Nonviolence in the News: July 21st, 2017

Transcript and links to items covered in the Nonviolence in the News segment of Nonviolence Radio, aired July 21st, 2017.

Goose Fest News   

PAYING RESPECTS (in Memoriam): Liu Xiaobo, who kept vigil on Tiananmen Square in 1989 to protect the (mainly student) protesters from oncoming soldiers, promoted a pro-democracy charter that brought him an 11-year prison sentence and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of 2010 while locked away, died on Thursday. He was 61.  It was because of the Tienanmen tragedy that I have dedicated my life to spreading information and understanding about nonviolence.  That tragedy was preventable, and we saw that, but we had no way to reach the students at that time.

 

Resources.

Three news sources:

1. The opportunityagenda.org allows you to select topic and type of resource. ‘Toolkit for journalists’ is one such resource, fair amt. on messaging. Their main focus is on racial issues.
2. Especially for and about women: WINGS: Women’s International News Gathering Service is celebrating its 25th year!  The have by now an extensive archive (which I haven’t checked for nonviolence content; if you do. let me know what you think.)
3. Last year I cited Peace Science Digest, a product of the War Prevention Initiative.  Available online and in print; excellent selection of articles and format: each article ends with “Contemporary Relevance” and useful “Talking Points” to take away.  So now from WNV/Peace Science Digest: “How movements can succeed in the face of government repression” by Molly Wallace.  This is basically a review of “trends in nonviolent resistance and state response,” in Global Responsibility to Protect, Erica Chenoweth suggests that part of the answer lies in target governments becoming increasingly savvy in their responses to nonviolent movements, now that such movements are recognized to pose a real threat to their power. In light of this possibility, how can nonviolent resistance persist and succeed in repressive contexts?  Particularly clever governments have been particularly quick to recognize the ‘danger’ to them (i.e. their self-perceived interests) of nonviolent movements.  Case in point: in 1990’s the Israeli govt. deported our friend Mubarak Awak, who founded the Palestinian Center for Nonviolence (and was a major actor in the first Intifada) but left alone Sheik Yassin, whom they knew was masterminding suicide bombings.

(Commentary) On the July 7th nuclear weapons ban, that will be open for states to sign on Sept. 20^th and that becomes international law after 60 nations sign, I was discussing all this last weekend in NC when one questioner led to the thought that “sometimes the good is the enemy of the best.”  Is a nuclear ban, assuming we can achieve it, a step toward the abolition of war or a facilitation of war, making it more ‘thinkable’?

Augustine: “Peace is the longing, nay the cry of every soul.”

For a point-for point roadmap of what lies ahead, see Zia Mian’s article in the latest Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Mian writes:

“In a potentially powerful obligation, the ban requires the states that sign up to make membership of the treaty part of their political engagement with the nuclear weapon states. Article 12 of the treaty mandates that states practice disarmament diplomacy and more. It declares that “[e]ach State Party shall encourage States not party to this Treaty to ratify, accept, approve or accede to the Treaty, with the goal of universal adherence of all States to the Treaty.” This will require new kinds of official and public engagement with weapons states and opens the door for new kinds of transnational citizen diplomacy on disarmament. A key step in the new disarmament politics must be discussion of the forms that this encouragement can take, and what role citizens of ban treaty states and of nuclear weapon states can and should play in this effort.…But persuading nuclear weapons countries to join the treaty will not be easy. It will require that governments and citizens use new forms of international politics that the treaty empowers. … From now on, deterrence advocates are on the wrong side of the law, as understood and accepted by the majority of countries in the world. … Having prohibited nuclear weapons as an ethical imperative, there is now no way back.”

ALSO:  Alice Slater, in The Nation: “Yet the absence of the nuclear-weapons states contributed to a more democratic process, with fruitful interchanges between experts and witnesses from civil society who were present and engaged through much of the proceedings instead of being outside locked doors, as is usual when the nuclear powers are negotiating their endless step-by-step process that has only resulted in leaner, meaner, nuclear weapons, constantly modernized, designed, refurbished. Obama, before he left office was planning to spend one trillion dollars over the next 30 years for two new bomb factories, new warheads and delivery systems. We still await Trump’s plans for the US nuclear-weapons program.…

SO, as we so frequently see with the practice of any kind of nonviolence, there are unintended positive consequences.  Just as any act of violence has unintended negative ones.  Even when the former “fail” and the latter “succeed.” This may be the most important thing to tell people about nonviolence.

Also Commentary & Analysis, from WNV: The mobilization for health is a strong example of how to incorporate different stakeholders using a wide range of tactics. These examples demonstrate the importance of finding common ground with opponents when possible, and the need to develop a common vision for the future that can shift the anti-Trump resistance from simply opposing his agenda toward “proposing” an alternative path forward together. … the campaign must be accompanied by a clear vision for the future, rather than solely expressing dissatisfaction with the present. This is incorporated in the model of the “two hands of nonviolence,” as developed by the late feminist writer Barbara Deming [expl.]. This is also known in Gandhian theory as the difference between constructive and obstructive action.

+Article: Published on Thursday, July 20, 2017

Dead Civilians and the Language of War by Robert C. Koehler:  “murder begins with language.  The language of war is what keeps it alive. This is the language of strategy and domination: words without grief, words without compassion. Speaking truth to power — the true work of the media — cannot be done if reporters write in the language of power, this alien tongue in which some human beings are expendable.

Compare Hannah Arend quoting Eichmann, and Carol Cohn’s famous article “Sex and Death In The Rational Language Of Defense Intellectuals” Signs et al., 1987.  Cohn, now teaching at UMass Boston showed that not only was the language the ‘intellectuals’ used around nuclear weapons euphemistic and dehumanizing, it also was powerfully suggestive sexually, making the mental world surrounding this work attractive to the (mostly male) perpetrators.

 

 

News.

Speaker Ryan surreptitiously stripped out Barbara Lee’s amendment.  “Congress has been missing in action on matters of war and peace for nearly sixteen years.” —Rep. Barbara Lee.  The country is in the hands of a gang of people who fear both democracy and peace.

+ We haven’t paid much attention to violence against animals; cf. Anundhati Roy comment. So, A federal judge on Friday struck down Utah’s “ag-gag” law, siding with animal-rights activists that the statute — which prohibits unauthorized filming of agricultural operations — violates free-speech rights. U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby made the ruling on a case in which two animal-rights groups and an activist sued the state over the “agriculture operation interference” law, approved in 2012 by the Legislature.

+ Los Angeles, CA – A new poll conducted by NRG Research Group shows four out of five Americans want food companies to commit to greatly reducing the suffering of chickens in their supply chains, even if it results in higher prices. And death penalty.

 

Back to humans:

+Four organizations to highlight:

1. DiEM25; Democracy in Europe Movement is very active, especially in Hamburg for the G20. Being well aware that protests & v. clashes don’t achieve anything in themselves (look at 2003, 600 cities) THEY promote “Constructive Disobedience,” and we will be following it in the weeks to come.
2. (More successes): “Results is one of America’s best-kept secrets. For decades, it has been transforming everyday Americans into skilled and powerful advocates. Through the efforts of Results’ volunteers, billions of dollars in federal government funding has been channeled to meet the basic needs of poor people in the United States and around the world.” NYT Putting Citizenship Back in Congress David Bornstein, July 4. “Constructive Journalism” column (NB!)  Constructive Program of course, CP, was the heart and soul of Gandhi’s work, and we also emphasize it heavily at Metta.
3. Indivisible if I’m not mistaken Occupy>Resistance School> Individible, learning from the tea party to turn their methods against Trump. Healthcare & immigration (like DiEM).
4. Unquestionably coming from the ashes(?) of Occupy: 99Rise joins with Democracy Spring. 99Rise is officially adopting the banner of Democracy Spring and continuing the pursuit of our mission in a new form.

As you may remember well, 99Rise was born in the spring of 2012 in the wake of the Occupy moment. From a living room in Los Angeles, seven of us launched an experiment, striving to build a momentum-driven organization capable of waging growing campaigns of escalating nonviolent action to end the corruption of Big Money in politics.”  They have a “Grand Strategy” fro civic action culminating in: A NATIONWIDE 50 STATE NONVIOLENT ARMY.  (Hm, Roadmap at work?  We were in that living room with Kai — and Sarah Thompson a few years ago and talked with them about the need for a grand strategy and, of course, nonviolence.)

+More important research results now show that states with the “open carry” law do not result in less homicide, which earlier and less complete studies tried to claim: in other words that the NRA mantram that “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” is not true.  Our mantram: the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a person who doesn’t divide the world into ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys.’  And doesn’t look to guns for protection.

 

Events.

+TRCC Worldwide Transition Town gathering, Twin Cities, July 27-30.

+ Kayaktivism lives! One week before the #NoWar2017: War and the Environment conference, to be held September 22-24 at American Univeristy, World Beyond War will work with the Backbone Campaign and other allies to organize a flotilla for the environment and peace, bringing kayaktivism to Washington, D.C., on September 16th.

+September 22-24, 2017 Conference at American University in Washington, D.C.: “What if What if the environmental movement joined the peace movement in taking on the single greatest destroyer of the environment?”

Space is limited. Sign up at WorldBeyondWar.org/NoWar2017

+ “March for Nuclear Abolition & Global Survival” is the theme for this year’s 8 AM August 9 (Nagasaki Day) rally, march and nonviolent direct action the gates of the Livermore Lab, where those who choose will peaceably risk arrest to say “Never Again!” to the use of nuclear weapons and to demand their irreversible and unequivocal elimination.…

Daniel Ellsberg is confirmed as a keynote speaker. Ellsberg is the military analyst and whistleblower who released the Pentagon Papers to the news media in 1971,

+ And for our loyal local listeners:

SONOMA COUNTY CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVISTS SUMMIT Organized by Occupy Sonoma County, Co-sponsored by 350 Sonoma, to take place on Monday, July 31, 6-9 PM, at the Peace & Justice Center 467 Sebastopol Ave. Santa Rosa 95401

+Petaluma Progressives Fair!  Aug. 6 this year in Walnut Park, Petaluma.  With a Bharata Natyam performance; as usual, come visit our table on Aug. 6.