinson, the protests “demonstrated the entitlement mentality and self-absorption that has come to dominate much of higher education.”

We have here the vocabulary of the peace movement, of the struggle for decent conditions for migrants and other exploited workers, and of the civil-rights movement. Yet what did the protesters demand? Peace? Human rights? No. Money. And for whom? For the downtrodden and oppressed? No. For themselves. At a time when one American in 10 is unemployed and historic deficits burden both the federal government and many of the states, the protesters attempted to game the political system. They engaged in a resource grab.

Yeah, these whiny college students have it all: massive loan debt and a shrinking job market. Why should they complain about being exploited by the student loan industry or being victims of poorly managed state funds? So what if they have to spend more money to go to school longer or possibly not at all for a job that’s likely not waiting for them.

And what about the issues facing minority students that have also bubbled to the surface? I guess that doesn’t show that these protests are about more than just money or that they have something in common with the struggles of minority groups in the 60s and 70s.

It’s clear we all need a lesson in economic justice from Peter Robinson. How else are we going to understand why it’s not “entitlement mentality and self-absorption” when wealthy conservatives like Robinson and his colleagues at the Hoover Institution oppose taxing the rich?

Yup, if there’s one thing history has proven it’s that self-absorbed people love to protest, engage in nonviolent direct action, face possible arrest or even police brutality. Those are clearly the traits of people who feel a sense of entitlement, not people who feel burdened, exploited and marginalized.

According to The Guardian, the head of a right wing group known as the Young Britons’ Foundation has called for trespassing environmental activists to be “shot down” by police.

In October last year, when Greenpeace activists scaled the Palace of Westminster to protest against climate change policy, he called on police to “next time shoot them down … start with water cannon and if that doesn’t work, maybe crank it up a level or two”.

His words are more than just bluster, however, considering that the Young Britons’ Foundation is in the business of training Tory parliamentary candidates.

So what if police did start using water cannons on climate protesters? My hunch is that such brutality would result in what Michael Nagler calls a “paradox of repression.” Environmentalists might gain more public sympathy than they have ever enjoyed before, much like the civil rights movement did after Birmingham.

Does that mean they should welcome the water cannons? No. But it does mean that protesters shouldn’t let threats such as these scare them away from taking action. They pose a threat of their own if they remain committed to action.

What do you think? Am I being to optimistic? Would the general public ignore, or perhaps even applaud the use of water cannons against a Greenpeace activist who scaled a government building or national monument? Would the mainstream media not be sympathetic?

Hundreds of thousands took part in the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education yesterday. It was the largest day of coordinated student protest in years. While much of it was focused on the university and state college campuses of California, where students face a 32 percent tuition hike, there were protests at campuses across the country on issues ranging from minority representation to privatization. According to Amy Goodman:

At the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, police used pepper spray to break up a student protest organized by Students for a Democratic Society. Fifteen students were arrested. At SUNY Purchase in New York protesters took over the Student Services Building. Students at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill staged a sit-in at the chancellor’s office. In Washington state, the Olympia Coalition for a Fair Budget held a mock funeral for public education and healthcare and brought a coffin to the state Capitol building. And here in New York City, students and teachers at the City University of New York rallied outside Governor David Paterson’s office.

Watch the above Democracy Now! segment for more details.

The Move Your Money campaign started earlier this year seems to have gained some serious momentum. According to John Zogby, writing for Forbes:

Fourteen percent of all adults said that in the past year they have actually moved some of their banking from a large national bank to a community bank or credit union. We asked them why they moved their banking and listed several possible reasons. They could choose more than one reason. Based on that question, we found that 9% of all U.S. adults have taken some of their business away from big banks as a protest.

While this seems pretty encouraging, Zogby also noted that it’s hard to tell what effect the protest is having on the banks, as well as whether more people will get involved. But both sides of the political spectrum are taking part.

Our survey found Democrats more likely to be interested in moving their money out of big banks, but one-quarter of Republicans have also considered doing the same.

For Zogby, the ultimate question is whether this “big bank backlash” will force the Obama administration and Congress to reform the nation’s banking and finance. He isn’t holding out hope.

Bank reform is a much more an inside game with rules that are even more complex than those of health care. That, and the campaign contributions of bankers, gives the financial industry much more ability than any of the players in healthcare reform to shape legislation. Congressional challengers will hammer incumbents who voted for the bailouts, but their election won’t likely change how banks and Washington relate.

But he closes on this encouraging thought:

If enough Americans are serious about making big banks more accountable, they will need to do it themselves by taking their business elsewhere.

• Members of Greenpeace climbed the Benelux headquarters of Samsung, in Brussels, yesterday to protest its continued use of toxic substances despite committing to eliminate certain ones by 2010.

• More than 170 people gathered outside the RBC Annual General Shareholder Meeting yesterday in Toronto after a series of creative non-violent actions all morning to protest the bank’s leading role in funding the contentious Alberta tar sands.

• Over 200 University of California students went to the Capitol on Tuesday to oppose further cuts to higher education. Five were arrested for taking part in a sit-in at the office of Assemblyman Jim Nielson. A day of action is set to take place today in California and across the country to defend education at state colleges and universities.

• An Irish town council has removed a page in its guestbook signed by the Israeli ambassador to protest Israel’s diplomatic record after the alleged use of fake Irish passports by the Jewish state’s spies.

• Hundreds gathered at a noontime rally outside the New York State Capitol in Albany to protest Governor Paterson’s proposal to close as many as 90 state parks and historic sites for budgetary reasons.

• Environmentalists gathered outside the Presidential Office in Taiwan yesterday to call on President Ma Ying-jeou to change his policies and call a national convention on climate change.

• Hundreds gathered on the muddy grounds of Queen’s Park in Toronto on Tuesday afternoon to protest plans for a 900-megawatt gas-fired power plant in Oakville.

• Students at Sussec University in England are staging a sit-in to protest plans to make 115 staff redundant, which will close the environmental science degree and impact on English, history and life science departments.

• More than 30,000 people took to the streets of Athens Wednesday after two of Greece’s largest trade unions organized a nationwide strike to protest austerity measures aimed at reducing the country’s public debt. But the largely peaceful rally of disgruntled workers was unfortunately disrupted by a group of violent youths who clashed with police.

• Hundreds of rallies took place across the nation on Wednesday—the eve of President Obama’s White House Health Care Summit—and over a million signed a petition sent to Congress urging lawmakers to “finish the job and pass real health care reform.”

• Environmentalists in Australia marched on New South Wales Parliament yesterday to protest plans for new coal power stations at Bayswater and Lithgow.

• 5,000 indigenous Dongria Kondhs of India trekked to the abode of their presiding deity Niyam Raja on Sunday and designated it as inviolate to protest a controversial alumina refinery and bauxite mine project.

• More than 320 students, faculty and community members gathered Wednesday afternoon to demonstrate for sub-contract workers’ rights at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

• Hundreds of students from several Jordan, Utah district schools walked out of their classes Thursday morning to protest announced budget cuts that could slash teacher ranks, increase class sizes and impact extracurricular activities.

• Nine days after an off-campus student party mocked Black History Month, UC San Diego went through a day of protests, on Wednesday, drawing attention to the small number of African American students enrolled at the beachside campus.

• Classes at a secondary school in Midland, Ontario were disrupted Wednesday morning when nearly 200 students walked out to protest rumoured cuts in programming.

Just over a week ago, I was fortunate enough to attend a conference at The New School called “Iran: Politics of Resistance.” Many great scholars on Iran, both American and Iranian, took part in three panel discussions throughout the day. I was only able to attend the first one—which focused primarily on the Green Movement and whether it can accurately be called a full-fledged revolution—but the others looked to be just as fascinating. Fortunately, they are now all online.

From the first panel, I recommend watching Charles Kurzman from the University of North Carolina speak about “Cultural Jiu-Jitsu and the Iranian Greens,” as well as the talk on “Revolutionary Prefigurations” given by journalist Danny Postel (a good friend of this site). His suggestion that the Green Movement not put off addressing economic issues (like the “color revolutions” of Eastern Europe) was met with serious debate during the Q&A period—a phenomenon we are familiar with on this site. It was also nice to hear a lot of our hunches about the ambiguity of the Green Movement’s objectives and leadership echoed by the speakers.

I have yet to watch the other two panel presentations, but both look particularly useful to those studying social movements and nonviolence. The second is about “Everyday Resistance, Micropolitics and Solidarity” and the third is on “Ethical and Political Demands of the Green Movement,” which includes a presentation on “The Gandhian Movement in Iran.”

I plan on watching both and will add comments if anything strikes me. I hope others will join me.

• Three activists began an occupation of Marfork Coal Company’s main offices in West Virginia yesterday. Marfork is a subsidiary of the coal extracting giant Massey Energy. The protesters plan to present a citizen’s arrest warrant and list of violations on the Marfork processing plant.

• About 400 demonstrators gathered in Aldermaston England on Monday to block the entrances of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, where warheads for Trident submarines are made. Twenty-six were arrested, including Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire.

• About 1,200 Iranians signed a statement against a bill that would further curb women’s rights.

• Greek customs workers announced 48-hour rolling strikes yesterday—the day that was supposed to be the last of a three-day strike to protest government austerity measures designed to pull Greece out of a debt crisis.

• Belgian train drivers went on strike Tuesday to protest safety conditions after the collision of two commuter trains left at least 18 people dead.

• About 300 protesters, mostly doctors dressed in white coats, chanted “the health-care system is in danger” and waved soccer-style red cards in the direction of the building where Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has his office.

• Some 600 workers shut down a pulp and paper mill in southern Finland on Wednesday to protest UPM-Kymmene Corp.’s plans to lay off 200 workers.

On the one hand, as a new CNN poll shows, 11 percent of Americans identify with the movement. That’s a much larger portion of the population than I would have guessed. Think about it, one in ten!

On the other hand, as blogger Juan Cole pointed out, twice that percentage of the population favors socialism. Yet socialism gets far less media attention. In fact, according to Cole, Tea Party received 15 times as many mentions in the media last month as socialism.

The CNN poll also breaks down the Tea Party demographics to show that the movement is disproportionately comprised of white men with higher-than-average incomes, who live in rural areas. While that’s not exactly the picture of average working class Americans some say compose the movement, I can’t help but wonder if 30 million Americans fit the description of white, male, educated and rich. I won’t say the data is flawed, but it does confuse me.

Let’s continue to assume that the Tea Party movement is a relatively large, but homogeneous, group of people. Can such a movement succeed? The recent indigenous protests in Peru had some level of success with probably fewer people. Of course, they were fighting for a very specific and defined cause, rooted in social justice. The same cannot be said for the Tea Party movement.

I won’t argue that excessive government spending isn’t a legitimate gripe, but to mainly attack social programs and not the defense budget is rather inconsistent. A recent article by the vice president of the CATO Institute, of all things, pointed out this flaw:

The Tea Partiers insist they’re nonpartisan, devoted only to staving off our looming fiscal apocalypse by any means necessary. If so, they can prove their authenticity by backing substantial cuts in entitlements and defense.

Tea Party pressure has already forced President Obama to call for a three-year freeze of nonsecurity spending. But that’s just 16 percent of the federal budget. You could zero that out entirely next year and still end up hundreds of billions in the hole.

Rail against earmarks, foreign aid and “welfare queens” to your heart’s content. But all that comes to a rounding error in a $3.7 trillion federal budget, over 75 percent of which consists of defense and entitlements.

[...]

The Tea Partiers — often thought to be hawks — might further demonstrate their credibility by calling for cuts in the Pentagon’s $663 billion bottom line.

If the Tea Party Movement followed this advice and made its demands clear and consistent, it might be something to take seriously. I’d be willing to forget its demographics if its message was more on point and honest. But as long as it associates with Sarah Palin and Republican Party politics, it will likely remain lost to its own potential. Perhaps, this is just more evidence of the need for a left movement that takes on defense spending and shows it to be the real root of our problems.

• Hundreds of students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas walked out of class yesterday and gathered for a rally outside a building where lawmakers were holding a finance committee meeting. The lawmakers agreed to hear their concerns over the proposed budget cuts.

• At least 50 women at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in England entered the fourth day of a hunger strike yesterday to protest against their detention and conditions, with ­several reportedly fainting in corridors and almost 20 locked outdoors wearing few clothes.

• 200 people marched toward the US embassy in Port-au-Prince yesterday, crying out for food and aid, while about 50 more gathered outside the police headquarters where the Haitian government of President Rene Preval is temporarily installed. They chanted, “Down with Perval” as they protested conditions and Preval’s lack of leadership.

• Thanks to a sustained campaign by UK-based tribal rights group Survival International, the Church of England has dropped its 3.8 million pound stake in the controversial mining company, Vedanta Resources, citing concern over the company’s human rights record.

• Teachers, parents and school board members rallied outside Detroit Public Schools’ administrative offices to protest a new standardized test being administered this week, which they fear will be used as a political tool to lobby the state legislature for academic control over DPS.

• Around 400 workers from the Tanta Flax and Oils Company in Cairo staged an open-ended sit-in Monday to demand the payment of withheld salaries.

Blurred Vision, a Canadian band comprised of two brothers originally from Iran, just released a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In The Wall, part II” with a slight lyrical twist that changes the song’s antagonist from controlling teachers to the repressive Iranian regime. The new chorus supports the many young people who protested Ahmadinejad’s reelection by demanding, “Hey Ayatollah, leave those kids alone.”

The music video goes a little further with its message, showing a fictional young Iranian woman on the run from what appears to be the Basij militia as she tries to upload footage from a protest on her iPhone. The video is inter cut with actual footage taken by Iranian protesters, depicting protesters getting beaten by government forces.

While it’s hard to criticize artists who clearly mean well and care more about their political message than their commercial appeal, there are a couple popular misconceptions being forwarded by this song and video. As we’ve written about before, the role of social media has been greatly overstated—not only does it provide questionable information from a small segment of the Iranian population (wealthy, educated city dwellers who dislike Ahmadinejad’s social welfare programs) but it’s also not a reliable way to organize protests given the government’s penchant for internet crackdown.

Like everyone else trying to follow Iran from afar, the members of Blurred Vision may be (pardon the pun) blinded by their desire to see Iranians win greater freedom and civil liberties to the point where they are overlooking and distorting key facts. In a CNN interview they refer to the June elections as “rigged”—something even the mainstream magazine Foreign Policy says is untrue, citing a recent report from the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

It’s important to point out these misconceptions because if furthered they could lead to several undesirable consequences, such as the justification for a US intervention or the installation of a new president without the fundamental changes to Iran’s political structure necessary for real change. As discussed in previous posts, the only way the Green Movement can hope to be successful is to support radical reform that incorporates not just the social reform everyone in Iranian society desires but economic reform that meets the needs of the poor.

• More than 250 Washington State University Vancouver students staged a “mass walkout” to protest budget cuts to academic programs, the elimination of crucial financial aid, and continued tuition hikes.

• Canadian anti-Olympic protesters are promising a series of protests starting this weekend, culminating in a march on the opening ceremonies Feb. 12.

• Anti-US demonstrations in several Iraqi cities coincided with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit this week.

• Chinese artists have been staging flash mobs to protest the bulldozing of their studios.

• Chinese activist Feng Zhenghu ended his 90-day sit-in at Japan’s Narita International Airport on Tuesday when Chinese officials finally agreed to let him return.

• Customs officials and tax inspectors in Greece are holding a two-day strike to protest government austerity measures, including wage cuts.

• Workers at Fiat plants across Italy held a four-hour strike on Wednesday to protest plans to shut a factory in Sicily.

• Life remained crippled for the fourth day on Thursday in the Kashmir valley due to a general strike protesting the death of a 13-year-old boy by police on Sunday evening in down town city.