A presidential war speech often doubles as a gauge of the antiwar movement’s weakness or strength. This was borne out again last week when President Obama delivered what the administration billed as amajor address on the wars over which he is presiding. In his May 23 presentation at the National Defense University, the president proclaimed a fundamental shift in the wars since 9/11. In reality, it was a car ...

A collaborative effort between people of the 15M, OWS, Occupy, Indignados, and YoSoy 132 movements. These notes are an attempt to summarise some of the common points between what are known as emerging movements, that is, the various social movements that have appeared in different parts of the world since 2011. They have been compiled with the input from members of these movements. (15M, OWS, Occupy, Indign ...

Intruders on a nuclear base, including a nun, face decades in prison for tying “Crime Scene” tape on an H-bomb factory. By John LaForge Risking your personal freedom for a worthy cause is as American as apple pie. But nonviolently putting your life at risk in defense of others is so rare that the actor is sometimes dismissed as crazy. Some people think the Transform Now Plowshares activists were crazy for s ...

One of the first things you need to know about the U.S. is how difficult it is for us to tolerate ambiguity—especially when untangling our own motives. An example was our second invasion of Iraq. After 9/11 we felt an itch to retaliate against a clear enemy. Because we could not pinpoint one, we scratched the itch by inventing a false enemy— conveniently, one with lots of oil under its sand—and going to war ...

On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Ala., thus launching the modern-day civil-rights movement. Monday, Feb. 4, is the 100th anniversary of her birth. After she died at the age of 92 in 2005, much of the media described her as a tired seamstress, no troublemaker. But the media got it wrong. Rosa Parks was a first-class troublemaker. ...

On February 1st the Chilean humanist Thomas Hirsch took part in the International Conference for Peace that took place at Munich, called "Non violent ways of regime change." We publish here the transcript of his words: "The name proposed for this conference is already arguable. Firstly, as a reflection rather than a criticism, if I am asked to talk about nonviolent regime change is because the basic assumpt ...

by Kelsey Alford-Jones.  The original article on Waging Nonviolence can ge found here. Residents of San Jose del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc, about an hour north of Guatemala City, have been steadfast in their rejection of a gold mine in the region. They are concerned about the mine’s health, social and environmental impacts, which will last for generations to come — so much so that one woman’s spontaneous ...

by Kazu Haga “Now, Bernard, the next movement we’re going to have is to institutionalize and internationalize nonviolence.” It was a comment made almost in passing. Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Jr., then the national coordinator for the Poor People’s Campaign, was walking out of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s motel room in Memphis, Tenn. Dr. Lafayette figured this was a conversation that they would finish later, a ...

On Friday 11th January, dozens of Palestinian activists from the Palestinian Popular Resistance stormed Area E1, which connects Jerusalem with Ma'ali Adumim settlement, and started to erect tents in preparation to start building a new Palestinian village under the name Bab As-Shams (Gate of the Sun). Around 200 Palestinian and International activists raided the Area; some entered from Jerusalem and others f ...

Some thirty cities in the continents of America, Africa, Europe and Oceania will celebrate the 1st International Film Festival of Active Nonviolence (FICNOVA in its Spanish acronym).  FICNOVA, promoted by the humanist organisation World without Wars and Violence is aiming to create a space of coming together, of free creation committed to the culture of nonviolence.  In different cities FICNOVA will be prom ...