Calls for violence once again turn people off

November 2, 2011 by Eric Stoner · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Corporations, Corruption, Economic policy, Protests, United States 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

An anonymous group calling itself the “Oakland Liberation Front” distributed a bizarre flyer calling for violence over the last couple days at the General Assembly in Oakland. The leaflet says that pacifists are “unwittingly complicit with the constellation of power that wages a daily war against freedom and peace,” argues that they are inculcating society with “hateful messages” and asks: “How dare you even ask for nonviolence, when violence has ALREADY been used by the police?”

Boing Boing’s headline captures how most have seemed to respond to it: “Creepiest anti-nonviolence leaflet ever handed out at an Occupy. Ever.” The SFist called it “Yucky” and “rather icky,” while some immediately suspected that it was the work of provocateurs intent on disrupting the planned general strike today.  Read more... (371 words, 6 images)

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Can occupiers pull off a general strike?

October 31, 2011 by Nathan Schneider · Leave a Comment
Filed under: #AmericanAutumn, Corporations, Corruption, Democratic reform, Labor, Training and organizing, United States 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

On September 17, the first day of Occupy Wall Street, one of the many scattershot ideas proposed in the first General Assembly meeting was a call for a general strike. It struck me at the time as one of the most important, but also least feasible, things anybody had suggested—most important, because a civil resistance movement won’t really work unless it manages to mobilize millions of people in ways that would truly undermine the bases of the U.S. economy; least feasible, because at the time Occupy Wall Street was still just a few hundred people hanging around precariously in a park, surrounded by police and unnoticed by the mainstream media. The latter has changed. The first has not.  Read more... (867 words, 6 images)

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Experiments with truth: 10/31/11

October 31, 2011 by Bryan Farrell · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Africa, Asia, Corporations, Economic policy, Europe, Experiments with Truth, Food, Housing, Labor, Land rights, Latin America, March, Middle East, Occupations, poverty, Protests, Sit-ins, Syria, United States 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

  • A dozen men in suits, including the Yes Men’s Andy Bichlbaum (middle-left) and Mike Bonanno (middle-right), marched with hidden placards last week after announcing at Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly that they were about to take part in a highly arrestable action. As the police, who overheard the announcement, prepared to make arrests, the suits lifted their hidden placards, revealing the message: “Brokers and Police for the Occupation.”

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The day to say bye-bye to big banks

October 28, 2011 by Frida Berrigan · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Boycotts, Consumerism, Corporations, Humor, Little Insurrections 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

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.  Read more... (775 words, 6 images)

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High-ranking Fiji junta officer calls for international pressure

October 28, 2011 by Anna Lenzer · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Boycotts, Corporations, Corruption, Democratic reform, Environment, Gandhi, Oceania, Protests, Through the Eyes of a Defector 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

Fiji may seem like a distant and exotic land known primarily to Americans for its pristine beaches and ubiquitous Fiji Water bottles. “Brand Fiji” is the junta’s name for its multimillion dollar campaign to market Fiji as little more than a land of crystalline perfection. Lieutenant Colonel Ratu Tevita Mara — profiled in parts one and two of this series as Fiji’s highest-ranking defector — believes the outside world should consider targeting Brand Fiji’s most visible lifelines, such as tourism and water, that continue to provide the bulk of the cash that the regime is burning through.  Read more... (1103 words, 8 images)

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Meeting violence with nonviolence: why the Occupy Movement will succeed

October 27, 2011 by Jake Olzen · Leave a Comment
Filed under: #AmericanAutumn, Corporations, Economic policy, Occupations, United States 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

Police remove an Occupy Oakland camper from Snow Park on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011, in Oakland, Calif.

The Occupy movement is under attack. It is facing aggressive police action in cities all over the country while arrests continue over the enforcement of mundane laws that prevent the establishment of permanent encampments. Police attacked Occupy Oakland with rubber bullets and tear gas in the wee hours of Tuesday morning; there were at least a hundred arrests. 130 activists with Occupy Chicago were arrested on Saturday during their second attempt at setting up a camp in Grant Park. Atlanta’s Mayor, Kasim Reed, conducting what appears to have been negotiations in bad faith, ordered Occupy Atlanta cleared of Warren Park last night; 52 were arrested. Occupy Orlando has repeatedly been harassed by changing city policy regarding their camp in Senator Elizabeth Johnson Park, forcing them to vacate the park and their belongings between 11pm and 6am. The Occupy movement may not have it easy right now, but they are being noticed!  Read more... (827 words, 6 images)

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People power in the making

October 27, 2011 by Ken Butigan · Leave a Comment
Filed under: #AmericanAutumn, At the Crossroads, Corporations, Economic policy, Occupations, Theory, United States 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

A short video entitled “Where Do We Go From Here” has been posted on the OccupyWallStreet website. Featuring interviews conducted on the one-month anniversary at Zuccotti Park, where the occupation began a stone’s throw from Wall Street on September 17, the video paints a picture of a charged but focused space nurturing thought, connection, democracy, and, most of all, hope.

As the sentiments of those interviewed suggest, the park has become a small City of Hope.

They speak of the emerging potential of this resilient action for economic equality. They share their personal determination to settle in for the long haul. Most powerfully, their riveting faces convey longing, determination, confidence and expectation.  Read more... (1452 words, 6 images)

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Tahrir Square and Occupy Wall Street unite

October 25, 2011 by Eric Stoner · Leave a Comment
Filed under: #AmericanAutumn, Corporations, Economic policy, Occupations, Training and organizing, United States 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

Since Adbusters original call to action in July—which asked “Are you ready for a Tahrir moment?”—organizers hoped Occupy Wall Street would be an American extension of the nonviolent movement that brought down Mubarak in Egypt earlier this year.

Now the folks occupying Liberty Plaza and other public spaces across the country don’t have to wonder what the leaders of Egypt’s still ongoing revolution think about their growing movement.

Last week, Ahmed Maher, a founder of the April 6 Youth Movement, which was one of the key organizers of the uprising in Egypt, along with two other leading Egyptian activists, visited OccupyDC and the occupation of Freedom Plaza to show their solidarity and offer words of advice.  Read more... (335 words, 5 images)

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What ‘diversity of tactics’ really means for Occupy Wall Street

October 19, 2011 by Nathan Schneider · Comments Off
Filed under: #AmericanAutumn, Anarchism, Corporations, Democratic reform, Journalism, March, Occupations, Protests, Sit-ins, Theory, United States 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

Occupy Wall Street marchers watch from the pedestrian walkway as hundreds of their comrades take to the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1.

Even as Occupy Wall Street shapes the public conversation about high finance, political corruption, and the distribution of wealth, it has also raised anew questions about how resistance movements in general should operate. I want to consider one of the matters that I’ve thought about a lot over the past month while watching the occupation and its means of making its presence felt on the streets of New York and in the media.  Read more... (2547 words, 6 images)

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Crunch time for Occupy Wall Street

October 18, 2011 by Michael Nagler · Comments Off
Filed under: Civil Disobedience, Corporations, Economic policy, Gandhi, Love in Action, Martin Luther King Jr., Protests, United States 

Published by Waging Nonviolence

A prophetic sign from Occupy Boston (albeit with a mispelling of Gandhi).

Remembering the agonies I went through when the tanks moved in on Tiananmen Square in June, 1989, I was relieved that most (I wish it were all) of the protestors who make up today’s amazing Occupy movement do not intend to occupy the symbolic spaces they are in indefinitely. This struggle is not about particular pieces of real estate but the institutions that may be associated with them—iconically, of course, Wall Street. And it would be a bad strategy—it’s always bad strategy—to hold on to symbols, especially when they make you an easy, concentrated target.  Read more... (948 words, 6 images)

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