Phil Berrigan would be 86 today. He disliked celebrations of his birthday. To give him a birthday gift meant using his birthday as the excuse to get something the community might need. But he’d so welcome the gift of this witness against weapons and war and the instruments of mass murder that you enact today.
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Joy First writes, “I have always written a narrative about my experiences in civil resistance, but I am finding myself wanting to avoid writing about this past action. Friday morning I found out that Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize and it sickens me. Not only does he continue the illegal and immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I personally felt the expression of violence from his administration as I and 23 others were forcefully removed from the White House sidewalk where we were exercising our First Amendment rights on Oct. 5.”

Twenty-three non-violent peace activists calling for an end to the US war in Afghanistan were violently pushed and dragged away from a White House gate by Secret Service officers this afternoon. The activists, participating in a larger demonstration of over 300 people organized by the National Campaign for Non-Violent Resistance, had sent a letter to President Obama last month requesting a meeting today to discuss their opposition to the war.

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
It was a scene repeated countless times during the Bush years:
A few hundred people massed on Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House, wearing orange jumpsuits and hoods, holding photos of wounded children or carrying coffins. They chanted antiwar slogans, acted out waterboarding and pretended to die on the sidewalk. Those
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About 370 antiwar demonstrators were arrested yesterday after planting themselves on the sidewalk in front of the White House, a protest that stretched out for nearly five hours as police removed them in stages to avoid a backlog at a processing center.

The demonstrators, who had stayed in Washington after Saturday’s antiwar rally and march past the White House, were carted away in Metro buses and police vans. Fingerprinting and booking continued late into the evening at a U.S. Park Police operations facility in Anacostia.

When We Speak Truth to Power, Does Anyone Listen?
by Max Blumenthal
In late June Holder asked an aide for a copy of the CIA inspector general’s thick classified report on interrogation abuses. He cleared his schedule and, over two days, holed up alone in his Justice Depart ment office, immersed himself in what Dick Cheney once
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by Ed Kinane
At around 12:30 p.m. Monday, October 5, 2009, about 22 of us (members of the combined Peace Action and the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance affinity groups) left the main demonstration on the “postcard zone” sidewalk on Pennsylvania Ave in front of the White House and walked west to the nearby entrances of
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“A good nonviolent action is like a great work of art.”
Gene Stoltzfus

Roles — Not every action requires all of the following roles to be filled, and sometimes a person can fill more than one role (although you should be wary of overloading an individual with too many responsibilities). The checklist below guarantees that you
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Dear Senator Kerry,

I am unsure whether you remember me when I visited you during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on May 21st of this year. Admiral Mike Mullen was testifying about the current status of our government’s entanglement in Afghanistan.

Last Friday I was found guilty of Disruption of Congress. A nonviolent and victimless crime committed in order to prevent a much greater crime perpetrated every single day in Afghanistan.

I was pleading for you and your colleagues on the committee to realize the futility of this 8-year-old war, which was based on revenge and has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and a thousand honorable American men and women. I believe this war is immoral and unlawful and serves absolutely no interest of the American people. Polls now show a majority of Americans agree with me.

DOJ Accountability Action Report
by Joy First
On May 11 the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) (www.iraqpledge.org) mailed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking
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