social justice – Direct Action: An Historical Novel

Gonna Work On Justice – new chant for Summer protests!

19 Jun 202619 Jun 2026 directactionnovel

Just in time for Summer Solstice – a new social justice chant from Reclaiming and Eileen Hazel!

“Whatever we work on, works on us as well. So let’s work on justice, healing and loving, so that all those beautiful things can work reciprocally on us!” – author Eileen Hazel

Gonna Work On Justice

Recorded by Reclaiming and Eileen Hazel. Streams on all sites – visit Reclaiming’s Artist page/channel. Here are quick links to a few sites:

Youtube: https://youtu.be/croeNllJ23U

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/song/gonna-work-on-justice/6767724413

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/7qVIqgBJyr4eJn44ZED9SE?si=0fe3f255ff8e4059

Bandcamp: https://eileenhazel.bandcamp.com/track/gonna-work-on-justice

Recent releases (including Spanish-English chants): http://weaveandspin.org/chants-singles

Starhawk’s Pagan Chants: https://www.weaveandspin.org/starhawk-chants

Reclaiming playlists: https://www.weaveandspin.org/playlists

Activism, Direct Action, Justice, Middle East

Gaza Relief Flotilla Arrested and Abused

23 May 2026 directactionnovel

Members of the Gaza Flotilla are being detained and harshly abused in Israel.

This report includes a disgusting video (seriously – think before you watch it – but know it exists) of detainees being forced to kneel with hands tied while National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir waves a flag and taunts them.

This is not a secret video – someone in the Israeli Security Ministry apparently thought it was a good idea to film and release it. It is so disgusting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare rebuke of a cabinet member he appointed, insisting that the national security minister’s conduct was not in line with Israel’s values.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvir-posts-video-of-himself-taunting-bound-and-detained-gaza-flotilla-activists

Canada, France, Italy, Belgium, and Netherlands have made official protests, and the governments of Spain, Ireland, Greece, UK, Germany, and South Korea have issued statements condemning the actions.

The US, of course, is silent and complicit.

UPDATE May 22 – most or all detainees have been released, and report abuse by Israeli captors.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/22/gaza-flotilla-activists-allege-sexual-assault-and-in-israeli-detention

Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

Activism, Culture, Direct Action, Resources & Downloads

People’s Park: Still Blooming – free download!

19 Mar 202619 Mar 2026 directactionnovel

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!

Visit our People’s Park webpage for PDF or links to print edition.

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!

Activism, Immigration, Justice

No Kings – Oct 2025 – Oakland

20 Oct 202524 Oct 2025 directactionnovel

Several thousand people marched in Oakland CA on the October 18, 2025 No Kings Day. Marches took place in numerous cities around the Bay Area.

And I heard there might have been protests in other places?

No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.
No Kings Day – October 2025 – Oakland CA. Photo by Luke Hauser/RQ.

Photos by Luke Hauser/Reclaiming Quarterly

Contact: ReclaimingQuarterly@gmail.com

Culture, Direct Action, Middle East

Campus Uprisings Support Palestine

29 Apr 202425 Oct 2025 directactionnovel

Reports from Various Campuses – April 28, 2024 – click here

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.

Photo – Columbia University – by Lev Radin/Crooked.com

Book Review, Culture

Get A Life: A Memoir by Dress Wedding

2 Apr 202429 Apr 2024 directactionnovel

Get a Life

Get A Life: Chronicles of a Conscious Scofflaw

by dress wedding

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.

Website & more information.

Available at Amazon etc.