I saw a post where a British person was “dreaming” of a united Europe the UK could join.
It got me thinking.
What if there was some sort of international peace-promoting organization that every country belonged to, and it helped resolve disputes nonviolently, with the support of the whole world?
Countries would pay dues based not on population, but size of their economy. If your leader constantly brags that you have the greatest economy ever – you pay more dues. Fair enough.
I don’t know. Call me an old visionary. But doesn’t it seem like an idea worth trying?
Thousands of people marched through downtown Oakland as part of No Kings Day – March 28, 2026. Simultaneous marches took place in San Francisco, Berkeley, and other Bay Area sites – and elsewhere around the US and the world!
This classic photo-history, edited by Terri Compost and published in 2009 by Slingshot Collective, is now available from Direct Action and Reclaiming Quarterly as a free downloadable PDF!
People’s Park: Still Blooming shows how a good cause can lead to good rallies, riots, concerts, and lasting friendships. This book reminds us not only to recount our stories and struggles, but to celebrate them too!
People’s Park: Still Blooming is our family heirloom, memories, scrapbook, the story of the courage and hope that freed and tended this sacred piece of earth. It is for us to remember, but mostly it is for the next to come. This book is an attempt to capture the spirit and story of the Park.
It was published with the hope that, like seeds, copies will find fertile ground in the hearts of young people and encourage them to try again. We are connected. The land wants to live. Let a thousand Parks bloom.
Numerous Reclaiming folks including editor Terri Compost were deeply involved in People’s Park over the years – we’re very glad to add this book to our website!
Nothing like Spring to bring out student activism. So mote it ever be!
2024 sees a wave of protest of the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza. Like the anti-Apartheid movement in the 1980s, the key demand is that Universities and their various billion-dollar endowments divest from criminal regimes.
The tactics are classic Occupy (and also echo the “shanty-towns” of the Apartheid protests) – set up a highly visible, round-the-clock encampment and let the authorities create your publicity.
With an ineptitude matched only by the Republican Congressional Caucus, administrators at one campus after another have blundered into confrontations that spotlight the protests.
A challenge for these protests – dealing with anti-Semitism – never far from the surface in American politics.
Personally, when I (a goy) am involved in protests of Israel’s policies, I take my lead from Jewish Voice for Peace.
Get A Life shares Reclaiming activist dress wedding’s journey of engaging in subversive actions and taking chances to build a life of freedom and meaning. The colorful narrative traces his evolution from drug-dealing Grateful Deadhead with self-esteem issues to becoming a nonviolent activist confronting injustice and police over decades in many different facets of the peace movement.
In early activist life, dress became a self-proclaimed witch, embracing the Reclaiming Tradition. And eventually moved to a very different form of action, becoming co-founder of Oakland’s Harborside Health Center in 2006, one of the largest and most respected cannabis retailers in the world.
In 1983 dress was arrested while wearing a wedding dress at an anti-nuclear action at Lawrence Livermore Labs in Berkeley, California. He has been wearing dresses ever since as a personal action against patriarchy, challenging people to think about what it means to “be a man” in our world. Dress writes in depth about how this personal action has impacted others in his life, especially his children and their mother. Also its impact on the Harborside marijuana business as he helped transform the new world of medical cannabis. The book offers a brief critique of the state of cannabis regulation, before outlining hopes for a new venture providing legitimate payments to the industry.
Throughout the manuscript dress notes how imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy has benefitted him and those around him. He explores how depression has affected him as a male in a society that suppresses this possibility. His motivation has always been to improve the human condition and relieve suffering, and his hope for the book is to inspire others to join in this effort.
Protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict look down on fellow protestors occupying the rotunda of the Cannon House office building on Capitol Hill. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
October 18, 2023 – The group Jewish Voice for Peace is holding a sit-in inside the Cannon House Office Building in DC. The group claims “over 350 are inside, including two dozen rabbis.”
The group chanted “Ceasefire!” and held signs reading, “Jews say ceasefire now!” The refused to leave “until Congress calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Demonstrations are not allowed inside U.S. congressional buildings.
Jewish Voice for Peace activists, among other protesters, were arrested during a demonstration outside the White House on Monday.
Thanks to Nicole Darrah/Yahoo News for details.
HAPPENING NOW: Hundreds of American Jews are holding a sit-in at Congress — and we won’t leave until Congress calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. As thousands of U.S. Jews protest outside, over 350 are inside, including two dozen rabbis, holding prayerful resistance. pic.twitter.com/H0b2ort6fa
“The movement was sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian woman who was allegedly beaten into a coma by morality police for wearing her headscarf the wrong way. But it has since morphed into the biggest civil uprising for years, with Iranians expressing their rage over decades of oppression, misogyny in the name of religion, and international isolation.
“Authorities have responded with force, firing at and beating protesters. The UN office of the high commissioner for human rights has said more than 300 people have been killed in the crackdown, including at least 40 children.”
FILE PHOTO: Protesters shout slogans during a demonstration following the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran, in Istanbul, Turkey, October 2, 2022. REUTERS/Dilara Senkaya/File Photo
