Nonviolent Resistance

This is a live feed coming out of Madison:

Right now they are bouncing back and forth from the speaker at the station to show recordings from yesterday as well as some live feeds via cell phones as the rally goes on today.

Reason I'm posting this up, besides the obvious of some wanting to watch, is they announced that the 14 State Senators will be speaking at around twelve noon CST and they are hoping to bring live coverage of those speeches.

This feed comes from The UpTake.

This is in an e-mail from GRITtv:

HEARD ON THE STREET: "If you live in Wisconsin, don't forget to turn your clock back 50 years this weekend."

That link is running live coverage supposedly but doesn't look like a stream.

There's suppose to be live streaming coverage here and at Free Speech TV
According to GRITtv's Laura Flanders who's in Madison Wis.

by Joan Wile, author,
"Grandmothers Against the War: Getting Off Our Fannies
and Standing Up for Peace" (Citadel Press)

It's encouraging to see the people uprisings abroad and in our own country. The Egypt revolt really sparked something, and, on its revolutionary heels, the workers of Wisconsin came to life and fought Gov. Walker's efforts to strip them of their rights. People in other states being subjected to the same onslaught rose into action, also. It seems as if we might be on the cusp of meaningful fightback in the U.S. against the new robber barons who don't give a damn about you and me but are only interested in swelling their over-bloated portfolios to even greater obscene proportions.

Wisconsin Democrats Plan Capitulation - by Stephen Lendman

Three weeks and counting since Wisconsin public workers began heroically protesting for rights too important to lose, including collective bargaining without which all others are threatened.

Daily, many thousands braved cold and snow - marching, demonstrating, and sleeping over, sacrificing personal comforts to keep struggling for justice. Teachers, police, firefighters, nurses, maintenance workers, and other public employees were joined by union and nonunion private sector ones, along with doctors, lawyers, other professionals, and thousands of college and high school students from across Wisconsin and other states.

Behind the scenes, however, union bosses and Senate Democrats plan capitulation. Negotiations accomplished nothing, Senator Bob Jauch saying, "In order to kill this bill we could never go home. That's not practical and most people realize it."

This site, and message, just popped up on FaceBook and many are joining in even if only in spirit for most. But hey if you're in that region and can make the run, join in.

What's it about:

Time Saturday, March 12 · 12:00pm - 2:00pm

Location The Capitol, Madison WI

No need to say much as to an intro to this discussion, they, as usual, do a great job.

One thing I would like to say is that think Keith would be doin great if he picked up Laura and gave her a spot on the rebuild of that Gore and company TV Station.

She's always done a great job when doing radio, her books, and now with this GRITtv venture, though to a to small an audience and Rachel's still under contract to MSNBC.

Michael Moore: People Still Have the Power

March 1 2011 - "This is a movement that is not going to stop," says filmmaker Michael Moore of the uprising in Madison, Wisconsin (and across the country--all 50 states held solidarity rallies this weekend). "I knew sooner or later people would say they've had enough."

Zombied
by Missy Comley Beattie

My hands are curved, poised above the keyboard. I’m staring at a document, blank except for the cursor that’s blinking to the rhythm of an Annie Lennox song, “Love is a Stranger.” My eyes are focused on this small vertical mark that, at other times, could be a soporific. Just not now. Because the Lennox lyrics are bitter.

It’s savage and it’s cruel
It shines like destruction
Comes in like a flood
And it seems like religion
It’s noble and it’s brutal
It distorts and deranges
And it wrenches you up
And you’re left like a zombie

This describes love but it could be the tune of our times, as harsh as the world in which we live.

By Linn Washington, Jr.

Philadelphia--Charlene Scott cheered and chanted with the hundreds thronging Philadelphia’s Love Park during Saturday's protest against conservative Republican onslaughts seeking to slaughter what remains of the living-standard comforts enjoyed by middle and working-class Americans.

But Scott had a different perspective than most attending that demonstration, which had been organized largely to voice solidarity with public workers in Wisconsin now confronting calculated attacks against their collective bargaining rights from that state’s Tea Party-aligned Republican governor.

Scott said she had seen this onslaught coming ten years ago.

“When I saw jobs moving off-shore, banks lowering interest rates on personal accounts and governments passing more charges onto taxpayers I knew this was coming,” Scott said.

From CPT

by Samuel Nichols

 [Note, Nichols’ original piece is available on Waging Nonviolence.]

 An estimated one thousand Palestinians, joined by Israeli and international activists, took to the streets on Friday, 25 February, to demand the opening of Shuhada Street, a former thoroughfare in the West Bank city of Hebron.  Israeli occupying forces fired foam-tipped bullets, tear gas, and sound grenades, injuring nine protestors.  Many demonstrators also suffered adverse effects of the tear gas.

By John Grant
 
It’s considered unsportsmanlike to say, “We told you so.” But since all’s fair in love and war and we’re definitely at war, it’s fair to say the peace movement has been right about the whole sordid reality of US war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That may sound audacious or ridiculous to some, especially to those knee-jerks who love to ridicule the antiwar movement while knowing nothing about what it really stands for.

It’s important to note, here, that the peace/antiwar movement doesn’t have quite as extensive a public relations and propaganda program as that employed by the military and its supporters in the federal government and the mainstream media.

For instance, the peace movement doesn’t have well-funded, highly-trained Psy-Ops Teams such asRolling Stone has shown the military has. So no one is able to brainwash US congress members intocutting the military budget and de-funding the wars.

Dear Citizens of the United States of America,

It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch--the billionaire owners of Koch Industries--have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.

(Reuters) - A crowd estimated at more than 70,000 people on Saturday waved American flags, sang the national anthem and called for the defeat of a Wisconsin plan to curb public sector unions that has galvanized opposition from the American labor movement.

In one of the biggest rallies at the state Capitol since the Vietnam War, union members and their supporters braved frigid temperatures and a light snowfall to show their displeasure.

From NY Times:

Clashes erupted in Tripoli on Friday as security forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi used gunfire to try to disperse thousands of protesters who streamed out of mosques after prayers to mount their first major challenge to the government’s crackdown in the capital.

The protesters refused to back down, witnesses told news services and the opposition reported on websites, and clashes continued in parts of the city. Rebel leaders said they were sending forces from nearby cities and other parts of the country to join the fight.

EXHIBIT: Urban Design & Civil Protest

ARTICLE: Designing a City for Safe Protests

ScienceDaily (Feb. 23, 2011) — Civil protests, from peaceful sit-ins at the Pentagon to violent riots in Cairo, nonetheless share some common characteristics. To study how protests evolve in public spaces, Dr. Tali Hatuka, an architect and head of Tel Aviv University's Laboratory of Contemporary Urban Design, has dissected some of the world's most publicized protests -- those in Washington, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Beijing, and Leipzig.

Wisconsin's Spirit: Courage for Other States to Emulate - by Stephen Lendman

The issue is simple and straightforward - organized big money v. organized people essential to beat it. Since February 15, Wisconsin public workers, students, and supporters have sustained heroic resistance against corrupted dark forces determined to crush unionism there and across America. A previous article explained, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/02/union-busting-in-america.html

The scheme is old, dirty and ongoing - a conspiracy involving corporate bosses, federal, state and local Democrat and Republican leaders, and corrupted union heads to bust unions, effectively depriving workers of collective bargaining and other hard-won gains, returning them to 19th century harshness when they had none.

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) calls on all U.S. military service members to refuse and resist any mobilization against workers organizing to protect their basic rights. IVAW stands in solidarity with the multitude gathered in Madison, Wisconsin and many other cities to defend their unions.

We believe military service members are public employees too. It is dishonorable to suggest that military personnel should be deployed against teachers, health care providers, firefighters, police officers, and other government employees, many of whom are themselves serving in the National Guard.

"We should not think that the destruction and suffering unleashed by war is limited to Iraq and Afghanistan. Individuals and whole cities here at home have become 'collateral damage.' Millions of people are thrown out of their jobs and then out of their homes. Pressures cascade onto state and local governments as the stagnant economy and frustrated voters further decrease funds for essential services. Our infrastructure isn't bombed, it just slowly rots."

__________

Veterans return to the White House for March 19 Iraq invasion observance

CIVIL RESISTANCE TO THE WARS CONTINUES

by Tarak Kauff and Mike Ferner

Wisconsin: Ground Zero to Save Public Worker Rights - by Stephen Lendman

Ronald Reagan was right saying:

"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

His type governance, that is, and from administrations that followed, Democrats as ruthless as Republicans.

For decades, bipartisan consensus governed lawlessly, waging imperial wars, trashing human rights and civil liberty protections, unabashedly backing monied interests, letting them loot the federal treasury, fleecing working Americans, and targeting organized labor for destruction.

Washington is ground zero for government's assault. Outside the beltway, it's Wisconsin, but spreading fast to other states and cities. An unfair fight pits major media-supported federal, state and local governments allied with union bosses against American workers, largely on their own, relying on their grit and resourcefulness to survive in a very hostile environment.

Madison Area AFL CIO Votes to Prepare For General Strike
By Mike Elk

This evening in a press release from IBEW Local 2304 President Dave Pokilinski, I received word that the 45,000 member Southern Central Federation of Labor, the local chapter of the AFL-CIO for the Madison and Southern Central Wisconsin area, has voted to make preparations for a general strike.

The press release reads as follows: READ THE REST.

And Walker wants to mubarak the internet.

2.21.11 Best-selling author David Swanson joins Coy to discuss the labor unrest in Wisconsin. Be sure to check out his most recent book War is a Lie.

 Standard Podcast [14:56m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download (21)

22 February 2011 - Her family is part of the Egyptian elite, but 24-year-old Gigi Ibrahim says she's fighting for her country's future. With thousands following her Twitter feed, Gigi has become something of a celebrity in Cairo's Tahrir Square. In this video, we see her attempts to convince her family of the righteousness of her cause. But will they come around?

 

By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

The escalating confrontations in Wisconsin and Ohio are ultimately about preventing the United States from becoming a full-on fascist state.

The stakes could not be higher---or more clear.

As defined by its inventor, Benito Mussolini, fascism is "corporate control of the state." There are ways to beat around the Bush---Paul Krugman has recently written about "oligarchy"---but it's time to end all illusions and call what we now confront by its true name.

The fights in Wisconsin, Ohio, and in numerous other states are about saving the last shreds of American democracy. They burn down to five basic realities:

1) The bulwark of modern democracy is the trade union. This has been true since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. All social programs can trace their roots to union activism, as can the protection of our civil liberties.

Michael Nagler tells this story:

From MichaelMoore.com

About Kamal Abbas and the Centre for Trade Unions and Workers Services:

Kamal Abbas is General Coordinator of the CTUWS, an umbrella advocacy organization for independent unions in Egypt. The CTUWS, which was awarded the 1999 French Republic's Human Rights Prize, suffered repeated harassment and attack by the Mubarak regime, and played a leading role in its overthrow. Abbas, who witnessed friends killed by the regime during the 1989 Helwan steel strike and was himself arrested and threatened numerous times, has received extensive international recognition for his union and civil society leadership.

Embed code available here.

English translation follows, below:

US Workers: Resurgent or Waging a Rearguard Action? - by Stephen Lendman

For decades, organized labor has been hammered after painful years of organizing, taking to the streets, going on strike, holding boycotts, battling police and National Guard forces, and paying with their blood and lives before real gains were won.

Important ones included an eight hour day, a living wage, essential benefits including healthcare and pensions, and the pinnacle of labor's triumph with passage of the landmark 1935 Wagner Act, establishing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It guaranteed labor the right to bargain collectively with management on equal terms for the first time, what's now sadly lost.

After signing it on July 5, 1935, Franklin Roosevelt said:

By Kevin Zeese

On Tuesday, February 15th Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech on the importance of Freedom of Speech in the Internet age. She focused her attention on foreign countries and chided them for curtailing the speech of their citizens.

During that speech Ray McGovern, a veteran who also served for 27 years as a CIA analyst, exercised his freedom of speech by standing and silently turning his back on Secretary Clinton. He was protesting the ongoing wars, the treatment of Bradley Manning and the militarism of U.S. foreign policy. He did not shout at the Secretary of State or interrupt her speech. He merely stood in silence. See the video here of the incident: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Vy8fFnz18

Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used in a Revolution

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

BOSTON — Halfway around the world from Tahrir Square in Cairo, an aging American intellectual shuffles about his cluttered brick row house in a working-class neighborhood here. His name is Gene Sharp. Stoop-shouldered and white-haired at 83, he grows orchids, has yet to master the Internet and hardly seems like a dangerous man.

But for the world’s despots, his ideas can be fatal.

Few Americans have heard of Mr. Sharp. But for decades, his practical writings on nonviolent revolution — most notably “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, available for download in 24 languages — have inspired dissidents around the world, including in Burma, Bosnia, Estonia and Zimbabwe, and now Tunisia and Egypt.

When Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement was struggling to recover from a failed effort in 2005, its leaders tossed around “crazy ideas” about bringing down the government, said Ahmed Maher, a leading strategist. They stumbled on Mr. Sharp while examining the Serbian movement Otpor, which he had influenced.

When the nonpartisan International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, which trains democracy activists, slipped into Cairo several years ago to conduct a workshop, among the papers it distributed was Mr. Sharp’s “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action,” a list of tactics that range from hunger strikes to “protest disrobing” to “disclosing identities of secret agents.”