Inherit the Earth

War Resisters League Releases New Report from Interviews with 90 Peace and Justice OrganizersSpecial

2008-07-03T06:47:00.000-07:00

Issue of WIN Magazine Assesses Antiwar Organizing and Activism

To read the full report online, or for ordering information, visit: http://warresisters.org/listeningprocess

What is lacking in today’s peace movement? How can grassroots organizers turn popular antiwar sentiment into broad-based action? What strategies and tactics should be employed, and how should the antiwar movement relate to the elections? The War Resisters League recently conducted a Listening Process, asking 90 grassroots organizers from across the county to address these and other questions and to reflect on the state of the antiwar movement in the United States. The new 40-page special issue of WIN magazine features their reflections and insights. The 90 interviewees are organizers and activists from diverse organizations, including WRL local chapters; local efforts like Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools in southern California; constituency-based organizations like U.S. Labor Against the War, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Women of Color Resource Center; and national coalitions like United for Peace and Justice. Some of those interviewed work primarily on peace and antiwar issues, while others focus mainly on gender justice, labor, racial justice, the environment, or community issues.

The interviews explore constraints that the movement faces, as well as openings; how to build a more multiracial, cross-class and broad-based movement; the relevancy of nonviolence; the role of soldiers, veterans and military families; and many other questions. We hope this report will be a small contribution in an ongoing strategic dialogue. We invite you to check it out, order copies, forward the report to others, organize a discussion, or comment online.

For more information, to order copies of the special issue of WIN magazine, or to read it online, visit http://warresisters.org/listeningprocess

Arrests for War Resistance Increase Again

2008-07-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

by: Bill Quigley, t r u t h o u t

Perspective http://www.truthout.org/article/arrests-war-resistance-increase-again

"We can never forget that everything that Hitler did in Germany was'legal,' and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did was'illegal.' It was 'illegal' to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler'sGermany, but I am sure that if I lived in Germany during that time Iwould have comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal ...we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators oftension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that isalready alive." Martin Luther King Jr. There have been over 15,000 arrests for resistance to war since2002. There were large numbers right after the runup to and invasionof Iraq. Recently, arrests have begun climbing again. Though arrestsare a small part of antiwar organizing, their rise is an indicator ofincreasing resistance. The information comes from the Nuclear Resister, a newsletter thathas been reporting detailed arrest information on peace activists andother social justice campaigns since 1980. Felice and JackCohen-Joppa, publishers of the Nuclear Resister, document arrests byname and date, based on information collected from newspapers acrossthe country and from defense lawyers and peace activists.

Since 2002, the Nuclear Resister has documented antiwar arrests forprotesters each year:
2002 - 1,800 arrests
2003 - 6,072 arrests
2004 - 2,440 arrests
2005 - 975 arrests
2006 - 950 arrests
2007 - 2,272 arrests
2008 - 810 as of May 1

"Arrests for resistance to war are far more widespreadgeographically than most people think," according to Cohen-Joppa ofthe Nuclear Resister. "Yes, there are many arrests in DC and traditional big cities of antiwar activity - like San Francisco, NYC and Chicago, but there have also been antiwar arrests in Albany, AnnArbor, Atlanta, Bangor, Bath, Bend, Brentwood, Burlington, Campbell,Cedar Rapids, Chapel Hill, Charlottesville, Chicopee, ColoradoSprings, Denver, Des Moines, East Hampton, Erie, Eugene, Eureka,Fairbanks, Fairport, Fort Bragg, Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, GreatDismal Swamp, Hammond, Huntsville, Joliet, Juneau, Kennebunkport, LaCrosse, Los Angeles, Madison, Manchester, Memphis, Newark, Northbrook,Olympia, Omaha, Pittsburgh, Portland, Portsmouth, Providence,Richmond, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Fe, Smithfield, Springfield,St. Louis, St. Paul, Staten Island, Superior, Syracuse, Tacoma,Toledo, Tucson, Tulsa, Vandenberg, Virginia Beach, Wausau, Wheaton andWilmington, just to name a few."

"In fact," notes Cohen-Joppa, "in 2007, antiwar arrests werereported during 250 distinct events in 105 cities in 35 states and theDistrict of Columbia. So far in 2008, arrests have been reported at 65events in 43 different cities in 19 states and DC." An example of the scope of resistance can be found in theChicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence. They joined with othermajor peace groups like Codepink, Veterans for Peace and the NationalCampaign for Nonviolent Resistance in early 2007 to launch TheOccupation Project, a campaign of resistance aimed at ending the IraqWar. Theirs was a campaign of sustained nonviolent civil disobedienceto end funding for the US war in and occupation of Iraq. TheOccupation Project resulted in over 320 arrests in spring of 2007 inthe offices of 39 US Representatives and Senators in 25 states. "I am energized by the dedication of so many conscientiousactivists across the country willing to take the risks of peace andspeak truth to power," says Max Obuszewski of the National Campaignfor Nonviolent Resistance. "We have been unsuccessful so far instopping this awful war and occupation of Iraq, but it is not for thelack of direct action. We are taking on the greatest empire in worldhistory, but we will continue to act." "There are large numbers of new people being arrested," notesCohen-Joppa, "most typically saying, 'I have tried everything elsefrom writing to voting, but I have to do more to stop this war.' Theprofile of people arrested includes high school teenagers to seniorcitizens, mostly people under 30 and over 50." Antiwar arrests are significantly underreported by mainstreammedia.

For example, around the fifth anniversary of the invasion ofIraq in March 2008, most news stories wrote that there were 150 to 200arrests nationwide. Cohen-Joppa and the Nuclear Resister report therewere over double that number, well over 400, many outside the citieswhere regular media traditionally look. Though arrests typically drop off in election years, as people'shopes are raised that a new president or Congress will make adifference and stop the war, this year looks like arrests are likelyto continue to rise. In part, that will depend on the attitude ofauthorities in Denver and Minneapolis, where the political conventionsare being held. In 2004, New York City authorities overreacted so muchto protesters at the Republican convention that they arrested historicnumbers of protesters - including hundreds who had no intention torisk arrest.

If Senator McCain is elected, antiwar resistanceactivities are expected to rise much higher. Why do people risk arrest in their resistance to war? PerhapsDaniel Berrigan, on trial for resistance to the Vietnam War, said itbest:"The time is past when good people may be silentwhen obediencecan segregate us from public riskwhen the poor can die without defense.How many indeed must diebefore our voices are heardhow many must be tortured dislocatedstarved maddened?How long must the world(s resourcesbe raped in the service of legalized murder?When at what point will you say no to this war?We have chosen to saywith the gift of our libertyif necessary our lives:the violence stops here.The death stops here.The suppression of truth stops here.This war stops here." Though war resistance activities and arrests have not stopped thewar in Iraq, those struggling for peace remain committed. "None of usknow what will happen if we continue to work for peace and humanrights," says a handmade poster of one involved in the resistance,"But we all know what will happen if we don't."

The Nuclear Resister is published five to six times a year. Theycan be contacted at nukeresister@igc.org.

Bill is a human rights lawyer and law professor at LoyolaUniversity New Orleans. Quigley77@gmail.com.

Nonviolence as Racism

2008-06-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

Nonviolence isn't always racist, but here i am suggesting that it can be, and often is, as it is professed by the middle-class, white peace movement in the U.S.

By racism I do not just mean the KKK, I also mean the subtler forms of racism that all white people are guilty of. We live in a racist society built and maintained by white folks for white folks -- an inherently white -- white supremacist nation. First indigenous peoples, then Africans, stolen from their lands, then Mexicans (for the sake of Manifest Destiny) then every immigrant population forced to assimilate away any sense of cculture for the sake of becoming "white" --whiteness in this country has systematically annihilated all other peoples and established for itself the position of top dog, whit all associated honors and privileges.

All white people --especially white radicals -- must see themselves as inheritors of this tradition. We cannot ignore the fact that our ancestors committed genocide and that now we are benefiting from it. Therefore anything, active or inactive, that promotes or simply fails to challenge the system of white supremacy, is racist.

And the people of color on whose backs we have built this empire will not lay down forever. Oppressed peoples always strike back. And when they do, it is racist for white people to expect them to do it through the system that white people have built to benefit us and only us -- our courts, our laws, our whole political system -- it cannot contain this rebellion; it will happen by its own methods.

White radicals need to recognize that giving up our privilege and overcoming racism means not trying to be in charge anymore. it means not telling people of color what they should do achieve their liberation. it's not up to us. Frankly, we deserve what we get. We don't get to build nice lives for ourselves, to achieve systematic supremacy through the blood of people of color, and then tell these people they have to be nonviolent in their struggle for self determination. They will do whatever they want. As white radicals, we need to stand in solidarity with all liberation movements --regardless of the tactics they chooses.

For white people, judging the indigenous people of of Mexico for using arms in their struggle for freedom is racist. Criticizing "insurgents" in Iraq who use any means necessary to combat the occupation and the white colonization of their land is racist. Criticizing poor people of color for their violence --saying we need more education or the white people need to intervene in urban areas as mediators, peacekeepers, is racist. Promotion the nonviolent struggles of King and Gandhi as if they were our own, commending these movements while criticizing other struggles for choosing other tactics is racist. And criticizing the spontaneous,overt violence of the oppressed more then the covert, systematic, cold-blooded institutional violence of the oppressor --although it reaches far more and cuts far deeper -- is racist. White people should promote nonviolence --to the cops, to the military, to the courts and prisons, to the schools and the businesses, the business people -- to the entire white power structure of this country. because this structure and the systems it creates are the real source of violence in this world. Everything else is just a reaction. and focusing on those reactions is just what racism trains us to do. It is easier to criticize a gang-banger than a politician, a prostitute than a businesswoman.. In reality, the violence of the oppressed is nothing in comparison with the systematic white violence requires more thought our, more courage and more compassion to strike against. And so it should be to those forces that we preach nonviolence. But when speaking to victims of our privilege -- he colonized, oppressed peoples of the world -- we must only promote liberation , by any means necessary

Celebrate our 25th Annversary with us!

2008-04-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

The way of the cross.

2008-03-28T06:54:00.001-07:00

This year, the Cleveland Catholic Worker Community remembered the cruxifiction of Jesus by walking the "Way of the Cross" through downtown Cleveland. We stopped at locations to reminded us that Christ continues to be crucified day after day. If we have the "eyes to see and the ears to hear," we will notice that the story is retold over and over all of the world, the united states, and Cleveland Oh. As March 19th was the anniversary of US attack of Iraq, this year's Way of the Cross allowed participants to reflect on our continued complicity (participation) in the war and the culture of death by our following Jesus to the torture stake. We remember that the Christ is crucified anew in Iraq, Guantanamo, and the bodies of women. But we were not left alone. There is always the Resurrection and the possibilities for conversion, tansformation and life. The final station reminded us that people all over are living as resurrected people and conquering death in their own communities

The locations:

1st Station - Federal courthouse (at Huron and Superior) - Jesus is condemned to death and

takes up his cross

2nd station - Justice Center (Ontario side between Lakeside and St. Clair) - Jesus is condemned

to death and takes up his cross;

3rd station - Federal Building at East 9th and Lakeside - Jesus is condemned to death and takes

up his cross

4th station - St. John's Cathedral (east 9th and Superior) - Jesus is condemned to death

and takes up his cross

5th Station - Public Square - Jesus is condemned to death and takes up his cross;

6th station - Market Square Park (w. 25th and Lorain) - Jesus is nailed to the cross and dies.

7th station - Whitman House - Jesus is taken from the cross and is laid in the tomb

Solidarity vs. Charity: An Easy Essay

2008-02-06T12:15:00.001-08:00

Charity looks like this:
One person thinks their life is going great.
They have what they need; All is well.
They see another person who doesn't appear to be doing well and they feel sorry for them.
They help them, sometimes to make themselves fell good, sometimes because they think God wants them to.

If you find your self doing charity, its okay;
It happens to the best of us.
Just stop immediately and revaluate.
Repeat as necessary.

Here's what dolidatiry looks like:
One person sees some problem with the way the world looks. Things don't seem to be going well, and they feel bad about living in a world like that.
It causes them to feel oppressed, even if this oppression isn't as obvious as some other people's.
Then, they see another person who doesn't seem to be doing well and they decied that helping that person means liberation themselves from the world they disagree with.

Doing Solidarity work involves getting to know and understand the people you are working with and really seeing thme as people, not just broken things to be fixed.
It means opening yourself up to the possiblity of learning from others, because you don't have all the ansewers.
It means you see the root causes of the system that hurts people and drives them apart from each other.

Things are only going to get better when we stop trying to save poor people and start addressing the problems in our lives and in our system that make people poor and trying to change them from the roots up.

Great Essay by Philip Berrigan

2008-01-18T08:23:00.000-08:00

Jesus the Anarchist
by Philip Berrigan

One of the best kept secrets of the world has been the activism - the nonviolent activism - of Jesus. A close reading of the Gospel reveals his calling into account an unjust, corrupt system.

Kindness does not adequately describe his relationship to the poor or to those who suffer. Compassion is better. 'My heart is moved with compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.' (Mark 8:2) Nor does nonviolent revolutionary sum him up. Anarchist is better: One who lives self-government, representing the poor, resisting a criminal state, and attending to the just works of God. 'Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.' (Matthew 22:21) Since all belonged to God, he gave nothing to Caesar.

Most of the references to Jesus' kindness and nonviolence are suppressed today, simply because the established churches have chosen chaplaincy to the imperial state. Virtually no one teaches Christians the nonviolence of Jesus, nor his calling to community, nor his voluntary poverty, nor his choice of the cross, that living symbol of resistance to evil, including systemic evil - resistance to imperial governments, to predatory corporations, to nuclear weapons, to war, to the despoilation of the environment, to killing in any form.

What are these organizations of oppression that lie to us, rob us, and sometimes kill us? Empires, nation-states, globalized corporations, world trade organizations, tariff and trade agreements (NAFTA), war ministries (Departments of Defense), Banks, Stock Exchanges. Jesus would denounce and resist the scurrying, blind creatures that build and idolize them, while loving them and agonizing over their conversion.

Tolerance

2008-01-18T08:22:00.001-08:00

Tolerance
By Peter Quilligan

About three years ago, when I was a live-in Volunteer at Casa Maria Catholic Worker in Milwaukee, I was talking with a friend named Rosemarie. Rose was a retired Milwaukee public school teacher and part of the Casa Maria’s extending community for decades. She came over every Monday and Wednesday to sort, organize and distribute infant clothing to needy mothers. We were sitting at the dining room table eating lunch and Rose was complaining about the general lack of respect in the world these days. She said that there were no values anymore, that no one took any responsibility for their actions. “People act the way they do and we just have to tolerate it. All there is is tolerance.” I brushed it off as another one of Rose’s rants against anything modern and her own nostalgia for past generations. But ever since then, her statement has stayed in my mind.
I think of the work we do here, especially at the Storefront drop-in Center. We tolerate people who come in drunk and disorderly, often times men who sexually harass our other guest and volunteers. We patiently try to talk agitated guest out of fighting one another, or away from using profanity. Usually we will kick out the worst offenders for a week or a month or more. But they come back when their time is up and, more often than not, they get drunk, fight and disrespect the Storefront again and we continue to tolerate the behavior until we kick them out once again. Sometimes, I half jokingly say that if guilt brought me to the Catholic worker movement, then tolerance is what sustains me. However, I think tolerance often can be a natural manifestation of our call to non-violence and personalism.
This means that, unlike other meal sites or drop ins around town, we don’t hire security guards or Cleveland police with pistols hanging from their belts to supervise our Storefront. Seeing the dignity in all of our guests, we are unwilling to coerce anyone into good behavior with the threat of weaponry or the law. Instead, we are willing to tolerate a little more disorder in the hope that the most disrespectful guest will learn to respect the space for the sake of the other guests and the service provided. Instead of running to phone the police when arguments and conflicts arise, we tolerate a little more disorder in the hopes that we can be a peaceful presence as people get out their frustrations. Our guests are adults and if we remember that they have the rational power to settle differences, then our tolerance of the conflict is worth it. So when I think about my friend Rose grumbling that all there is is tolerance these days, I think she’s right. I also believe it’s the most challenging first tactic we must employ if we are serious about repairing our world which is so ravaged by capitalism, materialism and greed.

Shut down Gitmo

2008-01-18T07:57:00.000-08:00

Thursday, January 10th Christopher Knestrick and Elisa Bredendiek, currently living in the Cleveland Catholic Worker Community, went down to Washington D.C. to participate in a protest to close down the notorious Guantanamo prison. Christopher was part of nonviolent direct action on Friday and was arrested along with 73 others. He was released Saturday late night. Elisa acted as a support person for those arrested. Her amazing cooking was greatly appreciated by those arrested after their release from being held hostage by the police for 30 hours.

The action was organized by a group called Witness Against Torture, and cosponsored by Amnesty International. This protest was part of an International Day of Action that was endorsed by over 100 groups and that included 83 events around the world.

In D.C. a message was delivered to the U.S. Supreme Court demanding the shut-down of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo and justice for those detained. About 45 activists were arrested inside the Court building and another 35 on the steps. Ironically, the Supreme Court is designated as a No-free-speech zone. The arrests were preceded by a solemn, powerful march from the National Mall of about 400 persons that included a procession of activists dressed like the Guantanamo prisoners in orange jumpsuits and black hoods.

About 70 of those arrested withheld their legal name and instead gave the name of a detainee upon arrest. In court they finally gave their legal name but stated that their arrest was on behalf of a detainee whom each named and who should be represented. This is the first time the names of the detainees have ever entered a U.S. courtroom after 6 years of captivity.

More about this action, including videos, photos, etc. can be found at Witness Against Torture's website at the link below.

Sample press coverage:

CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/11/national/main3703413.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_3703413

USA Today
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/01/80-arrested-in.html

After Downing Street
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30024

Michael Moore's website
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10693

Aljazeera.net News (English version)
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/548304B1-29C5-4ADB-8436-749F9A588CC9.htm

NASDAQ.com
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20080111%5CACQDJON200801111640DOWJONESDJONLINE000778.htm&

We are here!

2008-01-04T12:33:00.001-08:00

The newspaper, Inherit the Earth, is published quarterly by the Catholic worker Community of Cleveland. This Blog will publish some of those articals and any other thoughts our community has about theology, resistance, Cleveland, Community, Scrapping and anything else people want to share. We are not sure about how we feel about this idea soo... What do you think? Let us know. Hopefully it would be a nice cheap way to keep people informed about what we are doing.