Nonviolence

No To War in Artsakh! Solidarity with antiwar Armenians and Azeris! Զոորակցություն Հայերի Հետ

No to War in Artsakh!

At least 150 people have been killed so far from the fighting between Turkey-backed Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh (also known as Artsakh and Karabagh) which began last week on September 27th when Azeri forces shelled the area. This conflict, with roots in Russian-drawn borders, Soviet-era imperialism and propped up by the modern day global arms sales, must not be allowed to claim more lives. Below, we are amplifying statements from Armenian and Azeri antiwar activists in the region and in the diaspora with a call to action if you are in the United States:

We're blockading the entrance to a tear gas manufacturer right now

Right now, 5 activists are blockading the entrance of Combined Systems Inc. with giant tear gas cans and gas masks, refusing to move.

These five are with a group of 40 activists from cities across the U.S. who are onsite in Jamestown, PA with the goal of shutting down operations at Combined Systems Inc. for the day. Outside the facility, other activists have staked over a hundred yard signs, each with the name of a different city where tear gas has been used against people.

By shutting down this facility today, we are here to put CSI President Jacob Kravel on notice that his company’s production of tear gas must come to an end. We hope whatever he chooses to produce in this factory can be useful rather than harmful.

A Revolutionary Nonviolent Perspective on US Uprisings

What we are seeing on the streets are not “peaceful” but rather nonviolent protests seeking to confront and disrupt the violence of U.S. police.

We are activists, we are practitioners of revolutionary nonviolence, and we are outraged. Outraged at the 400-year long history of violence against Black people in this country; outraged at the racist and murderous system that founded police, who kill Black people with impunity; outraged at the state-sanctioned brutality meeting Black Lives Matter protesters in the streets. We are outraged by the deployment of an old narrative that uses a false ideal of “peaceful protest” to justify the use of excessive force against protesters in the name of “restoring peace.” Read on...

Militarized Response Tracker #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd

We’re heartbroken and outraged and like so many of you, refuse to allow the systematic killing of Black people in the United States to continue without a fight for justice. There is a lot to be outraged about: from how the politics of COVID-19 pandemic put the lives of Black and indigenous folks at risk, to how calls for release of prisoners still haven’t been met, to the fact that police brutality has taken the lives of Ahmaud Arbury, Dreasjon Reed, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Taylor McDade, and far too many others. 

What We’re Tracking: Militarized Responses to #Justice4GeorgeFloyd

When we talk about police militarization, there is still belief in the notion that if police weren’t militarized, then we wouldn’t have a problem - even within the antimilitarist community. That's not true. We need to push back on this idea and the myth of “a few bad apples in the police force.” The truth is: “regular policing” has always and continues to harass, detain, brutalize, and terrorize Black people. It’s why there are virtually never repercussions for police officers who commit murder. And the militarization of domestic policing isn’t entirely new either - in fact, the history goes back decades.

Beyond Border Patrol

WRL has long challenged military and police recruitment. Our newest counter-recruitment resource, Beyond Border Patrol, takes on the lies of Border Patrol recruiters - particularly in the borderlands - and debunks them with the realities of the job and the agency's legacy of abuse. Like military and police recruiters, Border Patrol recruiters target poor people and young people of color in border communities, and promote careers in law enforcement as a stable way of life and a means to "protect" your community.

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WRL at 95: Redefining our Base, Building our Power

“We’re acknowledging the many ways militarization shows up in our lives and neighborhoods.”
by Eleanor J. Bader | October 24, 2018

What kind of world are we trying to build and whose leadership should we look to in these times? Read how WRL's been internally shifting after 95 years of antiwar movement building, and the directions we need to take into the future to create the world we need:

A Death in the Family: David McReynolds, Pacifist, Socialist, Ailurophile

 David McReynolds under arrest at "Shadows and Ashes" Direct Action for Nuclear Disarmament, New York City, April 28, 2015. Photo by Felton Davis

By Judith Mahoney Pasternak

A great force for a peaceful world left the planet when WRL's—and the nation's—David McReynolds, who for decades was the best-known voice of American radical pacifism, died August 17 of injuries from a fall in his East Village home. He was 88 and had spent almost 40 years on the staff of the War Resisters League as a self-described “movement bureaucrat.”

Resist Militarism: Lessons from Mexico & Cross Border Solidarity

The People's Human Rights Observatory is an initiative of grassroots and popular organizations in Latin America, the Caribbean and Palestine that seeks to monitor, document, disseminate, promote and demand the protection of Latin American communities Human Rights, Democracy and Social Justice from a perspective of constructing and deepening of resistance, rebellion, memory and popular power.

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