In Beautiful Trouble, seasoned pranktivist Andrew Boyd assembles the accumulated wisdom of decades of creative protest in order to place it in the hands of the next generation of change-makers. Part manifesto and part reference guide, Beautiful Trouble is the anti-textbook—a dynamic, 21st century how-to that brings together ten grassroots groups and dozens of seasoned artists and activists from around the world. Among the groups included are Agit-Pop/The Other 98%, The Yes Men/Yes Labs, Code Pink, SmartMeme, The Ruckus Society, Beyond the Choir, The Center for Artistic Activism, Waging Nonviolence, Alliance of Community Trainers and Nonviolence International.

The book will be officially released on April 1 by OR Books, an innovative new print-on-demand publisher. But if you pre-order between now and February 15, you get a 20% discount.

It’s also much more than a book. BeautifulTrouble.org says that it “will soon include the core content of the book as well as a growing array of additional modules, resources, profiles, debates and much more. With your help, the site will evolve in real time with new social movements and their latest tactical innovations.”

Rest assured, you’ll be hearing more about Beautiful Trouble on Waging Nonviolence. This is an extraordinary contribution to the work that’s our mission: to make the stories of creative, courageous struggle for a better world more accessible than ever.

An exciting new cross-media project called Everyday Rebellion has launched its Advent Calender of Nonviolent Struggle, in which Srdja Popovic will offer a short tip for activists every day until Christmas.

The video above is about the role of humor in nonviolent action. Others address the importance of having numbers and an appealing vision for the future to success in nonviolent struggle, among many other topics. (To watch and share these tips as they are posted, follow the project’s YouTube channel.)

As we’ve mentioned many times before, Popovic was one of the leaders of Otpor, the nonviolent movement that brought down Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, and now runs the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) in Belgrade.

To my surprise and delight, this month he was also named, along with several other important players in the Arab Spring, at the top (#1) of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers list—beating out President Obama, who came in at #11. This would have been unthinkable last year and shows that nonviolence is finally starting to get its due among more mainstream foreign policy analysts and political scientists, although we still have a long way to go.

A couple weeks ago I met with Arash and Arman Riahi, the filmmakers behind Everyday Rebellion. They filmed a long conversation between Popovic, Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men and myself about the Occupy movement and activism more generally.

The following day, the film crew came over to our apartment and interviewed Bryan Farrell and I about this site for the documentary Everyday Rebellion, which is only one aspect of their ambitious project, and filmed a series of tips for activists that will debut in 2012. In an email interview, Arman Riahi described the project as a:

cinema and television documentary and a web platform about non-violent forms of protest and civil disobedience during the 21st century… seen not only through the current Arab and Iranian uprisings, but also through former successful and less successful revolts and new movements like Occupy Wall Street.

In addition to the documentary, Arman told me that Everyday Rebellion plans on developing an extensive website that will include, among many other things, personal stories about nonviolent resistance:

artistic works that have been or are banned… and interactive tools like an app with tips and tricks for the daily fight or educational games for younger audiences to learn in a playful way about different nonviolent methods.

For the Riahi brothers this is more than just another project. They were born in Iran and their family fled the country for Austria after the Islamic Revolution. “We feel it’s a necessity for us to use our craft to bring this project to life in order to support suppressed people,” Arman explains.

From our conversations with them, Everyday Rebellion looks to be an important resource for all of us, and we will continue to blog about the project as it develops over the coming months.

Political theorist Adrian Pabst, for instance, in an essay on “The Resurgence of the Civic,” examines the movement’s “glocal dynamic”:

The fusion of the global with the local is equally evident in relation to the specific objects of protest and the goals of the individual Occupiers. On the one hand, those activists who had previously been involved in international campaigns have recognized the need to engage with the concerns of the local community on whose territory they are now encamped. But on the other hand, as participants in a global protest movement, the Occupiers cannot be concerned with local issues alone. Protests, in order to be effective, must have a specific local object that nevertheless has global resonance: Tahrir Square exemplifies resistance against political oppression; los Indignados (the outraged) in Madrid and the demonstrators in Athens have mobilized against the austerity policy of debt-deflation; Occupy Wall Street and the St. Paul’s camp express a deep-seated anger about the impact of global finance on the local, real economy, which is shared by ordinary people and certain elites alike.

Another essay, Saskia Sassen’s “The Global Street Comes to Wall Street,” focuses on the role of streets themselves.

In addition to actual print books, the Possible Futures project’s website is divided into three sections: Essays (reflection and analysis), Dispatches (reports from the field) and Digest (commentary and news from other sites). Roam around!

He is currently being held by the Oakland Police Department on $10,000 bail and they plan to turn him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for immediate deportation. He could be sent to Arizona as soon as tommorrow morning. That means we need to act now!

On Facebook, Leenie Venet offers this update:

Pancho is now at Santa Rita in Dublin, CA.  His arraignment for the civil disobedience charges has been fast tracked to Wed. 11/16/11 at 9:00 AM in Room 107 at the  WILEY W. MANUEL COURTHOUSE.  There is a possibility that he will  be transferred after this hearing to the custody of the immigration officials. Please attend this hearing and show your support for Pancho Ramos Stierle!!

Before he goes to court later this morning, please read and sign the petition to free Pancho, which can be found here. An email from Janine Schwab at the American Friends Service Committee says that you can also:

call the following federal officials NOW and ask them to ask Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release (or lift) the immigration hold on him. Barbara Lee 510-763-0370. Nancy Pelosi 415-556-4862. Diane Feinstein 415-393-0707. We have 12 to 24 hours to act on this.

According to the petition, Congresswoman Barbara Lee can intervene and has the power to release Pancho.

Signing this petition or making these calls will only take a few minutes tops, and may be able to help keep a truly inspiring advocate and practitioner of nonviolence in the United States, so that he can continue his important work for social justice and peace—including his ongoing bold and creative effort to challenge gang violence in his Oakland neighborhood. As Venet writes on Facebook:

Pancho used his power of love to nonviolently stand against Arpaio’s immigrant sweeps in Arizona last summer and was faced with a similar situation.  We were successful in helping Pancho get out of that situation by using the power of collective intention.

Now we must muster whatever people power we have to defend Pancho once again and to challenge our unjust immigration policies.

UPDATE: Susan Koppelman has written on Facebook that Pancho’s arraignment was been postponed until 2pm PST, which means we now have roughly another 3 hours to spread the petition and call the congresspeople above. The How to Help tab at this link provides the most comprehensive list of things you can do, with many more ideas and phone numbers than I provided above.

The latest issue of The Catholic Worker includes a new article of mine about covering Occupy Wall Street for Waging Nonviolence. Since the paper isn’t published online, you’ll have to see either a (slightly edited) portion of it about Dan Berrigan at Occupy Writers, or a blown-up pdf here. I’ll also be giving a talk—which was gracefully entitled for me “The Ballerina and the Charging Bull”—at Maryhouse (55 East 3rd St., New York) on January 13 at 7:45 p.m.

Through all the dynamic and dramatic progress of the Arab Spring, the pro-democracy campaign in the tiny island nation of Bahrain has tended to be sidelined. It has struggled to attract the world’s sympathy and attention due to a lack of foreign reporters on the ground and little good information circulating in news sources. Additionally, the Bahraini government has silenced local journalists, employed public-relations and lobbying firms to discredit the protesters, even while it regularly pays lip service to delivering reform.

Nada Alwadi, a Bahraini journalist (and Waging Nonviolence contributor), recently delivered a webinar talk from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, D.C., discussing the current challenges faced by the movement. She was formerly a reporter for Alwasat, a popular newspaper in Bahrain, and was detained in April by security forces for covering the protests in the capital of Manama. Nada left Bahrain earlier this year over concerns for her personal safety. She is currently working in the United States to spread awareness about the situation in her country.

According to her, while the movement is popular amongst citizens, it has been unable to target the pillars of support of the monarchy. “Bahrain operates under a system of tribal politics, where the military, finance and judicial departments are run by a closely knit circle of Sunni elites,” she said. She argued, furthermore, that external pressure is currently the most pragmatic means for success, through international support galvanized by Bahraini and international advocacy groups and media.

Alwadi herself, for instance, is the co-founder of the Bahrain Press Association, an organisation which seeks to defend journalists from government repression. The group calls on the Bahraini government to ensure the safety of local and foreign media professionals, as well as to investigate cases of violence against them. She highlighted other advocacy groups like the Bahrain Mirror, a news and opinion website started by a Bahraini journalist based outside the country, and the Freedom for Bahraini Doctors campaign, which seeks the release of doctors and nurses sentenced to jail by the monarchy.

It can be argued that part of the reason Bahrain’s movement hasn’t captured the imagination of the global community is that it still lacks an emotional resonance as compared to other movements in the Middle East. Tunisia, after all, kicked off with a dramatic act of self-immolation, followed by a fervent uprising among citizens. The Egyptian revolution became iconic for the acts of prayer in front of tanks and Christian-Muslim solidarity in Tahrir Square. The bravery of Syrian protesters still demonstrating in the face of violent state repression has granted their pro-democracy movement supportive and sympathetic media narratives. In the case of Bahrain, scenes like the crackdown at the Pearl Roundabout and solidarity between Sunnis and Shias against the monarchy have been somehow less relatable to global audiences.

Nonetheless, the past few weeks in Bahrain have seen the movement take a new strategic turn. Alwadi explained that a new political movement has begun, running in parallel to the demonstrations. A coalition of opposition political parties recently released the Manama Document, a draft constitution for democratic governance in Bahrain. The Document argues that change in Bahrain can only be delivered through “dialogue between the authorities and opposition forces” with “international guarantees.” It calls for an elected government; fair electoral districts guaranteeing political equality for Sunnis and Shias and the principle of one person, one vote; a single chamber parliament with sole legislative and regulatory powers; a trustworthy and independent judicial system; and security for all of Bahrain’s residents. At the same time, the document envisions the reforms to deliver a constitutional monarchy, “retaining the royal family in terms of ruling and governing without powers.”

These moves have brought some measure of success and support to the Bahraini struggle. The Obama administration recently postponed a $53 million arms deal with the monarchy pending a review of an official inquiry into the state crackdown on protesters. Moreover, the crown prince of Bahrain, Salman Al-Khalifa, has supported the need for reforms in his country. In March this year he declared his own “seven principles of reform,” which ultimately became part of the Manama Document.

There is still tremendous uncertainty in the country. Alwadi highlighted how the politicization of the struggle has led to divisions in the movement. Some political elements, for instance, are calling for an end to monarchy altogether and a complete overhaul of the system. Additionally, critics of the pro-democracy movement suspect that a transition to democracy would lead to a fall in crucial international investments, as seen in Egypt. They argue that fears of political turmoil will send the global business community seeking deals elsewhere.

Alwadi also argued that global powers are reluctant to support the movement partly because they enjoy cozy diplomatic and strategic relationships with the monarchy. Bahrain is of course vital to perceived U.S. security interests in the Middle East, serving as the current headquarters of the navy’s Fifth Fleet. Closer to home, Saudi Arabia has made clear its commitment to maintaining the status quo amongst the Gulf nations, especially after sending troops into Bahrain earlier this year to violently suppress the protesters in Manama.

Still, Alwadi continues to be optimistic that popular sentiment will eventually bring democracy to her country. “The political movement in Bahrain is in its nascent stage, and the strategy is still being developed,” she said.

The challenges are great, yet the will of citizens is committed towards democracy. With the Manama Document, that will now has words and a voice. Political advocacy groups must sustain their campaigning on the ground, court international support, and develop ties between Sunni and Shia organizations. It is crucial that the movement does not lose its momentum.

Waging Nonviolence traveled to the fifth annual Gandhi-King Conference in Memphis this past weekend. In addition to making new friends and reconnecting with old ones—which is what it’s really all about—Eric and I presented a workshop on the role of blogging in nonviolent activism. While it has been an exciting year for us, with massive uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and the rest of the Arab Spring—not to mention Wisconsin—the real excitement has been the past two months, with Occupy Wall Street.

Since Nathan couldn’t join us to talk about his exhilarating experience as one of the early journalists on the OWS scene, we shot this eight-minute video (above), where he lays out the chronology and impact of his reporting. As he explains, being able to track the unfolding of a movement first-hand “fit so perfectly with what we’ve been trying to do all this time.”

We were excited to share this experience with the many great folks attending Gandhi-King this year and receive a really nice write-up in the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Our good friends at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict are once again teaming up with the U.S. Institute of Peace to offer an eight-week, professional level course called “Civil Resistance and the Dynamics of Nonviolent Confict,” which will run from October 20 through December 8. According to the announcement:

This course is designed to provide an in-depth and multi-disciplinary perspective on civilian-based movements and campaigns that defend and obtain basic rights and justice around the world, and in so doing transform the global security environment.

The course will examine such questions as: What is civil resistance? What determines the success or failure of a civil resistance movement? How can professionals in the field better understand and analyze what elements are at work when civilians use nonviolent tactics? How and when should external agents—governments, NGOs, media, business—act or not act when civil resistance is gaining momentum? How can the dynamics and history of civil resistance better inform the fields of conflict management, development, diplomacy, and peacemaking?

The class will be taught by Dr. Maciej Bartkowski, Daryn Cambridge and Dominic Kiraly. The registration fee is $345 and participants (pending approval) will be able to receive one graduate credit for the course from Rutgers University that may be transferable to their academic institution. To learn more about the class or sign up, click here.

• In an article for The Nation, Nathan reports on the start of the Freedom Plaza occupation last week and its significance in light of Occupy Wall Street.
• As part of a discussion for the New York Times opinion page, Nathan calls attention to the power of sustained occupation, the danger of disorganized civil disobedience tactics, and the threat of co-optation.
• Writing for Harper’s, Nathan explains the origins of the General Assembly.
• Nathan wrote what has become the definitive Occupy Wall Stret FAQ for The Nation. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post called it “the single best place to start.” It was also republished in the occupation’s own Occupied Wall Street Journal.
• After The New York Times published a rather insightful and negative piece, Nathan wrote a letter to the editor, defending OWS from the dismissive attack.
• Nathan has been quoted by the New York Observer, The Week, MSNBC, Slate and others.
• As for television, Nathan has been on New York 1 and Al Jazeera (unfortunately, no video for the former has surfaced yet online).
• Nathan’s been on countless radio shows, the biggest being NPR News, CBC’s The Current and WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show.

Today—or yesterday, depending on how you count it—marks a decade since the ongoing war on Afghanistan began. Tomorrow marks the end of the third week since the occupation of Liberty Plaza near Wall Street began. The first might be an utterly solemn occasion were it not for the second. And were it not, also, for the occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., which began yesterday and, at nightfall, held a candlelight vigil for 10 years of war.

I wrote about the Freedom Plaza undertaking yesterday in The Nation:

A group of seasoned activists has been planning it for months already, since before the Wall Street occupation was even proposed by Adbusters. And like those in Liberty Plaza, they are intent on staying as long as it takes to be heard.

Before taking to the streets, the October 6 group gained the support of such familiar mass-mobilizers as the Green Party and Veterans for Peace, as well as newer ones like Peaceful Uprising and US Uncut—though they stress that this is a coalition of individuals above all. As individuals, they’ll be having open discussions on Freedom Plaza about 15 “core issues,” ranging from corporatism and militarism at the top on down to transportation.

The first day succeeded in making Washington pay attention. Some 2,000 people gathered at Freedom Plaza, heard speeches and music, and marched to the Chamber of Commerce and along lobbyist-lined K Street. Hundreds spent the night in sleeping bags on the plaza—illicitly, with light police presence. The organizers hold a permit through the end of the weekend, and what will happen after that remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, I’ve been busy writing about the various occupations for a variety of other publications, as well as giving interviews far and wide for such outlets as Al Jazeera, CBC, Pacifica Radio, New York 1, and WNYC’s Brian Lehrer. Here are some highlights:

• A discussion in The New York Times about what Occupy Wall Street is doing right and wrong. I emphasize the power of sustained occupation and the danger of disorganized civil disobedience tactics, though what the editors chose to highlight was my warning at the end about the movement getting co-opted.
• On the Harper’s website, an attempt to figure out where Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly came from.
• Also on The Nation‘s website, a widely-read “FAQ” on Occupy Wall Street. This was also reprinted in the Occupy Wall Street Journal, a newspaper produced by the occupation. Ezra Klein of The Washington Post called it “the single best place to start.”
• Also in The New York Times, a letter to the editor defending Occupy Wall Street from an early, dismissive article.

Jeju Island is very far away from all the ferment and fervor of OccupyWallStreet, OccupyChicago and OccupyBaltimore. It is even further away from OccupyNewLondon (which is going to start on Sunday, 4-6pm every day, down by our infamous whale tale).

Jeju is in South Korea and it is apparently very beautiful. Unofficially, it is known as Honeymoon Island, because Korean newlyweds go there after the wedding (obviously). The area is studded with coral reefs and UNESCO designations.

Officially, Jeju was dubbed the “Island of World Peace” by Roh Moo Hyun (South Korea’s president until 2009) because it was the site of a 1948 democratic uprising that was met by slaughter—it is estimated that between 30,000 and 60,000 civilians were massacred by the military.

Against this backdrop of beauty and suffering, there emerges a new kind of struggle. In the tiny fishing village of Gangjeong, the South Korean Government is building a deep water naval base. In the process, they are dredging the sea and destroying coral reefs and upending life for the residents.

The beautiful island has the misfortune of a strategic location—300 miles from the United States’ rival China, between Japan and the South Korean mainland and along major international shipping lanes. Joon Gang Daily, a South Korean newspaper, described the base under construction as “the spearhead of the country’s defense line.”  The South Korean government maintains that the base is for its own Navy, but activists see the hidden hand of the United States—and its very large destroyer ships. “The Navy Base is too big for the South Korean military,” South Korean activist and War Resisters International Council member Jungmin Choi told me recently. “Our government is so secretive and they have not said, but the base would be big enough to host the Aegis destroyer and we don’t have those.”

Noam Chomsky, the linguist and life-long student of U.S. imperialism, notes in a recent In These Times article that:

the Jeju base would host up to 20 American and South Korean warships, including submarines, aircraft carriers and destroyers, several of which would be fitted with the Aegis ballistic-missile defense system.

All of this saber-rattling and base building would put Honeymoon Island in the crosshairs of the next global conflict—or the next battle in the already seething global conflict. Take your pick, but either way the people of Jeju are saying “no thanks” to all of that!

In the five years since the plans were announced, the South Korean government has seen opposition coalesce—94 percent of residents oppose the base—and residents use all of the tools in the democratic tool box to stop the base. And that includes their bodies. Sung-Hee Choi, a Jeju activist, has just related the latest news to members of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. The South Korean Navy began blasting work along the coastline a few days ago over the objections of the Island governor Woo Keun-Min and despite the fact that the Island Council is demanding that the central government and Navy stop construction. She says:

The navy, as usual, has never consulted the villagers for the work today. Do you believe? The navy totally ignoring not only the opinion of villagers but also the demand of the Island Council and even the Island government, conducted six times of test blast of the Gureombee [coastline area] today. Eleven activists were arrested during their resistance in the sea and land.

And this is just the latest. Over and over again, Catholic priests, Buddhist nuns, villagers, students from the mainland and people from every walk of life have been arrested in civil disobedience by the South Korean police. Just a few days ago, nine Catholic priests hopped the fence and were arrested. The struggle is getting more and more international attention.

Celebrated feminist and Ms. Founder Gloria Steinem was on Jeju over the summer and wrote about her experiences in a New York Times op-ed. “I can still hear the dolphins crying as if sensing danger,” she writes, expressing her uncertainty about what will happen next as the military continues construction over the bodies and resistance of the people. “But somehow, my faith is in the villagers who say, “Touch not one stone, not one flower.”

The Global Network will celebrate their 20th year of anti-militarism work with a February 2012 conference to bring international attention to Jeju. They will start in Hawaii at the Pentagon’s Barking Sands Pacific Missile Defense where Aegis missiles defense systems are currently located and then go on to Jeju where they will ultimately end up (unless the campaign is successful). Global Network coordinator Bruce Gagnon writes that “Our friends in Hawaii and Jeju Island are very isolated and we want to join them in a show of solidarity as they work to end the militarization of their island homes.”

We can’t all go to Jeju (or maybe we can), but in the meantime American Friends Service Committee is hosting a “Peace in Asia and the Pacific” conference later in October and Yanae Pak, a Jeju activist, will be there to talk about their militant nonviolent resistance to the base.

Even if you can’t attend the conference, add your voice to chorus of opposition by signing this petition to “Save Jeju Island.”

Waging Nonviolence editor Nathan Schneider was on Democracy Now! this morning to report on the ongoing Wall Street protests, which drew significant police repression over the weekend. As the only journalist spending day and night at the protest, Nathan has become a go-to source of information for media seeking to understand #OccupyWallStreet. He has been interviewed by several Pacifica Radio stations, New York’s WBAI and a few international news stations. The New York Observer also interviewed Nathan for its coverage of Saturday’s police violence. As he told me just moments ago on the phone, “It’s bewildering how many interviews I’ve given in the last week and half.”

Nathan has also been mingling with the mainstream media that occasionally stop by, giving them the kind of background information they lack as a result of only showing up after something big has happened. This gap in their coverage and general lack of foresight is clearly problematic (e.g. Sunday’s New York Daily News). Clearly, Nathan’s efforts are showing why diligent reporting on activism is not only needed, but warranted.

Stay tuned for more!

I am headed to Barcelona next week to attend an international seminar called “War Profiteers and Peace Movement Responses.” The meeting is being organized by War Resisters International, the Spanish organization Foundation for Peace and others. Besides my obvious excitement about mi viaje a España, I am looking forward to being part of a discussion on the costs of war and the work for peace involving activists and analysts from all over the world—from South Africa to Venezuela and many places in between.

As the occupation of Wall Street continues, and Wall Street itself falters, and the tenth year of war in Afghanistan approaches, it is a good time to address these issues in a sober and head on way. How do we make the connections between the costs of war and the price of peace? How do we help our communities move from understanding, to outrage, to action, and how do we make those actions meaningful, strategic and impactful?

I definitely don’t have all the answers. Or even any of them… but those are the questions I am asking as I pack my bolsas and practicar mi español.

One of my presentations is a “how to” on researching the arms trade. I am pretty computer illiterate, but I hope to work with more tech savvy colleagues at the War Resisters League and Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Militarism Watch to turn it into a “webinar” (as the kids say, please… tell me that the kids still talk about webinars, that we have not turned a corner away from that innovation). Here are a few factoids that the presentation will help would-be researchers uncover.

In 2009 (the last year for which there is full data—unbelievable, right?), the Pentagon made agreements to sell weapons and military hardware worth $30,660,936,000. Arms buyers around the world took delivery of weapons worth $12,521,676,000. Why the difference? Sometimes, the Pentagon and arms buyers agree to buy more than the country can really afford, or they stretch the buying over a number of years.

It was an interesting year in terms of weapons deliveries. Only two nations took delivery of more than $1 billion in weapons… a sign of a strapped economy if I ever saw one. The first was Saudi Arabia (a consistent big spender) at $1.7 billion in weapons and military hardware and the other was Greece (which most often buys more like a few $100 million in weapons) with $1.2 billion.

You may be asking yourself, “Greece? Isn’t Greece in the news for some reason these days? Not for being a big arms buyer, either, right?”

Greece is in the news because its economy is getting flushed down the toilet—it is on the verge of a default and Athens is considering cutting the national budget by 50 percent. Like in half… In response to these proposals, the Greek public transport system ground to a halt on Thursday, with bus drivers, train conductors, cabbies and even air traffic controllers striking in protest.

Even as it lays off workers, raises taxes and cuts pensions in an attempt to get its economy back on track; Greece is spending billions on weapons. In 2005, the Pentagon notified Congress about an agreement with Greece for a whopping $3.1 billion in weapons, including F-16 fighter planes. Because it takes a few years for a deal this big to get finalized, this year Greece has begun to exercise that license. In March and April, Greece made deals worth a cumulative $260 million for spare parts and equipment for its air force.

Are the protesters flooding Athens and other Greek cities decrying their country’s arms buying spree? Are they talking about their military budget? Greece spends more than 4 percent of GDP on the military, according to the CIA’s World Factbook, making it 22nd in the world, ahead of China (23rd) and the United States (24th). Those are 2005 and 2006 figures, but they are still pretty interesting, right?

Closer to home, Robert Greenwald and others are trying to make U.S. military spending part of the conversation about the U.S. economic crisis. I think it is penetrating, but not as much as it needs to. How do we take it to the next level? How do we inform and educate and organize and mobilize? How do we change the system and our lives? Big questions for a big time! More when I get back from Barcelona!