Chilean art collective Casagrande brought its “Poetry Rain” project to Berlin last weekend, dropping 100,000 poems over the city as a protest against war. Casagrande has done this several times since 2001, focussing on cities that have been bombed during actual warfare, such as Santiago de Chile, Dubrovnik, Guernica, and Warsaw. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any video of the drop, just the perparation for it. But if it was anything like the one they did in Warsaw, it was no doubt a spectacle to behold.

According to The Guardian:

Organisers say that just as wartime bombings were intended to “break the morale” of the inhabitants of a city, so the poetry bombing “‘builds’ a new city by giving new meaning to events of her tragic past and therefore presenting the city in a whole new original way”.

The Berlin project, for which Casagrande worked with Literaturwerkstatt Berlin as part of the Long Night of Museums, took place in the city’s Lustgarten, where a crowd of thousands had gathered to hear readings and performances by Latin American artists.

Poems dropped from the helicopter circling the area were by poets including Ann Cotten, Karin Fellner, Nora Gomringer, Andrea Heuser, Orsolya Kalász, Björn Kuhligk, Marion Poschmann, Arne Rautenberg, Monika Rinck, Hendrik Rost, Ulrike Almut Sandig, Tom Schulz, Thien Tran, Anja Utler, Jan Wagner, Ron Winkler and Uljana Wolf, according to Lyrikline.org, one of the organisations supporting the project.

This week the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $165,000 to seven protesters to settle a federal lawsuit they filed after they were arrested and jailed for two days for lurching down Nicollet Mall dressed as zombies to protest “mindless” consumerism.

According to an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

When arrested at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and 6th Street N., most of them had thick white powder and fake blood on their faces and dark makeup around their eyes. They were walking in a stiff, lurching fashion and carrying four bags of sound equipment to amplify music from an iPod when they were arrested by police who said they were carrying equipment that simulated “weapons of mass destruction.”

However, they were never charged with any crime.

Although U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen had dismissed the zombies’ lawsuit, it was resurrected in February by a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded that police lacked probable cause to arrest the seven, a decision setting the stage for a federal trial this fall. The settlement means there will be no trial.

This sounds like the sort of creative protest that should be replicated elsewhere, especially with the seeming explosion of interest in anything zombie related in this country in recent years.

• Through a series of well-choreographed steps, a tiger-themed flash mob called “Freeze Tiger Trade” spearheaded by WWF-Malaysia turned heads and attracted attention on the status of our Malayan tigers here in Kuala Lumpur.

• In Turkey, nongovernmental organizations in the eastern province of Batman held a silent march and sit-in demonstration yesterday in protest of a mine explosion that claimed the lives of four people on Monday.

• On Wednesday, unionized workers of the West Indies Paper Products Limited in Jamaica walked off the job to protest against what they claimed was the failure of the management to improve wage and fringe benefits.

• More than 100 people at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in England went on hunger strike on Wednesday.

• In Azerbaijan, ten opposition activists jailed for participating in an unsanctioned rally calling for free elections in central Baku on July 31 have declared a hunger strike.

• Around 120 Chinese seasonal berry pickers in northern Sweden went on a 15-kilometre (9.3-mile) march overnight to Friday to protest their salaries

• In Malaysia, police forcefully broke up peaceful candlelight vigils held on August 1, against the Internal Security Act (ISA), and arrested 36 people in Petaling Jaya and Penang.

• This past Friday, in Bryant Park  in New York, Medicare celebrated it’s 45th birthday with a flash mob of over one hundred singing and dancing protesters that warned President Obama’s newly created Deficit Commission to keep their hands off Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

• South African government ministers met with public sector workers’ unions to try to end an open-ended wage strike by 210,000 teachers, nurses and other state employees that began last Thursday and prevent it from spreading.

• Greek truck drivers’ associations say they will continue a protest that has halted fuel supplies across the country and is hurting tourism, despite an emergency order by the government to force them back to work.

• Hundreds of hotel and restaurant employees and supporters were arrested around the US Thursday in coordinated civil disobedience against the Hyatt Corporation. Fifteen cities saw protests.

• A group of families of political prisoners gathered in front of the office of the General Prosecutor to protest the lack of information about the situation of their loved ones, especially those political prisoners who went on hunger strike in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison last week. Meanwhile, it was reported yesterday that anti-riot units and Special Forces barged into the facility  after learning of prisoners’ mass hunger strike.

• More than 200 Afghans participated in a rally in the capital Kabul on Sunday to protest the alleged NATO killing of 52 civilians on July 23, in the Sangin district of Helmand province.

• Some 800 dockers and activists staged a rally in Indonesia on Saturday to demand that a major port operator honor a negotiated agreement.

Time’s Up!, “NYC’s direct action environmental organization” (which also fought to save a Brooklyn bike lane earlier this year), is now organizing to protect New York’s community gardens, which may become vulnerable to development in September. The New York Times reports on how:

The bikes departed Tompkins Square, pedaled by men and women dressed in 21st-century thrift-store versions of 18th-century garb. There were tricorn hats, vests and, in a few cases, shirts with long, flowing sleeves. Many of the bicycles were decorated with cardboard cutouts in the shape of a horse’s head. One man rang a bell. Others shouted to passers-by on Avenue B, calling out, “The bulldozers are coming.”

The procession was modeled, of course, on Paul Revere’s nighttime ride to Lexington, Mass., in 1775. But the riders on Thursday night meant to warn people not about an invading military force, but about proposed rules by the city that would alter the status of hundreds of community gardens.

[…] They rode from garden to garden in the East Village to spread news of the rules, then ventured uptown to deliver a message to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

One perhaps can’t help but wonder whether these activists might have gotten the Revolution-era motif from the Tea Party, a movement not exactly known for dedication to the environment. What is it—tribute or reclamation? Or neither?

Time’s Up! has more in store. The Times continues:

Some gardeners said the ride was the first in a series of events meant to sway opinion in favor of explicitly preserving the gardens. Members of a citywide gardening group are encouraging people to bring signs and banners on Aug. 10 to a public comment session for the new rules. Some gardeners said they would deliver fruit and vegetables from gardens to the mayor and members of the City Council on Monday.

The Time’s Up! website describes two upcoming actions, one of which is this morning:

• Harvest Day Rally at City Hall (in conjunction with other garden groups’ press conference) August 2nd – 10 or 11 am (Monday) (exact time and location TBA)

• Proposed Rules Public Hearing/Rally – Let’s rally around the hearing and let them know how we feel about saving our community gardens! Bring instruments and props – be creative! August 10, 10:30 a.m. rally before 11 am public hearing (Tuesday) Chelsea Rec center, 430 W. 25th Street, Manhattan

Bicycle protesters have sometimes been accused of being overly aggressive and disruptive of traffic, but here the mood seems to have remained positive, declaring the good that these gardens do for the city. I experienced this at least twice today: eating lunch at a restaurant in my neighborhood in Brooklyn that serves garden-grown food and then, on a bike ride no less, discovering the large community garden at Floyd Bennett Field where an elderly immigrant couple happily showed my friend and me their day’s harvest of beautiful tomatoes.

• Members of the youth climate group Consequence hosted a Big Oil Carnival for Senate staffers on the steps of Union Station in Washington DC on Tuesday. The event was complete with oil-themed games, Tony Hayward clowns, a stilt walking Uncle Sam and a message to the Senate: “Stop playing games with our clean energy future.”

• Greenpeace U.K. shut down at least 30 BP stations in London on Tuesday, fanning out to as many as 50 BP stations and posting banners that said, “Closed: Moving beyond petroleum.” They also pulled safety switches that cut off fuel supplies at the stations — and removed the switches so they couldn’t be turned back on again.

• Four supporters of the federal DREAM Act stood before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in full cap and gowns at a Netroots Nation luncheon in Las Vegas last week to protest his lack of conviction on a bill that would allow a pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth.

• An animal rights activist was arrested in Jordan’s capital on Sunday after covering herself in lettuce in a square along one of Amman’s trendiest streets. She held a placard reading “Let vegetarianism grow on you.”

• Rights activists, including celebrities such as Bianca Jagger and actors from James Cameron’s film Avatar, gathered outside the venue of the annual general meeting of the mining company Vedanta in London on Wednesday to protest its controversial plans to mine tribal land in the Orissa region of India.

• Eight people were arrested during a sit-in staged by the direct action group GetEqual in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday as part of an effort to push for a vote on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which would outlaw workplace discrimination based sexual orientation and gender identity.

• 15 people from a small town in North Queensland, Australia blocked a coal export terminal by camping on it for two nights to protest pollution and noise from the coal trains that pass through the town 15 times a day.

• Strikes spread across eastern India yesterday to protest a rise in fuel prices, shutting down markets, schools, airports and businesses.

• Activists dressed as Founding Fathers stormed the foyer of a powerful downtown Washington lobbying firm last week, demanding that members of Congress stop meeting behind closed doors to raise money from corporate lobbyists and instead spend their time working on laws to help the American public.

• Demonstrators blocked a Vancouver intersection on Sunday to protest the arrest of hundreds of people during the recent G20 summit in Toronto.

• Conservationists in Malaysia protested a plan to build a coal-fired power plant on Borneo island yesterday, alleging authorities and companies ignore the rights of indigenous tribal communities and cause environmental harm by cutting down swaths of jungle.

• About 50 protesters from several Jewish organizations picketed outside the Russian Tea Room in Manhattan on Friday while Israeli Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni spoke inside. They protested Livni’s role in Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon and the winter 2009 attack on Gaza.

• About two dozen members of the Baltimore police and firefighters unions protested the city’s slashing of their pensions last week.

• More than 1,000 Italian journalists gathered in Rome last week to protest a law that curbs police wiretaps and imposes fines on news organizations that publish transcripts.

• US dairy farmers participated in a nationwide protest on Sunday against price drops by dumping a days worth of milk.

The French Young Farmers (Jeunes Agriculteurs) union turned Paris’ Champs Elysées into a giant farm on Sunday by covering the capital’s busiest road with 8,000 plots of earth, 150,000 plants and 700 fully grown trees, as well as pigs, cows, horses and sheep. According to the BBC:

The union, which represents some 55,000 farmers under the age of 35, wants to impress on the public – and the government – the efforts required to produce what goes on the table.

“It’s about re-establishing contact with the public about what our profession is and what they want from it,” William Villeneuve, president of the Jeunes Agriculteurs, said on Friday.

“Do they want the cheapest products in the world or do they want products that pay producers?” he added.

For the Parisians who last year witnessed farmers blocking traffic and setting fire to piles of hay and tires on the Champs Elysées, this bucolic sight is no doubt a welcome approach to one of France’s most enduring issues. At the same time, however, it cost 4.2m euros to stage. But that isn’t stopping the organizers from promising to take their concept overseas.

“We want to take “Nature Capitale” to New York (to work with) the farmers and woodmen of New York state, to Istanbul with their farmers, Berlin and other cities who want to welcome us,” Gad Weil, who created the concept, told France Info radio.

Despite the cost, there certainly is a lot to be said for raising awareness among city folk about the food process. It will be interesting to see if the reaction in Paris justifies its expense and whether such an undertaking can be replicated in other parts of the world.

In an effort to draw attention to a boycott called by the workers of Hyatt Hotels, LGBTQ activists staged a flash mob adaptation of Lady Gaga’s song “Bad Romance” in the lobby of the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco. The lyrics were changed to address the workers’ struggle to win a fair contract and affordable healthcare. With an influx of LGBTQ people coming to San Francisco’s annual Pride Celebration next month, Hyatt could be hurt by its decision to not heed the workers’ demands.

• Protesters draped banners over the Parthenon defensive walls yesterday and stormed the Acropolis.  Today Greece holds a general strike in protest of government austerity measures. Unions are rallying and schools, hospitals, shops, and most other locations are closed.

• 15,000 kids in Kuwait skipped school during a two-day strike this week in protest of high pollution caused by oil facilities.

• Nearly 200 workers gathered at the Ministry of Labour in Dubai demanding back wages their employers withheld.

• In honor of the May 4th movement against censorship, Chinese netizens yesterday protested through an online flash mob.  People sent out messages that said “freedom of speech.”

• 500 HIV/AIDS patients rallied in New Delhi yesterday to protest the recent firing of outreach workers.

• Thousands of Christians protested in northern Iraq to condemn a recent bus bombing that left 80 wounded.

• A group of UC Berkeley students are staging a hunger strike for several demands: that the university oppose the new Arizona immigration law, drop disciplinary charges against protesters from the occupation of Wheeler Hall earlier this year, rehire laid-off janitors, and make the campus a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.

• Firefighters in Ann Arbor, Michigan picketed outside the fire station on Monday against planned layoffs.

• Members of the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota are exercising civil disobedience by fishing in non-reservation land, demonstrating their right to live off the land.

• Activists in San Francisco staged a street theater protest this weekend against American Apparel’s sexist advertising.

Greenpeace continued its campaign against Nestlé with a rather dramatic stunt at its shareholders’ meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland last week. According to Treehugger:

Nestlé’s annual shareholder meeting was interrupted by a protester dropping from the ceiling to unfurl a huge banner saying “Nestle, Give the orangutans a break!”

“Nestlé’s chair, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, was explaining how well the company had performed over the last fiscal year when noises were heard up in the roof and leaflets began raining down, not at all unlike a shower of cash,” says Greenpeace’s blog.

Since Nestlé’s use of rainforest-destroying palm oil is at the heart of the issue, Greenpeace also sent a swarm of protesters clad in orangutan costumes to wreak havoc outside the meeting. As the video shows, Greenpeace is great at pulling off eye-grabbing stunts perfect for viral dissemination through social media. But I’m still wondering if Greenpeace will address the Indonesian workers hurt by cancelled palm oil contracts. They could at least demand that some of Nestlé’s windfall profits go toward creating sustainable jobs in Indonesia.

• 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.

At the end of November, just before Obama announced the escalation of the Afghan War, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), with the help of World Can’t Wait, staged a unique and powerful protest at the Westlake Center in Seattle.

As a form of “street theater,” the veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, dressed in their military uniforms and pointing imaginary guns, stormed through the crowd, tossing other protesters – who were disguised as innocent civilians going about their business at the shopping mall – to the ground and arresting them.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer explains the reaction from the passers-by:

But many people were caught off-guard by the unorthodox scene… where lines of young kids waited their turn to ride the carousel and shoppers hurried by with their bags.

As the “soldiers” screamed profanities at the “civilians” on the ground, many frightened young children were asking their parents what was going on. Meanwhile, some adult shoppers walked by – seemingly oblivious to the freaky scene.

Dubbed “Operation First Casualty,” members of IVAW first carried out this unusual type of protest, which gives onlookers just a small taste of what war is like for ordinary Iraqis or Afghans, at various locations in New York City back in 2007. After getting significant media coverage, IVAW took their show to Washington, San Francisco, and to Denver during the Democratic National Convention.

Since I first heard of this idea, and saw pictures and videos of these actions, I thought they were a brilliant and shocking way to dramatize the ugly reality of war for the average American. They also provide great opportunities for those of us in the peace movement to work closely with veterans to resist the ongoing wars.

My only regret is that these types of protest cannot be more widespread. If ordinary people were simply to dress as soldiers and carry out this street theater, critics could legitimately argue that that they don’t really know what war is like. And I wonder if it would offend sympathetic veterans, who are or could potentially be our allies. Any thoughts?