David Love: As is the case with same-sex marriage, the tide seems to be turning on public attitudes on marijuana. For the black community, with so many young people incarcerated for possessing small quantities of the drug, the stakes are high.
Citizen Diplomacy Against Drones Over Pakistan
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Tom Hayden: A delegation of American peace activists has succeeded in directly engaging the US ambassador to Pakistan over the drone attacks, which have killed civilians and inflamed anti-US opinion in South Asia and around the globe.
L.A. Police Leave Chalking Protesters Alone
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Dan Bluebel: A month after the ArtWalk uprising, Occupy Los Angeles pulled off another act of civil disobedience to protest the arrests of several occupiers and non-occupiers for chalking sidewalks. This time around it was peaceful.
LA’s Downtown Business Leaders Give ArtWalk Protesters the Brush-Off
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Dan Bluemel: Rampant hooliganism will not be tolerated in downtown Los Angeles; it could interfere with commerce.
L.A. Police Chalking Arrests Spark Uprising
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Dan Bluemel: A protest over activists being arrested for chalking messages on sidewalks erupted into a near-riot last Thursday in downtown Los Angeles.
Some Big, Civilization-Shaping Ideas from Religion
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Robert Fuller: Religious ideals, decoupled from political pressure, have seldom been enough to prevent predation or to arrest the cycles of vengeance that tend to ensue.
Occupy’s ‘Shut Down the Corporations’ Action: Success or Failure?
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Shamus Cooke: Occupy has amazing potential in its ability to coordinate actions across a vast country, but the only way to draw in the broader working class is to listen to their issues and fight to achieve their goals. Any other path unnecessarily wastes precious movement fuel.
The Making of an Activist
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Vivan Rothstein: In my first act of civil disobedience, I mixed up all the index card files of clients and contracts so no one could figure out who had received which threatening letter, effectively destroying the company’s system of harassment.
Occupy Movement Recharges for 2012
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Randy Shaw: The Occupy movement could greatly benefit from choosing a similar big target that could engage activists across the world.
If You Care About Keystone and Climate Change, Occupy Exxon
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Paul Loeb: If we want President Obama to make the right decision on the Keystone Pipeline and deny the permit, maybe it’s time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations.
Shutting Cities Down: Now and Then
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Lee Fang: The American political and economic system is falling apart. No matter who wins an election, in many cases, the outcomes are the same: well-heeled corporate interests dictate policy.
Let Us Now Occupy Reality
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Robert Illes: “Occupy” is in the third stage of Gandhi’s meme about how non-violent resistance, and civil disobedience works. We have seen the movement ignored. Then we saw it ridiculed. Now we’re seeing it being fought. The next step: “… then you win.”
The Way Forward for Occupy Portland
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Shamus Cooke: If the Occupy Movement demanded that the wealthy and corporations be taxed to create jobs and prevent cuts to social programs, the 99% would see a movement built in its own image
50 Million Will March
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Brent Budowsky: I believe that the first big winner of the 2012 campaign is the Occupy Wall Street movement, whether or not it participates in electoral politics.
Civil Disobedience as a Strategy for the Occupy Movement
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Tom Hayden: If there’s enough people and they all sit down and say “We want to appeal to a jury of our peers, which is our Constitutional right,” that’s something that should make the decision makers take pause because I don’t think juries are going to convict these people.
What History Can Teach the Occupy Forces
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Tomiko Brown-Nagin: History shows that American political activism has never been limited to the form that it conventionally takes today—electoral politics. Citizens have historically employed an array of tools to influence public policy
Protests? Yes. Riots? No.
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Peter Dreier: Riots occur when people are hopeless. Civil disobedience takes place when people are hopeful — when people believe not only that things should be different but also that they can be different.
Los Angeles Homeowners Take to the Streets to Protest Foreclosure Abuses
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Peter Dreier: In Los Angeles this Thursday, members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) — a statewide community organizing group — will sponsor a demonstration at a major bank that will include civil disobedience and probably arrests.
Surviving Poverty, Torture, and Civil War
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An event you shouldn’t miss. The book, “The Blessing Next to the Wound”, was selected by the Amnesty International group in Pasadena as their November reading selection. No wonder. It is the story of Hector Aristizábal surviving poverty, torture by the US-trained military, cocaine cartels, and civil war in Colombia, as well as facing the challenges of exile. Co-written by Diane Lefer. Hector and Diane will be at Vroman’s Books in Pasadena TONIGHT, Friday Nov 12th at 7:00pm
Is Social Media Useless for Change?
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Social networking websites can play and are playing an important role in finding and connecting people who are beginning to think and feel similar things. They can help participants deepen their understanding and form common perspectives. They can help inform those who use them of possible courses of action.
Janitors Protest: A Rally Against Economic Injustice or A Public Nuisance?
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Sylvia Moore: These protests were just the latest expression of outrage among the working classes across the country, who have suffered massive job losses and wage stagnation, while failing bank behemoths who wrecked the economy got bailed out to the tune of billions of dollars.
Etheridge: No Taxation Without Equality
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“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [...]
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