tagged w/ Civil Disobedience
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Students barricaded themselves inside the English Department at Wheeler Hall. The UC regents, on Thursday in Los Angeles, voted 20-1 to raise undergraduate tuition from $7,788 to $10,302 next fall, a 32% tuition hike with a midyear increase of 15 percent starting in January.
Raw Video: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/11/20/BA611ANSAB.DTL&o=11
Story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/20/BA611ANSAB.DTL&tsp=1Students barricaded themselves inside the English Department at Wheeler Hall. The UC... more
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Students gone wild.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl8XYMoD5tk&feature=sub
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Protesters read a statement about a woman who's life saving treatment was denied by Anthem Blue Cross. Police arrested them on orders from Anthem Blue Cross who released a statement that insurance rates are high due to medical costs. Meanwhile insurance companies rake in a 30% profit margin on insurance, reaping record profits in the past year despite the downturn in the economy for everyone else, while other countries and other plans like Medicare have overhead rates of 3% to 4%.
http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=188760&catid=3&GID=LqwA%20ve%20%20cBRF%20dhug8r8u77qP1m06S/jvls50agN3A=Protesters read a statement about a woman who's life saving treatment was denied by... more
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try and get some...then smoke the weed in public...Civil disobedience @ its finest
http://www.ct.gov/drs/cwp/view.asp?A=1510&Q=266796
The weed is easier to get than the stamp...
They hands already in the cookie jar.
Over 20 states have marijuana tax stamp laws..try to get one in your state...
video tape it... i want to see it... mine is coming sometry and get some...then smoke the weed in public...Civil disobedience @ its finest... more
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Sam Pullen arrested for at a healthcare sit-in, was released Monday after being jailed for 5 days. He tells Amy Goodman his story on Democracy Now. He was released against his will. He was released unconditionally without bail, charges dropped, signifying a victory for his organization Mobilize for Healthcare at http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org.
Sam, as many of us including most doctors and healthcare professionals, continues to fight for universal healthcare for all. The public option which some see as an insurance industry bailout, is not good enough.Sam Pullen arrested for at a healthcare sit-in, was released Monday after being jailed... more
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The conviction of the SHAC 7–animal rights activists hit with “terrorism” charges for publishing a website and vocally, unapologetically supporting direct action–has been upheld by a U.S. appellate court. It is a landmark free speech ruling that lowers the threshold of what types of conduct are protected by the First Amendment, and upholds a law that is so broad that it targets civil disobedience as “terrorism.”
As a brief introduction: The “SHAC 7” of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty ran an effective campaign that had the sole purpose of putting Huntingdon Life Sciences, a notorious animal testing company, out of business. The campaign pressured corporations to sever ties with the lab. The SHAC 7 were never accused of breaking windows or releasing animals from labs, but they supported those who did. They published a website which posted news of both legal and illegal tactics, and supported all of it. The website had also posted names and addresses of individuals connected to the corporations targeted.
The ruling was issued today and, although there are many aspects that deserve attention, I want to walk through what I think are by far the most dangerous and troubling implications of this ruling–those related to the First Amendment:
[PDF of the SHAC appeal ruling]
Supporting and facilitating non-violent civil disobedience is not protected speech.
As part of their campaign, SHAC supporters were emailed about “electronic civil disobedience.” The email and message board posts included instructions on how electronically “sit in” on corporate web sites through emails, faxes and phone calls.
Now, one of the benchmarks in First Amendment law is what is called the Brandenburg standard. It holds that even the most controversial and inflammatory speech is protected as long as it not likely to incite “imminent and lawless action.” That is a very high threshold. In this court ruling—which, to the best of my knowledge and the attorneys I have spoken with is the first of its kind—the written word can be construed as promoting, or resulting in, imminent and lawless action.
To put it more plainly: Vocally supporting civil disobedience, explaining what it involves, and encouraging/facilitating people to take part is not protected speech.
This is so important let me say it again, another way: People who write about civil disobedience and encourage people to take part can be found convicted of a crime even if they do not take part in the civil disobedience.
This has dangerous implications far beyond this case. For instance, I wrote about the recent call by mainstream environmental groups for massive non-violent civil disobedience in defense of the environment. Under this reasoning, organizers of that event who published a website aren’t protected by the First Amendment.
[UPDATE: One person had this question, so others might as well: I am not at all saying that simply endorsing civil disobedience is now not protected speech. However, doing so and also facilitating civil disobedience is what the court ruled is not protected. So in the example above, the organizers promoted civil disobedience, encouraged it, set up a website telling people where to go and when, and there were people involved to specifically support those arrested. I think there is a very real danger of that type of conduct being affected by the reasoning presented in this ruling. That is what I had meant by the headline and preceding points.]
Fiery rhetoric is a “true threat” when illegal conduct has taken place in the same campaign.
Another measurement of whether speech is protected by the First Amendment is whether it is a true threat. Throughout the appellate court ruling, the court argued that SHAC’s speech did, in fact, constitute a true threat.... full article at link........The conviction of the SHAC 7–animal rights activists hit with “terrorism”... more
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Bill Quigley, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of Storms Still Raging: Katrina, New Orleans and Social Justice on the new tactics used to disperse and combat protesters in Pittsburgh.Bill Quigley, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of... more
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2 months ago
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International pressure is mounting on Israel to end the occupation. More than 1,000 filmmakers, actors, and writers recently called for a protest of the Toronto Film Festival’s spotlight on Tel-Aviv. You can read the Toronto Declaration here. Meanwhile an international boycott is growing. Neve Gordon, in a recent editorial, explains why it is time to boycott Israel. Since then he has received harsh criticism from within Israel but also a great deal of support. He says that The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctionscampaign is the only way to save Israel from itself. Launched by Palestinian activists in 2005 the BDS movement has now become a global effort.
Diana Buttu, a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization, Gordon, a senior lecturer at Ben-Gurion Univesity and the author of Israel's Occupation, and Phyllis Bennis, Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies on organizing to end the occupation. To find out more about what you can do visit endtheoccupation.org.International pressure is mounting on Israel to end the occupation. More than 1,000... more
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3 months ago
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Marshall Ganz, a long time organizer and lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, on why progressives are losing the healthcare battle.Marshall Ganz, a long time organizer and lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy... more
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GRITtv
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3 months ago
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Will they be seen as 'terrorists' too? I stand with them and their message 100%. Especially since they did not hurt the mountain and stated they took proper precautions. Their message is true. True Leaders Lead. It's time we saw that on climate change.
Satyagraha.
Excerpt:
Greenpeace activists were arrested Wednesday for scaling Mount Rushmore and hanging a banner next to the carved face of Abraham Lincoln urging President Barack Obama to get tough on climate change.
A video posted on the environmental group's website showed the massive banner hanging on the South Dakota mountain face.
Its message -- "America honors leaders not politicians: Stop Global Warming" and an unfinished portrait of Obama -- was barely visible as it was whipped by wind.
"Doing what it takes to solve global warming demands real political courage," Greenpeace USA deputy campaigns director Carroll Muffett said in a statement.
"If President Obama intends to earn a place among this country's true leaders, he needs to show that courage, and base his actions on the scientific reality rather than political convenience."
The protest comes as Obama meets with other G8 leaders in Italy.
G8 leaders agreed to bear the brunt of steep global cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, saying developed countries should reduce their pollution by 80 percent by 2050, a summit declaration said.
Greenpeace said the 11 climbers "took special care not to damage the monument, using existing anchors placed by the National Park Service for periodic cleaning."Will they be seen as 'terrorists' too? I stand with them and their message 100%.... more
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A follow up from "March Against Coal Madness: Live From Coal River"
http://current.com/items/90260513_march-against-coal-madness-live-from-coal-river.htm
Darryl Hannah: "Why would I fly across the country on my own dime knowing I would most likely end up in jail in one of the poorest parts of America?
Well, have you ever heard of MTR?
Don't feel bad, my friends are intelligent, well-read and informed people, but most of them had never heard of MTR (Mountain Top Removal) either.
So, I went to Coal River to help bring much needed attention to this hidden, criminal (but somehow legal) form of mining. I was honored to be joining an inspiringly brave group of concerned Americans, which included NASA climate scientist James Hansen who was among the first to sound the alarm on the climate crisis. The sharp, charismatic, 94 year old, former West Virginia U.S. Representative and Secretary of State Ken Hechler, who was the first congressman to introduce a Federal bill to abolish strip mining in 1971. (If passed the bill could have prevented this mess we find ourselves in.) And I was deeply moved to be arrested with those affected by MTR in Kentucky, and the many local residents fighting for their very lives, including a half dozen senior citizens, canes, walkers and all.
Mountain Top Removal is a devastatingly destructive form of mining and has already destroyed 2,000,000 acres in the Appalachian Mountains.
Coal companies have literally blown up over 500 mountain tops to access the coal seams and then dumped the refuse into the valleys below, killing over 3000 miles of headwater streams. The EPA just gave the go ahead for an additional 42 mountaintops to be blown off with another 6 permits pending.
Mountain Top Removal leaves behind a virtual hideous moonscape of devastated earth, billions of gallons of poisonous toxic sludge, and boarded up towns with dramatically high rates of cancer.
Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for, and am deeply indebted to the miners working in coalmines and on MTR projects who risk their lives daily to bring power to our country. I understand they feel threatened by anything that might take away their jobs. And, I don't want to see them lose more jobs, as 75% of mining jobs have already been lost to the machines and explosives of MTR.
While it takes fewer miners to remove coal with Mountain Top Removal, there are just as many dangers, accidents and fatalities! It is a cheaper way for the companies to mine and that's why it's becoming so pervasive."
continued at link above....A follow up from "March Against Coal Madness: Live From Coal River"... more
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When six activists, protesting against climate pollution, scaled a tower at a coal-fired power station in 2007 the resulting court case drew support from the world's leading scientists. Their subsequent acquittal proved historic and changed government policy. Here, the 'Kingsnorth Six' tell their story.
Six ordinary people. One extraordinary feat of courage and endurance. Twenty thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide belched into the atmosphere in a single day. Twelve members of a jury, reaching a verdict that could change the future of the planet. From these ingredients, Nick Broomfield has fashioned a film that tells the gripping and (the description is unusually literal) life-changing story of the Kingsnorth Six.
When a demonstration at the Kingsnorth power station in north-east Kent in late 2007 led to the arrest of six climate change activists, what had until then seemed a rather dry local planning issue exploded into a story of national and international concern. The verdict at their trial turned out to have far-reaching implications for activism, the future of coal, even the planet.
Now a 20-minute film, A Time Comes, by the much-admired documentary-maker Nick Broomfield, cuts police and Greenpeace footage of the occupation together with news clips and interviews with the activists. What emerges is how ordinary the Kingsnorth Six are - they could be the bloke next door or the woman across the office - but also how brave and tenacious. The film is released just as the government's review of its coal policy is expected and campaigners hope and expect the review will define a seismic shift in official attitudes to carbon emissions.
"I was attracted to making a film about the Kingsnorth Six because they're such everyday people," Broomfield says. "You tend to think of environmental activists as super-fit professionals, but they are modest and understated. I admire the way they were prepared to see it through - to take action for what they believed and take the consequences - and I wanted to make the film immediate, personal, anecdotal.
"I loved the footage of them struggling up a chimney as if in Dante's Inferno. Their story is just a very human one of great courage and great love and belief, which is, I suppose, what all great stories are about."
end of excerpt
More of this story at this link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/31/kingsnorth-activists-climate-change-coalWhen six activists, protesting against climate pollution, scaled a tower at a... more
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From the article...LOS ANGELES -- Two animal rights activists were charged Monday with conspiracy, stalking and other crimes against researchers at University of California, Los Angeles and executives of a juice company.
Linda Faith Greene, 61, and Kevin Richard Olliff, 22, pleaded not guilty to the charges during their arraignment in Superior Court.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office issued a statement calling the pair "alleged domestic terrorists" and describing them as associates of the Animal Liberation Front, an extremist animal rights group.
A county grand jury indictment was handed up March 27 and charged each with three counts of conspiracy to commit stalking, three counts of stalking, two counts of conspiracy to threaten a public officer or school employee and two counts of threatening a public officer or school employee. They were arrested Thursday.
The indictment alleges that an unnamed co-conspirator tried to place an incendiary device on the doorstep of UCLA professor Lynn Fairbanks' home in July 2006 but it was actually left at an elderly neighbor's house and failed to explode.
One of the overt acts in the conspiracy was Greene, acting as press officer for an animal rights Web site, posting a "communique" by the ALF which took responsibility for what it called a "moletov cocktail," according to the indictment.
Greene, Olliff and others conducted demonstrations at the professor's home and on the UCLA campus, during which they chanted threats through a bullhorn and disputed law enforcement claims that the wrong house was targeted, according to the indictment.
Greene is also accused of identifying Fairbanks as a "target" on a Web site, publishing her addresses and other personal information online.
The indictment alleges a similar campaign against a neurobiology professor, Dario Ringach, who later gave up primate research, citing harassment from animal rights activists and concerns for his young children.
A telephone message seeking comment was left Monday evening at the office of attorney David B. Rutan, who represented Greene and Olliff when UCLA got a temporary restraining order against animal rights activists.
Dr. Jerry Vlasak, an animal rights activist with North American Animal Liberation Press Office, said Monday that Greene and Olliff violated no laws.
"They're using their constitutional right to free speech. They're not breaking any laws or breaking in to sabotage or destroying vehicles or equipment," Vlasak said. "Everyone knows who they are. They're high-profile activists who never tried to hide their identities. Linda did TV interviews."
The indictment further alleges that Greene and Olliff stalked executives of Los Angeles-based POM Wonderful Juice Co., picketed at a corporate family picnic and conducted demonstrations at their homes.
Vlasak said the activists targeted POM because they believe the company was using animal experiments to support claims that pomegranate juice could improve erectile function in men with mild impotence problems.
A telephone message seeking comment from POM after hours was not immediately returned.
Greene was held on $450,000 bail and is due back in court Friday for a bail review hearing. Olliff was held on $460,000 bail.
Both defendants are scheduled for a pretrial hearing on May 20.
Over the past couple of years, animal rights activists have aggressively protested animal research at the homes of scientists.
Earlier this year, four people pleaded not guilty in connection with an attempted break-in at the home of a UC Santa Cruz breast cancer researcher in 2008. Last December, a man pleaded no contest to making harassing phone calls to UC San Francisco researchers at their homes and telling them that they would die the same way they made animals suffer.From the article...LOS ANGELES -- Two animal rights activists were charged Monday with... more
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Images from the day that 3000+ people shut down the capitol power plant for the afternoon to say yes to a clean energy future for all of us. www.capitolclimateaction.org
many of these photos taken by Matt Stern www.flickr.com/stern_mattImages from the day that 3000+ people shut down the capitol power plant for the... more
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A reflection from an organizer about the VICTORY yesterday bringing thousands to engage in mass civil disobedience to shut down the coal plant that powers congress for the afternoon, sending a strong message for clean energy solutions to our twin economic and climate crises.A reflection from an organizer about the VICTORY yesterday bringing thousands to... more
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we did. thousands and thousands of people converged on the capitol power plant, engaging in mass civil disobedience to shut it down for the afternoon, sending a national demand for clean energy solutions for all our communities across the country. thought it would be a fitting ending to Acting Up to see the victory declaration. check it out.
www.capitolclimateaction.org
photos here: http://flickr.com/photos/capitolclimateaction
climate justice for all.we did. thousands and thousands of people converged on the capitol power plant,... more
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Its the morning of our protest, and there is a blizzard outside. People are asking if its still on. IT IS! Just means we tell our grandkids about trudging uphill in both directions in ten inches of snow....and thats one of the reasons why they live in a healthy and safe world, with clean energy, climate justice, and self determined communities.Its the morning of our protest, and there is a blizzard outside. People are asking if... more
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Its the night before the largest mass-action to solve the climate crisis in history. Lets do this. www.capitolclimateaction.orgIts the night before the largest mass-action to solve the climate crisis in history.... more
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"Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, its a hammer to shape it." - Brecht
We're about to shape a clean energy economy in this country in 4 days with the largest civil disobedience on climate in us history, the capitol climate action.
www.capitolclimateaction.org
Check out our arts space, with Greenpeace students making hundreds of flags, banners, and placards for the action!"Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, its a hammer to shape it." - Brecht
We're... more
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