DAMON ORION – Weaving Earth Education Center, an all-ages education center, reminds us that “we are a part of this earth, not apart from it.”
Category: What’s Happening In the Movement
Victims Win Historic Victory Against Chiquita in Colombia Paramilitary Case
DANIELA DIAZ RANGEL and JOSHUA COLLINS – The ruling against the banana giant formerly known as United Fruit makes history in holding a U.S. company liable for abuses committed abroad. Lawyers say the case is just the beginning.
The only antidote to election anxiety is training to confront Trump’s threat
GEORGE LAKEY – No matter the outcome in November, we need training to transform despair into action and to build the kind of solidarity that offers protection.
California Communities Celebrate ‘Massive’ Victory as Oil Industry Drops Unpopular Referendum
LIZA GROSS – The oil industry withdrew its $40 million campaign to kill a historic law to protect neighborhoods from oil drilling’s toxic effects, but is threatening to challenge the measure in court.
Reaching Across the Generations to Oppose War
DONNA PARK – Relying on the force of law instead of the law of force is a better way to address conflicts among nations and, in this fashion, keep us all safe and secure.
Joint Statement of U.S. Government Officials who have Resigned over U.S. policy towards Gaza, Palestine, and Israel
JOSH PAUL (for himself and eleven other former U.S. government officials) – We are former U.S. Government Officials who resigned from our respective positions over the last nine months due to our grave concerns with current U.S. policy towards the crisis in Gaza, and U.S. policies and practices towards Palestine and Israel more broadly.
One woman just brought the entire UK fossil fuels industry to its knees
THE CANARY – A landmark decision by the UK Supreme Court on Thursday June 20 has raised major barriers to all new fossil fuel projects across the UK, including the proposed new coal mine in Cumbria and the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea.
Minding the Debate: What’s Happening to Our Brains During Election Season
MELINDA BURRELL – Some of us are convening watch parties and others deliberately will not tune in. Either way, the June 27 presidential debate is the real start of the election season, when more Americans start to pay attention. It’s when partisan rhetoric runs hot and emotions run high. It’s also a chance for us, as members of a democratic republic. How? By setting expectations for ourselves and our leaders. A peek at our neurobiology can help us make this debate something we learn from rather than something that divides us further.
27,000 Virginia Teachers Win Historic Union Election with Presidential Election Implications
MIKE ELK – June 10, 2024 This morning, it was announced that Virginia Education Unions, a joint coalition of Virginia-based AFT and NEA locals, had won a historic union election to represent over 27,000 teachers and school staff in Fairfax County, Virginia.
How Donald Trump Worked to Destroy America’s Labor Unions
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – If Trump expects significant union support this November, it’s merely another of his many illusions.
Climate Superfund Law Enacted; Vermont Becomes First State to Hold Big Oil Financially Responsible for a Fair Share of Climate Damages
VERMONT NATURAL RESOURCES COUNCIL – Legislation authorizing the State of Vermont to recoup financial damages caused by climate change from major fossil fuel companies became law today (May 31, 2024) when Governor Phil Scott failed to sign or veto the bill during the constitutionally-mandated five-day consideration period.
The Nuclear FREEZE Movement of the 1980s Has Lessons for Today
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – The success of the freeze movement and its anti-nuclear counterparts of the 1980’s and 1990’s provides an important lesson for our own time. If substantial popular pressure can be stirred up by advocates of arms control and disarmament, government officials can be convinced to change their nuclear policies.
Act Now Against These Companies Profiting from the Genocide of the Palestinian People
PALESTINIAN BDS NATIONAL COMMITTEE (BNC) – People of conscience around the world are rightfully shattered, enraged, and sometimes feeling powerless about Israel’s #GazaGenocide. Many feel compelled to boycott any and all products and services of companies tied in any way to Israel. The proliferation of extensive “boycott lists” on social media is a result of this. The question is how to make boycotts effective and actually have an impact in holding corporations accountable for their complicity in the suffering of Palestinians?
Overcoming despair and apathy to win democracy
GEORGE LAKEY – Lessons on movement building from one of the founders of the Serbian student movement that brought down dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
UMass Arrests: What Would Daniel Ellsberg Do?
CHRISTIAN APPY – What would Daniel Ellsberg do in the face of the Israel-Hamas war? We can’t know with complete certainty because he died last June at the age of 92. We do know that in the 50 years after he released the Pentagon Papers, he devoted his life to principled nonviolent activism and was arrested more than 80 times for acts of civil disobedience in the struggle for peace and nuclear disarmament. When Christian Appy saw UMass students protest Israel’s way of retaliating against Hamas for Hamas’ October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel, he took up with the students after asking, “What would Daniel Ellsberg do?”
Looking Beneath the Surface of the End-the-War Encampments
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – The encampments are filled with students from different religious traditions — Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, unaffiliated as well as spiritual but not religious students. They are finding solace and courage among themselves.
War Culture Hates the Ethical Passion of the Young
NORMAN SOLOMON – With transcendent wisdom, this spring’s student uprising has rejected conformity as a lethal anesthetic while the horrors continue in Gaza. Leaders of the most powerful American institutions want to continue as usual, as if official participation in genocide were no particular cause for alarm. Instead, young people have dared to lead the way, insisting that such a culture of death is repugnant and completely unacceptable.
Columbia students are sick at heart — just as we were in ‘68
MARK RUDD – An organizer of the 1968 Columbia University protests, Mark Rudd analyzes why the message against war, then and now, is the same.
Climate activists in New England can finally celebrate ‘the end of coal’
SIOBHAN SENIER – With the last of New England’s coal plants now set to close, the No Coal No Gas campaign is reflecting on the power of fighting together.
Inspiring Memoir of an Unrelenting Nuclear Resister
PATRICK O’NEILL – This Earth Day peace appeal by journalist Patrick O’Neill describes his work with others to act to reduce the chances of the ultimate self-inflicted disaster, nuclear war.
Climate movement elders revive monkey wrench tactics to save an old forest
NICK ENGELFRIED – Earlier this year, seven activists entered the site of a proposed timber sale in Washington State, intent on halting — or at least delaying — the destruction of trees with immense carbon storage potential. Over the course of several hours, they hiked off-trail through the dense understory, removing signs and flagging tape marking the boundaries of the controversial Carrot timber sale. The creative nonviolent direct action seemed to pay off, as a couple days later Washington’s Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, announced it was cancelling the Carrot sale for the time being. The timing seems striking, even though the announcement did not acknowledge the protest. Now, the nonviolent saboteurs hope their actions have bought enough precious time to permanently protect the area.
Creating Community, One Conversation at a Time
MELINDA BURRELL – So much starts with a conversation. Try it for your own sense of wellbeing — and watch it become contagious.
Human rights violated by Swiss inaction on climate, ECHR rules in landmark case
AJIT NIRANJAN – Court finds in favour of group of older Swiss women who claimed weak policies put them at greater risk of death from heatwaves. In a landmark decision on one of three major climate cases, the first such rulings by an international court, the ECHR raised judicial pressure on governments to stop filling the atmosphere with gases that make extreme weather more violent.
Yurok Tribe Becomes First To Steward Land With National Park Service
CRISTEN HEMINGWAY JAYNES – Restoring Prairie Creek to ecological integrity is part of the plan for the 125-acre ‘O Rew Redwoods Gateway, which represents a first-ever model for tribal, federal, and state co-management of nationally significant land, with an Indigenous tribe at the helm.
Tax Day and War Resistance, Philip Berrigan Style
BRAD WOLF – The life, actions and words of Philip Berrigan show us ways to resist warmaking and expose the waste and fraud of the Pentagon.
The Double Edge Theater’s Project to ‘Rematriate Land’
APRIL M. SHORT – The Double Edge Theatre, a cultural cooperative and ensemble collective in Ashfield, Massachusetts, offers an example of how artists have successfully reimagined the economy and created networks of mutual support. The company was founded in Boston in 1982, but by the end of the 1980s, gentrification and rising costs in the city made it difficult for the group to enact its creative visions, according to Carlos Uriona, an actor and the theater’s cultural strategist. This economic pressure became the catalyst for a unique model leading to a community-supported economy that has become a successful haven for the arts for decades.
Indigenous people rejoice after city of Berkeley votes to return sacred Native land to Ohlone
JANIE HAR and OLGA R.RODRIGUEZ – A San Francisco Bay Area parking lot that sits on top of a sacred tribal shell mound dating back 5,700 years has been returned to the Ohlone people by the Berkeley City Council after a settlement with developers who own the land. (AP Video/Terry Chea)
Restoring Human Dignity on the U.S. Southern Border
BRAD WOLF – Four hundred years of colonialism— the first 250 by European powers and the last 150 by the United States— left countries throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean broken, bereft of any form of democratic government. Oligarchs and corruption thrived with the support of the U.S. An astounding transfer of national wealth from indigenous lands to U.S. banks and corporations occurred.
How Workers Are Defying Republican Officials in the South
DAVID MCCALL – More and more workers across the South seek the same path forward that union membership provides. But they’re still forced to defy Republican officials who’d rather toady to wealthy corporations than support workers’ fight for a fair economy.
Anti-war and environmental groups protest outside Barclays bank
BBC NEWS – Two protest groups recently staged simultaneous demonstrations outside a Barclays bank.
Will Men Organize to End Gun Violence?
ROB OKUN – The 25th anniversary of the Columbine High School mass shootings is on April 20th. Imagine what it would mean if men organized a Million Men’s March Against Gun Violence!
Unions as a Pillar of Democracy in 2024
ANDREW MOSS – The three co-presidents (Ada Briceno, Susan Minato, and Kurt Petersen) of UNITE Local 11 stated simply, “As we see it, a strong union does more than negotiate work contracts. It helps workers become active citizens who stand up for their democratic rights.”
A huge battery has replaced Hawaiʻi’s last coal plant
JULIAN SPECTOR – Plus Power’s Kapolei battery is officially online. The pioneering project is a leading example of how to shift crucial grid functions from fossil-fueled plants to clean energy.
The Heroes Fighting for Public Education
LAURA PAPPANO – The first thing to reflect on is this: Public schools gather everyone. All are invited. There is no test you need to pass, no amount of money or influence or fame you must possess to be allowed in. Do you know how rare that is in the United States today? This has made public schools the place where people from all backgrounds and circumstances have come together to learn. It is where parents have volunteered and, regardless of their political bent, have worked alongside other parents for a common purpose.
Standing Together: The Peace Movement Inside Israel
URI WELTMANN – The biggest demonstration since the beginning of the war on Gaza defied the police and brought together all those calling for a ceasefire on the streets of Tel-Aviv.
Why conspiracy theories are corrosive to social movements — and what to do about it
SHANE BURLEY – Opposition to the current state of the world is not synonymous with fighting for a liberatory future. And the inability to parse out this reality has revealed instability across a radical left that often clamors after any ally in the struggle against systemic injustice. Without safeguards and clarity on the mission, nearly any voice against the status quo can be mistaken for a friend — including those who want to replace it with something even more deadly or whose analysis relies on conspiracy. The left needs to return to political arguments, reading groups, liberation schools, teach-ins and serious debate hashed out in late night meetings. This is what will move the justifiable instinct that something is wrong to an accurate diagnosis that begs workable action. Without a clear picture of how our world has failed, any demagogue can capture the energy of the disaffected by offering a solution that creates even more profound problems. Our mission is not to simply destroy the old world. It’s to build a new and more just one in its place.
Senior Nonviolent Resister Celebrates Nuclear Ban Treaty the Hard Way
JOHN LAFORGE – A super-majority of UN members finally decided that the nuclear weapons powers must have lied when they promised, in 1970, in Article VI of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date”, etc., etc. After 57 years, “at an early date” has become the laugh line of international law. The phrase was vague enough for nuclear powers to ignore it indefinitely, while asserting their lawful adherence.
How To Celebrate MLK Beyond His Holiday Commemoration
TOM H. HASTINGS – If we would honestly study MLK, his writings, his speeches, and learn from his actual words and actions, we would start to really grasp how we can heal our racial divide, stop our culture wars, and be the best version of America that we can be.
Satyagraha: A Word You Should Know in 2024
ANDREW MOSS – Activists striving for equality and justice, including climate justice, may not necessarily use the word satyagraha, but they are nevertheless engaged in what Gandhi called “experiments with truth,” exploring and advancing each day understandings of the deep interrelatedness of factual and ethical truths.
We Can End Mass Atrocities in Gaza and Beyond
SHIMRI ZAMERET – Ordinary people can fix the broken postwar international system and deliver global justice to Palestinians and oppressed people worldwide.
Acting like we own it: Full participation in democracy
TOM H. HASTINGS – Democracy is way deeper than one vote every few years. It will live or die, depending on our commitment to it. We are powerful, every one of us.
What If Soldiers Refused to Fight? It Has Happened Before.
ARNOLD J. OLIVER – An iconic song back in the 1960’s addressed the causes of war, and what leads young people to fight in them. Buffy Saint Marie’s Universal Soldier advised that we could end war if soldiers refused to fight. So what if we gave her idea a test this winter? Let’s suggest to the soldiers among the various warring parties from the Middle East to Europe to Africa and beyond that they refuse to kill each other for a while.
Capitol Hill Interns Accuse Congress Of Suppressing Cease-Fire Demands
MOLLY REDDEN – Congressional interns and fellows released a letter on Monday accusing Congress of having “suppressed and ignored” a tidal wave of constituent support for a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Scientists skip COP28 to demand climate action at home
ANIL OZA – From his research, Nathaniel Geiger observes, “If scientists can show that their advocacy is based both on a combination of the science and values that they share in common with regular, average Americans, the more their efforts will potentially resonate.”
Parties to Nuclear Ban Treaty Agree Nuclear Deterrence is the Problem
INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS (ICAN) – The Second Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW has successfully concluded and agreed that nuclear deterrence is a significant security problem, requiring urgent attention by the international community, that more research on the impacts of nuclear weapons is needed, and that the harms caused by nuclear weapons use and testing require ongoing attention.
Bayard Rustin knew that winning required a team
GEORGE LAKEY – As the new ‘Rustin’ biopic shows, the great organizer of the 1963 March on Washington was always working to join more people together in the struggle for greater justice and peace.
Russian artist sentenced to 7 years in prison for Ukraine war protest
CLYDE HUGHES – A Russian artist who admitted to passive acts to protest Moscow’s war against Ukraine was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday after being found guilty of “knowingly spreading false information about the Russian army.”
Talk to a Neighbor, Feel Better, Save Humanity
PAUL HELLWEG – It’s only through collective action that we can respond effectively to the problems that threaten our quality of life and potentially our very survival.
How the National Infrastructure Program Creates Jobs for Today and Tomorrow
DAVID MCCALL – President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) on November 15, 2021, unleashing $1.2 trillion for tens of thousands of projects nationwide. It is upgrading transportation, communications, and energy systems while building back manufacturing capacity, generating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, and investing in the middle class.
Over 5,000 actions were organized for Campaign Nonviolence Action Days 2023
RIVERA SUN – During the 10th annual Campaign Nonviolence Action Days from Sept. 21 to Oct. 2, hundreds of local, national and international groups organized actions and events to build a culture of peace and active nonviolence, free from war, poverty, racism and environmental destruction. In 2023, a staggering 5,057 actions were planned across the United States and 20 countries. Over 60,000 people took part in these actions and events.