Win Magazine Volume 32 Number 1

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,, \, dvocating revolut¡onary nonviolence is never easy. lt's a
,'r ,'rdaunting task just to communicate the why and the how of

An obituary is the final word on a subject. lt's about the past

turning the world upside down, of achieving profound social justice
and peace using no weapons but our bodies and 0ur faith in the

of someone or something with no future. This isn't an obituary because every piece in this final issue of W/V speaks to the future of

rightness of the gOal. The hours are l0ng, the pay-when there is

this endeavor as well as of its past. As a print publication, WIV may

any-is l0W and the task doesn't c0me with an instructi0n manual.

be over, but the business of communicating the whys and the hows

We who work at it can sometimes see, at a distance, glimmerings of

of revolutionary nonviolence wll/ go on. And this extraorclinary col-

that goal achìeved; m0re often, it's out of sight, maybe real in s0me

lection of afticles by people who have toiled in the field for decades

distant future, and maylle existing 0nly in 0ur hopes.
And yet, the people whose words yoq're allout

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is, collectively, a broad and deep look at the multiple intersections

given much of their lives to that task; indeed, the pages that follow,

of movement journalism and activism-activism in general, and
specifically the project of nonviolent revolution-and the ways in

read carefully, may lle the beginnings 0f such a manual.

which that history, those intersections, point us to the future. lt may

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t0 read have

well have more pointers on how we can best communìcate that goal

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than anything heretofore put between the covers of one magazine.

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As one facet of its resistance to war, WRL has been in the pub-

lishing busìness for a long time. lt staned sending members a newsletter, WRL News, in 1945, The New York Workshop ìn Nonviolence
began publishing the first t4l/lV in 1966 (its full name was M/V
Peace and FreedomThru Nonviolent Act¡on). WRL /Vews welcomed
WIV as "constrtuting a sprightly new addition
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Thatsaid, it's by no meansthe lastword on the subject.There are
mrssing voices.The contributors are a diverse bunch, age- and gen-

folded in 1983, WRL expanded its newsletter into a new magazine, The Nonviolent Activist, which was revamped in 2006 and
re-named WlN,in honor of its great predecessor.

der-wise, but-reflecting the face of the U.S. peace movement over
those same 49 years-far less drverse in race and class. (Reflecting
the close-knrt radical pacrfist c0mmunity that generated all three

But this, as many 0f you may know, is the final issue of MN.

magazines, by the way, you'll find a lot of names repeated Not a few

The changing econ0mics of publishing have hit the publishing

of the writers of articles in this issue quote other writers appearing

side of WRL, which can n0 longer afford the price of putting out
a magazine.This is not to say the organization is gÌving up publishing altogether. lt will still produce important resources like
its annual Pie Chaft flyer. There's a new edition of "What Every
Girl Should Knowj' the brochure for young women, queer and
trans youth, youth 0f color, and poor youth, about sexual and
gender-based violence in the military (co-published with the

here.)There are missing subjects, as well. There are pieces here
on Africa and the environment, on prison work and Palestine, on
poetry and gay life ¡n the '60s, and on what defines an action as

member. When I took on the task of coming back to put it together,
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I imagined that lwas goingto help create an extended obituary, a
reflection on the highs and maybe some of the lows, the achievements and the struggles, of that haltcentury of activist journalism.
I was wrong.

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dicted co-conspirators" from all three magazines describe their
favorite issue(s).

to pacf¡st literary en-

Women of Color Resource Center). Right n0W we're proud to
announce the upcoming publication (with Tadween Publishing)
of Field 0rganizer Ali lssa's new book, Asainst All )dds: Voices of
Popular Struggle in lraq. Beyond print, WRL will be soon putting
m0re news and information online, in a more dynamic way. So
stay in touch-there'll be plenty to read.
Meanwhile, we decided to make this last issue of fViN one to re-

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pieces highlight current activìst projects; and editors and "unin-

deavoursj' and WRL became a co-publisher of the magazine. When
WIV

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A roundtable conversation among five former eclitors looks
at the nuts and bolts of activist publishing; four "continuities"

Longtime writer and journalist Judith Mahoney Pasternak was
the editor of The Nonviolent Activist from L995 to 2005. She
now lives in Paris, France, where she writes, edlts, trans/ates,
and works for peace in Palestine.

"nonviolentj' but space considerations, if nothing else, prevented

a

comprehensive look at all the subjects touched in those 49 years.
But it's a start, and as a staft, it covers an amazing amount of
ground in its 50+ pages. More significant, it looks back at almost

50 years of activist journalism in order t0 p0¡nt the way to the next
50 years. Which is why, out of the 60 issues I edited-59 Nonviolent
,Actlvists and this issue of MIV-this is my favorite issue.

-Judith

M

ahoney Pasternak

A necessary postscnpt; Among the chronicles of the broad
community the magazines covered were actlyists' obituaries. The
revamped WRL website will, of course, continue t0 post obituaries
for those we've lost; please look there for ongoing news, includ¡ng ob¡ts for war-tax resistance pioneer Juanita /Ve/son, Narayan
Desai, one-time Chair of War Resisters' Internati¡nal and one of
the creators of Peace Brifades lnternational, and LivingTheater
coJounder Judith Malina, all of whom died as lhls lssue was being
put together. And please bring your thlughts, comments and remlnlscences to WIN's Facebook paf,e (facebook.com/wrlmagazine).
3 WIN

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Pushing for Radical Transformation:
WRlls 20l5Anti- M ilitarization Campaign
By Skanda Kadirgamar and Iara Ïabassi

/f s War Resisters

League organizers, and

as

people

llcommitting our

lives to challenging militarism, we don't
often see moments when our work comes together and people
power is stronger than people in power. But a lot came together
last September 5, when for once we could truly feel that people
power strength.

It

was

a

cross-community rally outside

of the

Oakland

Marriott-the host of coprshop weapons expo Urban Shield, the
culmination of months of local and national organizing, Toward
the end of the day, we were excited to hear the announcement
from Oakland Mayor Jean Quan: Urban Shield would end its
eight-year run and not be hosted in 0akland next year.
As organizers celebrated this development, we also understood this was just the beginning-not only of our work against
Urban Shield, but in forging synergy between movements against

t&

Skanda Kadirgamar is a student and volunteer with WRlls
Demilitarize Health and Security Campaign. Based in the
United States, with family from Sri Lanka, he believes strongly
in organizingto undermine state repression.Tara labassi tVRLb
national or{anizer, is currently campaignint against domestic
police militarization, as well as weapon industries and warfare
tlobally. focused on the self-determination of LGBTQ youth of
color communities.

wa¡ militarism, and police violence, and for the self-determination of all communities. As the Stop Urban Shield coalition said
in our statement the next day:

the words of Lara Kiswani of the Arab Resource and 0rganizing
Center,'We sày no to Urban Shield anywhere; we say no to militarization everywherel"

For antiwar activists, saying no to militarization everywhere means resisting the obvious, such as armored tanks
and drones, but it also means fighting-and transforming-a state of mind, Militarized mentalities have permeated U.S. police departments anO OramåÛcally amplified the
force of police violence affecting a variety of communities.
Militarized mentalities have also begun to infuse emergency preparedness as we saw in 0akland and Boston's Urban
Shield expos, where firefighters and EMT train right along with
heavily armed SWAT teams, all funded by the Department of
Homeland Security. Urban Shield, a private entity despite its
DHS funding, doubles as war expo for arms vendors to show
off their high-caliber products, while also providing a space
FY 2014 UASI

"Organizers have asserted, however, that their work is far from

will not host the trade show and training,
they have not received guarantees that the city will completely withdraw participation, i.e,. providing city funding, sending
over, While Oakland

Statei Territory

Arizona

Allocations

Funded [Jrban Area

FY 2014 UASI

Allocat¡on

Phoenix Area

$5,500,000

Anâheim/Santa Ana Areâ

city agencies and offering city sites for future Urban Shields, ln
California

$5.500,000

Bay Area

$27,400,000

Los Anqeles/Lonq Beach Area

$67,500.000

Riverside Areâ

$1,000,000

Sacramento Area
San Dieqo Area
Denver Arêa

District of Columbia

National Capital Req¡on
Miam¡/Fort Lauderdale Area

$5,500,000

Flor¡da

Orlando Area

$1.000.000

Tampa Area

$3,000,000

Georqia

Atlanta Area

$5.500.000

Hawaii

Honolulu Area

lllino¡s

Ch¡cago Area

lnd¡anâ

lndianapolis Area

$1,000,000

Louis¡ana

New Orleans Area

$3,000,000

Maryland

Baltimore Area

$5.500.000

Massachusetts

Boston Area

$18,000,000

Michiqan

Detroit Area

$5.500.000

Minnesota

Tw¡n Cities Area

$5,500,000

Kansas City Area

$1,000,000

St. Louis Area

$3,000.000

Nevada

Las Vegas Area

New JerseV

Jersev Citv/Newark Area

$3,000,000
$53,000.000

$1,000,000
$69,500,000

$1,000,000
$21.800.000

New York

New York City Area

North Carolina

Charlotte Arêa

$3,000,000

CincinnatiArea

$1.000.000

Cleveland Area

$1,000,000

Columbus Area

$1.000.000

Ohio
Oreqon
Pennsylvania

Texas

llvtN 4

6,874,000

Colorado

Missour¡

Stop Urban Shield Rally, Oakland, CA, September 5,2Ot4. Photo by Ramsey ElQare/www.elqarephotography.com.

$1.000.000
$1

Portland Area
Philadelphia Area
Pittsburqh Area

$1

78,926,000

$1,000,000
$18,500,000
$3,000,000

Dallas/Fort Worth/Arl¡ngton Area

$15,500,000

Houston Area

$24,000,000

San Antonio Areâ

$1,000,000

Utah

Salt Lake Citv Area

$1.000.000

Virginia

Hampton Roads Area

$1,000,000

Washinqton

Seattle Area

Total

$5.500.000
$587,000,000

for global police departments to play-act counter-terrorism
with war weaponry,
ln response, WRL is challenging a significant support structure for this militarization, by striking at the more than half-billion-dollar federal grant program, the UASI-Urban Areas Security
lnitiative, which stren$hens and unifies state repression by
funding for "emeçncy response" in more than 38 "at-risk" urban areas. That the emergency scenarios they train in, and the
language they use, are steeped in the "War on Terror" is not an
accident.

READYING THE GROUND
The mid-1960s and the '70s and '80s saw the introduction of high-level military equipment and techniques to U.S.
police forces via the wars on drugs and crime. These early mod-

el SWAT teams were upgraded in the following decades under
the National Defense Authorization Act, which contained weapons transfer programs between the military and police, first for
"counter-drug" activities, and later for "counter-terrorism" purposes and the "enhancement of officer safetyJ' lt is in this light
that we must understand the "War on Terror" because that is the
rationale or with which the Department of Homeland Security
continues to further consolidate police and military infrastructure. (One example gaining much notoriety of late due to the
Ferguson uprisings is the Pentagon's 1033 "Excess Property"
program, the 1997 extension of the NDAA that allows for the
transfer of military arms and equipment from the federal government to state and local law enforcement agencies-free of
charge.)

The Urban Areas Security lnitiative, the billion-dollar grant

program under

the Department of Homeland Security that

subsidizes the transformation of police forces from civilian to
quasi-military agencies is another example of how the relation-

ships between federal and city institutions have continued to
deepen since the Bush administration in the early 2000s. (Fqr
more detail on this, see the DHS "Fact Sheet: Office of State
and Local Government Coordination & Preparednessi' pbadupML} 427 / lúL0 427 4069 7. pdf. ) UAS l, wh ich is
perhaps of greater concern than the 1033 program due to the
nature and scale of its operations, bankrolls massive trainings
in SWAT techniques, helping sequester practice areas in city
neighborhoods (rural areas are not necessarily excluded), often
without residents'foreknowledge. Most alarming, it requires all
agencies accessing its funds, from fire departments to emergency responders, to have a "nexus to terrorism" in all trainings
and activities. By calling for increased coordination between
law enforcement and emergency management offices, as well
ws. n rc. gov/d ocs/

5WN

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as corporate and nonprofit institutions, UASI is, in the words of
the New York City Office of Emergency Management, creating a
"one-stop-shopl'
This rapid amalgamation of city agencies will only lead to a
tlghter web of repression used against those already deemed
disposable, dangerous, and/or "radicall'We reject a furthering
of these cultures of fear. Fostering paranoia and normalizing a
constant state of emergency, these UASI allotments, undertaken
in the name of security, have incredibly repressive potential, the
effects of which we can see every day-if we know where to look.

The road to police militarization in Ferguson was paved in
other cities by UASI, among them 0akland and Boston, Both
cities have made the news for SWAT activity, One famed moment
during Occupy Oakland in 2012 was what NBC News described
as the police's "overuhelmingly military-type response" to the
protesters' encampment. 0n April 75,20L3, the same day as
the Boston Marathon Bombing, armored police indiscriminately

raided homes in Dorchester and Roxbury-primarily neighborhoods of working-class people of color-arresting 30 individuals

on suspicion of selling marijuana, oxycodone pills, and crack
cocaine, Perhaps more controversial, both cities have hosted
Urban Shield expos,

MAKING THE ROAD

'T

WR[s current campaign, Demilitarize Health & Security: A
Campaign to End the Urban Areas Security lnitiative, takes nonviolent aim, so t0 speak, squarely at UASI to challenge militarism and lift up community wellness and safety. The campaign
is grounded in the conviction that if we dismantle police power
internationally, we challenge U.S, militarism locally.
However, this campaign is also rooted in the understanding

that across communities, there is a need for solutions to poverty, violence, and trauma, and that these very solutions can

banned Urban Shield from that city. While this victory is great,
the coalition continues to organize together as the arms expo
moves to the nearby city of Pleasanton for fall2015.

>

Bostonb 'ST)MP": The Boston ST0MP coalition, "STop

0ppressive Militarized Policingj'was formed around an awareness that Urban Shield was also a presence in the¡r town, one

that extended the violent logic of policing there and was also
very connected to the lockdown of the town of Watertown after the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon, and the lockdown's heavily militarized parades in residential areas that so
disturbed the entire country. ST0MP had leaders from many
movements, including Youth Against Mass lncarceration and
Black and Pink. Building 0n that momentum, the forces of this
coalition are gathering for renewed action this spring.

>

"Demilitarize Health & Security" Coalition:
With the largest and wealthiest police department in the
country (with offices in 11 cities around the world), as well as
vibrant and far-reaching organiz¡ng against police violence,
New York City is a key site of struggle, Early this year, Police
Commissioner Bill Bratton's ann0uncement of new militarized
units, equating protesters with terrorists, only underlines how
what used to be Mayor Bloomberg's army continues to grow
Living in the largest recipient of UASI grant funding (at around
New York City's

$179 million in 2014), New Yorkers are increasingly ra¡sing
the call to demilitarize. As a recent cross-community statement opposing the new NYPD units states:
"We, the undersigned, demand the immediate dismantlint
,
of the new NYPD counterterrorism auxiliary unit and
Strate{ic Response Group, which will only deepen the
crisis of police violence and repression faced by our
communities. lnstead of buildint the NYPD's power to
criminalize, control, and kill people, we need resources that

and will be made by the communities themselves.Through lifting

keep communities healthy, whole and free to flourish. We

up self-determination and reallocating of resources to allow for

will not stop until we have them!"

community wellness and resilience, we further support imagining a world where we get to decide how to take care of one
another, where funding and resources for climate

emeçncies

or family safety don't come through the Pentagon and police
departments, and where communities have the resources and
political power to define priorities for public safety and emergency preparedness-a world that allows all people the ability to
transform violence and empower peace.
The campaign is anchoring three coalitions nationally, starting in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and New York City,
and using a diversity of tactics to further build people power
against police militarization.
Ihe Bay Area's"Stop Urban Shield" Coalition; As described
above, after two years of campaigning against the war-expo
and SWAT team-training, Urban Shield expo, the Stop Urban
Shield cross-community coalition was successful in creating
enough local and national pressure so that Oakland's mayor

>

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6

Not stopping means knowing where we are going, knowing
what world it is that we want, and living that in our practice of
resistance. lt means transforming what at times seems like the

endless repression and fear around us to caring, support, and
the beauty of solidarity. lt means pushing for something radical
we might call revolutionary nonviolence. O
For more information on the Demilitarize Health and

Security campai{n, see www.facingteargas.org/ p/
d e m i I i ta r i ze - h e a I th - s e c u ri

Militarism is guns, armored tanks and drones, but it's also a
state of mind. Militarized mentalities have permeated U.S police
departments and amplified dramatically the force of police violence
aga¡nst our communities. It has also begun to infuse emergency

preparedness. Now Fire-fighters and EMT are training r¡ght along

with heavily armed SWAT teams, all funded

by

the Department of

Homeland Security (the original DHS).
Join us in challenging these harmful forces, striking at the $500

million (plus) grant program-UAS!-that strengthens and unifies
state repress¡on. Support imagining a world where we get to decide
how to take care of one another. Litt up commun¡ty wellness,
res¡l¡ence, and safe$. Together we can Demilitarize Health &

Security!

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learn more and ioin us at
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demi I itarize- health-secu r¡ty

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PEACE ANO FREEOOM THRU NONVIOLENT

ACTION

My Favorite lssues:
The First Year, 1966

@

Maris Cakars was the third major figure
aTWlN.When the magazine began, he

thought of himself primarily as an organizer and was concerned that work on the
magazine might take energy away from

By Markley Morris

organizing demonstrations-the heart

w

lN first appeared January 15, 1966. lt was published

28, 1966, Maris stepped up as a writer,

by the New York Workshop in Nonviolence, sponsored

contributing a strong essay, "The Political
Relevance of Public Witnessi'And it was
Maris who championed MN for years,
lssue 3 also contains the first examples of what is probably MN's greatest contribution to journalism-coverage of demonstrations with first-person accounts by
several participants, woven together to create vivid, multi-dimensional reports. The same issue also marks the first appearance of Henry Bass's'Alphabet Soupj' an effort to make sense
of the myriad progressive organizations known by their initials,
lssue 9, May 28,1966, includes a reading list, MN invited
writers and activists to recommend books, Responses came in
from journalist Nat Hentoff; poet Allen Ginsberg; WWll conscientious objector and anitwar coalition genius Dave Dellinger;

AT

WAR

changing world gave WIN a variety of opportunities and
challenges, including:
The Vietnam war was tiny but steadily growing bigger.

More and more U.S. soldiers were coming home wounded

or in body bags, Opposition to the war was also escalating. MNb role became reporting on nonviolent direct
action against the war, especially civil disobedience, lt also
reported on the wide range of writing about the war and
nonviolence.

>

This was also the era of the Human Be-ln, of flower power, of dancing in the parks and on the beaches.Youth culture

blossomed. MN covered these peaceable happenings fully.
0ur pages were infused with positive energy, a certainty that
although our work is urgent we should strive to accomplish
our tasks with joy, simplicity, and love for each other.
The New Leftwas also flourishing.These educated
youngsters tended to be more interested in tactical nonviolence than pacifism, and they loved to argue. There were
debates between those fully committed to nonviolence
and those who had doubts.These tensions and arguments
spilled into the pages of MN, Perhaps some of us learned a
little from one another.
This was the golden age of the Underground Press. MN

>

>

proved to be just barely hip enough and funky enough to

ù

sometimes be considered a part of the counterculture-without being too offensive to more staid and older pacifists.
And it should be pointed out that we were part of a
world encumbered by towering white male privilege. Perhaps
we nonviolent activists were a bit more enlightened than the
country at large but we had enough racial prejudice, sexism,
and homophobia to give us things to work on for years.

>

With allthis in mind, let's look at lssue No. 1,
The lead article is "The Washington Marchi' by Martin
Jezer-with the delicious subtitle, "proselytizing the Iiberalsl'
It is followed by reports by Don Newlove and Bradford Lyttle,
respectively, on a peace rally at NewYork City's Herald Square
during the Christmas rush and a civil disobedience demonstration (14 arrests) at the Boeing-Vertol helicopter factory near
Philadelphia.The next 10 pages are devoted to reviews-written
mainly by Paul Johnson-of books and magazines about the
war.

Markley Morris (called Mark Morris back then) was the first

Manating Editor of the originalWlN magazine. After six lssues,
seeinf WIN was in splendid shape, he moved on to other work
but remained c/ose to WlN, contributin{ traphics and writinS
over the years. He is now 87,lives in San Francisco, and takes
part in a weekly Quaker visil a{ainst allwars. See hls webslte
about the LGBT civil disobedience at the Supreme Court in
7 9 87 : s u p re m eco u rtcd. o r!/ H o m e. html
wtN

I

organizer Sidney Lens; two profoundly

of ,

influential pacifist thinkers, A.J. Muste and
Barbara Deming; and critic Edmond Wilson,
although Wilson refused to recommend any

the Workshop; but by issue 2, January

by both Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) and War
Resisters League. The timing was fortuitous. WIN appeared as
the United States was entering years of tumult, This rapidly

>

co-founder (with folk singerJoan Baez) of
the lnstitute for the Study of Nonviolence
lra Sandperl; WRls David McReynolds;
playwright Arthur Miller, writer and labor

All in all, an excellent issue, both hip and well written.
No editors are credited. A staff list did not appear until
lssue 3, February 11, 1966. lt named Marty and Paul as
"editors this issuel'They were the ones who had persuaded
the Workshop in Nonviolence t0 publish a magazine. Other
staff members listed are Henry Bass, Judy Brink, Maris Cakars,

rtr. yJ.ii r¡., ,r'

books, Amazingly, no book was recommended twice,

With lssue 16,October 5, 1966, MN
went national, distributed by both CNVA and
WRL, and I became managing editor, I found myself working on
an exciting and relevant magazine, well edited and well written
by the peace workers and writers who started it, helpful to and
loved by nonviolent activists everywhere and making a real
contribution. We were off on the long, difficult, and gratifying
struggle to end the Vietnam War. O

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Stay Tun€d: WIN's Final issue!

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Leonard Fetzer, Rebecca Johnson, Dorothy Lane, Martin

Mitchell, Gwen Reyes, Bonnie Stretch, and Robert Sievert.
9WIN

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PEACE AND FREEDOM THRU NONVIOLENT

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My Favorite lssue:
The One on Gay liberation, Nov. 15, 1969

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By David McReynolds

I
silence was the iron rule?

I

was asked for this final issue of WIN to comment on the

Many of us in the gay community went over to the West

Goodman and a long one by me ("Notes for a more coherent

Village immediately afterthe first riotous night. I ran into Allen
Ginsberg there, observing, as I was. (0ne of the things about
Allen that most deeply impressed me
was that he was an openly gay man,
at that time almost the only writer or
poet in America who was,)

article"),The irony is that I cannot claim to have been an activist
in the Gay Liberation movement, yet
this article of mine, and this issue
of WN were impoftant. Let me take
readers back to that "homosexual
world" as I knew it (and as I had

ln 1969 there were virtually no
openly gay men in public life (and
fewer open lesbians, if any). The
exceptions proved the rule. Everyone
knew Liberace was a bit queer-everyone except his audience of mid-

known it since becoming aware in

I

l'm not sure. I was then descending into the personal
darkness of alcoholism. Perhaps one part of me thought

revolution. (But looking back, all power t0 them!)

lGay Liberation issue of 1969, which had an article by Paul

1949 that I was homosexual).
I would never, in 1969, at the age
of 40, have guessed this "deviant
world" would morph so radically into
what it is now when l'm 85, I never
even liked the term "gay," as I didn't,
in my experience, find that much
about it that was gay. lt was a neurotic world, filled with guilt, too much
alcoholism, and centered around
youth, After 40, one truly entered the
dark ages,
Nor am I clear why I wrote the
article, what drove me to "come out
in print" with one of the very first
such articles. While I was certainly
influenced by the Stonewall riots, the Stonewall kids were
not my crowd. I had tried to go t0 Stonewall once, some time
before the riots, but was turned away at the door, Too old? Too
straight? lt was a gathering place for young cross-dressing
fellows-frankly the last people from whom I would expect a
David McReynolds joined the staff of Liberation in 1957 and

the WRL staff Ìn 1960. He was lont involved with WIN and the
NVA. He also ran for Con{ress on the Peace and Freedom Party
ticket in 7968, for the New York Senate in 2004 as a Green
Party candidate, and for the U.S. Presldency on the Socla/lst
Party ticket in 1980 and 2000. He retired from the WRL staff
in 1999. He has never retired from radicalism.
lryril 10

dle-aged women, who adored

him.

by the same vice squad agent who arrested Johnnie).
t

Gay writers such as James Baldwin

were not "outJ' Major cultural figures,

such as composer Leonard Bernstein,
had felt it best to get married, so
deep was the blas against anyone

openly gay. NovelistTruman Capote
served as a shield for a host of other
gay writers-Capote, so obvious and
flamboyant, was what people thought
homosexuals were like,

ln reality the vast majority of
us moved through the world invisible to all except very close
friends. What characterized gay life in those days was the
need for secrecy. What would our families, our fellow workers,

our employers, think if they knew we were queer? Readers of
LVIN know that civil rights and peace icon Bayard Rustin spent
much of his life worrying that his arrest on a morals charge in
Pasadena in 1953 would destroy his value t0 the movement.
But it was not just Bayard who suffered. My close friend at
UCLA, Alvin Ailey, who would go on to fame as a dancer and
choreographer, as a youth spent 30 days in the Los Angeles
county jail on a morals

chaç. My friend Johnnie Labaç was
picked up in Ocean Park by the vice squad and spent 30 days
in jail. (What a grand party I threw for him when he got out,

Captain's lnn, turning up at the home of lesbifriends
an
of mine, after the bars closed. I think the great-and
today almost unknown-lesbian singer Aggie Dukes joined that
party. Who now, reading this, even remembers the Tropic Village
or heard Aggie Dukes sing? Johnnie, I fear, is long dead. And I
only barely, and by the grace of God, avoided be¡ng picked up
We were all potential felons, immoral creatures, our private
lives, our loves, in violation of church and state, None of us
then would have believed the time would come when openly
lesbian W stars Ellen DeGeneres and Rachel Maddow would
be such accepted figures, or that two of the CNN anchors, Don
Lemon and Anderson Coope¡ would be openly gay?
We would certainly not have believed gay maniage was
on anyone's agenda. That is the great sea change in what
is now called the LGBT community, that and the number of
same-sex couples who are raising children. I can think of no
other change so radical, so unexpected, lt may, in part, have
occurred because of the AIDS epidemic. The sexual part of gay

culture in the sixties was the freedom of the scene, and few
were the liaisons that lasted more than a single night or at

best a few weeks,That youthful abandon ended with a generation of young men seeing most of their friends die of AIDS. I
know that if I were ten years younger

ld be dead-l

was just old

enough when the frenzy hit that I wasn't part of it, But even

I

lost several friends. I remember visiting one in hospital, early in

the plague.The room was curtained off, and one had to wear
a mask, gown, and gloves before entering, since in those early
days no one knew how the disease was transmitted, I think it
was this that caused men to look for liaisons that lasted more
than a week or so.
What moved me, then, in 1969, to write that article, when

such an article would gain me some attention. Butthat is
not really fair-Bayard taught me that all of us act from mixed
motives. I think the key reason was that I was tired of living a
lie, I had visited Bayard in jail after his Pasadena arrest (he
was utterly broken by the arrest) and when he got out had him
down to my beach shack in Ocean Park for dinner, As I drove
him there, I said that one of the reasons I admired him so
deeply was that he was the only man I knew who was aware
that half of what he said was a lie.
I didn't mean just the things which, on reflection, are obvious. lf you were sheltering Jews in your basement in Germany,
and a Gestapo officer asked if you were hiding Jews, you would
ceftainly violate the principle of absolute honesty by saying
no. (As Bayard pointed out, "moral absolutes, in the real world,
can conflictj' a point Bertolt Brecht-himself no stranger to
homosexuality-would have appreciated). No, what I meant
was that those of us who were homosexual hid this fact when
we spoke of the Gandhian principle of absolute truth, Yes, truth

and honesty about everything ... except our own lives, which
were in violation of the laws, and about which we had to keep
silent in order to speak the truth about war and peace, racism,
capitalism, Truth about everything.,, except the one thing that

could destroy us.
My article was an effort to be honest at last.
¡
You, reading this now, cannot believe how underground
homosexuals were in 1969. lf I helped crack open that underground, then the article was important and MN magazine
played a crucial rule in publishing it. I did not know, in writing
it, what would happen t0 me-what would be the reaction of
the War Resisters League for which I worked, lndeed, when
Bayard read the article, he called Ralph DiGia, on the staff at
WRL and an old friend, and said, "Ralph, you folks have to get
rid of David. He will destroy the leagueJ' I did not feel betrayed
by Bayard-one of my personal heroes-because I understood
very well the fears that moved him.
But to the credit of WRL (which obviously survived my article), I remained at my post there for many additional years. O

ll

WlN

I

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PEACE AND FREEDOM THßU NONVIOLENT ACflQN,

My Favorite lssue:
No. 200, May 16, L974
it meant we could get promotional materials using those initials

names, and when familiar names dropped off.

By Martha ïhomases

f-f ere's what I think when I remember the 200th issue of WN
I I magazine:
We were right.

It is the conventional wisdom of many in today's popular
culture that the antiwar hippie movement was a monumental
failure. lt was, they say, the precursor to the selfishness of the
"Me Decade" that followed.

Besides this

photo gallery,
there is a
two-part
story describing

repressed impulses without causing any actual damage,
We got to watch Nixon resign, We laughed when President

first became aware of MN in 1968, when I was 15 years
old, a freshman at a girls' boarding school in Connecticut. lt
had only been a year or so since I decided I was a pacifist.
Through one of my friends, I discovered the War Resisters

a typicalweek in the life of
the staff. I wrote the first part of it, and
editor Maris Cakars wrote the second.
Back in those days, putting together a magazine was
hands-on work. Every word was typeset on a typewriter. Every
image was printed on paper.The printed papers were then cut
up and pasted on cardboards, to be sent to a printer in the

League, and, through WRL,

city, who would also do the mailing.To be an editor on staff at

They are wrong.
I

t

Our days were not drug-filled orgies the way modern
pop culture would have you believe (or, ilthey were, I wasn't
invited). We had a rhythm to our tasks, and to our little joys.
We liked to read the mail. We liked to play board games. I've
always said you haven't lived until you've played Monopoly
with socialists and Risk with pacifists, lt brings out all those

UYIN.

My tenure as a staff-person at MN was brief, from early

I974lo mid-1975.This happened during

the time MN had
moved to upstate NewYork, onto a small farm near Kingston,
and almost all the staff lived and worked together. There were
two buildings, a farmhouse and a converted barn.The barn had
bedrooms, the office, and chickens on the ground level. For a
time, we had a goat.There was a housecat, Ho Chi, and barn
cats, Matilda and Hillary,
lf you believe the popular narrative, communes were places
for maniacal and charismatic leaders to brainwash their supplicants.The social structure would be dominated by a religious
zeal, one that encouraged participants to abandon their families and ignore the outside world.
We weren't like that. We had a magazine to produce every
week, without fail, And we did, except for a few rare double-

issues that let us skip a week.
The 200th issue was special because it was about us.
It shows what life on our commune was really like, as much

as paper is able to do, There are pictures of our friends and
neighbors and contributors, both local and around the globe.
Media loddess Martha lhomases blogs at "Brilliant Distuise,"
mdwp.malibulist.com, and is the author of the Dakota North
comic books. She ls currently the chair of the A.J. Muste
Memorial Institute Board of Directors.
wrt¡ t2

that time, one had to be able not only to edit and proofread,
t
but to use rubber cement and a straight-edge, Reading
description of what we did, I'm struck by the fact that we spent
at least three days doing things that today could be done in an
afternoon with a two-year-old iMac.
I'm also struck by the description of the editorial process.
Three of the men who worked on the magazine-Maris, along
with Marty Jezer and Fred Rosen-selected the feature stories,
Marty (and, later on, l) would edit the news section. I edited
the arts section, and Susan Cakars did the letters. ln other
words, men made almost all of the editorial decisions. My
memory is that it was more of a consensus process involving
the entire staff, My memory might be fogged by nostalgia.
Along with putting out a weekly magazine, we had a garden,
where we grew vegetables. With the chickens and the goat,
this meant there were always chores to do, I found that, when
something irked me, I could go outside and rip up a few weeds
and feel better. Weeding was also good for writer's block. I
might not be able to form a beautiful sentence, but I could
clean up a row of tomatoes while I worked that out,
We had about 10,000 subscribers at that time, and I felt
like I knew almost all of them. Not because we got that much
mail (although sometimes, we did) but because we did all of
our fund appeals by hand. We stuffed envelopes and stuck the
printed labels on every piece, We noticed when there were new

the

quite easily and inexpensively for 0ur own supporters. We knew
FBI was checking us out, not only because of our antiwar
activities, but also because they thought that maybe we were
hiding Patty Hearst, I mean, all communes are the same, right?
We weren't the Symbionese Liberation Army, We weren't the
Manson Family. We were friends and family who shared a common goal: to end the war, keep the peace movement connect-

the

ed, and maybe, just maybe, grow some corn.

0

Gerald Ford proclaimed he would "Whip lnflation Now" because

la.

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ARCHIVE THIS!
Help Us Preserve and Share
WIN/NVA For Future Generat¡ons
Print publication of WIN is ending. But an onl¡ne arch¡ve can ensure that the lessons and visionary work of previous generat¡ons rema¡ns access¡ble to activists,
students and scholars.

Join us in helping WRL preserve and d¡g¡tize the rich history, analysis, and artwork from earl¡er issues of WIN and the Nonviolent Activist by contributing to
WRL's arch¡v¡ng fund today. To make a donation toward secur¡ng access to WIN
and the NVA for future generat¡ons, v¡s¡t warres¡sters.orgldonatewrl.

13

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PEACE

AND FREEÐOM THRU NONVIOLENT ACTION

My Favorite lssue:
The Tenth Anniversary Issue
April 29/ May 6, 1976
By Susan Kent Cakars

fI

o celebrate its tenth anniversary in 1976, MN re-published
a range of articles from its earliest years. Editor Mark (now
Markley) Morris chose to focus mostly on the first two years
both for space considerations and to represent the beginnings
of both the magazine itself and the peace movement it
represented.

lncluded are many reviews of demonstrations aga¡nst the
Vietnam War, Coverage of a 1966 U.N, vigil and Times Square
sit-down and of the 1967 "Siege of the Pentagon" protest
follow the same multi-voiced format of participants writing
briefly about their experiences. Draft resistance pieces feature
dumping excrement into draft board file cases, eating a draft
card, and a resister's day in court,The Bread & Puppet political
theater troupe is extolled for its effectiveness at demonstrations. A 1967 essay on how the October 22,7966,

"Ye110w

Submarine" demonstration was conceived points out that it
was one of the first designed to be fun rather than glum. A 12foot wood and canvas vessel was carried joyfully across New
York City and launched in the Hudson River. Participants sang,
danced, played instruments, and passed out flowers to show
what we were for, not just what we were against.
The issue includes both a speech given by peace movement leader A. J, Muste at a demonstration in Saigon in April
1966, and sadly, commemorations on his death in February
1967. There's a 1967 letter from folk giant Pete Seeger saying
how much he loves MN-and more.
But l'd like to switch now to some of the issues covered
during the rest of the ten years. (My brief overview will omit the
names of our many wonderful unpaid contributors so that no

Susan Kent Cakars wrote, edited, kept books, and helped with
whatever was needed to keep WIN afloat for eight of its first
ten years.

wtil 14

one can complain
about being left out,)
Without dropping coverage
of demonstrations, resistance, and political
analysis, the magazine began to branch into considering the
necessity of improving our own lives and values as a way of
improving society and ending wars, racism, and injustice, The
coverage of the assassination in 1968 of Dr, Martin Luther King
Jr. calls on whites to continue his work by dealing nonviolently
with the institutional forces of racial oppression-an ongoing ¡
concern of the peace movement, if not one of its noticeable
successes.
The January 1, 1969, issue focused on alternatives-mostly

communes of many sorts. The August 1969 issue was on ecology, expanding MNb focus from improving our institutions and
ourselves to protecting the world we live in.
The magazine had an early issue on Gay Liberation on
November 15, 1969,4nd although women's concerns had been
written about earlier, it wasn't until January t, t970,that an
issue was devoted to the Women's Liberation Movement. One
afticle pointed out, "There are not male supremacist'attitudesl
We live in a sexistsystem!" Remedies proposed included women

talking to women, women working with women-in feminist, lesbian, and antiwar groups-and women doing what they themselves felt was right. Many more articles on both gay rights and
feminism would appear in the following years.

MNb coverage of lifestyles included a feature titled "Rock
and Revolution" as well as articles on food, cooking, chlldrearing, schools, There were comics, cartoons, and photographs
and coverage of concerts and theater. A 1972 issue had a
recording tipped in of songs by poet-publisher-rock band
leader Ed Sanders. And of course wars and the many, many
demonstrations in protest against them, including draft board
break-ins and file burnings, were covered. All of this earned us

the sobriquet "the liveliest publication on the left" from Villa{e
Voice columnist Nat Hentoff.

press by former Department of Defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg,
with interviews with Dan and his wife Pat. ln 1973 there were

ln 1971we moved WlNfrom offices atthe Lafayette Street
"Peace Pentagon" in NewYork Cityto a commune in Rifton,
NewYork. (How we managed to put out a magazine in the

many articles on activist-priests Dan and Phil Berrigan, and
on April 5 of that year we switched from a twice-monthly to
a weekly schedule to get speedier postal delivery. 0n April

country was described in our 200th issue, May 10, 1974.) 0n
May 15, 1971, we published the Vietnam diary of Sgt. Bruce
Anello, who had been killed in action May 31, 1968. lt is as
well written as anything on the subject and is heartbreaking in
its similarity to accounts from lraq and Afghanistan.
ln March 7972we published the complete collection of
political documents stolen by a group of peace activists from

the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, a year earlier, on March

8,I971.

Several newspapers had published selected documents the group sent to them, revealing that the bureau had

spent much of its effort infiltrating antiwar activists and Black
student groups in order to stifle dissent and enhance "the
paranoia endemic in these circlesi'[lV/N, however, received and
published a// the political files, answering a Justice Department
official's claim that the files reported in the press were taken
out of context.
The November

I,1972,

11, L974, we published a special issue on men, focusing on

the role of feminism ¡n the lives of straight men. The June 27
1974, issue was on fighting against nuclear power plants,

,

And on December 19,I974,we published a special issue on
money (always a hard subject to talk about),
r
I975 saw more reports from other countries, issues
"Women 1975 j' lesbian culture, anarchism, and the WRLinitiated Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice,
and of course the same year saw the end-finally-of the
Vietnam War, something we all thought would have happened
many years before and the reason we started MN in the first

on

place.
So much to cover and so much l've left out (including the

last year)l I see now why Markley chose to stick to the first few
years. I hope you enjoyed this walk through MN and will seek
out these early issues.They are well worth

it,

O

issue focused on the "Pentagon

Papersj'the massive collection of documents leaked to the
15 WIN

:4

Poems say wake up, use language as weapon3 of nonviolent

mass creation that see and hear and reconfigure Whitman s "l
sing the body electricl' Poems shout, "Bring justice to the victims
PEACE AND'FREEDOM THRU NONVIOLENT

ACÍION

By Mary lane Sullivan

H

*l''.,

ere we are in the

2lst

century where social relations are

compromised. We live in states of exclusions from one
another and refrain from attesting to states of ignorance that
lead to violence. lt is complicity that leaves wounds 0ne can
barely count. How do we c0me to know intellect, language
skills, skin color, sexual identity, soc¡al status, and stories
that challenge this disorder within this field of ignorance? The
fabric of our civil discourse is fragmented, for the concepts
of the common good and community based on equality and
transformation are rendered inactive. Human relations are
shaped by the realities of history and the struggles that convey
how forces of oppression and domination maintain inequality,
violence, and cruelty.
There is no one elixir, but I continue to recommend the
power of poetry as a force field of human transformation to
counteract verbal hypocrisy and the militarization of the mind.
Poetry is intrinsically just because it is based on mutual consent between the poet and the one who engages the poem as
a body, engages the one who suffers injustice in the small ways
of everyday life and perhaps just needs to dive into the wreckage of destruction, now more than ever bound to the future of
existence on this planet,

ln 1979, I was a member of the editorial collective alWIN.
From the top floor of a loft on Atlantic Avenue in downtown

Brooklyn, we absorbed and printed the voices of the nonviolent movement for peace and social justice, a goal beyond
categories. Without the currency of social media, we were able
to reach out across the globe with hard-working, relentless

activists and theorists at the height of the antinuclear, antiapartheid, antiracist, and feminist movements. lt is my belief
that what motivated us more than anything was the power t0
imagine a just world based on fearless speech. MN was never
about the singular "li' lt was about contesting, the interdependent "wei'And our tools were those of language and nonviolent
action, which challenges the passivity and submissiveness of
the status quo. Yes, that was 35 years ago. Many of us are still
at it, for it is a way of living.
ln the fall of 1979, afterthe meltdown atThree Mile lsland

intuitional forms of violence censor the need for open dialogue
amongst all of us. Many of the stories and poems have been torn

language with the force of one's entire body.

from the archives of history. These stories seize the trauma of

published in this issue and dedicated to the memory of Karen
Silkwood, who blew the whistle on faulty nuclear plant practices
and paid for it with her "mysterious" death, and to Eliot Gralla,
who had also died not long before the poem was published.

"Poets in Our Worldi' December 13, 1979

imagination. Without doubt the reproduction of stereotypical

of systemic social injustice," Poems employ Satyagraha to speak
Denise Levertov speaks it fonruard in her poem, "Beginnersi'

My Favorite lssue:

conversation concerningthe relationship between race and the

history for all of us who live in this country.
I am a mature woman now There are films and poems to

stitch and share, but I want it to be a part of an opening to what
is unfolding. The generations now writ¡ng at this time of collision
and collusion against the imagination are being challenged by
whatAmiri Baraka calls the "motion of HistoryJ'ln the 21st

BEGINNERS

century, writers of color keep aniving on that nonstop train giving

'From too much love of living,

Hope and desire set free,

voice and sense to dialogues that need to continue to move off
the page into direct and forceful activism. For as we know we

Even the weariest river

think, we speak, we act, and the conflict between saying and do-

Winds somewhere to the

v

sea-'

But we have only begun

ing has to be challenged and transformed by those who walked
the rim of privilege and violence. lt is now being done and it
requires all of us to listen and read and walk the talk. O

to love the earth.
and the protests against Seabrook and Shoreham nuclear
power plants, several of us attended a benefit called "Writers

We have only begun

AIR TEXTURES

to imagine the fullness of life.

Nuclear winter begins ln the gullies of aquifers

Opposed to Nuclear Power and Weapons" for the Shad Alliance,

How could we tire of hope?

The testing grounds of the thermonuclear.

the War Resisters League, and Mobilization for Survival. lt

-so

sparked an idea; we decided to publish renowned and
younger poets who held forth that poetry weighs in at its historical moment and lives in it insofar as it remains the news of
human life. Poetry is at the root of communication. Among the
poets were Muriel Rukeyser, Jane Cooper, Joseph Bruchac and

How can desire fail?

and

-we

much is in bud.

Evidence of the burn is found in follicles of the tree

have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,

The arsenals of thinking follow the laws of human consent
The geiger counter recalibrates plutonium, cesium
a tail winds circulate in pacific gyres

only begun to envision
how it might be

Sleeps in the screens of scripted dialogue

to live as siblings with beast and flower,

Out of terror

Grace Paley, ranging from Kathy Engel to Jan Barry to MN staff

not as oppressors.

the familiarity of estrangement

members Mark Zuss and me.Those poets mentioned were our
teachers, as we have become teachers t0 a younger generation

Surely our river

is the book of rules

in the 21st century, As Muriel Rukeyser said in her timeless

into the sea of nonbeing?

essay book, The Life of Poetry: "But there is one kind of knowledge-i nfin itely precious, ti me-resistant more than monuments,

Surely it cannot

Mating rituals interrupted

drag, in the silt,

What sings waggles in the dance of the bees

here to be passed between the generations in any way it may
be: never to be used. And that is poetryl' lt was a radical idea
to make a whole issue one of poetry.The news coming to us

all that is innocent?

the landscape of the speaking eye

Peter Blue Cloud, Jean Valentine, Lawrence Ferlinghetti,

r

cannot already be hastening

Not yet, not

yet-

The sonic impulse of water fragments ¡nto the hydroelectric

What whispers is ground to wind,

there is too much broken

The stones of languages lost

to human war

every day was so intense that we really had to sort out what
to print, in a time of global/national uçncy. We were being

that must be mended,
too much hurt we have done to each other

So why do I stay quiet in disenfranchised emergencies

formed by the connective tissue we held amongst us from
Brooklyn to the four corners of a growing movement.
Poetry often fell through the cracks of activism and, like
seedlings in the cracked pavements of Brooklyn circa 1980,
waited, For many of us, it lived in our nonviolent movement for
social change. Poetry was not the foreigner, As it is today in
spoken word and performance poetry by the younger generation, it was a meeting place where those false barriers between

that cannot yet be forgiven.

That require no thought or obligation

us were and are taken down, stripped of their power, Poetry is

PRESCRIPTION FOR THE NOW

of the people, and sometimes we might not want to hear about

We have only begun

to know

Why do I avoid the knowledge that blue corn comes from the sun?

the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

Remote sensing is beyond a large screen tv

So much is unfolding that must

It marks the surface of your love/s body who knows consent or

complete its gesture,

violation

so much is in bud.

The beauty of resonance where forgiveness is unspoken.
The children who sing forth that song in its desperate longing.

As I write this I have just returned from a compelling, con-

Are they themselves violated?

Mary lane Sullivan is a poet, filmmaker, and Film and

our faults, our deviations from revolutionary friendship. We are

tentious conference in Missoula, Montana, called Thinking lts

They walk to the unknown of sensing.

Humanities instructor at the University of Colorado-

compelled via civil discourse to witness our own becoming in
this place called America,

Presence:The Racial lmaginary. Fellow writers and filmmakers
pushed my understanding of white privilege and the incomplete

As chains of tyranny target.

Colorado Springs.
WIN 16

-Mary Jane Sullivan
17 t'VlN

*

(tI},IATT MTASTR(lPI{T
',-,i,1'Él(,1.-À,1

A Gall for "Glimate Satyagraha!"

L_l-,,'ì¡

JUtY 5, l0llr

THE CRtStS, THE CALL|NG, THE STRATEGY, AND THE HORIZON
dignified rage on the parts of the fossil fuel economy that are
most vulnerable: the choke-points and bottlenecks through
which the vast major¡ty of global production passes on a daily

By Ecosocialist Horizons
ecosocialisthorizons.com / 2Ot4/ L1,/call-for-climate-satyagraha

lrr,

7.9P},|

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ì

basis, Choke-points are everywhere, from big internationdl ports

document emerged from an invitation to discussion put
fhis
I fonruard by Ecosocialist Horizons at the first Pan-African
conference on nonviolence in Cape Town, South Africa in July
2014, where delegates and representatives from 34 African
countries and over 50 countries from every continent helped
give b¡rth to the PanAfrican Network for Nonviolence and
Peacebuilding. Refined and revised by participants around the

world, this document is a dramatic calling for massive nonviolent action in defense of life on Earth. From the birthplace
of humanity and the continent which stands to lose the most
to climate catastrophe, we must join together in a movement to
remake the world,

THE CRISIS
Catastrophic climate change is coming to a village near you,
and it's coming sooner than you think. lt's not complicated to
understand. Africa is going to burn, unless we resist, The numbers are staggering: One half of all the species alive on earth
today will probably be extinct by the end of the century; already
we are losing them at the rate of hundreds a day. Millions of hu-

man beings will soon be refugees, as their homes are lost to the
oceans or to the deserts. Already hundreds of thousands perish

social, but also political. ln the 11th hour, we are building more
pipelines through the last stretches of pristine land, damming
the last of our rivers, and felling the last of our forests.The crisis is absolute and threatens to consume much of the life and
beauty that remains in the world, ln our moment of greatest
need, we hear a calling to the horizon,

THE CALLING
The ticking clock is not in your imagination. lt resounds in the

ears and hearts and minds of every one of us who is not content to simply wait for the coming storms and the mass graves.
We have a duty to resist the exploitative, eKractive, unequal,
and unjust fossil fuel war economy. We need to replace it with
a just peace. And we must restore a safe climate, sustainable
livelihoods, and food and water security: the rhythm of humanity
living in harmony with ourselves and with the earth, To those of
t
you who feel that pulse, we say one word: Satyagraha.
It means "soul force" and was popularized by Mohandas
Gandhi against two superpowers that many believed would last
forever: one was British colonialism in South Africa, the other
was the British Raj in lndia. Both were overthrown, with mass

to your local gas stations, airports, trâlns, pipelines, or

1

high-

ways. They can be found throughout the sup ply chain, from

t

'q

the point of extraction to the point of consumption, An alliance
of organized labor in the big ports and logistics and distribution centers, together with the support and coordinated local
actions of communities around the world, can stop the movement of oil and coal,

rtr/-

l' €__Ð

By blocking these arteries, defending them, and transforming them, soul-force can bend the arc of history toward climate
justice. ln particular we call attention and action to those targets
that are the biggest perpetrators of catastrophic climate change:

i

ÍIiTURI N6

'r i I i llr rllLì'\ -,:,i: llill

L

l.lll,l'll
WAHU K.4ARA

coal-fired electricity, the oil industry, industrial agriculture, and

(rtrBnÂilli0 ¡l{{ tflitrY 0t

the military account for the majority of global carbon emissions.
The biggest bottlenecks in the global economy, where all these
climate criminals meet, are the logistics and distribution centers
through which allsupply chains must pass.These are the points
at which we can leverage the international revolutionary political

RESISTING FOSSIL FUELS

1,rr,,1,,

DTNNIS BRUTUS
ECOSOCIÀ| ¡sT

HO¡TZONS

yA¡

¡[stSTEls |MEIN ATTONAL

Maryland, joined New York activists protesting the Seneca Lake

An exciting, 0nly months-old project called Beyond Extreme

gas storage site, and joined a march against Dominion Resources

movements of nonviolent resistance changing the course of his-

Energy is c0nnecting anti-fracking activists all along the U.S.

in Virginia where horneowners are suing t0 keep pipeline surveyors

every year as a direct result of climate change, Africa stands to
lose the most, but all life on Earth is at risk.

tory. But satyagraha is bigger than Gandhi, and our movements
must move beyond him. Today, we are up against powers that

East Coast. BXE's main focus is the Federal Energy "Regulatory"

off their pr0perty. BXE has inspired locals to rise up and resist the
"done deal" liquefied natural gas export facility now under con-

There is an international scientific consensus: only by containing global warming at less than two degrees Celsius can we

far exceed previous empires in their globalized intelligence and
coordinated military power. lt is unthinkable to approach them
in anything but massive numbers, wielding anything but those
weapons identified so many years ago: truth (satya) and power

prevent the full onslaught of catastrophic climate change. once
this point is passed, earth system feedback loops (for example,

the release of methane trapped in melting permafrost and the
ocean floor) will overwhelm any human effort at mitigation. To
prevent thís, according to the same international scientific con-

sensus, carbon emissions must peak by 2075, followed by a
rapid and permanent decline. Such words, however, contradict
the logic of our economic system, which is based on the imperative of infinite growth, This system has a name: it is capitalism,
and it is the enemy of nature.

Decades of international conferences and decades of
missed opportunities demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt
that neither governments nor corporations nor NGOs are willing
or capable of bringing about what every doctor has ordered.
This is the nature of our terminal crisis-not only ecological and
WN 18

Commission-"regulatory" in quotes because the

FERC

in reality

rubber stamps viftually all fracking infrastructure projects, such as
pipelines, c0mpressor stations, and the first East Coast liquified

struction. Local neighborhoods right on the doorstep of the plant
were ignored in Dominion's permit application that FERC rub-

fracked gas export facility now in the early stages of constructiOn

ber-stamped. No other LNG terminal anywhere in the world is in

by Dominion Resources near the town of Lusby, MD, at Cove Point

such a densely-populated neighborhood, with only 0ne two-lane

(agraha).

on the Patuxent River and Chesapeake Bay.

road for evacuation should a chemrcal spill or gas explosion occur.

The tireless work of activists, well-intentioned officials, and
enthusiastic schoolchildren has made one thing clear: Rallies
outside office buildings and conference centers will not turn the
tide. The time for symbolic protest and for demands is over, lt

BXE has held two action camps at FERC's Washington headquarters and has another scheduled for May 21,,29.9XE activists

tance actions, meetings with attorneys for advice about legal

have protested at gubernatorìal inaugurations in Pennsylvania and

steps against Dominion, canvassing, flyering and petition gathering

is too late to speak truth to power, Now we must speak to the
power within ourselves, because only we the people of the world
can keep the oil in the soil. We must resist the war on Mother
Earth with a climate satyagraha; an overarching strategy to end
the war on Mother Earth.

BXE's "We Are Cove Poìnt" project has

facilitated civil resis-

in Lusby.The Cove Point export facility would ship fracked gas from
all over the U.S. eastern seaboard for sale to Europe and Asia, so
Ellen Barfield is a long-time antiwar activist with WRL and
Veterans For Peace who organ¡zed November 6 with BXE

at

slowing or ending it will have an impact on dangerous and pollutFERC

to publicize the U.N. day against exploitation of the environment

in war and challenge the Pentagon as the world's blgsest fossl/
fuel burner.

ing fracking projects in multìple states.
For more information, see beyondextremeenergy,0rg 0r wearecovepoi nt. org.

Ellen Barfield

THE STRATEGY
lf our goal is a carbon emissions peak, we must focus our
19W[{

. ..'- :.'t:'
ìi

horizon of ubuntu and ujamaa-together these African

change necessary to transform the

philosophies are a revolutionary light at the end of
the tunnel of capitalism, patriarchy, and war.
Gathered together in Cape Town at the first PanAfrican conference on nonviolence, hailing from
every continent, this is a call for a coordinated
global uprising. We share a vision built on beloved communities of care and trust, making
use of modern technologies but most of all
returning t0 our ancestral roots of wisdom,
unity, and ecological balance. This call is in
solidarity with every movement for peace

world economy.

THE HORIZON
There is an alternative. lt is being imagined and created all over the

world, and now is the time to realize
it. But we cannot move beyond fossil
fuel, war, or capitalism without
a positive vision of the world
we wish to create and care for.
Every action t0 stop the fossil fuel

economy, war and capitalism, must
embody its goals, must prefigure

'c'-().

'o
D

with satyagraha, we invoke and honor the history, vision, and practices
of ubuntu and ujamaa.

I

Å

world's peoples are already discussing

amongst themselves the necessary
tactical plan to make the impossible
inevitable. With this common vision,
we can rendezuous with victory on

othersj' ubuntu expresses our fundamental interconnectedness, Kiswahili for

"unityj' ujamaa represents a vision of
grassroots cooperation, the spirit of inter- dependence,
and community, Together they mean a new economy and a
new humanity, emerging from sustainable and egalitarian
productive communities that prefigure a new mode of production. Our calling is for satyagraha, and it calls from the

a global horizon, in truth and

in

power. O

''f
-f.t

tí/t
rt

'\

PAN-AFRICAN NONVIOLENCE

nrrddle of the Ebola crisis spreading through his city, country, and

NETWORK SOARS

region. PANPEN helped him spearhead a multilingual "Know the
Facts" campaign throughout Monrovia and other key cities and
towns. A former child soldier, Abel noted that "peace

Zenzile Khoisan. He was voicing the feelings of many, not about life

to us now
means being safe j'with safety meaning freedom from disease,

in post-apartheid South Africa-where wide, deep inequalities leave

poverty, repression, and military control. ln another example,

much work still to be done-but about the burgeoning unarmed

PANPEN is a co-sponsor of an upcoming conference of the Africa

South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission ¡nvestigator

civil movements sweeping Africa. Many of these movements are

Peace Research and Education Association being held this April in

part 0f and supported by the Pan-African Nonviolence and Peace-

Abuja, Nigeria-the first of its kind on the continent. PANPEN has

building Network, which convened a series of events around the War

also convened and led nonviolence trainings for newly emerging

Resisters'lnternational conference held in CapeTown July 4-10,

coalitions between Congolese, Burundian, and Rwandan act¡vists,

2014.

and for campaigners from Eritrea and the Horn of Africa.

Founded in 2010 at a WRlTraining forTrainers meet¡ng in

ln other words, though PANPEN is still in its earliest stages, it

Johannesburg, PANPEN played a major role in developing the WRI

is clear that a passionate new energy ¡s spreading. As lnter-Press

conference and has continued t0 grow and expand since then.

Service journalist Kanya D'Almeida put it in her report on the work,

"With attendees from 33 African countries and every region of

the "actions may be small, but their impacts are felt at the hishest

the African continent;'noted PANPEN co-chair Nozizwe Madlala-

levell'

Routledge, "PANPEN is set t0 deepen our networking capacity-

sharing best practices, urgent information, and strategies for

PANPEN may be contacted through its co-chalrs, Moses
John (mosesjoa@tmail.com) and Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge

changel'

( n o zi zw e m r@ {m a i l. c o m

ln the weeks following the July conference, for just one example,

WIN 20

B.

Abel Learwellie found himself in the

I

À

a hai/s breadth away. ln every place, the

lsiZulu for"we are who we are through

"l feel younger now than I felt years agol" declared former

I

6

D

and justice, with every people struggling to
build a new world in the shell of the old. We believe that a
movement of billions, united for climate
justice, armed with truth and love, is only

the world we wish to see. So together

Liberian PANPEN member

-,

).

-

Matt Meyer

i

I

I

.T

I

I

I
I

I

How We Worked:

newsletter in which workshop participants would report on their
actions, discuss tactics, promote upcoming events, and even tell

Five Decades of Movement Journalism

of WlN, we thought it would be useful to
$r this final issue processes
I take a look at the
of putting out activist news and
analysis and the thinking that went on around that task. So we
asked five experts to discuss the subject as they experienced
it-five former editors of the three magazines published or copublished by WRL between 1966 and 2015:
from the original MN Magazine. Murray
waswas a memberof the WNstaff from Ig74lo 1981 orso and
then served on MNb editorial board until the magazine ceased
publication in 1983. He served as executive director of the A,J.

Francesca as editor from 2008

RUTH BEI{N, from lhe Nonviolent Actrvrst. Ruth is the
Coordinator of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating
Committee, co-writes the annual Pie Chart flyer for WRL, and is
act¡ve with NewYork CityWRL, She edited The NonviolentActMst
from June 1987 to June 1993 and served as director of WRls
National Office from 1994 to 2000.

ANDY MAGER, from The Nonviolent Activist. Andy has been

an organizer, trainer, activist, writer, and speaker in movements

for peace, social justice, and environmental protection for more
than 35 years. Andy edited lhe Nonviolent Actrvist in 1994-95
and worked on the team for the War Resisters League organizer
training program from 1989 to 1993. He now works as the sales
manager for Syracuse Cultural Workers.
FRANCESCA FI0RENTINI, from

the new MN,

Francesca

was hired in 2005 to replace outgoing Nonviolent Actrïrst editor Judith Mahoney Pasternak and the next year conceived and
oversaw the transition from the NVA to MN through nonviolent
revolution, She's now a host and producer with the online news
channel AJ+ of Al Jazeera Media. She also moonlights as a
stand-up comic, She lives in San Francisco.
CALVIN REY MOEN, from the new MN. Calvin followed
l'vtN 22

people once they got on the mailing list,

jokes. Soon activists in other parts of the country were sending in reports, and the publication became the place where you
could find news from dozens of small and larger actions. 0nce
MN settled into being a regular, weekly publication, it became
the place that tied the national and international peace move-

lo 20t2 and has remained

ment t0 local movements and groups,

on

lly activism was born in the
late 1970s/early 1980s move-

Andy:

ments to stop nuclear power and
prevent the reinstitution of draft
registration. As a college student,

,i

the publications committee since then. He was a facilitator and
organizer with the lcarus Project in New York City and continues to Investigate grassroots alternatives to mainstream
mental health models. He currently works doing outreach
and advocacy with psychiatric survivors in hospitals and
communities in southern Vermont.

ties, from the national office to local

THE ROUNDTABLE

organizing, WRL News also served
as a forum for presentation of ar-

I came across MN magazine and
found it to be an invaluable source
of ideas, information and inspiration on the power of active non-

Ruth: WRL News, published from
1945 to 1984, was WRls house organ, an eight-page newsletter that
kept members in touch with activi-

MURRAY R0SEI{BHTH,

Muste Memorial lnstitute from 1985 to 2008. He is currently a
director and fund manager at New Alternatives Fund, the oldest
U.S. mutual fund investing in renewable energy and energy conservation, A longtime WRL activist and member, he has served on
the National Committee and the former Executive Committee and
is still active as a member of WR[s Finance Committee.

members, but it certainly played an important role in connecting

guments within

the

violence. As I grappled with the
decision about how to live out my
refusal to register for the draft, I
found my way to the War Resisters
League, which served as my philosophical and activist home for

WIN: What was/were the magazineb most significant contrihution(s) to the theory and/or practice of nonviolence, peace,
and war resistance? lo other social justice movements?

such as WRls role in electoral politics or the pros and cons of war tax
resistance.The great MN magazine,

Activist to replace both LÍlN and WRL News, the NVA sought to

Muray: ln the early years, MN
served as the voice of a nonviolence movement emerging

founded in 1966, was close to WRL
but editorially independent; after it folded in 1983, many felt the
loss of a news magazine from a pacifist perspective.

balance the dual role of movement magazine and organizational

from the counterculture. lt wa5
looser, irreverent and certain-

The Nonviolent Activist: The Magazine of the War Reslsters
League was created to combine these missions and publish WRL

I believe that an admirable job was done over the
years in maintaining that balance. The NVA included a robust
section of concise reports, updates and upcoming campaigns
from around the globe (Activist News). The dialogue that took

ly more profane (just like the

news along with journalistic articles of importance to the nonviolent movement around the world. The first issue of the NVÁ was
published in December 1984.The first editor was David Croteau,

place in the letters column provided a forum for thoughtful, and
at times pointed, exchanges of ideas and perspectives.
WIN/NVA/WIN placed active nonviolence in the forefront, ad-

and my first issue as editor was June 1987. We were challenged to
inform WRL members and produce a magazine that m¡ght inspire

vocating for a model of organizing and activism that we believe is
most principled and effective for creating the just, peaceful, and

a casual reader toward nonviolent activism and to join WRL

creative world we seek. As part of that, we were a primary source

Compared to the cultural breakthroughs of MN and the intellectual contributions of the earlier Liberation Magazine,lhe
NVA cannot claim such fame. However, looking over a pile of
magazines, there's a helluva lot of valuable information, along

for information about the struggles and occasional triumphs of
war resisters and conscientious objectors around the world. ln
this case, as in most, we linked information to action. WRL and
the publications served as a challenge to broader movements
for social justice to dig deep and consider the long-term ramifi-

'60s) than the

publications

and style of established organizations like the Fellowship of
Reconciliation, War Resisters
League, and various Quakerinspired groups. lt represent-

ed a mostly younger crowd of
peace activists who were nurtured by these same organizations
but who also embraced a more "hippie" approach.
MN also served as a bridge from the previous generation
of nonviolent activists who had emeçd ¡n the post-World War
ll years from the prisons and Civilian Public Service camps and
who became active in the civil rights movement, campaigns
against nuclear weapons, and anti-colonial struggles in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America, These were the folks who started the
Committee for Non-Violent Action, A Quaker Action Group, and
Peacemakers, among other groups,

to promote a greater direct

action approach to their nonviolent activism.
0riginating in the New York Workshop ln Nonviolence (NY
WIN), a local group that staged direct action protests at the annual Veterans Day parade and the civil defense drills of the early

1960s (and co-published by WRL), MN started as an irregular

organization,

with striking art, photos, and graphics; inspiring stories; and con.¡

tributions by nonviolent activists from every corner of the earth.
For instance, the cover of my first issue as editor included
these lines (and a few more) from Wilfred Owens' poem, "Dulce

many years.
When WN folded in 1983 and WRL launched the Nonvio/ent

newsletter.

cations of the tactics and strategies we chose.
Francesca'. So much of the mag-

et Decorum Est": "lf in some smothering dreams, you too could
pace/Behind the wagon that we flung him in..," lt seems appro-

azine was about sustaining WRL
members' appetite for movement

to note this at this time of events marking the centenary

news, political discussion, and
antimilitarist analysis, But a moment when we really broke out of
reaching the usual suspects-our
membership-was in 2007, when
we decided to conduct a series of

priate

of WWl. ln a few lines Owens made vivid the horror of war, The
poem accompanied an article aboutVeterans For Peace, still a
partner with WRL in the struggle to end that horror.
We also sought out writers and reports from activists representing many organizations, which facilitated and strengthened
networking, lt's impossible to say if the NVA brought in new

interviews with various movement
23WtN

leaders in what we dubbed the "Listening Processi'The energy
of 2003-2005's antiwar movement had largely petered out, and
many antiwar forces were trying to regroup and figure out how
to build for the long haul. 0ur way of doing that for WRL was to
showcase various activists in a "cross-pollination of ideas" to
reflect the "wisdom from an array of sectors and perspectivesl'
That meant hearing from racialjustice, climate, veteran, student, and immigrant rights organizers, lt was a rich experience
for the magazine and WRL as a whole, and one that certainly
brought up more questions than it gave answers. lt's much easierto interview and opinionate and much harderto implement a
political action plan for a then-84-year-old organization.
Calvin: The guiding social justice

principle, in theory and practice,
during my time at WN was (and
continues to be) intersectionality.
To focus on any single organizing
topic, like resisting war, and ignore
how war affects communities based

on race, class, gender,
status, sexuality, etc., is

citizenship

to

recreate

the same colonizing dynamics that
we purport to resist. What we did in
the second incarnation of t¡1l/N with

ìlì

the themed issues was to dig deep into the root causes of war,
which the WRL pledge identifies as "racism, sexism and all forms
of exploitationj' and find where those different roots were tangled up with militarism, imperialism, and a global war economy.
This was at a time when WRL organizing was making a con-

scious shift into connecting with and supporting the work of
people-of-color-led grassroots groups in the United States and
internationally: lraqi labor unions, U.S, immigrant youth, resisters
in occupied Palestine, indigenous activists in uranium-impacted
communities in New Mexico, and queer organizers in the South,
to name a few. The magazine endeavored to be an organizing
tool, both to introduce new voices and visions to WRL members
and WN readers and to build bridges between struggles 0n the
ground. We occasionally got some pushback ("1 thought we were
an antiwar organization. Why are we talking about farming?"),
but overall, the responses-from incarcerated people, environmentalists, vegetarians, boycott-divestment-sanctions suppofters, classroom teachers, trauma survivors, and others-were of
mutual recognition, of seeing and being seen.

applied to the articles was to promote nonviolent action in the
pursuit of social change. This included, at times, a vigorous debate as to whether this was possible and also what constituted
nonviolence-i.e. was property damage violence? lf forms of oppression were expressions of violence, what is the best way to
counter them? ttVlN was born out of the growing anti-Vietnam
War movement, but had a historic tie to earlier political movements, and so these discussions were carried out across the
spectrum of issues emerging from the mid-sixties and onwardthe Black power movement and civil rights, women's liberation,
gay rights, indigenous rights, prison and death penalty abolition,
the nuclear and converitional arms race, nuclear power, tax resistance-name the issue and campaign and you would likely
find a lively discussion of the politics and tactics of it taking
place among local organizers in the pages of WN.
Among the notable achievements in the early years was a
special 1972 issue containingthe entire contents of the FBlfiles
stolen by the "Citizens Commission to lnvestigate the FBl" from
a branch office in Media, Pennsylvania, in March 1971. These
documents were the first revelation of a concentrated effort by
the FBI to spy on and actively disrupt social change movements
across the country.
ljoined the WiV staff in lale I974, as the war in Vietnam
was winding down. MÀ/ had never been solely focused on the
antiwar movement, but it had formed the overarching concern
during the magazine's existence to this point. Over the next few
years, there was a parade of issues and campaigns across our
pages reflecting the organizing work taking place in communities
around the world.The list could take up ten pages, but among
them were: liberation struggles in Latin America, the anti-apartheid movement, economic inequality (sound familiar?), the second and third waves of the feminist movement and the rise of
the so-called men's movement in support; the continuing growth
of gay and lesbian activism, the reinstatement of the draft, growing threats to civil liberties, and, as always, the 0ngoing efforts to
halt the nuclear arms race and impede the spread of militarism

of color in particular? Do gay rights, abortion rights, or animal
rights need to be discussed in a primarily antiwar organization?
What about wars of liberation and nonviolent philosophy?
I see the recurring theme as the role of nonviolent activists
in all these struggles. As the only national secular pacifist organization, WRL has a unique voice in progressive struggles.
The magazine was a place both t0 present that voice and to

act as a forum for debates. The deciçion-making bodies of
the organization could take guidance froin tfie responses that
came as letters to the editor (or dropped subscriptionsl),
Most important, I think, was t0 help individuals feel more
connected to a wider movement-whether we all agreed or notby telling the stories of nonviolent activists and giving readers
inspiration to push on in our Sisyphean task.
Andy: During my brief tenure editing the NonviolentActlvlstsummer 1994 to fall 1995-the question of "humanitarian" in-

tervention was a major issue facing the left. War in the Balkans,
genocide in Rwanda and U.S. intervention in Haiti were the most
visible examples of the government's effort to portray the United
States as using its military power to help those facing violence
and persecution. Many progressives were swayed by President
Clinton's rhetoric and supported such policies. As part of analyzing and debunking this approach, we published several "think
pieces" that looked at the "Spectator Culture" that emerged with
the election of a Democratic president following 12 years of
Republican control 0f the White House.

After decades of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela was

elected President of a non-racial South Africa during this period,
accompanied by thoughtful analysis of the progress that had
been made and the long struggle still to come before true

equality was achieved by that nation's black majority.
The 50th anniversary of the end of World War ll, includingthe
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, occurred during
this time. We developed a special section of the NVA throughout
1995 that addressed the Holocaust, Japanese internment, the
firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, the atomic bombings, reflections of WWll resisters, and more.
0n the other hand, the horrific genocide in Rwanda took
place in spring 1994 and didn't get the attention it deserved,
part of a larger pattern of relative inattention to Africa.
During the same period, by the way, the NVA and WRL saw
the retirement from the paid staff of our beloved Ralph DiGia'
Ralph was one of the WWll total resisters who played an often
quiet, but central role for WRL over 40 years. ln the end, his "retirement" consisted entirely of no longer drawing a paycheck; he
continued as a volunteer, working almost full-time for more than
a decade, until a 2007 fall that broke his hip and led, eventually,

to his death at the age of 93.
Francesca: When I came 0n as editor it was becoming clear

that grassroots organizing for the peace movement meant 0rganizing with veterans' communities and youth who were being
poached by the military. Lifting up the stories of vets was critical,
as was the resistance of youth via counter-recruitment-specifically resistance of Black and Latino youth, At that time you didn't
see or hear the stories of lraq and Afghanistan War vets the way

we do today, Nor was there was as great an understanding of
the so-called "poverty draft" in the military, which still has yet

to enter popular consciousness when it comes to the military

__ .
t¡¡

internationa lly.
One of MNb notable contributions during the mid-

arms race in space, and on and on,There were arguments over
things Iike vegetarianism and "nonviolent Iifestyle" vs. nonviolent
action as a force against war. ls "war" armies on a battlefield or
does it include the "war at home" perpetuated on communities

to late

*illl--

aæ-,¡"-

1970s was t0 serve as a crucial news source and communication tool for the direct action movement against nuclear
power and the dozens of local "alliances" across the country
that carried out occupations and blockades of nuclear power
plant sites. I've come to believe that t¡l¡lN provided a valuable
bridge between the established movement against nuclear

ì,rÈìì-,õ

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W

weapons and the new activists opposing the spread of nuclear
WIN: Durint your tenure, what issues/topics emerged as the
most pressrng, and how did the magazine respond (or fail to
respond) to them and to specific historical moments?
Murray: For most of its original existence (1964-1983), MN
was pretty non-ideological, Although it was affiliated with WRL
for most of its existence, the main criterion that was loosely
WIN 24

power reactors.
Ruth: Overthe six years I edited the magazine, we wrote about

\e

þ

"

war toys, third world debt, apartheid in South Africa, the death
penalty, lsrael/Palestine, disarmament, nuclear power, peace

politics in Japan, the first Gulf War, military resisters, legacy of
the war in Vietnam, racism, vegetarianism, gay rights, Sudan,
25 Wlt{

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recruitment.
We highllghted intergenerational organizing. I was the young-

est person on staff at the time, new to an organization whose
members held so much movement history and knowledge. I was

ìli

constantly learning from older membership, and also felt empowered to offer up my own ideas and insights. I hoped and
tried to cover that crucial intergenerational conversation in the
magazine. The first issue of the re-born MN featured a roundtable on intergenerational movement building, complete with the
wisdom of the inimitable WRL legend, Ralph DiGia.
Calvrn: Spring 2011, othenruise known as Arab Spring, saw
the eruption of the biggest, most inspiring nonviolent revolutionary movement a young generation had ever seen. There was n0

expanded reviews section that made up the second half of the
issue, which we called "Occupy Readingl'

Comparing the Arab Spring and Occupy issues, we had it
easier with the second one, both because of the timeline and
because of our proximity to the source. A lot of the action had
taken place months before, and we were able t0 comfortably
reflect on and analyze the impact of the initial encampment on¡
the ongoing movement. Much of the content of the Arab Spring

the U.S. labor movement from the president of the lraqi Federation

were stepping up t0 our responsibilities while learning our limita-

of Oil Unions, with whom WRL national oçnizers were building
connections. Sadly, because of our tight production timeline and
the limitations of our publishing software, the Arabic version 0f the
letter (we had printed the original Arabic and its English translation in two adjacent columns) became garbled and was ultimately

tions-as long as

of the Wisconsin State Capitol building following Governor Scott

illegible. No one caught it until after it was printed,
One year later, we covered Occupy Wall Street, the encampment that had ta ken place the previous fa ll in Man hatta n's Zuccotti

Park-less than two miles down Broadway from WR[s national of-

fice-and the subsequent national movement. The contributing
writers were also close to home, organizationally if not geographi-

cally: National Committee member lsabell Moore shared her open
letter, "Why I Occu pyj' M att Meyer of th e Ad m i n istrative Coord i nati n g

Committee wrote about his Brooklyn-based anti-racism group's
WIN 26

Ruth: While I edited the magazine, I was also a full-time
staff member and part of all the organization's decision-making
meetings, Therefore, it's impossible to separate challenges to

Andy: I was hired to edit the A/VA following staffing problems
in the national office. I worked primarily from my solar powered,
wood-heated home in an intentional community in rural upstate

the magazine from organizational challenges, which have been

New York, traveling to the office for several days each month.
That was a challenge in some respects, but working within it, I
built a base for the magazine in my community, with a group of

many-money, political disagreements, debates over tactics, personnel changes, the deaths of too many wonderful people (quite
a few much too young), and the powerful web of institutions and
structures that we're up against.
Since I touched on editorial responsçs in the previous question, I admit that what first came to mind rlvere the technological
challenges. At the time I took over the NVÁ, the WRL office had
one computer for the database. The magazine was sent to a
typesetter and the galleys were pasted-up on "boards" and sent

ple that are most important. Looking at the magazines there
are s0 many names of others who continue as friends and colleagues in the struggle for peace and justice.The magazine was

issue relied 0n connections through field organizerAli lssa, while
the Occupy issue drew from among familiar WRL voices and ad-

Walkers attacks on labor uni0ns, Medicaid, public education, and
transportation, Tying the two together was a letter of solidarity to

majority of it to the uprisings happening in North Africa and the
Middle East. "Rising Up" also covered the union-led occupation

something members could pafticipate in with their reports and
writing, and one 0f the tools for maintaining and building the

to the printer. I don't miss the struggles as we shifted everything
t0 computer (the damned thing crashed ten times a day), but in
the process I became lifelong friends with Rick Bickhart, the terrific graphic artist and designer who has volunteered his skillsand high-quality work-as layout artist, designer, and desktop
publisher to WRL for decades.
Whatever the challenges, when you look back it is the peo-

participation in 0ccupy Wall Street, and then-development intern
lsham Christie contributed a piece informed by his international solidarity work connecting U.S. Occupy with global resistance
groups. Providing context and a broader conversation was an

jacent organizations. With "Rising Upj'we were taking risks necessary to show up as allies to an international struggle against
U.S.-supported imperialism, and we may have been in slightly
over our heads, as shown by the botched printing of the letter
in Arabic. But even highly visible, embarrassing mistakes like
that one can be chalked up t0 growing pains, evidence that we

way we were putting out that quarter's issue without devoting the

passion for the magazine's mission led us to ssmetimes work
second jobs when MN couldn't bring in enough money for payroll. ln the end, it was not a sustainable situation.

temporary fix to a constant lack of consistent funding. When
[¡VlN was founded, it was relatively inexpensive to maintain production. People could also live on relatively small incomes. 0ur

Francesca: The biggest challenge was the major rebranding
the magazine undenruent halfway through my time as editor. We

wanted to revamp the look and feel of the NonviolentActivistadd more images, color, better paper-and change the name to
be something more appealing and accessible. Whether or not
we succeeded is another question.
The internet isn't the only reason print is dying. lt's expensive

to produce a magazinel We brought the magazine closer to the
21st century, but not all the way into it. lt was a time that I think
exposed a fundamental question about the project: Was it more
of a WRL newsletter for members, or was it meant for the general

antiwar public, both active and not? To fully do the latter I think

þra ltlUþ Hcg HomWar
',,i,.,

Effective soc¡al change requires pass¡onate individuals and organazations
w¡th a long-term commitment to strategic, nonviolent direct action. WRL
,liaÈ a rich history of organizing and educating to resist militarism and of
aèt¡ng in fearless sol¡darity as we work to eliminate the root causes of war.

WIN: What challenges did the magazine(s) face, and how did

Murray: LVlNb greatest challenge, which eventually led to
its demise, was its inability to survive financially, Like so many
institutions of that period, it was almost founded on a whim
and relied on a devoted group of people who were willing to be
self-exploited to keep publishing. Although we tr¡ed many different forms of fundraising and marketing to sell subscriptions
and advertising, none of our efforts ever provided more than a

longtime activists meeting to proofread each issue and share
ideas for future content. I found this to be very helpful in providing a broader vision for the magazine, which I often perceived to
have a very NewYork City-centric approach.

Sustaln Reslstanee

we stayed accountable for our mistakes.

it/they respond (or, again, fail to respond) to them?

beloved community.

ï
r

:r

''f

'Whether you become a WRL monthly susta¡ner or deepen your commitment
by temembering us ¡n your planned giving, your generos¡ty helps sustain
and grow vibrant antimilitar¡st movement for years to come.
For more information on becoming a WRü,eusta¡not, v¡sit warres¡sters.otg/
dunateTñiri. To learn more about leaving a"bequest call our Development and
,¿ olVlembersh¡p Gootdinator at 2L2-228.-O+50.
27 WtN

I

I

TWIN
st

required more resources and staff time. We kind of straddled the

divide and that was a huge challenge.
I think fundamentally a magazine is only as strong as the
community of writers and readers that contribute to it and in
some way feel ownership of it. And while we certainly brought
new voices and writers into the WRL fold during my time, we
weren't able to create a new crop of committed readers and

COLOR Æ
A SM O¡

take place instantly, but it is also easierto leave people out (yes,
there are still some who avoid all this technology).0nline forums
have the potential for wide input, but it's easy to jump from one
place to another and never fully absorb anything. lt's easy to
get y0ur message out, but not have a channel coming in that is
shared, li ke the letters-to-the-ed itor section,
ln this information-glutted world, maybe it's more import-

OREÊN

writers who felt that ownership. 0r maybe we didn't connect well

ant to promote and provide opportunities for face-to-face

COøR üE A
YE TOV S@úRINÈ

to the readership we already had.

interactions: conferences, trai n ngs, d nners, protests, civi I d isobedience actions. Lifelong friends weç made in WRL training
programs, workshops, jail cells, and even'during endless meetings, A new print publication may return to the organization's
priorities in time. For now, I'll mourn a little the loss of a WRL
print publication, but Joe Hill's voice is calling: 0rganize!
i

Calvin'.

lt

always weighed heavily 0n me that there was n0

money in the budget to pay contributors, either authors or artists. I believe strongly in paying people for their work, and writing and illustrating are work. The challenge for the Publications
Committee, in seeking out authors, was always, "Who can we
get?" Particularly with authors, we risk favoring two types who
will often work for free: writers or organizers who will put in the
time and effort in order to get broader recognition for their own
work or their organization and therefore are not providing an
objective, nuanced analysis or perspective; or well established

PÊACI &

ruEDOM IHROUG+I

Ronru¡Rnacen

Andy: I haven't been active with WRL or Lhe NVA/WIN for the
past 15 years and wasn't part of the decision to cease publication, so can't comment on the factors that led to it, or the wisdom of the choice. ln my organizing work, which has continued
throughout that time, I continue to believe that we need to utilize
all the mechanisms available to communicate with our constituency, to recruit new activists, and to speak to the general public,
Social media and the instantaneous communications available
now can keep our message and work before people on a daily
or even hourly basis. However, those media offer little opportunity for the more in-depth analysis and discussions that are
so important for building powerful social movements. I believe

writers or experts who will do it out of fondness for or allegiance

to WRL or WIN but are not offering a fresh take on a subject
or exploring a topic more deeply than they have previously. The
challenge as editor was to work closely with them, asking questions that would elicit unique, thoughtful pieces while respecting

r*i
't'

the fact that they were donating their time.
WIN: Finally, given the profound s[Ífts in the role
communications vs. the internet and its wide ran$e

of print
of com-

munication media (e.$., orSanization websites, blo(s,'net
magazines and journals, social networks, etc.), what do you
see as the optimum mode(s) of communication between and
among, WRL and Íts present, future, and potential membership/constituents? How do you think WRL can contínue to
share new, outsÍde visions and ideas with members and supporters, and how can we continue to draw visionaries and
activists to our work and keep buildin$ those relationships?

I guess l'm still old fashioned. I believe that good
organizing and direct actions are still the best way to build our
movement. 0f course, effective communication and publicity
play an important part.There seem to be an increasing number
of venues to get our message out and I don't know that I'm
Murray:

qualified to evaluate which ones-blogs,Twitter, other social networks, email, web sites, and yes, even printed matter-work the
best. I suspect it's a balance, lt does seem to me that all this
new communication technology has made the dissemination of

nformation more decentralized and democratic,
The final challenge (well, that may be a little dramatic-a big
challenge) is instilling a long-term vision to a new generation of
activists who are growing up in an environment where everything
i

WIN 28

i

still has a significant older membership, many of whom find

!/l!

l,

'.1

ì4,'i,,.
P::,1

I.r.,r!,r!t.:

( 11, ., ¡ a:liri,r..' r,

:r

seems to happen faster. We know that our vision of a nonviolent
world is still a long term project. But it's one that will be made

up of thousands of small steps, With commitment, hard work,
and more than a little luck, we will find the right combination
of communication to show people that each of these steps is
taking us a little further along the right path.

a strong and clear message can galvanize a nation and the
world, and push this revolution of values to its brink.
Calvin: ïhe most compelling argument for keeping MN in
print as long as we did, despite budget concerns and subscription tracking complications, was getting the content into prisons
and other places without internet access. Othenrise, it's easy to
point to online resources that cover the same topics, or even to
WR[s own website and blog, as filling the gap left by a print magazine. So it is imperative we not foçt about members, resisters,
and other revolutionaries on the inside and that we continue
to nufture those connections and lift up those voices, Consider
supporting (or starting!) a local chapter of Books to Prisoners
(bookstoprisoners.net) or Black and Pink (blackandpink.org),
which supports queer and trans prisoners by connecting them
with pen pals on the outside and publishes a newsletter featuring queer and trans prisoners.

Francesca: I think the WRL has and will always draw visionaries and activists with or without MN, based on its history and

than insisting that these young, capable organizers cater t0 their
elders' existing skillset. lf you know hoq consider teaching a
baby boomer to tweet!

these are primary sources of information.
1..'l,i

roes and sheroes of nonviolent resistance. As we've seen with
#BlacklivesMatter, #YaMeCanse (Mexico), and other movements
partly born from online action, we shouldn't underestimate how

Years ago WRL d¡d more to directly engage people through
speaking tours and national organizers' meetings with activists
and organizations around the country. Despite the opportunities
afforded by digital technology, face-toJace organizing remains
critical, and I'd like to see that prioritized in the coming years
at the same time that new media help us connect with people
around the country and the globe.

are to remain relevant, we need to reach young people for whom

I rC ¡rri.l

the action itself, This messaging should be part and parcel of
WRlls organizing work, and lift up the past and present he-

ln addition, we need to work to ensure net neutrality and
greater access to technology. I had the good fortune recently
to attend a panel discussion by #BlacklivesMatter organizers
from Western Massachusetts alongside an audience of mostly
middle-aged white folks. Others in attendance were asking how
they could know when they were being called to support the
actions of the young organizers, who communicate with their
networks exclusively via Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and text messages, Some of us 3o-somethings began to see a potential
role for ourselves as educators, bridging the gap between the
tech-immersed millennials and our parents' generation, rat[er

WRL

Twitter, Facebook, and lnstagram to be completely foreign. lf we

f' ::.:',

lnstagram, and other NSA-approved communication go a long
way to growing and keeping WRL and antimilitarist politics alive.
More than a magazine, a solid movement media strategy
I believe is so key for the organization. Just as in any successful nonviolent direct action, getting the coverage is nearly half

current work. But one of the most amazing things for me during

Ruth: ln July 1993, John M. Miller (this issue's desktop
publisher) wrote an article about a new thing called Peacenet
that WRL had joined. He printed our first email address and
explained a bit about the internet and the wonders of instant
connection to a worldwide network of activists. A magazine that
came out monthly at most (during my years there were ei$ht
then six issues per year) could not offer much of a discussion
platform, With that first email address the discussions began to

my time was stumbling on the archived volumes of the first
MN, beautifully illustrated movement relics from the '70s and
'80s, Those volumes, the Nonvlo/ent Activist, and the new W/V
should certainly be archived online in a way that can be readily
searchable.
Having a regular online presence on social media is indispensable for building and sustaining the message and membership of the WRL Facebook, Facebook groups, Twitter, Tumblr,

Francesca:0ne final comment: What an honor it is to have
worked on LVIN! What an honor to inherit the magazine's editorship from the fierce and skilled Judith Mahoney Pasternak, who
was a superb coach and mentor, despite leaving me the biggest
pile of papers I'll ever see in my life. What an honor to work with
the members of the Editorial Committee like John M. Milleç and
to be given the reins and the opportunity to re-envision the magazine.Thank you all.lt's was a great run.Onwardl O
29 W¡N

I

THE flE

MAGÂZINE

oFnE

wÄR BEsrsERs

l'aGUE

My Favorite lssue:
The Essence of NonviolenceThe lnaugural Editorial, Vol. 1, N0. 1, Dec. 1984

Action j'signed by the Publications

Committee. lf memory serves
me well, the article was loosely

By David Croteau

n 1984, WRL hired me to be the founding editor of lhe
lNonviolentActlvist. ln retrospect, the inaugural issue that

I

appeared in December was a reflection of the state of WRL at
the time-and its publication was an important moment in my
own life.
"Founding edito/'sounds much more significant than it actually was. ln reality, I took the part-time job as a working-class
kid fresh out of college. I had helped start an alternative

.ìi

David Croteau is a sociologist who teaches and writes about
the media, social movements, and class inequality. His books

include Politics and the Class Divide (Temple University
Press, 7994) and Media/Society (with William Hoynes, Sa$e
Publications, 2014). He is one of the editors of Rhyming Hope
and History: Activists, Academics, and Movement Scholarship
(University of MÌnnesota Press, 2005). His current work experiments with innovative uses of di$ital technoloSy in teachin!
and learning.

M

student publication, been politically active during the Reaganera military build-up, and had a work-study job with ISTNA
(lnternational Seminars on Training for Nonviolent Action),
which had received financial support from the A.J. Muste
Memorial lnstitute. I knew the mechanics of putting together a
publication, was familiar with and supportive of WRI-s approach to nonviolent action, but had no significant track record

Re-reading it now,
years later, it strikes
me as a piece written by
committee. The first third of the

M. Miller, Susan Pines, Murray Rosenblith, and Wendy Schwartz.
Those names are all familiar ones to anyone who followed the t
evolution of WRL in the ensuing years. ln working with them

afticle is devoted to acknowledging broad
i nfl uences (a na rch ism, socialism, western
beralism, and a general utopianism) and noting the importance
of the feminist critique of patriarchy and the role of environmentalism.That's a lot of terrain to traverse in a few hundred
words and it threatens to be a laundry list. (Yet, notably, the
all-white committee makes no mention of anti-racism work in
this part of the piece.)
The article's strongest part, by far, is its middle third, where

and the otherWRL staff, I received a crash course in WRL and
movement history. lt was an educational experience I value to

two connected themes are developed. First, the idea that
"the link between means and ends has served as the thread

this

connecting all nonviolence thinking" is introduced. This analysis condemns the tragedies of totalitarianism, where means
inconsistent with stated ends paved the road to slave camps
and mass executions. lt also condemns a variety of American
efforts where, despite sometimes good intentions, the arrogant
use of violence undermined the ability to achieve wofthwhile
goals, declaring, "The United States has all too often brought
destruction to others through our inability to limit ourselves."
This segues to the related theme of acknowledging limits, Here, there is a pervasive sense of humility that remains
appealing, as in, "Those of us working on this magazine have
barely enough wisdom to run our own lives. Often not enoughl'
Such statements were not just personal acknowledgments;
they were building blocks of a political analysis, ïhe editorial
illustrates this with, "We cannot possibly profess to know what
is the 'correct' line of action for people living in El Salvadot
in Nicaragua, in Poland, in South Africa, in Afghanistan, or in
other situationsi'And finally, "We are imperfect in a world that
is imperfect. We cannot claim to know truth. Yet, this lack of
absolute knowledge must not prevent us from acting on our
beliefs. We use nonviolence both because of our commitment

in either.
I started atWRL with the able guidance and support of a
Publications Committee made up of Rick Bickhart (our graphic
designer), Ed Hedemann, David McReynolds, Matt Meyer, John

day,

The most significant afticle ¡n that first issue of the NVA
was a two-page editorial statement called "Our Roots of

f{ffi
l{ffi

EN AGAINST WAR

Cìlolral Moventcrlt Agaillst War

faking ll to lhe 3lreelc

WIN 30

drafted by David McReynolds,
and my job was to revise
it, incorporating the many
comments and suggested
changes from other committee members.

i,'j,

I i

to action and because of our recognition of our limitsl'
To me, that remains the essence
of a nonviolence philosophy. ln an
age where the hubris of drone assassinations and the fanaticism of religious
violence dominate the headlines, emphasizing the importance of a little humility
seems more vital than ever.
The final third of the article sadly foreshadows some of the problems that would
prompt me to leave the NVÁ just a few years
later.The editorial statement is forced to acknowledge that "we have many divisions within our
own ranksl' lt seems comfortable with marginality,
not only in society but even within already marginal
movements by noting, "We are the left, yet we are
a problem for the leftl' Even the first letter published in the
IVVA was from readers who were "dismayed, discomfited, and
amazed" by earlier WRI News articles implicitly supporting
voting for a Democratic presidential candidate.
Such a focus on somewhat esoteric debates-while the

world outside went on without noticing-became disillusioning
for my younger self. More important, I think it was part of why
I doubt the NV,A had a significant impact while I was there,
either within WRL or, ceftainly, the broader progressive community. lt was largely an inward-looking publication that rarely
reached out beyond a small choir.
But even choirs must be sustained and I hope that some
readers of the Nt/A learned from it and felt suppofted by its
message. My own siren called me back to mofe mainstream
work. I felt more useful promoting a basic message about
social change and the potential power of nonviolence to more
diverse audiences. However, the lessons I learned in working
on the Nt/Á-the lessons articulated in the best parts of the

inaugural issue's editorial statement-stayed with me. I hope
am not alone.
Today, unlike in the era of paper periodicals, digital platforms dangle the possibility of WRL having unprecedented

I

reach, looking outward to engage with a broader audience
about the relevance of nonviolence. While doing so effectively will require creativity and experimentation, it is an
opportunity I hope the next generation of WRLers takes up
enthusiastically, O
3l

WIN

I

,¡

,n

lHE MÄG¡AZTE OFilEWAF REITEN3 |åGUE

My Favorite lssue:
Looking at the Middle East, Jan.-Feb. 1gg4

Except for the most faithful and

ByVirginia Baron

ow can I choose one issue to call a favorite? Easy.
Select one on a subject that continues to obsess me

the West Bank and Gaza. israelis succeeded in getting rid of
responsibility for the welfare of Palestinians living in what were

It happens that I still have a copy of the January-February

then referred to as the Occupied Territories.That responsibility
fell to the new "Palestinian lnterim Self-Government Authorityj'
with no mention of where the resources were to come from. lt
should be noted that all these issues remain unresolved,
The reactions I found disappointed some 0n the WRL staff.
It turned out that the accords were not a big hit, at least in
activ¡st and intellectual ranks. As usual, some Palestinians
chose to be hopeful. Merchants updated their stores, restau-

H

1994 NonviolentActivist (edited

by Sharon Seidenstein and

designed by Rick Bickhart) stuck in an old folder 0n the bottom
shelf of my bookcase. The cover theme, screaming in red-violet
letters over a dramatic line-drawing of a handshake by Dorit
Learned, is "Middle East Peace: A Perilous Processi'What could
be more relevant?
(Disclosure: Because I had spent so much time in lsrael
and Palestine, including several trips and a prolonged sabbatical stay during the 1989 lntifada, the NVA asked me to find if
the Oslo Agreement were celebrated as a breakthrough in the
region, My own article is thus among those I am reviewing.)
At the time, the theme was inspired by what appeared to
be a significant blip in the on-again-off-again 60-plus-year
lsrael/Palestine peace process, Middle East junkies were cele-

brating the Oslo Accords.The handshake between lsraeli Prime
M i n ister Yitzha k Ra bin and Palesti n ia n Li beration Organ ization
chief YasirArafat had taken place in September 1993 on the
White House lawn, hosted by President Bill Clinton in spite of
the fact that Amer¡cans had had no involvement in the deliberations. (Former President Jimmy Carter in Palestine: Peace Not
Apartheid noted that Johan Jøçn Holst and Terje Rød-Larsen,

the Nonrvegians who had originated the secret talks, were stuck
in the back rows, unacknowledged at the ceremony.)
ln the public hoopla about the agreement, it was widely
overlooked that critical stumbling blocks were put off for further
negotiations. The NVA didn't overlook them, however. My article
Iisted them as "Jerusalem, refLlgees, settlements, security
arrangements, borders, relations and cooperation with other
neighbors and other issues of common interestl'There was
no specific timetable for the withdrawal of lsraeli troops from
Virginia Baron is a former editor of Fellowship ma{azine and
has served as president of the International Fellowship of

Reconcilìation. She has devoted her attention to the M¡ddle
East for many years and has focused particularly on the
practice of nonviolence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. She
is currently on the board of Palestine/lsrael Report ma{azine.
wrN 32

rants were enlarged, and the optimists waited for the tourists
to flood back in. But activists on both sides knew that nothing

of real consequence had been achieved even though Rabin
seemed to have experienced a transformation. He had shed his
"break their bones" lntifada personality and seemed to have
a new awareness ofthe urgent need for a resolution to the
'
endless conflict. But the accords had not achieved anything
substance, and even though Rabin was on a constructive path,
no breakthrough had occuned. Alas, even this hopeful era was
to be cut short by Rabin's assassination in November 1995.
ln my article, lsraeli feminist-activist-scholar Simona
Sharoni noted that there was no mention in the Oslo Accords
that Palestinian statehood was a goal, and that it was significant that those who had long experience working on peace
issues had been cut out of the process. She urged the U.S,
peace movement not to get excited by handshakes, but to stay
engaged and to continue to lobby congress aga¡nst the military

of

budget,

FORECASTING THE FUTURE
Rabab Abdul Hadi, a member of the National Board of
Palestinian Women's Associations in North America, expressed

surprise at how much had been extracted from the PLO in the
agreement. She bemoaned the lack of improvements for the
lives of impoverished Palestinians. She, too, urged, "You must
address the question of military aidl'
The semi-gloom of the article and the satirical cover turned
out to be a forecast ofthe future.
And noq after 20 years of U.S.-sponsored Middle East
peace initiatives, what has changed? What have we learned?

stalwart members of the left in lsrael,
there is nextto no enthusiasm for
the two-state solution that has been
the goal since 1948. IEdito/s note:
ïhis article was written before the
March election that won Benjamin
Netanyahu a fourth term as
lsrael's Prime Minister, apparently on the strengh of his "no
Palestinian statehood" pledge,
leaving "next to no enthusiasm" an apparent understatement,l All Palestinians
want is a better economy, however
it may be brought about, and reconstruction
and rescue for the people of Gaza. Things have deteriorated so far that the greatest fear for lsraelis is that international
pressure will finally force lsrael into serious negotiations, or the
cost will be isolation and sanctions.
All is not lost. Here in the United States, the boycott-divestment-sanctions movement has taken hold. A new generation
has taken up the cause, and the words "boycott, divestment,
and sanctions" are familiar on college campuses. Every week
there are more divestment votes, or news of colleges and universities that are forbidding votes and being met with student
uprisings. Jewish Voice for Peace and other Jewish groups
have shaken the stalwart pro-lsrael camp. Peace and justice
organizations have joined the BDS movement. National church

denominations have voted in favor of divestment. Even Ifie
NewYork llmes, through the voice of op-ed columnist Nicholas
Kristof, dared to condemn the occupation. lts finally happening after all these years, and we can gladly claim all those voices that spoke out through WIN and the NVA to raise unpopular
but necessary issues. lt's impossible to shut us up. lt's that old
truth to power story. We'll keep talking, one way or another.
ïhe rest of the issue proved to be impressive and instructive. ln an article on "The Economic Dimension of Nonviolence:
ls Rich Pacifist an Oxymoron? j' Charles Gray told us how he
lived on his "equal share of a sustainable world incomei' ln the
Reviews section at the back, Simon Meyer favorably reviewed

@;.¡- ,g'-Þ.-

I could have forgotten this
valuable source of information
ln the "Hidden Wars" series,
professional ca rtogra pher Zolta n

Grossman wrote an extensive
explanation of the "War in the
Caucasus," including a map for
clear reference and a chart ofthe
autonomous republics, including their
major ethnic groups, history, dates,
etc.The 22 republics ofthe Caucasus
have been fought over for centuries
by three major powers: the Russians,
the Ottomans (Turks), and the Persians
(lranians). As Grossman explained, "The

[ies] along the 'fault
line'between Christianity and both the
Sunni and Shiite branches of lslamJ' Maybe
we understand the significance of this better these days.
Three main sect¡ons covered the history of Georgia, Armenia,
Caucasus region

and Azerbaijan, but the complications of ethnic group struggles, Russian and Turkish takeovers, NATO, and threats of
U,S. bombing are mind-boggling. There s even a list of peace

and human-rights groups that were working ¡n the region
in 1994. lt's all about the 0ngoing and eternal question of
self-determination.
There are also ads for a trip to Cuba (for $1100) and

job openings. A news story describes the release of "shadow
painters" Susan Crane and Maxine Ventura after being jailed
for painting human forms in the lobby of Lawrence Livermore
National Lab in protest against Livermore's legacy of toxic
and radioactive contamination from nuclear weapons design
and production. Other news items tell of Selective Service
being funded, civil disobedience arrests, war tax resistance, a
conference on nuclear war, a people's fast for justice, a con-

.

scient¡ous objector imprisoned in Croatia, the Balkan Peace
Team, and a peace museum in Samarkand.There are photos
of WRL staff member (and WWll C0) Ralph DiGia and WRL
West staff member Mandy Carter, taken by WRL staff member
David McReynolds. There's an obit for Freedom Rider Jim peck

Gray's book, Toward A Nonviolent Economics, concluding that

by historian Bob Cooney, the Organizing Network, and the NVAs
1993 lndex, with Good Reading ads on the back cover.

we read these books but"¡n large measure we seem to be unwilling to reduce our own lifestyles to achieve the kind of equity

I love this 2O-year-old issue. lt stood up to many readings
for this summary. Now who will write the nonviolent history of

Gray hopes fori'Charles Gray represented the ultimate model.

ourtimes from all these published treasures? 0

I read the next article at least four times. I wondered how
33WIt{

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within their articles. Charlie and I both had to do that in this
issue. ln his article, Charlie wrote about "re-evaluating longheld pacifist beliefs" in the face of EastTimorese requests for

My Favorite lssue:
Solidarity and Self Reflection, Nov.-Dec. 1999
By John M.

then weekly magazine as it chronicled the ContinentalWalk
for Disarmament and Social Justice and the beginnings of
nonviolent direct action against nuclear power. I soon had my
own subscription and a WRL membership card (yes, we used
to issue them). And not content to read on the sidelines, I
become active in the local Potomac Alliance opposing nuclear
power.

ln early 1981, I moved to Brooklyn to join the MN staff
for its lastthree years,Two of us oversaw its final issue, as
MN went out fighting (so wrote the Natlona/ Guardian) wilh
an October 1983 final issue focused on the global struggle
against nuclear weapons. I helped plot the launch of the
Nonviolent Activlst and later its transition back to MN, serving
over the years as a member of its Publications Committee,

Among my first introductions to EastTimor were articles in
the April 1, 1980, and September 1, 1981, issues of MN.

I

became active on the issue a decade later, after a November
1991 massacre at a cemetery in Dili inspired me to help found
the EastTimor Actton Network (EIAN) with, among others,
Charles Scheiner (a former WRL Executive Committee member),
who is also featured in the NVA issue.The U.N.-organized vote
was made possible by decades of EastTimorese resistance to
lndonesian rule, the fall of lndonesian dictator Suharto, and
changes in U.S. and other government policies brought on by
grassroots campaigns like EIAN's.
The issue contains five pages on the referendum, including
background on the issues (one underlying theme throughout
WIN/NVA/WIN is that action should be informed by informa-

tion and analysis). Charlie wrote about the organizing and
implementation of the lnternational Federation for EastTimo/s
0bserver Project, the i nternational non-governmenta I observer
mission that EIAN initiated. lFE[-0P recruited 125 activists
from the global EastTimor solidarity movement to observe the

doing layout for too many issues to count, rewriting many a
headline, and working once or twice as temporary editor.
When I first joined MN, among the tasks I was responsible for was editing the regular columns (including "Serve the
Peoplej'on food and cooking, where I learned what a/ dente
meant by asking the other staff) and the "Changes" section,
a round-up of short news items. "Changes" became'Activist
News" when the NVA launched,
Over the years, I've proposed and written (and re-written)
many of these short news items, but have not submitted
many feature articles. (My first was a report in the Nov. 15,
1979 issue of WIN on a blockade of the headquarters of the
Department of Energy; a version also appeared in WRL News,)
With so many issues of WIN/NVA/MN to choose from, I'll focus

written in the heat of the vote's aftermath, as EastTimo/s
towns were still burning, as most EastTimorese were hiding in
the hills or being forced over the border into lndonesia, and as
journalists and the U.N. and peacekeeping troops were only

on the November-December 1999 issue of the Nonvio/ent

or the peace movements were debated. MN and the NyA

ActÌvistthat published my account of EastTimo/s historic and
bloody vote for independence. By then, I had been working
toward that vote for nearly eight years.

often featured two or more writers arguing their take on issues,
including the right to die; property destruction; the perennial

John M. Miller is a lon!-time member of the WRL National

Committee and National Coordinator of the EastTimor and
I ndonesia Action Network.
t'VlN 34

I

imperfect in a world that is imperfect. We cannot claim to know
truth, Yet, this lack of absolute knowledge must not prevent us
from acting on our beliefsl'And solidarity, if it means anything
at all, means listening carefully to those whose rights you are

to feature a lobbying campaign as a sit-in.
The issue also includes stories related to WRIs then
program priorities, as well as other reports of interest to those
seeking to change the world for the better. We are introduced or
reminded of interesting people, and not only in the obits, There
is also a short report about Dennis Lipton, an Air Force doctor
threatened with court martial after he became a pacifist.
For me, one of the most important functions of WIN/

act¡ng to defend.

NVA/WIN was as a forum where we could express the varied

armed peacekeepers to help oversee the vote. I wrote, "lt will
take both an arms cutoff lof lndonesia by the United States
and othersl and the introduction of multinational force to end
lndonesia's ravaging of the country. ... While an earlier cutoff
might have forced lndonesia to stop the violence before it
began j' it was at that point too late. "Optionb become limited j'

Miller

I started readins WN in 1976. A roommate subscribed while
I I *u, living in ilashington, DC, and I was captivated by the

Nyerere of Tanzania and Walter Bergman, a Freedom Rider who
attempted t0 desegregate transportation in the South in 1961.
He was paralyzed after a beating by KKK members, but liùed to
100.
ln many ways, this was a typical issue of the NVA, which
had become bi-monthly by then. There is a strong action focus.
The issue is full of stories about people taking action and urging readers to do likewise. And these actions are not only those
of direct action or pickets. The periodicals were almost as likely

vote and-we hoped-to prevent violence.
My more personal account ("Eyewitness, EastTimo/') was

continued, "as violence escalates and genocide is threatenedl'
As we had said in the NVA's inaugural editorial, "We cannot
possibly profess to know what is the'conect' line of action for
people living in El Salvador ... or in other situations. ... We are

one focuses on a visit by congressional staffers to lraq, the first

interests of WRL members and friends beyond our national
program, in this case an issue that had occupied my attention

since the 1990-1991 Gulf War. A report on WRls A Day Without

throughout the decade and beyond.

Elsewhere in the issue is another eyewitness account,This

the Pentagon 1999 focused on military recruiters rounds out
the features. A holiday centerfold of WRL resources for sale
reminds readers that the NV,4 also needed to serve WRls
promotional needs, Activist News contains reports of David
McReynolds' bid for presidency under the Socialist Party's
banner and an action blocking a missile systems factory in
Massachusetts by a new WRL local. The magazine lists three
new locals (alas, none is still active).There are also obits for

'African freedom fighter, socialist and peacemake/' Julius

Regular readers of WIN will know that EastTimor is now the

independent Democratic Republic of ïimor-Leste and that EIAN
has become the EastTimor and lndonesia Action Network.Yes,
I confess I picked this issue of the NVA to take one last chance
to talk about the issue I have worked on for nearly two dozen
years. Not quite as long I as I have involved in WIN/NVA/WIN.
LVIN readers will have to get the¡r updates on Timor-Leste's
progress elsewhere, You can start with the EIAN website etan.
org. (And that's my last plug, at least within these pages.) O

begin to filter in.

SUBJECT TO DEBATE

MN and the

NVA have always been open forums where

issues and controversies within the left, the nonviolence, and/

quadrennial discussion of whether or not to vote; and, most
controversially in 1980, on abortion rights,The discussion
would then carry over to the readers, The surest way to generate letters to the editors was to mention choice (from 1980 on
WIN/NVA was firmly pro-choice) or meat eating.
Occasionally, writers would wrestle with their principles

Destruction in Dili. Cover photo by John M.Miller from November-December 1999 NVA
35Wl¡¡

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St¡ll Relevant:
What Makes an Action Nonviolent?
My Favorite lssue: July-Aug. 2001

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WHAT MAKES
Ah¡ ACilON NONVlOLEf,lm

By Joanne Sheehan

The July-August 200t Nonvio|entActivist asked "What
makes an action nonviolent?"The question had acquired
urgency among peace and justice activists in the wake of the
November 1999 massive protests in Seattle aga¡nst the World
Trade 0rganization. I picked this issue to review because l1
wished that discussion had gone on longer and gotten deepeç
and because we are once again in a time of protest with a
considerable urgency.
This time, in the wake of the police killings of Michael
Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Staten lsland,
NewYork, "Black Lives Matter" has become the rallying cry of
a Black-led grassroots movement.This time the discussion is
not about property destruction, as it was 14 years ago, after
Seattle, but about the appropriate and effective response to
violence committed by official or quasi-official forces. And if the
question is still, "What makes an action nonviolent?" we need
to explore what we mean by that in this c0ntext, How does
WRL, which holds that change happens through the implementation of revolutionary nonviolence, and that those most
affected need to be at the center of change efforts, engage in

I

'l:-

this movement?
Let me begin with the definition that nonviolent action is
an empowering way of engaging in conflict, an active form
of resistance to systems of violence and oppression that is
committed to not destroying other people. We need to explore
how that is different from actions that are "not violentl'What is
the difference between nonviolent direct action and other direct
action in terms of strategy and tactics?
We also need to be conscious of the historic context.ln the

1950s and
early'60s,
the single
largest group
of people

staffperson, encourages people to see War Reslsters'

lnternational3 Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns for
more on pragmatic dimensions of nonviolent action, cam-

paifn development, organizing effective actions and training exerclses . w ri -i rg. o rg/ p u b s/ N o nvi o e nce H a n d b o o k
I

an

d

ha

nd b o o k-

wa r resi ste rs. o

WIN 36

no

nvi ol

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property destruction.

practicing
nonviolent
direct action were Black people protesting Southern segregation with their bodies. By the time of the 1980s actions aga¡nst
nuclear power and weapons, and by the time of Seattle, that
was history, Most nonviolent civil resisters, including the vast
majority 0f the Seattle protesters, were white. ln the past few
years, that has been changing again, as immigration rights
activists and low-wage workers, many of them people of
color, have been engaging in sit-ins and walk-outs, And since
Ferguson, as the shift in the demographics of protests has
become swifter, so, necessarily, have the dynamics of protest
and the stakes involved.
This article is therefore an attempt to look both at how the
Nl/A examined the question of nonviolent action after Seattle,
especially in its July-August 2001 issue, and how we might
examine that question now, in 2015.
There were discussions on nonviolence and property
destruction during the Seattle protests, and in the NVA immediately aftenvard, in the January-February 2000 issue. The
headline on the cover was, "Nonviolence at the turn of the
century, Showdown in Seattlei' lnside, an editorial said, "0n the
opening day of the WTO meeting, tens of thousands of environmental, labor, human r¡ghts, and religious activists joyously and

nonviolently blockaded the meeting site, while some 40,000
Joanne Sheehan, nonviolence trainer and WRL New En{land

acts toward living beings," he wrote. "The anarchist black
bloc that engaged in property destruction only targeted the
property of multinational corporations and made sure not to
harm individualsl'
The discussion continued in many circles, including
the NVA, ln the MayJune 2001 issue, in "Microcosm of a
Ch a n gi ng Movementj' student-activist Lel ia Spea rs wrote
about the National Conference on 0rganized Resistance, 'iln
the movement, as well as at the confereqce, there is now a
move towards acceptance of nonviolence'as a tactic among
other tactics. Although many see this as a positive move, people new to the movement may be not getting a background in
nonviolence, which most agree is useful at least as a tool, a
tactic and a strategyi'That article provoked more letters challenging the acceptance of a "diversity of tactics" that includes

labor union members attended a city-licensed anti-MO
march and rally; during the same day, a small band of protestU,S.

ers who rejected nonviolence rampaged through the street near

the meting site, breaking windows and damaging propertyl'
ln the next issue after "Showdown in Seattle," a member of one of WR[s YouthPeace groups objected to the
suggestion that property destruction was a rejection of

THE 2OO1 NONVIOLENCE SPECTRUM
It was in that context the July-August 2001 NVA asked
nine activists (including me) to respond to the question "What
makes an action nonviolent?" And as I reflect 0n the nine
responses, I see the respondents standing all over the place on
the cross-spectrums of what is nonviolence and violence and
what is effective and not effective, another issue raised by several of them. (We use cross-spectrums in a nonviolence training exercise-participants place themselves on a grid formed
by two perpendicular axes representing polar opposites, in this
case, nonviolence/violence and effective/ not effective. For
more on the exercise, see wri-irg.orglnode/23374.)
Activist-poet-priest Dan Berrigan wrote that the main
discussions in planning both the draft board raids of the '70s

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and Plowshares symbolic disarmament actions consisted of
spiritual preparation and the search for symbols. "So wanton
thoughtlessness and mere destruction were out, from throwing trashcans to throwing bombsj' he wrote, but "[t]he use of
homemade napalm on draft cards and the pouring of blood on
nuclear warheads seemed to speak to peopleJ'

"l would rather not focus on whether one form of propefty destruction or another is violentj'wrote Melissa Jameson, then the
director of the WRL National 0ffice, "but on why we do what we
do, and how we getthere from here, Since one ofthe tenets of
nonviolence is at least the recognition of the humanity of one's

opponent or oppressor, actions that do not allow that, for me,
would not be a way I would choose t0 express myself. lf nonviolence means without injury, then nonviolent action would have to
mean things that do not bring harm to another living beingJ'
Anarchist Kadd Stephens wrote that this discussion of
property destruction too often leads to the "the crusade for the
rights of propertyi' as he sees it. "Nike's r¡ght to an immaculate
storefront takes priority over the tens of thousands of workers
exploited beyond the reaches of our imaginations within their
factories. ... This is not to suggest that targeting property is a
universally viable or even preferable target. ... [t] often serves
to alienate sectors of the population critical to the success of
any movementl'
Mandy Carter, who was on the staff of WRL/West in the
1960s, wrote, "During a 'Stop the Draft Week' in Oakland, some
protesters turned over cars, slashed tires and committed other
acts of physical destruction, They never stayed around to be accountable for their actions. ... IBut] the folks doing nonviolent
civil disobedience were accountable. ... I am very grateful that
the first two groups I got involved in were the American Friends

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nonviolence. "IN]onviolence means not engaging in harmful
37 WIN

I
Service Committee and the War Resisters League. Both are

Collective have shut down public transpoftation. Black Lives

me, pacif ist-based nationa l/ i nternationa I o rga n izations.
They gave me the philosophical underpinning that has stayed
with me for the past 32 years and countingJ'

4 Black Lives, and white allies shut down the
Police
Headquarters. Black Brunch teams go into
Oakland
restaurants crowded with primarily white customers reciting the
names of Black people killed by police.Through these actions

l0

n

gti

Lelia Spears ended her response by saying "l accept the
destruction of property as a tool in an activist's toolbox, but
because I personally do not consider it the most communicative tactic I feel it should be reserved for times when all other
means of expression have been exhaustedl'

ln her earlier article Spears had acknowledged that while
any activists were embracing "diverse tacticsi' new activists
were n0t getting the training in nonviolent action needed for
what she agreed was a useful tool, tactic, and strategy. Unless
we have those "other means" in our activist toolbox, we can't
effectively use them.This discussion might have become deeper and more fruitful if it had been able to continue, but it was

derailed after September 11 of that year.
Plowshares activist Sachio Ko-Yin, who served more than
two years in prison for hammering and pouring blood on a missile silo, asserted his "respect for the Black Bloc participants"
and their "sincere in their desire to end the corporate globalization !" Yet he wrote of their acti0ns, "When several people

"¡

destroy property in a frenzy (and my impression is that some
Black Bloc actions have been frenzied) ... lwould call it rioting.
... But because it is so challenging to a property-conscious
society, our emphasis on nonviolence and non-hatred has to
be so much stronger, ... out of reflection rather than ragei'

Yes-what about the rage, the anger about injustice? There
is a distance between the activists and the injustice we were/
are protesting. This was not a discussion by people who felt
a direct impact. Surprisingly, there was no mention 0f race,
and lwas the only one who raised the need to look at gender
issues, even though the writers were gender diverse. No one
mentioned that people of color are already targets of the police
and therefore may not want to engage in property destruction
or civil disobedience that could subject them to more abuse by
the police and courts.

"f['t[g $FJEG'[-F{[J[vÍ f,h! 203-5
Fast forward to the present day. ln the wake of the police
killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, a new movement
has risen up, led by those most affected, those whose lives
are threatened. African-Americans are organizing local groups
around the country. Studies such as "Operation Ghetto Stormi'
conducted by the l/alcolm X Grassroots Movement, which
shows that a Black man, w0man or child is killed by police
or vigilantes every 28 hours, expose the perpetual war on the
Black population.
As described in the last issue of the MN, Black activists and their allies have organized highway blockades and

occupied shopping centers. Groups including the Blackout
WIN 38

Matter, Asians

they are speaking to both the police and the society, forcing

them to confront the issue.They are doing what Martin Luther
King, Jr. described as the goal of nonviolent direct action in his
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail":They are "dramatiz[ing] the
issue so that it can no longer be ignoredJ'Some identify their
actions as "nonviolent"; others say only "direct actioni' None
have promoted destruction of propefty.
ln "Turn Up: 21st-Century Black Millennials Are Bringing
DirectAction Backi'Malkia A. Cyril wrote in lhe Huffintton Post,
"This amazing display of strategic coordination and tactical
discipline represents a new era of social protest methodology
that seeks cultural as well as political and economic changeJ'
Cyril reminded us that, "The tradition of Black nonviolent direct
action in the Americas isn't new. From enslaved Africans to
Black labor activism, Black communities have long used tactics
of nonviolent confrontation and non-cooperation to resist
extreme repression, expand political imagination and point the
way toward a long-term vision for changeJ'
As #Black Lives Matter proclaims "This is Not a Moment,
but a Movementl' Demands have been formulated, strateg¡es
developed, trainings held. Creative actions are being organized.
Allies are engaging in nonviolent actions around the country.
For example, last December students at more than 70 medical
schools around the country held die-ins to spotlight racial bias
as a public health issue.

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I

What should WRL be doing now? With our history of
revolutionary nonviolence, resources on nonviolent actions

and nonviolence tra¡nings, our international network of nonviolent activists, and campaigns such as Demilitarize Health
& Security, WRL has an impoftant role to play. An organization
consisting of primarily white members, we have developed
resources on being good allies and are fostering a deeper
understanding of gender and racial justice. lt is our obligation
to keep offering our resources through a diverse groups of
activists, organizers, and trainers to a diverse group of activists,
organizers, and trainers.
We should not judge those who, for many reasons, do not
embrace the term "nonviolenti' But we should not shy away
from the use of the word. We must continue our exploration of
the power of nonviolent actions, campaigns and movements.
We must engage in this movement for racialjustice. We are now
witnessing empowering ways of engaging in conflict, resisting
systems of violence and oppression, resisting the destruction
of people without harming the perpetrators. That is what makes
an action nonviolent and has the potential for revolutionary
social change, fÌ

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Prison Abolition and Critical Resistance
An lntenriew with linda Thurston
ou have a lon(, history of working not just for political
V
I prisoners, but for the rights and freedom of prisoners
in (eneral, as well as for prison abolition,What motivated
you to fet involved in this work?
Linda Thurston: ln the very beginning it was extremely personal. My first memory in my entire life is of police showing up
at my front door and taking my father away when I was four. I
remember being very upset that the grownups weren't acting the
way grownups usually act. I was upset that these unidentified,
unknown, laç, loud white men were taking Daddy away, But
I had also been freaked out because Daddy had been hitting
Mommy. I was in this situation where my parents were arguing
and the police dealt with it by dragging Dad away. Everyone was
rfç

in pain, with screaming, yelling, and chaos.
It was instinctively clear to me at this point that something
was desperately wrong. This was not a solution to anyth¡ng. I
think that every single time during my life, when I was working
with prisoners, all these issues came up again, I would remember what it felt like and think about the children. lt wasn't at that
moment that I committed myself to working with prisoners or
even to being an activist. I didn't come from an activist family
in the sense of people having a political analysis, although we
did things in the community and with the local church. But it
framed my thinking about imprisonment and police for the rest
of my life.
When I was in junior high school, I started doing work through
LindaThurston rs the Coordinator of WRlls National)ffice, in
which capacity sheb been the glue holding the office together-and keepint its computers and the website runnin!since 2007. But in the spare time that Herculean task allows
her, she works, as she has done since her high-school years,
aga,nst the prison-industrial complex and for the rifhts of all
prisoners. Since the late'90s, sfie's done most of that work

in the context of CriticalResistance, the grassroots píson
abolition froup, and also with the lroups working in support
of Pennsylvania prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal.This interview is
adapted from Lel Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents
from the Movements to Free U,S, Political Prisoners, edited by
Matt Meyer (PM Press,2008).
wtl{ 40

my church with what was,euphemistically called the Children's
Center in Providence, Rhode lsland, lt was basically a maximum-security prison for kids, with such horrendous and repressive policies that it was later shut down. lt was very interesting
to be the same age as those kids, from the same neighborhood
as those kids, speaking the same language as those kids, and
be acutely aware that there but for the powers that be go I. Even
before I knew how badly the kids were treated and abused, the
entire situation seemed wrong to me.
The next significant moment in my political development
regarding prisons was as a college student, running the Black
theater group as a Harvard undergraduate.The group was called
the Black Community and Student Theater, but given that this
was Harvard, many folks had unfortunately forgotten the community piece of it! I remember sitting in a board meeting when
a letter came in from one of the prisoner organizations asking if
we would please come out and do a play for the prisoners. The
entire group swung their heads in my direction, because I was
already involved in some political activity on campus, They knew
that ld be interested in doing it. We took a play out to the prison,
and I remember being profoundly affected by that experience. I
actually ended up working with the "prisoner self-help groups" at
Walpole prison outside of Boston, helping with issues involving
prisoner mistreatment, use of pepper spray, tear gas, and such.
Coming of age in the late 1970s and 1980s, paying attention
to these issues, it was hard not to notice that at one moment
there were 300,000 prisoners in America, and a moment later
there were 500,000 thousand. iust a few years later, there were
a million prisoners in America and today there are two million
people locked up in America. My lifetime has been the period
of time when the United States has used prisons as its solution

to everything.
You've worked with a number of the key regional and national

organizations in thís field. Would you share some of those
experiences?
LI: When I became the director of the New England Criminal
Justice Program of the Quaker-based American Friends Service
Committee, one of the big issues was a tendency to lock up
any prisoners who spoke out on any issues in solitary confinement-sometimes for years, These were clear cases of political

repression, locking people up, not because they posed any
threats, but because they were willing to fight for their rights,
even as prisoners. Many folks whom I worked with then may not
have landed in prison because of political activities, but they
certainly got politicized once in prison.
Partly because I was in Boston, where there was a very

tvery

strong anti-apartheid movement and a
strong Central
American solidarity movement, I learned about many people
doing time because of refusal to cooperate with federal grand
jury investigations, At the Red Book Store in Cambridge, I remember meeting some people-like Tommy Manning and
Jaan Laaman of the Ohio 7 case-who are still political prisoners to this day. KaziToure, now out of prison and the national

co-chair of the Jericho Amnesty Movement, was around in those
days, along with his brother, Arnie King, who is also still doing
time despite an incredible record of community support and
work. I think there are some regional cultural differences that
have shaped people's political development differently. ln New
York City, for example, most of the political prisoners came directly out of the local Black Panther Party. But in Boston and
later, in Philadelphia, with the case of MOVE and the M0VE 9, I
had a different framework, While I was working for AFSC, I began
to learn more about political prisoners through my own writing
and radio projects.
As an AFSC staff person, I was involved in the 200 Years of
Penitentiary project, recognizing Philadelphia's Walnut Street Jail
as the first prison in the USA.The campaign was a way of doing
prison abolition work in the 1980s, and I got to dress up in my

Sunday best and speak to all the Quaker groups, Methodists,
Presbyterians, and United Church folks. From there, I got to work
with the National lnter-ReligiousTask Force on CriminalJustice,
Those networks, with people like Episcopal Minister S. Michael
Yasutake (founding chair of the Prisoner of Conscience Project)
building bridges between social and political prisoners, helped
create lasting relationships and commitments. Fast forward
some years, to the early 1990s, and I ended up working with
Amnesty lnternational USA on death penalty issues.
I actually had, from the beginning, some very real issues
with Amnesty lnternational. ln part, this was because Amnesty
refused to name Nelson Mandela, or any number of other people, as political prisoners. I didn't understand at that moment

the human rights movement's nuanced differences in definition
regarding political prisoners, prisoners of war, and prisoners of
conscience. Nor did I understand how amazingly egg-headedly
legalistic and academistic the whole human rights framework
could be. But at that particular moment, between 1994 and

WIN issues on prisons
41W[{

I
W¡NTER ror3

1995, executions in the USA had almost doubled in one year, lt seemed

'

vollMt ¡9.

NO

..

rms

throuÁb r.aó.ul¡ôi.r.

The Reviews lssue

14

Radical Lives

noryioi.nêè

more opportunities for all kinds of interaction and discussion,
Not to be naive, but these dialogues between those of us doing
basically similar work are an urgent necessity. We've got to find
greater ways to work together.

important to do that work with those
resources, but it was one of the

most frustrating experiences of my

The key ls to see the connections be-

life, Amnesty is an organization that
grew out of the Cold War mentality.

tween these struggles, and not to pit
them against one another, We've got

They began as a group that issued
bulletins on behalf of prisoners of
conscience, one prisoner from the

lots of work ahead of us.
It also has now gotten way more

complicated because more and
more political prisoners are spending vast, unbelievable amounts of
time in prison, and not getting out.

West and one from the Soviet Union,

trying to embarrass those governments by bombarding them with
letters. While I was there, we did begin trying to get Amnesty to pay at-

tention to the case of Black Panther
death row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal.
But I could not stay at Amnesty for

HOWARD ZINN:A MAN OF HOPE

HUHIA: LoNG DISTANCE REvoLUTIoNARY

job I had at the Center for Constitutional Rights was
Coordinator of the Ella Baker Student Program, which I used
to refer to as my job of training little "baby radical lawyersl'
The

These were young people that we would recruit from various law

schools who thought that they wanted to be "movement" lawyers, Whatever issues they were eventually going to work on, it
was crucial that they get an education in the history and the
current way of looking at the role of prisons in society and the
reality of political prisoners. I remember bringing Attica prison
rebellion survivor and representat¡ve Big Black in, to come and
talk to these law students after weU shown them the film Attica.
It was a strong way of educating and radicalizing people who
could have a direct effect on the lives of prisoners,

What were and are some of the issues involved in building
bridSes between the people who do work around political
prísoners and those who work around the prison industrial
complex or prison abolition?
LI; I think there are people who come out of a political context, who make many assumptions about categories such as
"social prisonersl'Some people who work on political prisoner
cases have, in a general theoretical sense, the idea that prisons
themselves are bad, but also that pr¡sons are where bad folks

ways they can best understand and convey the complexities of

the system on a local and national level, As,we all need t0 step
up and become active when that's needed, we also need to
learn to step back and take leadership from the folks who haven't been in leadership, Some of us older folks need to learn
that in regard to the youth, too,
Another thing that's fairly unique about CR, in my experience, is the way in which the regional organizations reflect the
national program as well as the specific political context in a
given region of the country, we've been weaving a soft of web

You've heen active, srnce the be{inning, in the development
of Critical Resistance, which in some ways tries to present a
new framework about how to do some oÍ this work. And you
continue to hetp bridse the Eap between work around prison
abolition and around political prisoners. Could you describe
the current national scene, around the $ime of the tenth anniversary of CR, and dl'scuss how things have chan{ed, and

between the local networks and the national group.
There's also a great deal of attention in CR given to political

how they've stayed the same?

Political prisoners are dying in prison,

LI; lt may be a new framework and a new concept in this

so the issue becomes more urgent.

current iteration, but the notion of prison abolition is much older than the 1998 founding conference of CR. I actually didn't
get involved in CR until after that initial national conference in

At the same time, as l've said, vastly
increased numbers of people are being sent to prison-also for long pe-

education. Far too often in our movements we don't find out
where people are coming from, lf somebody shows up for a
meeting, we're s0 glad that they're there, we'll just give them
some things to do and tell them wheh and where to go for the

riods of time. ln countries where the
"political
prisone/'
concept of
is recognized as a legal category,
there may still be human rights problems and justice issues, but
the complications and divisions between them tend to be easier
to deal with. lt is agreed that there are political prisoners, and it
is agreed that there are major problems in the prison industrial
complex. Here in the United States, an urgent task is for folks
doing political prisoner support work to recogn¡ze the broader

at the first Critical Resistance gathering who were overjoyed
that people were talking about prison abolition again. We didn't
know that over a thousand people would show up, with energy
to build local and regional chapters. We clearly hit upon a mo-

next meeting. But CR really works to build community. I feel very
connected to the local folks in the organization, even though I
work more with the national, We are in a situation where someone can put a call out and say, "Yo, the sister who was at the
meeting last night-her kid just got arrested. Can any of you get
t0 court?" And people do it. lt reminds me of working with the

ment when people were ready to work on issues involving the

groups in Boston when I was younger: that sense of community,

role of prisons in U,S, life.
One issue that we've been dealing with, and need to contin-

of family, of connectedness. That feeling also comes up when I
get emails from different political prisoner support groups say-

ue to deal with, is the role of people who have been most im-

ing, "So and so on the inside is sick, we've got to jump in here

context of the prison industrial

pacted by the prison industrial complex. Our organizations can't
just be made up of people who want to work on an issue. lt has
to include people who did time, people whose family members

and deal with thisi'

sfoRtEs oF uPRtstNGS, RESTSTANCE,AND HOpE

long.

ì.\

work with the general prison popula-

tion do it purely from a social service
perspective and aren't interested in
working on political prisoner issues.

complex.

One place where we've seen this take place is around the
case of Mumia Abu Jamal. Mumia's case has brought so many
people from different political movements and perspectives together. ln general, though, with all the cases, we need to make

Oakland, but I did attend the conference.There were many folks

r

have done time, These folks must be in the leadership of the
movement and the leadership of the struggle, because in many

Wl+lr

Ot

süiì$ {-if

levels or we're not going to make it. Sometimes our

*

failure is as simple as calling a meeting

iúr$?+

I

at

¡a'o

;,;.':."'jli;i:1ij;r..,. . .
':,,;;.,'

ot

:' .-:i..:..--',,'

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are. lf you stole something, you?e a thief, lf you killed somebody,

.,.

--- "-

_"_g

¡

water at
the table. lf
we're going ts
survive, if we?e
going to succeed,
if we're going to
win, if we're going to

-;'.1j,;,:

t

you're

WIN 42

dinnertime and not having
so much as a pitcher

of

:à""o"¡ä tot^

on rhe

a murderer, And that is what you are, that is who you
are, and that is all you are. I really have a problem with that
idea, maybe coming from my spirituality or maybe just my common-sense political analysis. Nobody is only one thing, and no
one is only as bad as the worst thing they ever did. lf that were
true, we'd all be in big trouble because we're all human, Some
people who won't do work around social prisoners or politicized
social prisoners have this perspective, and many people who do WN promotes WN through the years

I guess l've come full circle after all these years, realizing that
we need the political analysis, we need the political education,
we need the strategizing, we need more bodies, and we need
resources. But we also damned sure better remember that
we're human beings and we need to support one another on all

5'lt

free folks, we've got to
get better at doing the
human piece of building
movement
building
community. O

by

Dralt dodgers, peace

3p
some copsreadWlN!

Why don'tyou?

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43 WIN

,f;

through revolutionary nonviolence

My Favorite lssue:
The (Brand-)New WIN,Summer 2006

women of color: An ¡mportant

part of our development is being
able to communicate and
express ourse/yes. Especi a I ly

By Matt Meyer

for youngwomen, who are

I

taughtto be quiet and not
express ourse/yes or have

4t015

needs WN. Not just this year, not just the very
Émagazine you hold in your hands (or are reading online).

Our overall moment in history, in the adolescence of the 21st

century, needs the politics of revolutionary nonviolence.
That politics is proclaimed on the cover of this unique

publication, often described within its pages, but scarcely elsewhere noted or heeded. Even we may not have the right words
just yet t0 adequately describe what unarmed revolution looks
like. And we are surely-in the footsteps of iconic nonviolence

thinkers Barbara Deming and A.J. Muste-still experimenting
with the practical meaning of our deeply held beliefs. We may
not know the exact best ways to bring these words to you, as
pr¡nt fades to flat screen, and ever-smaller electronic machines
transmit messages to shake our psyche, But we know that we
must be on a better path to build the world anew.
For all these reasons, I pick as my favorite issue the new
MN, Volume 23, Number 3, Summer 2006: a deceptively
humdrum set of numbers to signal the re-birth of its illustrious
predecessor. As someone who had the honor of both writing
for, and being written about in, all four WRL-related publications (WRL News,WlN, the Nl/A and MN again), I heard this
issue, more than any other, shouting out, "We're STILL HERE,

refreshed, renewed!"

act and smart enough to dreaml'
We still need workshops and trainings in nonviolence; we
need grand remembrances of past glories without getting stuck
in a "we tried that back then and it didn't work" mentality,
When Francesca led us to revitalizeThe NonviolentActivist
into a newly re-named MN, she did it with acute awareness
of the need to learn from past efforts while building br¡dges t0
cutting-edge movements of the future. She also understood,
from her own experiences and as a wise younger activist
sensitive to the lessons surrounding her own present moment,
that the issues of race, class, patriarchy, and the gender binary
were vital in examining and resisting war in all its forms, lt
should come as no surprise, then, that the cover article brought
together five inspiring voices, diverse yet united in their commit1r
ment to building new movements in creative
WRL elder and WWll conscientious objector Ralph DiGia
implored us to find new energy: The arny grows all the t¡me.
They {et better equ¡pment, have better wars, and what the
pacifist movement needs ls some inspiration-whats the next
step? We can't always just have demonstrations and petitions
and people bein! arrested.That doesn't seem t0 work. ... We

ways:

need a spark.
WRL New England staffer and longtime nonviolence trainer

With the beauty and brilliance of two doves on the cover
ca rryi n g movement-bu ild ing messages, with the cha lenging

Joanne Sheehan proposed that we make space for a more
rigorous process of self-reflection: Ihe government has learned

and dazling energy of new editor Francesca F¡orentini, the
re-born MN promised to "explore the cracks in this empire
that are bringing us closer to the just world in which we have

much more than the acfivlsts have about the /essons from
the Vietnam War era. ... Analyze. Evaluate. How did ¡t go? What
did we do well? What could we have done better? ... Can we
honestly look at these /essons in an inter-generational way?

I

to live-from free health clinics and collective childcare to
alternative economic systems and alternative energyl'The 21stcentury MN dedicated itself to "harness[ing] the revolutionary
imagination, bringing stories from a movement bold enough to

yet

Matt Meyefs first artÌcle in a WRL-related magazine, published
when he had just turned 79, was "The Coalition Proliferation
Principle," in the December 75, 7987, rssue of the original
WlN. He has slnce published extensively in WRL publications and e/sewhere and currently seryes as War Reslsters'
I ntern ational's Africa Su p port N etwork Coordi nator.
lvrl{ 44

Black Panther and former political prisoner Ashanti Alston
noted the tightrope quality of movement-building across the
generations: l'm not try¡ng to be the leader. But I do want to
participate, because I think that l'm on to sone th¡ngs that

can be helpful. And at the same time, be humble enough to be
able to l¡sten to others and engage in th¡ngs that mi{ht show
me shortcomings in myself or open me up to new learnin!.We
gotta ¡nteract.We can't do this work without taking risks-comfort zones have got to be shaken up a bit.
Sista ll Sista member lje Ude discussed working with young

an opinion.We create
opportu nities for you

n

t

women to experience

their own voice and the
impact that that can
have.

Youth empower-

ment activist Hannah
El-Silimy commented on the disconnect regarding
not only age, but the ways different generations look at the question of pacifism: A lot of people
comintfrom the peace movementfrom older fenerations are
not open to dialo{ue about nonviolence and other methods of
change. /t'siust like,"No, nonviolence is the answer and thafs
all there is to it." ... Part of it rs the messenger. ... There has to
be an understandint of why people wouldn't choose nonviolence, a context to different struSg/es. ... We also need to talk
about violence not just in the context of U.S. forei{n policy, but

to

see violence and racism in our own country.

ln addition to this far-reaching first feature, the new MN
contained shorter commentaries and reviews from a wide
range of peace and justice stalwarts. lndypendent editor and
co-founder Arun Gupta wrote about brewing war prospects
with lran, and Fellowship of Reconciliation leaderVirginia
Baron described her recent visit to that country with an FOR
delegation, Then-arms trade expert Frida Berrigan presented
an action update on AlliantTech, the "merchant of death of
the monthi'The reviews included pieces byWWll conscientious
objector Larry Gara, a founder of the field of peace studies,
on lra Chernus' key new work, American Nonviolence:The
History of an ldea;West Coast New Left activist Max Elbaum
on fetfers from Youn! Activrsts; young Catholic Worker Amanda
Daloisio on Don't Call Me a Saint, a new documentary about
Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day; the lâte, legendary
veterans rights and military organizerTod Ensign on Sif No
Sir/ the just-released film on antiwar veterans and active-duty
members of the armed services; editor extraordinaire Judith
Mahoney Pasternak on a new book by women's suffrage

historian Robert Cooney about that
movement's legacy; and (required disclosure) this writer on a recent biography
of the great U.S. pacifist coalition-builder
Dave Dellinger.
All those pieces spoke in one way or
another to the mission of the new MN, but

perhaps none more explicitly than the look at
the career of Dave Dellinger, who understood
more than most that revolutionary nonviolence
is, in fact, not a contradiction in terms. Rather,
it's a necessary amalgam of cutting-edge concepts, oç as I wrote, a "dialectic: a springboard to
action and thinking outside of the box, as opposed
to a fundamentalflawl'
Under Francesca's leadership, that 2006 issue

of WIN embodied this vital dialectic, as does the War
Resisters League under the leadership of national
program officers Ali lssa and Tara Tabassi. WR[s recent
work has brought us correspondence and campaigns
especially relevant for the challenges of this century. They have
boosted the very unfinished broader project of making the organization and its publications, including (if to a lesser extent)
this favorite issue of mine, more than the extremely segregated
spaces we continue to be. lf we are to finish the job of making war irrelevant, of bringing about a beloved community of
justice, we must imagine a space beyond board rooms and
carefully kept endowments, taking calculated risks based on
broad visions of effective, last¡ng social change.
Perhaps then, MN will rise again. At the very least, perhaps-one campaign at a time-some victories will be won. O

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45Wril

Y
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through revolutÍonary nonviolence

My Favorite Issue: WRHs 90th Anniversary, Fall 2013

turned the anti-civil defense drill witness of a few Catholic
Workers into a full-fledged protest that filled City Hall Park and
finally forced the demise of the civil defense drills. Meyer and
Pasternak nicely summarize that event but neglect to poínt out
WRL

By Rosalie Riegle

¡þonversations

\f

are a crucial component of WRL work,

conversations about specific nonviolent strategies, about
how racism and sexism affect our decisions (sometimes when

we don't realize it), even lively discussions about brewing
beer or whether the anarchists or the socialists will win a WRL
softball game, So it seemed singularly appropriate for the WRL

from 1960 to 1999). I remember his telling me how, in 1960,

backgrounds

and what drew
them to WRL.
I didn't know
for instance,

that it was WRL strategic planning that leä'to real change.
As someone who loved to poke around in old issues of
the first MN, I resonated with the "From the Archives" sidebars

with our grassroots networks. lt's all too easy to get caught
up in our singular successes and fail to carry them on to the
next step, Lakey calls us to remember that "the police are
the enforcers, not the deciders" and to get out of our radical
boxes and "mobilize cross-class coalitionsi'ln its new Urban
Aieas Security lnitiative (UASI), WRL is doing just that building coalitions with populations targeted by militarized police
and addressing the decision-makers who target them by
weaponizing their police and emergency response teams with

that Mandy

in this anniversary issue and with priceless quotations from

anniversary issue that Kimber Heinz, our national organizer in
2013, published the deeply personal conversation she had

grew up in an

had with two long-time WRL leaders (and long-time friends),

that Joanne

Mandy Carter and Joanne Sheehan. (Disclosure:The issue

used to be

MN as well as from Liberation and WRI News. An interesting
sidebar was the flyer for the Women's Pentagon Action on
November 16, 1980.The late poet-activist Grace Paley, one
of the organizers for that action, told me in an oral history

and staff bring all of who they are to
the table, and the anniversary issue both recaps 90 years of
these contributions and points to the promise of the future as

also contained a cogent review by WRL and Veterans for Peace

a Roman

stalwart Ellen Barfield of my 2013 book, CrossinEthe Line.)
Mandy Carter first came to WRL West through nonviolent
civil disobedience as part of Stop the Draft Week back in
1965. She was impressed with the number of gay men on the
staff, the diversity in ages, and the strong w0men with whom

Catholic.

interview: "The guys were so mad at us, $aid we were taking
people awayl'She told them. "0h no! Thère will be more

we live out our mission, not only to nonviolently resist all wars,
but to eliminate the "causes of war, including racism, sexism,

people in WRL than ever before." And there were, this time with
women in leadership and staff positions.

and all forms of human exploitationl' 0

she worked, Among her many contributions was orgnizing

WR[s 50th anniversary gathering in California in 1973.
Joanne Sheehan came to New York a few years later, first
working on defense for the draft board raids, thus meeting WRL

folks who shared the building on Lafayette Street with other antiwar groups. She soon gravitated to WRL and tax day protests,
then became a member of the Executive Committee
(now called the Administrative Coordinating Committee), and
today serves as New England staff, coordinating nonviolent
trainings and a host of other projects.
One thing that struck me in this deeply contextualized
conversation was Mandy saying, "l've got to bring all of who
I am to the tablei' For Mandy and for all of us, part of that
means telling our stories to each other, something I value
immensely as an oral historian and something we need to
spend more time doing whenever WRL folks get together. ln
this interview, Mandy and Joanne do just that, sharing their

Rosa/le Rlef,/e rs a Contributin! Editor of WIN and a/so
serves on WRts National and Fundraisin{ Committees. A
peace activist srnce the Vietnam War, she is the author of
four oralhlstories; Voices from the Catholic Worker, Dorothy
Day: Portraits byThose Who Knew Her, DoingTime for Peace:
Resistance, Family, and Community, and Crossing the Line:
Nonviolent Resisters Speak Out for Peace.

wlil 46

orphanage, or

I

think

bringing who
we are to the

table means
more than
letting people
see all of us,
though, and it's
something I see Joanne Sheehan and Mandy Carter at WRLS
shining through 90th Anniversary conference. Photo by Linda

Until 2004, I lived in the hinterlands of Saginaw, Michigan,
and when I first started noticing WRL, through tax resistance
and the anti-war toys campaign, I didn't realize that women in
New York and San Francisco had to fight to make a feminist
perspective part of WRL practice just as we did in the Saginaw

selves to the work. They don't just put in the hours, they live

the life, So we see Joanne and Mandy working to subvert the
tyranny of structurelessness that so plagued movements in the

Manifesto for Nonviolent Revolutionj' and Lakey wrote a
reasoned reflection on the manifesto for this anniversary

'70s and saving the 1976 Continental Walk for Disarmament
and Social Justice by winning participants to a more participatory process.

issue. ln the manifesto, he defined the five stages neces-

interview

Thurston'

and through the entire issue. WRL volunteers bring their whole

As Matt Meyer and Judith Mahoney Pasternak wrote in
"Ninety Years of Resisting Warj' their historical survey for the anniversary issue, WRLs longevity may be based on its ability to
combine "a principled radical vision with an understanding of
the need for tactically reformist organizing effortsi'What began
in WRL as an emphasis on individual acts of non-compliance
has grown into a vibrant radical community that sees the value
of strategic organizing and grass-roots coalitions.
This sense of bringing our whole selves to the work shines
through the anniversary issue, especially in the photos, some
by David McReynolds who, since 1956, has given his whole self
to WRL (including but not at all limited to 39 years on the staff,

Yes, WRL volunteers

t4Ìo09ô

Valley Peace Watch. Now I'm on the WRL National Committee

and a contributing editor of WIN and I've learned that eliminating racism and sexism are still hugely important to WRlls work
and also that we have to be ever alert so that those tasks
remain central to our practice.
ln 1976, the first MN published Geoç Lakey's'A

this

Pentagon surplus,

sary to bring about a truly nonviolent revolution: consci-

entization, building organization, confrontation, mass
noncooperation, and parallel government. ln assessing
the dream and demise of several mass movements
since the manifesto's publication, including the
Battle of Seattle, Occupy, and the Arab Spring, Lakey
poi nted out the d ifference between pa rtici patory
tactics and participatory strategy, which is "putting
tactics in a sequence that leads to victoryJ' He
then calls for radicals to study the successes of
reformers, who, to him, appear much less self-absorbed
and able to turn tactics into strategies for victory.
ln my work on the National Committee, I need to keep that
in mind as we design and implementWRLs program and work
47W[{

,Í

Closing Guantánamo
by Frida Berrigan

n 2005, I helped to establish Witness A$ainst Torture when

to Guantánamo a few months later, he was subjected to routine
abuse. According to his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, the Chadborn teenager had been,singled out for mistreatment because
he vocally objected to being called "niggeri' Mohamed is not

Cuba with the hope of gaining access to
Guantánamo Bay, the U.S. naval base where more than 700
men, called "enemy combatants" by our government, were then
detained. We were only taking up an invitation that President
George W. Bush made to European Union leaders in response

the only juvenile imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, There were 13
other young men who came to Guantánamo as teenagers. El
Gharaniwas repatriated to Chad in 2009.
Murat Kurnaz was born to a Turkish family in Bremen,
Germany. After September 11, he traveled to learn more about

to allegations of torture and human rights abuses there. "You?e
welcome to go down yourselves ... and tak[e] a look at the

lslam in Pakistan, where he was arrested. He was eventually
sent t0 Guantánamo. As the son of "guest workersj' Kurnaz
does not have German citizenship, even though he was born
there. For a long time, Turkish officials maintained that Kurnaz
was German and therefore not their problem. Even after conceding their responsibility, Ankara did not pressure Washington
to release Kurnaz. His mother begged "for a sign that my son
is alive, that he is being treated justly, that he has not been

Excerpted from lt Runs in the Family: 0n Being Raised by Radicals

and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood

I

(0/R Books,2014)

125 of us flew to

conditionsj' Bush said.
So we did.The naval base authorities denied our requests for
entry and so we fasted and vigiled for five days before returning
home to organize a movement to shut down Guantánamo and
to end torture and indefinite detention.The first "unlawful enemy
combatants" arrived at Guantánamo on January 11,2002.Ihe
American people have since learned the truth-the vast majority
of these men were not the "worst 0f the worsti' as Bush administration officials claimed. They were chicken farmers, illiterate

Seton Hall Law School,
Our walk began in Santiago de Cuba on December 7 and
over five days we walked about 70 miles, camping on the side
of the road at night. Sometimes we walked in silence, meditating on the stories of prisoners in Guantánamo. I walked, thinking about Mohamed and Murat, two teenagers who were inside

endured.

A member of WRIIs National Committee, Frida Berri{an is a
col u mnist for Wagi

n!

Nonviolence (wa{i ntnonviolence.or{) and

a "stay-at-home" mother in New London, Connecticut,where
she /lves with her husband Patrick Sheehan-Gaumer and their
three children She rs the dauthter of Plowshares activists
Liz McAIIÌster and the late Philip Berritan, and the book from
which this is excerpted rs, as the title declares, a memoir of
her childhood as their dauthter and her adult life as an activrst
and a mother.
tv¡N 48

coming home. And so was Mom.
But Faris, Johina, and Michael's father has not come home.
Shaker Aamer is originally from Saudi Arabia, but he has lived
in the United Kingdom since 1996, where he is a legal resident married to a British citizen. Shaker and his family were in
Afghanistan in 2001, doing charity work before he was seized
by Afghan bounty hunters and turned over

t0

U.S. forces. He

recalled his relief at ending up in American hands after being
held and mistreated by various Afghan groups, But that relief
He was brought to Guantánamo in February 2002, Shaker
was tortured repeatedly, singled out as a ringleadet and subjected to gross abuses. Shaker Aamer has been cleared for
release since June 2007 and the Bush and Obama administrations agreed that he is not a terror¡st, that he poses
no threat to the United States or its interests, and yet
he continues to languish at the prison....
When [my father] was in prison, my mom re-

does not hold ordinary Americans responsible for the abuse he

Mohamed el Gharani was 14 when he was anested in an
October2001 raid on a religiousschool in Pakistan,Transferred

mom and dad would come home from jail. lt was not forever. lt
was not endless. Six months, 18 months, two years, even the
longest sentences had a "come-home datei' ... He was always

was short-lived.

U.S.

Guantánamo.

Even before I really understood time, I always knew that my

released Guantánamo captives, he was transported by plane in
shackles, wearing a muule, opaque goggles, and sound-block-

forces, according to a study by Mark Denbeaux, a professor at

allied governments such as Pakistan and handed over to

the fact that they suffer for our "securityl' I do what I can becåuse
I cannot sit idly by while children are keptTrom their fathers.

torturedi' Kurnaz was released on August 24,2006. Like other

ing earmuffs. He was reported to have been denied food and
water during the 17-hour flight. He now lives with his parents
in Germany and has a desk job, which he enjoys. He says he

tribesmen, and well-traveled, well-meaning students: 93 percent
of the men at Guantánamo were captured by bounty hunters or

press, including Arabic-language outlets. A network of lawyers
representing the prisoners brought news of our proximity and
solidarity to the men.They knew we had tried, and are still trying.
There are so many issues, so many injustices, so many transgressions that tug at the heartstrings and the conscience, and
there is only so much time, only so much energy, I am haunted
by the families shattered by indefinite detention. I am undone by

lnside

the huge base, which straddles both sides of

Guantánamo Bay, is Cuba's only McDonald's, state-of-the-art
recreation and sports facilities for American soldiers and their
families, two airstrips, and a desalinization plant, because Cuba
cut off the base's water supply, Also somewhere in the far-flung
slice of stripmall Americana were Camp Delta, Camp Echo,
Camp lguana, and Camp V, where Murat, Mohammed, and 500
other men were imprisoned.
We set up our camp along the Cuba fence, five miles from
the prison, closer than Mohamed's father or Murat's mother
have been to their sons in years.The dust and scrub brush next
to the fence was our home for the next five days as we prayed

with knowing for sure what had happened. I remember how the
relief was quickly replaced by outrage. For his own protection?
He was in no danger. He was in a position to help other inmates
understand and process the horror they were watching on rec
room W screens, to contextualize and explain and educate. So
were Marilyn Buck, Comancho Negron, Sundiata Acoli, and others who were isolated and silenced. Maybe the prison industrial complex sought protection from an informed and motivated
population.
We only had to wait ten days, but we had a U.S. senator and
her office on our side, Ten days, not ten years, not 12 years, not
forever.

When I stay up too late working on a press release, when the

last thing I want to do is brainstorm ideas for the next action,
when I am hungry and delirious on day two of a ten- or I2-day
fast, when I spend the nisht on the hard and grubby floor of a
police holding cell, when the handcuffs are too tight, when the
orange jumpsuit is too unflattering or too hot or too cold or too
stinky from the last person who wore it, when the last thlng I
want to do is go t0 another demonstration to close Guantánamo,
I think about those ten days our family spent working to get my

dad out of the hole, I think about how precious that first letter
after the long silence was, I think about how happy I was to
hear his voice on the phone, I think about how even when he
was incommunicado, he was always coming home. And I want
that for Faris and Johina and all the parents and children of
Guantánamo. 0

ceived a letter from him every day, Their correspondence was so steady that even the smallest blip was
cause for alarm, After September 11, she went days
without hearing from him. After being stonewalled by
the prison officials, Mom appealed to Maryland Sen.
Barbara Mikulski, who eventually found out that Dad
was being held incommunicado in solitary confinement. He was placed there on September 11, right
before lunch. The senato/s office was told that he
was put in the hole for his own protection. He was
released back into general population afterten days.

and fasted.
Our principal aim in going to Guantánamo was to let the pris-

oners know that they were not alone, Despite the reflexive fear
that Americans have toward those held in Guantánamo, coverage of our witness in the U.S. press was positive and extensive.
Our march received widespread attention in the international

Without that outside pressure, that solitary confinement could have been indefinite, ,,.
I remember those days of uncertainty and anxiety as my mom frantically tried to fi$ure out what
happened to Dad. I remember the relief that came

Witness Against Torture demonstration ¡n Washington, DC, January 2008.
Photo by ResistanceMedia.org,/Ted Stei n.
49 WIN

.',

POSTJ

*

How One WIN Moment Changed Three lives:
Anne McVey Upshure's 94 Years of War Resistance
By Chela (Gonnie) Blitt and Dennis

l.

Bernstein

year was 7978. Connie Blitt had come to NewYork
after collete, Iookinf to find others with a passion for social
change. She joined the staff of WIN, where she became immersed in the rssues of the day. Her life chanted forever when
a call came in to the WIN office; Ninety-year-old peace actlvist
Anne McVey Upshure needed a home care companion. Connie
accepted the short-lived position; before it ended, she had
The

become devoted to Anne, whom she saw as a role model.
The next year she asked fellow journalist and her partner
at the time,WBA| producer Dennis J. Bernstein, if he would
join her in a special project. Anne wanted to move back to the
country after six decades in

New York City. Dennis a$reed, and

off they went looking for a place where they could live and supAnne in her final years.They received far more than they
could have imagined: They inherited Anne's legacy.

port

f,

nne McVey Upshure was a lifelong advocate for peace and
Ëljustice, She lived her activism; her values permeated her
personal interactions, as well as her political stands. During
the Vietnam War, the War Resisters League chose to honor
Anne with their annual Peace Award. She respectfully declined,
saying that peace was not the work of an individual, but of

entire communities.

"ln declining, Anne pointed out the elitism of this sort of
gesturej' recalled longtime WRL staff member Kaf Bissinger
years later, "However, she joined us for dinner, we all had a
wonderful time, and Annie is still awardless except in our
heartsl'
When Anne was 91 and could no longer take advantage of

Chela (Connie) Blitt creates short documentary videos and
social media canpai{ns for progressive non-profits. Sfie ls an

advisor to the Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human RlShts.
For a short video by Chela (Connie) about her relationship with
Anne, to to bit.lylAnneMcVey, Dennls J. Bernstein /ives ln San
Francisco and is a poet, journalist, and radio reporter specializing in human rithts and international affairs. He is currently
the host/producer of Flashpoints, a daily news magaz¡ne
syndicated on Pacifica radio.
l'l|til 50

NewYork City's many offárings, we moved with her into a reconstituted farmhouse in Middletown, NewYork, on an old back

road in the middle of hundreds of acres of farmland. Our living
room was filled with art and sculpture from her many years of
living in New York, There Anne welcomed activists and friends of
various generations as they found their way to visit her.
Our home in the country brought back memories for Anne
of her upbringing in Centerview, Missouri, and she began to
tell us vivid stor¡es of her life, Her mother had died giving birth
to her on August 25,1887; Anne was raised by her father, a
homeopath and, as she said, a "Eugene Debs socialisti' ln the
morning before going to their one-room schoolhouse, Anne
and her sisters would brush each othe/s hair until it shone,
while their father read to them from Walt Whitman and Emma
Goldman. (Decades later, Anne's father opposed U,S. participation in World War I and went to jail for his courageous resistance to that very bloody war.) When she was eight years old,
Anne was shocked by the way Native Americans were portrayed
in class. She remembered stamping her feet and saying "How
would you like it if someone came and took your land away?"
Early in the 20th century, Anne went to California and
studied theater at UCLA, then moved to NewYork, where she directed her favorite play, lbsen's Enemy of the People. ln 1926,
at the age of 38, Anne met her soul mate: Luke Theodore
Upshure, a disabled composer and philosopher, and the son
of a former slave from the deep South. Together the interracial
couple set up a loft in Greenwich Village that was alive with
music, poetry, and political discussion. I inherited an archive
of hand-written letters, flyers, and leaflets that opens a window
into their life and concerns through the years.
ln an invitation to a party at their home on May 6, 1934,
Theo wrote, "Please, come rest, meditate, make merry a while
among friends in an atmosphere of tranquility far removed from
the chaotic muddled world with its ghastly hypocrisies and
eternal stupidity. lt is my desire to give you a musical feast with
wholesome music, just a sip of nectar before we are hurled
back to the alcoves of the unknown." Anne had poi$nant and
vivid memories of many gatherings at the loft, including those
that both preceded and protested the state murders of Sacco
and Vanzetti and of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg,

Eventually Anne and Theodore moved to a low-income

cooperate. So they

housing project in Harlem, ln 1965,Anne wrote to Dr. Martin
Luther King about the Selma-to-Montgomery march. "We have
followed the moving events of the past days with full hearts.
,.. We have witnessed the moving of mountains by a people

picked him up, and
canied him down
the hall horizontally
in the air, with an
FBI agent holding

possessed of faith and a burning desire foi rights and justice.

*

,.. But Dr. King how can there be justice without peace in the
world? Vietnam hangs as a dark and threatening cloud over
our rejoicingsj'she lamented, "You Dr. King have been honored
with the Nobel Peace Prize,You have been destined to lead
your (ouQ people out of the wilderness. ... Selma has become
the symbol of the might of a people when united in the right
... how wonderful if our people, in the middle of their triumph,
were to extend themselves beyond their horizons, to include
all suffering people of the world." (Dr. King did publicly op-

flashed their badg_ Anne McVey. Photo courtesy of Chela Blitt.
es and shouted 'FBl, we have a prisoner, clear the elevator,"'
Chuck recalled. "But before anybody could move, Anne, who

pose the Vietnam War three years late¡ shortly before he was

was about 5'1", white haired, and well known to everyone in

assassinated.)

the project and much loved, jumped into the elevator doorway, spread her arms and legs blockingthe doorway, and said

AfterTheo's death in 1969,Anne redoubled her efforts for
peace and justice. She continued to keep her doors open as a
community gathering place-and to speak truth to power. Over

each arm and leg.
When the elevator
door opened, the
elevator was full of
people.
"The FBI men

'Darlings stay where you are, do you know what they are doing?
They have come to take him away because he won't kill people.

the time we lived with her, we heard many tales of her political
resistance and personal testimonies of her compassion from

Save those beautiful babies in Vietnam, stop this bloody wa¡

the waves of people she had moved over the years.

Chuck ended the story with, "l am hanging in mid-air, and
thinking if you have to be sent away this is the way to do it!"

"l knewAnne when she lived in the Grant Projects
Harlem

in

j' Rose Lilly told us. "[When I was 18], my father was

beating me with belts. Anne knew of my home life situation,
so she gave me the key to stay with her whenever I needed to.
When I was thrown out of my home, I don't know where I would
have gone if it wasn't for Annei'
Anne's home in Harlem was a way station for draft resisters during the Vietnam War. Years later, while visiting Anne in
Middletown, Chuck Matthei, founder of Equity Trust, a local
community economic development organization, told us he had
been staying with Anne in Harlem when the FBI came to arrest
him for his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War.
According to Anne's FBI file (which we obtained through the
Freedom of lnformation Act), "Mrs. Upshure began crying and
weeping and quoting poems by Walt Whitman and praising the
subject [Chuck Matthei] as a man of peace and verbally abusing the agents. She expressed her dislike for the FBl, terming it
an evil oçnization. She voluntarily stated that she is 81 years
of age, had been a socialist all her life, and that her father was
arrested during World War I for anti-war [sic] activityJ'
Chuck remembered it this way. When they came to arrest him, in an act of nonviolent resistance, he refused to

resist the draft, don't pay war taxes, and stay in the elevator!"'

As she was slowing down in her 93rd year, Anne was

determined to make a public stand for peace. "Wild horses
couldn't hold me back!" she said, when she heard about plans
for women to encircle the Pentagon and disrupt the business of
making war.
So late one cold November night in 1980, after much
preparation, Dennis helped Anne into the car, then she and
Connie headed off to Washington. There they joined the historic
Women's Pentagon Action, where 2000 women encircled the .
Pentagon and (as WRL described it years later) "put grave-

stones in the lawn, wove yarn across the entrances to symbolically reweave the web of life, and created rituals of mourning
and defiance by chanting, yelling, and banging on cansl' ln an
extraordinarily beautiful moment captured in a film by WRlls
Kate Donnelly, there is Anne at 93, steadily beating her drum,
first softly, then louder and loude¡ as younger women around
her whoop with joy and solidarity.
Anne's conviction that there really is power in the people
never wavered; memories of her inspire the two of us and
countless others to this day. O
51WtN

,rdfr\

GD1 05703

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Thaß all folks!