civil disobedience – Page 2

Nonviolence: The powerful antidote to youth recruitment to gangs, terrorists, and the US Military

Posted on January 9, 2017January 10, 2017 by kathiemm

by Alice LoCicero

Terrorists, gangs, and the US military recruit youth and train them to be violent. Each time a young person is recruited to violence, one or more adults benefit, but the youth and their families pay the price.[1]

The US military, for example, recruits in high schools—typically high schools serving poor families. The myth perpetrated is that the youth have no other options—or that this is their best option.

However, even the distant benefits that may accrue after the youth have put themselves in harm’s way with one or more deployments to one of the current wars, the rosy picture presented by recruiters is often not fulfilled. About 21% of those discharged from the military in recent years did not receive honorable discharges[2], leaving them at risk of not getting all of the veterans’ benefits expected.[3]

Many communities and organizations work against youth being recruited to violence.[4] While these organizations hold a moral high ground in their respect and advocacy for youth, they lack the power and financial resources of the US military. That power and those resources enhance recruitment through formal advertising and informal infiltration of schools, video games, and community events– including family and sports events.[5]

Perhaps the most powerful antidote to recruitment to violence is not resisting recruitment, but instead welcoming recruitment to non-violence. This became clear to me recently during several days at the Standing Rock encampment.

Hearing young people speak about their experiences there, I reflected on the power of nonviolence in a variety of 20^th and 21^st century movements: The US civil rights and anti-war movements, the nonviolent civil disobedience by Gandhi and his followers, and now the nonviolent actions at Standing Rock.

To fully understand this alternative, one must realize that nonviolence is not simply the absence of violence, which might seem to be associated with weakness. Rather nonviolence is a positive approach, requiring strength, training, and discipline based on a positive philosophy of resistance to injustice and insistence on change.

What would it be like if non-Native communities in the US followed the lead of the Water Protectors at Standing Rock?

What if there were groups recruiting youth to set things right with society through active non-violence? Surely there are youth all over this country who are well-aware of the injustices in their own communities. What if there were elders from those communities who were prepared to lead resistance groups?

Let’s start a discussion about this.

References

[1] LoCicero, A. (2010) The hidden economics of youth violence. The New Renaissance.

[2] http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/09/29/54696/minor-infractions-in-uniform-keep-thousands-of-vet/

[3] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1039945/dod-announces-new-outreach-efforts-to-veterans-regarding-discharges-and-militar (The Department of Defense has recently recognized that some of the veterans who received less than honorable discharges had behavioral infractions associated with PTSD, and has proactively reached out to those veterans and others to inform them of the possibility of review of status.)

[4] For example, the American Friends Service Committee and the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth.

[5] LoCicero, A. (2016) Resisting Recruitment, Unpublished presentation to the American Psychological Assocation.

Who are the real environmental terrorists??? Part 2.

Posted on March 15, 2016 by kathiemm

Identifying the real environmental terrorists, the despoilers of planet earth, the greedy deniers of climate change who toss the future of our world to the smoggy winds, is not such a difficult task. The more critical question right now is who will take them on? Who will work to end the madness?

A recent report from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication reveals that there are a lot of Americans who say they will take action. Based on their research, the program reports that nearly 30% of Americans have joined or would join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming.

And, perhaps most important, “One in four Americans would support an organization engaging in non-violent civil disobedience against corporate or government activities that make global warming worse (24%) and one in six (17%) say they would personally engage in such activities.”

Certainly Americans and others around the world are personally engaging in protests against Big Oil, Big Coal, Gigantic Corporate Media and other mega-groups too big for their britches.

In a recent Truthout article, Jeremy Brecher gives us some cause for optimism. From May 4-15, 2016, just a couple of months from now, environmental groups from around the world, including Greenpeace, will hold a global week of action called Break Free From Fossil Fuels.

The profiteers who wreak havoc on our environment will want to call the protestors environmental terrorists if they put a foot over the wrong line, but the environmentalists are not going to let the power brokers define them. As Brecher says, “Break Free From Fossil Fuels participants will define themselves to the movement, the public and the courts not as criminals but as law-enforcers trying to enforce legal rights and halt governments and corporations from committing the greatest crime in human history.”

Those of us who want the earth to survive would do well to support that movement.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

News of its Death is Greatly Exaggerated

Posted on October 20, 2014October 20, 2014 by kathiemm

It is alive. It is well. It goes underground and then reasserts itself.

It can currently be seen in Hong Kong, striving for greater democracy, under the name of Occupy Central—Central being the major financial center in Hong Kong, sort of like Wall Street, New York.

Occupy Central was described this morning, Monday October 20, 2014, in the South China Morning Post, as “a civil disobedience movement which began in Hong Kong on September 28, 2014. It calls on thousands of protesters to block roads and paralyse Hong Kong’s financial district if the Beijing and Hong Kong governments do not agree to implement universal suffrage…”

The full name of Occupy Central is Occupy Central with Love and Peace –love and peace being central themes in Gene Sharp’s book, the “Manual of Disobedience.” This manual and Sharp’s other publications have energized and guided a growing number of nonviolent resistance movements such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement of 2011.

Sharp, who has been nominated three times for a Nobel Peace Prize, is founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit organization devoted to the use of nonviolence in struggles for human rights, peace, and social justice. Many of his books and papers are available free on the Institution’s website. To see, for example, a list of his “198 methods of nonviolent action,” click here. Be inspired: Consider the extent to which many of these methods can be applied not just to Occupy Movement tactics but to conflicts at all levels of society. Become engaged: Join the nonviolence movement.

Another Way to Struggle against Militarism: War Tax Resistance

Posted on April 14, 2014April 26, 2014 by kathiemm

By guest author Erica Weiland

[note from KMM: One of the objectives of the Engaging Peace blog is to encourage activism in support of peace and in opposition to war. We strive to educate our readers about different approaches to activism. Today we offer a timely perspective from Erica Weiland, a guest author representing the National War Tax Coordinating Committee.]

taxprotesters — Tax Protesters
Photo by Ed Hedemann, provided by the author.

Year after year, the US government spends money disproportionately for war. Different organizations calculate military expenditure differently, but whether the figure is 27%, 40%, 45%, or 57%, a large chunk of your income tax dollars supports payments for current and past wars and treatment for veterans.

If you’ve ever marched in the street, written letters to Congress, organized civil disobedience actions, prayed for peace, donated to an anti-war organization, or complained about this country’s spending, you know something about putting your time, effort, and money into a movement struggling against war. Another tactic some Americans (and people elsewhere) have adopted is to withdraw their financial support from the government that perpetrates wars.

Methods of war tax resistance can be legal or illegal, on a wide spectrum of risk, with a variety of potential consequences.

Resisters can, for example:

*legally refuse to pay taxes by lowering their taxable income,

*commit an act of civil disobedience by refusing to pay some or all of the taxes owed to the IRS,

*refuse to pay the federal excise tax on local telephone service, which is historically a war tax.

People all over the United States, earning different incomes and in different family and life situations, practice war tax resistance.

Their motivations vary. Some resist

*for reasons of conscience,

*in hopes of growing a movement of war tax resisters to reduce or stop war spending,

*to create a legal precedent for “peace taxes” that can’t be spent for war.

The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee is the only national organization devoted to supporting and informing current and potential war tax resisters, helping people get all the information they need to make decisions about resisting war taxes. If you are tired of supporting the war machine with your tax dollars, check them out.

Erica Weiland is the social media consultant for the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.