Resisting Desert Rock

(Yet another in our series of articles written for GNN.tv by users of the now closed online community, originally published Mon, 05 Mar 2007. Some info may be outdated.)

Indigenous resistance against the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired power plant continues despite intimidation and harassment.

On the Navajo Reservation of New Mexico, indigenous elders and youth have been battling energy giants—and their plan to construct a new coal-fired power plant on Navajo lands—in an attempt to protect their lands and traditions. In December of 2006, resisters erected a barricade and engaged in a tense standoff with law enforcement. Though the barricade has since been removed, indigenous resisters remain on site to vigil and protest against the destruction of their sacred lands, while others seek to educate, organize, and rally their people, as well as the public at large.

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Port Militarization Resistance

(Yet another in our series of articles written for GNN.tv by users of the now closed online community, originally published Thu, 15 Mar 2007)

In escalation of tactics, activists trying to stop war shipments are met with extreme force

“Port Militarization Resistance is organized to end our community’s complicity in the illegal occupation of Iraq by stopping the U.S. Military’s use of the Port of Olympia.“ —PMR statement of purpose, 1/21/07

Two heavily reinforced police barricades, each with an estimated two hundred and fifty riot police, guarded strategic transport points near the Port of Tacoma. It was 3:30 AM on Saturday morning, in the middle of a long night of protests against the shipment of large armored military convoys through the town and port. Breath clinging to the cold night air of the Pacific Northwest, activists moved from one police barricade to the other, intending to undertake a non-violent act of civil disobedience by sitting down in the road and allowing themselves to be arrested. The police, apparently, had other plans.

It Takes Conviction

(This article is another in our series of articles written for GNN.tv by users of the now closed online community, originally published Wed, 28 Nov 2007)

In an exclusive GNN collaborative interview, “saboteur” nuns speak about their lives of nonviolent civil resistance

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.“ —Dr. MLK, Jr.

On October 6th, 2002, as the U.S. prepared to launch its “shock and awe” bombing campaign against Iraq, three brave Dominican nuns, and members of Earth & Space Plowshares, a national nuclear disarmament organization, broke into Minuteman III missile site near Greeley, Colorado, armed only with hammers, prayers, and their own blood, in a symbolic act to “inspect, expose and disarm” the weapons of mass destruction that exist right here on American soil. Entering the silo, they poured their own blood in the shape of a cross, and pounded on the half-ton concrete silo lid with a household hammer. They were arrested, convicted of sabotage and labeled as fanatics and terrorists by the religious right.

Demolishing Disaster Capitalism

(This article is another in our series of articles written for GNN.tv by users of the now closed online community, originally published Fri, 21 Dec 2007)

Resistance against public housing demolitions in New Orleans

“If you try to bulldoze our homes, we’re going to fight.
There’s going to be a war in New Orleans.“
^{— Sharon Jasper, New Orleans low income housing resident}

The Battle of City Hall

On Thursday, protesters and police were battling in the streets outside City Hall in New Orleans after more than 100 activists stormed through the gate. Meanwhile, inside the council chambers, City Council members were voting on whether or not to resume planned demolitions of low-income housing units, despite local and national resistance. Residents say the brick buildings are perfectly habitable, and accuse the city, the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) of a program of class warfare and racially motivated gentrification.