Ode Magazine has a great story about three young filmmakers who made a documentary about the thousands of children abducted and enslaved by a Ugandan rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The film, Invisible Children, led to the founding of an organization by the same name, which has gone on to raise some $30 million to help survivors and inspire a movement that has successfully pressured Congress to pass legislation giving President Obama authority to put an end to the LRA’s atrocities.

What’s most impressive, as the Ode piece points out, is how much support, both financially and physically has come from young people here in the States. Some 80 percent of the $30 million collected by Invisible Children came from high school students. And back in 2006, 80,000 young people took part in a 126-city country-wide direct action by lying down and sleeping in the streets in order to call attention to the nightly trek of so many Ugandan children.

The founders of Invisible Children are not so surprised at their ability to get young Americans involved in a battle for social justice in Africa. “I think everyone wants to be swept up by an adventure, a story that gives life a meaning or purpose,” says [Jason] Russell. Surprising or not, it is miraculous. After all, so many things compete for young people’s time and attention that good causes seldom win out.

[...]

They attribute the success of Invisible Children—which works closely with organizations like Resolve Uganda and The Enough Project—to a healthy dose of naïveté. If the friends had known that Congress had passed only 3 percent of all the bills presented over the last six years, they probably would have given up before they started. “We don’t want to be ignorant,” Poole says, his eyes shining, “but there’s definitely bliss in it.”

The whole 52-minute film can be watched online at Google Video.

The International Center for Nonviolent Conflict just sent notice of a course on civil resistance that they have developed, in conjunction with the United States Institute of Peace, which will be offered this fall in Washington DC.

Having attended their week-long Fletcher Summer Institute this year, I can say that their presentations and educational materials are top notch. Here are the details, in case it’d be something you’d like to attend:

The world is witnessing a surge in people powered movements in places such as Iran, the Niger Delta, Honduras, and the West Bank. As a result, the foreign policy community is carefully following the courageous acts of civil disobedience utilized by people fighting against various forms of repression.
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 – from Egypt to Burma, from Zimbabwe to West Papua. The course will ex-amine 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 peacemak-ing?

• Interactive course: focuses on simulations and case studies
• Experience opportunities to share lessons across sectors
• Hear insight from expert scholars and practitioners

COST: $195. Participants not based in Washington, DC are responsible for their own accommodations and travel, including visas.

CREDIT: Participants will receive certificate upon completion of course.

APPLICATION: Visit the USIP course listing to apply

VENUE: USIP Headquarters, 1200 17th St. NW, Washington DC, 20036

For more information please contact education@usip.org

Long-time earth and animal liberation activist Rod Coronado has plenty of street cred, but apparently he wasn’t hip to the perils of Facebook. In early August, the seasoned activist was sentenced to four months in prison for violating the terms of his probation. The charge: “friending” a figure the FBI describes as, “a well-known environmental activist who has a history of condoning direct action and violence as a means of protest or demonstration.” That activist is Mike Roselle, the author of Tree Spiker, a confrontational and outspoken opponent of destructive environmental practices, from mountaintop removal to deforestation, who claims to have been arrested at least 50 times.

According to the Missoula Independent, Coronado’s probation officer, Rhonda J. Wallock, reported that the activist violated the terms of his supervision by becoming Roselle’s “friend” and for using an unauthorized computer. “In monitoring Mr. Coronado’s Facebook account,” the court document reads, “this officer found Michael Roselle to be a “friend” of Mr. Coronado.”

Well, yes. But apparently it was Roselle who asked Coronado to be his friend and not Coronado who approached Roselle. Moreover, they had been friends for some time, just not Facebook friends. As Roselle explained, “I sent him a friend request because someone had suggested that I friend him and given that I’ve known Rod for quite a while, I did. I guess he hit the accept button.”

The irony is that a couple of monkeywrenchers, each with a long list of arrests and convictions, have now been nabbed as friends. For Coronado, it is without a doubt the most prosaic charge he has ever faced.

For years, Coronado was the unofficial bad boy of the radical environmental movement. As a teenager he cut his teeth with the now well known Sea Shepherd Society and, in 1986, participated in a risky act of eco-sabotage: taking aim at Iceland’s refusal to conform to an international ban on whaling, Coronado and a partner destroyed the Hvalfjordur whaling station and sank two of the country’s whaling vessels, causing some $2 million in damage. Coronado went on to wage an underground war against the fur industry, targeting research facilities and fur farms across North America. (His story, and the story of the modern American environmental movement, is told in Dean Kuipers recent book, Operation Bite Back: Rod Coronado’s War to Save American Wilderness).

Coronado was a divisive figure: his use of arson and increasingly radical stance alienated even those who sympathized with his views. In 1995, Coronado was arrested for his role in an arson attack on research facilities at Michigan State University. Since then he has moved back and forth between prison and some form of house arrest or parole. He has done time for allegedly demonstrating the use of an incendiary device, dismantling mountain lion traps, and destruction of government property.

In 2006, he distanced himself from the direct action tactics of his youth and said, in an open letter that, “No longer do I personally choose to represent the cause of peace and compassion in that way.”

• Four Greenpeace activists breached a 1,650-feet security perimeter around an oil rig off western Greenland  yesterday. They then climbed up the rig and fastened themselves to it, effectively forcing it to stop drilling. As of this morning, they were still suspended 15 meters above the frigid Arctic waters of Baffin Bay.

• Russian police have detained more than 60 people demonstrating at a freedom of assembly rally in Moscow yesterday. The demonstrators chanted “Russia without Putin!” as the police led them away.

• Nearly 100 Afghan asylum seekers broke out of a detention centre in northern Australia on Wednesday to protest the long delay in processing their refugee applications.

• Four tree sitters have created a platform 100 feet up in the redwoods of Jacoby Creek California to prevent loggers from clearcutting the beautiful second growth forest.

• The Mobilization for Climate Justice West turned out 150 people on Monday afternoon in San Francisco’s financial district for a march on the offices of Chevron, the Environmental Protection Agency and BP. Their message was for Big Oil to stop harming our environment and communities and to pay for the damage they’ve caused.

• A small contingent of super heroes and one Sith Lord assembled outside the steps of City Hall Tuesday to protest the arrests made by LAPD of costumed characters along Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

• Honduran police arrested some 150 people while using tear gas and water cannons to disperse a demonstration by teachers, students and others in Tegucigalpa on Aug. 27, the 23rd day of a strike by teachers over their pension fund and other issues.

On Sunday, Boston Globe senior assistant business editor Mark Pothier wrote about his feelings regarding a boycott of The Upper Crust, one of his favorite pizzerias in Boston, that has been targeted because of allegations that the company has not paid its employees for overtime.

After a few minutes of “soul-searching” about whether he should join the boycott, he says he decided to follow his taste buds. Pothier then gives a string of standard justifications for his actions:

Sure, it nags at my conscience a little to think I support a company that could be profiting at the expense of these good employees and dozens more like them. But I’m not naive, either – how would I know whether the competing family-owned pizza maker I decided to patronize instead treats its employees any better? Mom and Pop can be greedy capitalists, too.

Nowadays, it seems, the preferred tactic activists use to fight corporate misconduct, whether genuine or perceived, is the boycott. Thanks to social media, they can spread faster than a YouTube video of a cat playing the piano. But what is a boycott supposed to accomplish? Too often, such campaigns are knee-jerk reactions to a company’s blunders. They almost always inflict more harm on front-line workers than corporate culprits in tailored suits. Before the first British Petroleum tar balls fouled the Gulf Coast, for instance, drivers were urged to steer clear of BP gas stations (a “Boycott BP” Facebook page has been “liked” by nearly 850,000 people). Trouble is, most BP stations in the United States are independently owned. If you stop filling up on BP-brand unleaded, departing chief executive Tony Hayward won’t sleep any worse that he already does.

[...]

In the case of Upper Crust, if business at its 17 locations drops sharply because of an ill-advised boycott, you won’t need an economist to figure out the likely consequences: fewer hours for employees, then fewer employees, and, eventually, fewer restaurants. That means more people on unemployment, more dark spaces on Main Streets.

By making this final point, Pothier reveals his true ignorance of the history and power of boycotts. While hypothetically his scenario could play out, an effective boycott could also push Upper Crust to do the right thing and compensate its employees properly.

• Century City’s business as usual came to a standstill Thursday afternoon as the janitors who lost their jobs cleaning JPMorgan Chase-owned Century Plaza towers were joined by 500 janitors, community activists, and union supporters at a march and protest in Los Angeles. Thirteen people were arrested for blocking an intersection in an act of civil disobedience.

• Some 10,000 people gathered outside historic Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. on Saturday for the “Reclaim the Dream” march commemorating the 47th anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a Dream Speech.”

• On Sunday, an estimated 80,000 Hong Kongers marched in honor of eight people killed in a bus hijacking in Manila, attacking the Philippine government for botching the rescue operation and demanding justice for the dead.

• Teachers on Thursday staged a 24-hour strike and paralyzed Puerto Rican public education to protest what they say is a general deterioration of the school system.

• On Thursday, two protesters associated with Climate Ground Zero blocked the entrance to the headquarters of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to bring attention to what they believe is the DEP’s failure to enforce the Clean Water Act by permitting mountaintop removal mining.

• A protest of Nigerian women shut down a Shell plant last Wednesday, just one week after a group of Ugborodo women blockaded a Chevron natural gas pipeline.

• Oil workers calling for compensation for recently fired employees maintained a blockade at a storage plant in southern Argentina on Friday.

Earlier this month, New Yorkers won a nine-month moratorium from the state Senate on the dangerous and highly-polluting drilling practice known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The inspiring story of civic action that led to this decision is told by Maura Stephens in a recently published piece by Yes! Magazine.

Many fighting this battle had never before been involved in political issues. But after seeing the impacts of fracking around the country or in their own daily lives, they got active.

They organized and attended forums, panels, meetings, and rallies—sometimes alongside public figures like actor Mark Ruffalo and singer-songwriter Pete Seeger. Day after day, thousands of people called state senate and assembly offices to pressure for the moratorium. Achieving it was a first-round victory beyond expectations—a small but important win.

With their air, water, land, properties, communities, and health on the line, residents have made the campaign a priority, often sacrificing family time, leisure time, and sleep to keep abreast of developments and share information. “The petrochemical-industrial complex is stealing our land and our health,” says New York resident and architect Joe Levine. “Life as we know it will change forever if we don’t stop them.”

Levine has a home near the New York State border in Damascus, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Jane Cyphers, and their two daughters. The family has turned over their lives to this issue since they were first approached by gas companies wanting to lease their land. They soon realized that their beloved Delaware River would be imperiled by drilling. Levine cofounded Damascus Citizens, a grassroots group made up of people who are fighting to keep the Delaware safe from fracking. Their influence, and the experiences of the town of Dimock, Pennyslvania, inspired Josh Fox to make the documentary Gasland.

Sullivan County, New York, resident Larysa Dyrszka, a retired pediatrician, has also taken on the role of state-level activist for the first time.

“Nobody thought drilling would really come here, to a populated area, with technology that couldn’t ensure against harmful effects to our drinking water and health,” says Dyrszka. “Little did we know it was already happening in Texas and Colorado and in other populated areas.”

Together with her friends and neighbors, Dyrszka started SACRED—Sullivan Area Citizens for Responsible Energy Development. On January 25, Dyrszka joined hundreds of New Yorkers from all corners of the state to lobby their representatives in Albany—many, like Dyrszka, for the first time.

“I was hooked,” Dyrszka says. “Now, whenever Roger [Downs, of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter] or Katharine [Nadeau, of EANY] or any fellow foot-soldier groups suggest a lobby day, I’m there.”

For months, Dyrszka and her fellow activists continued building relationships by phone, e-mail, and in person with legislative staff, sending them scientific, health, legal, economic, and other information on fracking.

Read the rest of this article »

• More than two dozen Bremerton Coca-Cola Enterprises employees went on strike Monday as part of a walkout that involves nearly 500 employees around Washington state.

• In Kazakhstan, a threatened hunger strike by 48 workers building the Almaty subway has succeeded in getting them three months’ back pay. The workers, all from one shift, went on a general strike for three days last week, refusing to work until they got their salaries.

• On August 23, about 100 steel workers at the Hormozgan Steel Complex in Southern Iran staged a protest gathering. The workers were protesting 300 workers not having received back wages in the last three months.

• Around 160 garment workers in Cambodia continued to strike on Monday outside the gates of a factory in Meanchey district, where they have camped out day and night since Thursday to agitate for improved working conditions.

• Thousands of Honduran workers marched in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula on Aug. 18 to demand an increase in the minimum wage and to show solidarity with teachers who were in the 14th day of an open-ended strike.

• Last Thursday, the workers at Kian Tire in Iran went on strike closing down the gates of the factory warehouses. The workers were demanding back wages.

• Women bared their breasts to fight for the same right to go topless as men, during protests in Venice Beach, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Denver, Miami Beach and Seattle on Sunday.

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.

• Some 2,000 people crammed into a Moscow square amid a heavy police presence for a banned rock concert yesterday to protest plans for the building of a highway through protected forest land.

• A climate change activist was arrested Friday after she glued herself to a desk at the Royal Bank of Scotland’s headquarters. She was among 150 activists who breached the security perimeter separating a climate camp from the bank’s Edinburgh HQ at around midday.

• A group of Nigerian women in the country’s oil-rich south blocked access to a Chevron natural gas pipeline on Friday to protest poor living conditions in their community.

• Hundreds of people showed up for New York gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo’s campaign visit to Ithaca last week to demand that he hold off on supporting hydrofracking in the natural gas-laden Marcellus Shale.

• Dozens of mothers breastfed their infants at a Phoenix McDonald’s on Saturday to protest the eviction of a woman doing the same earlier this month.

• Hundreds of residents of Kaliningrad, Russia’s Baltic exclave, gathered on a central square Saturday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s government.

• About 100 almost-naked anti-bullfighting campaigners lay down outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao on Saturday in a protest coinciding with the start of the northern Spanish city’s annual bullfight festival.

On August 28, conservative radio/television host Glenn Beck, 2012 Republican presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the National Rifle Association, and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation will conduct the “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The date and location are significant. It was on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the memorial that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington. Beck has billed the rally as a “non-political event” that will pay tribute to America’s service personnel and “help us restore the values that founded this great nation.”

Although unaware of the date’s significance at first, Beck has since claimed its selection as “divine providence.” He has further justified the planning of his event by saying, “Whites don’t own Abraham Lincoln. Blacks don’t own Martin Luther King … Too many have forgotten Abraham Lincoln’s ideas and far too many have either gotten just lazy or they have purposely distorted Martin Luther King’s ideas.”

Beck, of course, is the same man who told listeners on his March 2 radio show, “I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can. ‘Social justice’ and ‘economic justice,’ they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

The March on Washington and King’s life work, of course, were dedicated to the pursuit of social and economic justice. In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, King stated that marchers had come to Washington “to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense, we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ … So we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

Social activists and civil rights leaders, concerned that the “Restoring Honor” rally will co-opt the historical significance of the March on Washington to advance a political message that is directly at odds with the vision of King, have planned their own event on the same day. The National Action Network, the National Urban League, the Center for Nonviolent Social Change, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, United for Peace and Justice, and others are sponsoring the “Reclaim the Dream” rally and march. The rally will take place on August 28 at Dunbar High School (1301 New Jersey Avenue NW—Mount Vernon Square/7th Street/Convention Center Metro Stop on Green/Yellow Line) in the District of Columbia from 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM. At 1:00 PM, participants will march from Dunbar High School to the site of the King Memorial on the National Mall. All Americans are welcome and encouraged to participate in these events.

Read the rest of this article »

• Hundreds of climate activists cut through a perimeter fence and occupied land at the Royal Bank of Scotland’s headquarters on Wednesday to protest its multi-billion pound loans to the oil and mining industries. They expect at least 500 activists to gather for a day of direct action against RBS on Monday.

• Some 600 demonstrators blocked the main highway linking the Afghani capital of Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad on Wednesday to protest the mounting civilian death toll in US-led raids in the war-torn country.

• Nearly two dozen people, some in wheelchairs, blocked a major intersection in front of the California Capitol in Sacramento for several hours on Wednesday afternoon to protest proposed budget cuts to in-home health care services. They were subsequently arrested.

• About a dozen demonstrators who gathered in front of the San Diego county clerk’s office yesterday to demand the issuance of marriage licenses for same-sex couples were arrested after refusing orders to disperse.

• More than 100 Bronxites rallied at the midtown offices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac yesterday to demand that the lending giants cut down on predatory landlords who neglect their properties and ignore renters’ rights.

• About 200 people blocked a major highway outside of Cairo on Wednesday to protest daily power outages that have hit many parts of the country.

Earlier this month, over at Religion Dispatches, Kim Bobo, the executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice – a great organization that I visited with earlier this summer – had a nice article about why and how the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) have stepped up as leaders in the campaign against SB 1070 in Arizona. She boils down seven lessons that the faith community can learn from the Unitarian experience about how to mobilize people around immigration reform or any other social justice issue:

1) Engage leadership.

The UUA president made a personal commitment on the issue. He offered to go to Arizona. He issued an invitation to others. He agreed to get arrested. Denominational leaders are often overwhelmed with their responsibilities and commitments. And yet, their personal involvement in economic and social justice issues, on the ground, particularly in the midst of tough situations, can support and embolden local leadership and draw others into the work. Leading through action is always stronger than through words.

Equally important was the leadership of the local pastors in Phoenix, especially the terrific work of Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray and of the UUA’s moderator, Gini Courter, who came to Phoenix with members of the UUA Board.

2) Link to principles and history.

The UUs consistently linked the struggle in Arizona to their longstanding commitment to civil rights and their core principles. The UUs also linked the campaign to the denomination’s anti-racism initiative.

3) Assign staff and resources for planning.

The UU committed money and staff to the planning and preparation in Arizona. Presumably, the UUs are as cash-strapped as other denominations, and yet they committed resources to action and witness. As a result of the denomination’s commitment, contributions flowed to help with bail, legal defense, and additional outreach work.

Read the rest of this article »

• Singing choruses of “we shall not be moved” while scattering sunflower seeds, 14 activists were arrested in Kansas City on Monday after blocking an earth moving vehicle on the site of a proposed nuclear weapons manufacturing facility.

• Last Friday, around 35 Palestinians demonstrated against Hallamish settlement with around 15 Israeli and international peace activists in the village of An Nabi Salih.

• German workers on Tuesday protested against what their union says are plans by the country’s central bank to have euro banknotes printed by foreign companies.

• Some Pakistani flood victims blocked highways to demand government help on Tuesday.

• Three television channels in Ukraine went on strike on Saturday in protest of steadily increasing pressure on media in Ukraine, with hundreds of other journalists declaring readiness to join the action.

• Students from various schools and universities in the Philippines traded the four corners of their classrooms for the streets last Friday to join the National Youth Walkout and appeal for more government support for the education sector.

• On Monday, hundreds of protesters started a sit-in outside the legislature, fueled by mounting anger over the government’s cross-strait policies and the expected passage of a controversial trade agreement with China later this week.

• The 19-day long protest in Bolivia’s Potosi province was finally brought to an end with the protesters lifting the blockade of the airport and major roads after a deal was struck with the government.

• The entire team of Sri Lanka’s government wildlife vets has gone on strike amid mounting controversy over an elephant conservation plan that has led to increased clashes between the animals and villagers.

Check out this great remake of Depeche Mode’s “People are People” by a flash mob in a Target store over the weekend. According to the video, over 250,000 people have pledged to boycott Target over their $150,000 donation to a group paying for ads for Tom Emmer, a conservative candidate for governor in Minnesota who opposes gay marriage.

If that many people follow through on their commitment to boycott, the store will easily lose far more than $150,000 in business for the donation, which will hopefully make other corporations think twice about the potential ramifications of spending money on political candidates.

Activists are not only upset about this particular donation, as their song suggests, but the fact that Target took advantage of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision earlier this year -  which ruled that corporations can spend an unlimited amount of money on political advertisements -  to back Emmer.

This would suggest that Target is just the first target by citizens upset with the now unchecked ability corporations have to influence elections in the US, and that as other donations by other corporations become public, these protests will spread. As one of the protesters mentions at the end of the video, Best Buy is already in the crosshairs for donating $100,000 to the same group supporting Emmer in Minnesota.

If you want to join the growing boycott of Target, click here or here, and sign this petition asking the company to change its ways.