Tag: protest

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Ethics: General, Protests and Crackdowns, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

On a discussion forum for nonviolent (NV) activists, my friend David has been a consistent advocate for filling the jails, and has expressed frustration that so few people are willing. The discussion recently turned to encompass the question of property destruction (I’m an opponent). I shared my thoughts about both tactics, and added the concept of meeting people where they are and building a ladder for them to go deeper. I thought it might be useful to share it here, even though I recognize that it won’t be relevant to many of my business readers. You can see the entire conversation at https://thepowerdynamicofnonviolence.blogspot.com/2018/12/if-you-can-persist-in-face-of.html

Activists project pro-immigration signs onto the US border station, Brownsville, Texas, February 15, 2020. Photo by Shel Horowitz.
Activists project pro-immigration signs onto the US border station, Brownsville, Texas, February 15, 2020. Photo by Shel Horowitz.

@David Slesinger, it’s beginning to sound as if you feel that ONLY NV actions that result in arrests and jail are meaningful. I strongly disagree with that premise–and so would Gandhi (the local textiles movement), MLK (Montgomery bus boycott), and the Hebrew midwives Shifra and Pu’ah, who may have invented nonviolent resistance 3000+ years ago. (I’m at least not aware of any earlier documentation of a nonviolent action against state power than the scene in the Old Testament where Pharaoh confronts them.) The majority of Gene Sharp’s 198 NV tactics do not involve arrest.

I have been involved with hundreds of actions that provided meaningful protest and in some cases helped to change government policy that did not risk arrest.

Also, it’s important to give people a ladder. You have to meet people where they are ready. Most new activists take tentative steps at the beginning. Over time, some of them move up that ladder. Serving any jail time of more than a weekend or so is pretty high up the ladder. Serving a sentence of months or years is almost all the way at the top (a little below martyrdom) and many of us never reach it. You have told me many times about your frustration that so few people are willing to do as you’ve done.

Unknown raises excellent points about property destruction. Destruction of private property is a mistake both morally and strategically, for the reasons Unknown cites and also for its effect of making enemies of those whom other NV tactics would turn into allies.

I am a rape survivor. I have also experienced the break-in and looting/ransacking of apartments I was living in. They feel remarkably similar; the difference is in degree. Both are a violation. So was the time I was visiting my college after finishing, staying at the Gay Center–and a rock wrapped in a Nazi hate message came through the window. It wasn’t my property, but I felt just as violated.

I do make a distinction between property belonging to a single person (and that would include the merchandise inside a small store) and the use of property destruction aimed at the state or at e.g. military contractors–such as the actions of the Berrigans and their compadres in damaging draft records and nuclear missiles. WE should note that unlike looters, they got no personal gain, were really careful to avoid collateral damage to living creatures, and waited around to be arrested. They maintained the moral high ground even while destroying things. But this is extremely rare. Most instances of property violence are perceived as criminal or even terrorist by the public at large AND the power structure.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Ethics in Government, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, travel Tagged with ,

I like to travel, but this trip is not about fun. I’ll spending the next few days in the grueling Florida summer heat and humidity, outside the gates–and the 30-foot wall recently built to prevent the kids from seeing their supporters–of a private “detention center” (prison) holding more than 2000 children whose only “crime” is coming to this country–usually because their lives are in danger at home. [Clarification: when we got to the site, we discovered that the fences, covered with cloth mesh to block the view, are “only” about 8 feet high around the compound for 13-16-year-olds and about 12 feet around the separate, windowless building holding 17-year-old detainees. By standing on stepladders, we were able to make visual and verbal contact with the younger groups.]

Since January, 2017, we’ve seen appalling abuses: children in cages, children torn from their families, families denied the right to even apply for asylum.

I am putting my body out there to say No. Enough! I’ve joined a Jewish affinity group from western Massachusetts, and six of the eight of us are sitting in the departure lounge in the Hartford airport.

This is the initial post on the blog I set up for our affinity group:

This blog will cover the actions of a small group of Jewish activists from the Northampton/Amherst area of Western Massachusetts (and one from Eastern Massachusetts) who came together as an affinity group to protest the jailing of innocent migrant children.

We are appalled at the gratuitous cruelty of the current US government and its private enablers such as the operators of the prison we’ll be protesting at. As an example, we’ve heard that they raised the height of the fence of the prison where we will be witnessing, just to block the incarcerated children from seeing the protests and taking comfort from them.

We are horrified that at least five children have died in custody nationally in the past few months. And our hearts are torn open that these thousands of children have been wrenched from their families. There is no good reason for this cruelty.

We choose to act as Jews, in the spirit of Tikkun Olam (healing the world) and the Biblical injunction, “Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdof” (Justice, Justice, shalt thou Pursue). We are not a religious group, and we have as many interpretations of what it means to be a Jew and a Jewish activist as we have members.

Our first action is to participate in a Jewish–themed Father’s Day protest at a private prison in Homestead, Florida for a few days in mid-June. Members of our affinity group, Western Mass Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice, will use this space to post photos and writings about our time there, announce public events back home where we’ll share what we witnessed, etc.

This is part of a much larger ongoing presence in Homestead. You can read about it on the Witness: Tornillo. Target: Homestead page, just by clicking this link.

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Dear Donald, whatever happened to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”? Your grandfather was an immigrant. So are two of your wives.

The cruelty and meanness of your administration do not make us stronger. They make us criminals.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Shel's Personal Life, Socially Responsible Investing Tagged with , , ,

Entergy’s Vermont Yankee nuclear plant’s license expired Wednesday night, after 40 years. 40 years of leaks, collapsing cooling tower, tritium in the water, unexpected outages…in short, 40 years of a very poor safety record.

I’m looking at the first page of the official Atomic Energy Commission report on Abnormal Occurrences for the 1973–the last year a full report is available, because after that the AEC (which then became the so-called Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC). Only a year into its use cycle, when it should have shaken out all the problems and long before radioactive corrosion, old age or other more recent stress factors, Vermont Yankee reported 39 separate incidents–that’s nearly one per week. Page one of the report, reprinted in the classic book No Nukes, by Anna Gyorgy and Friends (page 107 in my 1977 edition), shows that the first six included:

  • A switch in the Emergency Core Cooling System that failed to activate (potentially extremely serious)
  • Four miscalibrated radiation monitors
  • Power supply failure of a gamma radiation monitor on the perimeter
  • Discovery that some instrument sensor tubes were connected wrong, because the plant’s designers produced faulty drawings
  • Unplanned shutdown following an explosion that fractured the air ejector rupture disc, and release of radiation
  • A second air ejector rupture disc fracture and release of radiation

Again, these are just the first six of 39, during a single year of the plant’s 40-year operation.

Meanwhile, as a condition of operation, Entergy agreed a few years ago to be bound by approval of the state legislature to continue operation past its license expiration. Yet, when the state senate voted 26-4 in 2010 to close the plant, Entergy (which had expected at the tine it signed the agreement to win the legislative approval) reneged, sued the state, and actually found a judge–John Murtha–who issued an idiotic decision in the company’s favor, saying the legislature was clearly concerned about safety and nuclear safety was reserved for the federal government–specifically, for the NRC, which has so far NEVER to my knowledge turned down either a new or renewal license. (They should rename themselves the Nuclear Rah-Rah Cheerleaders)

So much for democracy, state’s rights, etc. The legislature, the governor, and a large majority of the state’s population (not to mention numerous government officials in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, both of which are within four miles of the plant) all want to see this monstrosity shut down.

The state is appealing, but somehow, there’s no injunction to keep the plant from operating until the suit is resolved.

Along with about 1600 other people, I went up to Brattleboro, Vermont today to protest Yankee’s continued operation. Some 130 people got arrested. I didn’t, but my 93-year-old friend Frances Crowe did. I first met Frances, a Northampton, Massachusetts hero and living treasure, in 1977, when we were both incarcerated in the Manchester, NH National Guard Armory when 1414 of us were arrested at the construction site for the Seabrook, NH nuke. I saw a number of people today who I remembered from that and other Clamshell Alliance actions in the late 1970s.

Nuclear is a really dumb idea. I wrote a whole book on it. From a safety, economics, fuel efficiency, or even carbon footprint point of view, nuclear power is a disaster. And the GE Mark I design used at 23 US reactors including Vermont Yankee–the same one used at Fukushima–is particularly bad. Why are we mortgaging our future for no benefit?Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail