#Solidarity and #gratitude to the hundreds of people who used kayaks and their bodies to blockade the world's busiest #coal port for 32 hours this weekend, and to the thousands who supported them, and to the millions who cheered them on, and to the billions for whose sake they were acting. This was a taste of an unstoppable force of collective #courage, #care and #commitment
Just Stop Oil at Wimbledon.
If you barked because they took up traffic space and suggest there's a less inoffensive way to get a global audience and why can't they think of one, then you'd better not be critiquing this.
Today in Labor History October 1, 1964: The Free Speech Movement began on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, when activist Jack Weinberg was arrested for refusing to show his identification to the campus police while standing at an illegal political literature table. Thousands of students spontaneously surrounded the police car, which remained there for 32 hours, with Weinberg inside. Protesters used the car as a speaker's podium. The Free Speech Movement lasted for two years and was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American college campus in the 1960s. Students were fighting for, and won, the right to have public political activities on campus, particularly in support of the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War Movements.
NOT THE TREATS!!! Mayor Jeremy Levi says: "This isn't a movie scene. It's downtown Montreal, where the pro-Hamas group disrupts commerce for everyone, not just Jews."
"Val Plante, where's your courage to stop this madness?"
Today in Labor History August 14, 1846: The authorities jailed Henry David Thoreau for refusing to pay his taxes in protest of the Mexican War. Aside from this early act of American civil disobedience and war resistance, Thoreau also wrote, “Walden.” His essay, “Civil Disobedience,” influenced generations of activists and writers, including Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Tolstoy, Yeats, Proust, Hemingway, Upton Sinclair and Martin Buber.
Today in Labor History September 10, 1963: 20 black children were integrated into Birmingham schools in spite of opposition by the city. Martin Luther King, James Bevel & Fred Shuttlesworth led the campaign of nonviolent direct action to integrate Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most segregated cities in the nation. Over a thousand were arrested during the campaign. Bull Connors ordered the use of high-pressure hoses and attack dogs on juvenile protesters. Racists bombed the Gaston Motel, in a failed attempt to assassinate King.
German civil servants demand ‘immediate’ end to Israeli arms supplies (Al Jazeera, 2024-04-07)
📣 ✊ 🔥
"A group of German civil servants have written to Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other senior ministers calling on the government to 'cease arm deliveries to the Israeli government with immediate effect'."
"According to the organisers of the five-page statement, around 600 civil servants have voiced support for the initiative, which has slowly been gathering traction for months through professional networks and word-of-mouth across a range of ministries."
"The civil servants sent the statement via email to ministries last week, with the disclaimer that 'due to the sensitive content and the excessive state repression that criticism in this area is met with, we want to remain anonymous'."
Thank activists who aren't paid (huge myth!). Don't be thanking fucking politicians for changes that benefit #humanity & environment. Govt doesn't change their toxic shit without facing lots of activism first - having #citizens rise up against their BS/harmful policies.
Today in Labor History August 1, 1917: IWW organizer Frank Little was lynched in Butte, Montana. Little was a Cherokee miner and member of the IWW. He went to Butte during the Speculator Mine strike to help organize the miners. Little had previously helped organize oil workers, timber workers and migrant farm workers in California. He had participated in free speech fights in Missoula, Spokane and Fresno, and helped pioneer many of the passive resistance techniques later used by the Civil Rights movement. He was also an anti-war activist, calling U.S. soldiers “Uncle Sam’s scabs in uniforms.” On August 1, 1917, vigilantes broke into the boarding house where he was staying. They dragged him through the streets while tied to the back of a car and then hanged him from a railroad trestle.
Author Dashiell Hammett had been working in Butte at the time as a strike breaker for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. They had tried to get him to murder Little, offering him $5,000, but he refused. He later wrote about the experience in his novel, “Red Harvest.” It supposedly haunted him throughout his life that anyone would think he would do such a thing.
What prevents scientists from engaging in #climate#activism? In a new preprint, Dablander et al. investigated the barriers holding #scientists back from participating in protests, incl. #CivilDisobedience. They distinguish intellectual & practical barriers, and give recommendations for overcoming them.
The #TUC has voted for a non-compliance motion on #Tories anti-strike laws (specifically minimum service requirements).
Sometimes the #RuleofLaw is maintained by not complying with unjust laws - maintaining through #civildisobedience that the idea of the rule of law is being violated by unjust laws themselves, which those protesting such injustice should break.
This political manoeuvre has a long pedigree, from #civilrights movements across history;
can the TUC can tap into that history?
“Speaking at the university's graduation ceremony, [Shruthi] Kumar … criticized the university administration's stance on Gaza.
“Kumar, who is of South Asian origin, noted that their messages of freedom of expression and solidarity with Gaza were penalized shortly before graduation, saying: ‘I am deeply disappointed by the intolerance for freedom of speech and the right to civil disobedience on campus.
“‘The students had spoken. The faculty had spoken.’
"’Harvard, do you hear us?’ she further said, receiving a standing ovation.”
Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories: Conscientious objector detailed in Israel: Yuval Dag (Urgent Action | Amnesty International, 2024-04-13)
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“20-year-old Yuval Dag is serving a 20-day detention order at Neve Tzedek military prison in Tel Aviv for refusing to enlist in the Israeli army …”
“Yuval Dag is a prisoner of conscience. The Israeli authorities should release him immediately and unconditionally.”
Public Participation
The Aarhus Convention and its Protocol on PRTRs empower people with the rights to access information, participate in decision-making in environmental matters and to seek justice. They are the only legally binding global instruments on environmental democracy.
>> https://unece.org/environmental-policy-1/public-participation
Alarm as German climate activists charged with ‘forming a criminal organisation’
“This is the first time in German history that a climate protest group that uses measures of peaceful civil disobedience is charged as a criminal organisation."
“Paragraph 129 of the German criminal code is to combat organised crime. Its application to non-violent protest criminalises civic engagement and thus restricts democratic freedoms."