The past month has seen a startling growth in creative means to improve “communication” with the 1%. We’ll showcase three of the latest educational tactics. On November 3rd, for example, members of Occupy Chicago introduced Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin to the mic check. An elite, obviously well dressed audience was saved from a potentially dreadful speech and disabused of any notion that “business as usual” can still occur, even in the elegant setting of the Urban League Club, without the participation of the rest of us.

Do note how seamlessly the protesters were embedded in the crowd. They had not only paid to attend, but had enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast and politely listened to speakers preceding the governor, apparently without raising the suspicions of security. Successful infiltration requires a detailed attention to current fashions, a quality sadly lacking in many Occupy circles. Fortunately, the Urban League Club had posted their dress code online. For those of you anticipating attending future corporate meetings, let me suggest perusing the fashion section of Billionaires for Wealthcare, or you might want to read this excellent posting on “How to Dress Like a Republican.”

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On November 17, the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 will come before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in a private hearing. It’s a bill that’s long overdue, as was its (rejected) precursor, the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010, also proposed by Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. If enacted, the bill would drastically reform the country’s current chemical safety legislation—the Toxic Substances Control Act—which, as it stands, is more loophole than not: a system so inefficient that in its 35 years, fewer than 10 chemicals out of 82,000 have ever been restricted or banned.

As researchers continue to investigate the breadth of the harm linked to chemicals exposure—from infertility and obesity to learning disabilities and autism—a range of organizations and activist groups are creating a movement for reform. The Safe Chemicals, Healthy Families campaign (SCHF), a national alliance representing over 11 million individuals, includes organizations ranging from Agent Orange Legacy (children of Vietnam War veterans), to Black Women for Wellness, to Consumers Union. But some of the biggest players, the front-line activists from Maine to California and everywhere in between, are moms.

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My sister will be 30 on November 5! Happy Birthday, Gal! I remember the day she was born. The school secretary paged the classroom my brother and I were in and said, “Mrs. So and So, please send Frida and Jerry Berrigan to the main office with their belongings. They will not be returning to class today.”

When we got home, there she was, still covered in slime and yellow stuff. She was born at home. She was perfect. Our lives were never the same. Before my brother and I knew it, she was kicking our butts at checkers, running circles around us academically, and then climbing tall cranes and rappelling down others, holding corporations accountable to people.

All of this is an overly long introduction to Bank Transfer Day, which also happens to be November 5. Since it was called for by 27-year-old Kristen Christian, a coalition of groups is now encouraging people to take their money out of Wachovia and Chase and Well Fargo and TD Bank and CitiBank and Bank of America and move to smaller operations like the Randolph Brooks Federal Credit Union or the Bethpage Federal Credit Union (which told The Wall Street Journal that it had signed up 1,500 new customers—twice its usual rate—this week) or the Credit Union of Ohio or Amalgamated Bank, where Occupy Wall Street puts its money.

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On October 3rd, protesters at Occupy Wall Street failed to march. Instead they clumsily lurched. With white painted faces, glazed looks and dollar bills hanging out of some mouths, protesters chanted “I smell money, I smell money…” It was Corporate Zombie Day. Scenes like this and the sight of Guy Fawkes masks, clown suits, drumming circles and surrealistic posters all over the country have left many commentators scratching their heads. Is this protest or carnival? Maybe we should tell them. There’s been a sea change in the protest industry.

“A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future,” proclaims Adbusters, the initiators of Occupy Wall Street. A key part of this re-channeling of tactics has been a move away from both angry protests or passive waiting-to-be-clubbed-by-police-batons to age old carnival-style antics. A festive atmosphere has reigned supreme in all of the successful pro-democracy uprisings of the past two decades. In Poland, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, Tunisia and Egypt, music and humor were everywhere. Why?

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The annual United Nations International Day of Peace and Ceasefire will be marked today with thousands of events around the world. From a moment of silence at noon in every time zone, to “Stand-Up for Peace” comedy events at 55 different venues, to decorative “Pinwheels for Peace” created and displayed by millions of young people around the globe, the day offers an opportunity for peacebuilders to engage and educate others on the various meanings of, and paths to, a more just and peaceful world.

As Valerie Elverton Dixon notes in a post on God’s Politics:

In both the Hebrew and the Greek concepts of peace, the idea goes far beyond the absence of war or violent conflict. Shalom includes the ideas of health, friendship, safety, prosperity and rest. The holiness of Shalom is wholeness. Similarly, the Greek word eirene includes the ideas of quietness, rest, prosperity, happiness, harmony, and to set at one again. Eirene is also the Greek goddess of peace whose sisters are Eunomia (order) and Dikē (justice.)

As the Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote in “Peace in the Post-Christian Era,” his 1962 book about nuclear weapons, which was published widely for the first time in 2004:

The whole world faces a momentous choice. Either our frenzy of desperation will lead to destruction, or our loyalty to truth, to God and to our fellow man will enable us to perform the patient, heroic task of building a world that will eventually thrive in unity, order and peace.

Forty-nine years later, we still face that choice. The International Day of Peace is a useful and increasingly popular opportunity for the general public to reflect, individually and collectively, on how to make sure we choose wisely.

The signature tactic of this revolutionary year, it would seem, is a mass protest in a large, symbolic public space. We saw it in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Bahrain’s Pearl Roundabout, and then in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and Syntagma Square in Athens. Now, in the U.S., the October 6 movement is planning to take over Washington’s Freedom Plaza, while another coalition has been planning to do the same on Wall Street on September 17—tomorrow. (For a basic account of what’s going on with the latter, see my report from earlier this week.) If you want to get something done, apparently, the way to do it is to take the square. And this is exactly what the people at Adbusters had in mind when they made their initial call to occupy Wall Street, observing that “a worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future”; they continued, “We want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.”

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How is it that despite thousands of people in the streets of Sanaa, Casablanca, Bissau and Rangoon, the top protest story of the past day is Rupert Murdoch getting a pie in the face? On the one hand this News Corp. scandal is justifiably a big deal and the kind of public scrutiny foisted upon Murdoch has been a long time coming. But on the other hand, does a pie in the face really deserve top billing and constant replays on CNN, MSNBC and surprisingly even Fox?

After my initial frustration at the second-class news status given to people risking their lives to end oppressive regimes, I realized that there might be something to the whole pie-in-the-face protest—something that we often talk about on this site as a successful strategy: humor. Not only does the action lend itself to such irresistible headlines as “Just Dessert” and “Humble Pie,” but it dissolves a quiet tension that might allow for greater public outcry.

Perhaps going a bit over the top, the Vancouver Sun interviewed a sociologist at the University of British Columbia on this point:

Pieing someone in the face is a form of protest that is relatively harmless and gets people’s attention quickly, said Christopher Schneider, a sociologist at the University of British Columbia.

“By the very nature of its definition, a protest is supposed to be disruptive,” Schneider said. It should get people’s attention without being harmful, he said.

At a time when protests are scripted, require permits and are confined to special protest zones, slapping a pie in someone’s face gets a lot of media attention. It’s also funny.

“It conjures up these images of silliness, clowns, cartoons, children, carnivals, comedy,” Schneider said.

“It’s very difficult with all of that (symbolism) to redefine the pie as being a harmful, dangerous assault.”

The public will usually dismiss it, even when criminal charges are laid.

Before anyone thinks I’m advocating a pie-in-the-face as a legitimate protest tactic, let us now consider its shortcomings—of which there are many.

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Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno wrote a fun little piece for YES Magazine about the use of humor in activism. They highlight five of what they call the greatest moments in “laughtivism.” Some are familiar, such as the Yes Men’s own impersonation of Dow Chemical and environmentalist Tim DeChristopher’s disruption of an oil and gas auction. But at least two of their selections were completely new to me, including one amazing story of a fake newspaper produced by the Belgian resistance during WWII satirizing the Nazi occupation. Click on the image below to read more of the details.

On Saturday night, after driving through the snow from his home in rural Wisconsin, Waging Nonviolence special correspondent Quince Mountain arrived in Madison, where for almost two weeks, protesters had been occupying the Capitol building in a historic effort to prevent the passage of Governor Scott Walker’s bid to strip away the collective bargaining rights of many state employees. I couldn’t convince him to sit down in the middle of all the mayhem and write us a regular dispatch, but what he did do was better: a play by play account of what he was seeing over text message.

I first heard from him at 9:15 on Saturday night.

Capitol is on lockdown for the night. How can u lock down an occupation? Protests are so bizarre.

I’ll stay tomorrow. Big bust planned for 4pm.

Then, by 11, I got a disconcerting message.

Texting from cop car

I asked, “Why? What happened?” It wasn’t until almost two hours later that he responded.

No no. I was just hanging out talking w a cop in her car outside the Capitol.

She said there have been zero arrests the whole two weeks. And we hung out in her car and a delivery guy tried to give us pizzas “donated from Washington” but she couldn’t accept them.

The cops have been marching with the protesters twice daily. And I just read some of the cop briefing emails. Which strike me.

Wait, I should be clear. There may have been arrests. Madison pd is NOT the Capitol pd or the state troopers.

Plan for tomorrow according to email I saw is that everyone’s requested to leave the Capitol for cleaning by 4pm but that no one will be forcibly removed. Same as is stated publicly.

Yeah. Egyptians have donated food and pizzas and have sent messages.

Tomorrow breakfast w my cop friend and a state assembly staffer and an in-home therapist in danger of losing his job, among others.

I’m going to sleep I think.

After that, I didn’t hear from him again until 3:40 on Sunday afternoon. That’s only 20 minutes before the big crackdown was supposed to happen.

Trying to get into Capitol. Shouts of “we are all people” w response of “let us all in”

Cold grey afternoon

Air feels wet. State Troopers around. Kid with sign “walker is a turd”. I cringe at that kind.

Madisonians are beautiful.

But my companion rachel says in the last 10 min she’s heard more negative crowd comments than in past 12 days combined. Tense bc of troopers and impending ejection. Some angry/fearful she thinks.

“who’s house?”. “our house”

Husky Dog with placard. Can only see. One side “he sucks”

11 minutes to go.

These people do not seem like they’re leaving. The troopers have backpacks.

Friend sees sign and asks me “what’s a plutocracy?”. We look it up.

Chanting drumming stopped suddenly. Can’t tell what’s up. Some distant cheering?

Hounddog barking w vigor. More drumming.

I keep wondering how many romances were formed in weeks of rotunda sleepover.

And then 4 pm in the afternoon arrived, the time when the police were planning to begin removing protesters.

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If your looking for a bit of comic relief, check out this new FunnyorDie.com video, in which President Mubarak uses Chicago’s ballad “It’s Hard to Say I’m Sorry” to apologize for his oppressive rule.