Tag Archives: non-violence

A former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warns of the President’s use of the military, saying, “I am deeply worried that as they execute their orders, the members of our military will be co-opted for political purposes.”

By Mark | June 2, 2020

[above: Military police block peaceful civil rights protesters from approaching the Lincoln Memorial on the day that Donald “don’t be too nice” Trump declares that his administration “has done more for the black community than any president since Abraham Lincoln.”] There are a lot of different ways that I could take things this evening, but […]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged Abraham Lincoln, armed forces, authoritarian, authoritarianism, Ben Sasse, Bible, black lives matter, Constitution, constitutional crisis, DC, Donald Trump, future crime, George Floyd, George W. Bush, Insurrection Act, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Kasie Hunt, Lafayette Square, Lincoln Memorial, Lisa Murkowski, mark Esper, Mike Mullen, military, military police, Minority Report, Mitch McConnell, National Guard, police state, police violence, political ads, protests, racism, rubber bullets, St. John's Church, tear gar, thought crime, violence, Will Hurd | 75 Comments

Looking at what happened in Portland, and the President’s response, I’m afraid that things are going to get a whole lot worse

By Mark | August 18, 2019

Yesterday, several white nationalist groups descended on Portland, Oregon. The idea, it would seem, was for these heroic specimens of Arian perfection to bait the anti-fascist counter-protestors who had gathered in response into some kind of violent confrontation, in hopes that right-wing “journalists” like Andy Ngo might be able to get a few photos of […]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged Andy Ngo, anti-fascist, ANTIFA, cereal, chauvinism, Civil War, Donald Trump, El Paso, fascism, fear, grievance, higher self, Hyborian Warlord, incels, Jeffrey Epstein, Joe Briggs, MAGA, Nazi, Oregon, Portland, Proud Boys, racism, recession, sexism, Ted Wheeler, terrorism, white nationalism, Wisconsin | 330 Comments

If you’re going to be compared to a terrorist, it might as well be a brilliant one

By Mark | September 30, 2013

On Sunday afternoon, I was standing in the rain in Ann Arbor, by myself, with a half-eaten cupcake in my hand, when a friend approached me, and greeted me with a question that I’d never been asked before. “How’d you like being compared to the Unabomber?” Having no idea what in the hell he was […]

Posted in Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Also tagged A2GastroBoy, activism, Alan Haber, Barenaked Ladies, Boots Riley, cupcake, Derrick Jensen, doppelgänger, injuries that Mark has suffered, isolation, James V. McConnell, Jeffrey Dahmer, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., meet a blogger, Miss Piggy, MLK, Omari Rush, people Mark looks like, people who look kind of like Mark, SDS, Steve Page, technology, Ted Kaczynski, terrorism, the human condition, threat of violence, Unabomber, University of Michigan, violence, violence vs non-violence | 15 Comments

Alan Haber on the origins of SDS, similarities to the Occupy movement, Ann Arbor at the height of McCarthyism, and why he never built that second bomb

By Mark | May 14, 2012

I spent yesterday morning with my friend Jeff, at the home of Alan Haber, the first president of Students for Democratic Society (SDS). We talked about Ann Arbor at the height of McCarthyism, the circumstances which gave rise to SDS, the drafting of the Port Huron Statement 50 years ago, and the opportunity that may […]

Posted in Ann Arbor, Civil Liberties, History | Also tagged 1959, Abbie Hoffman, Alan Haber, Angel Hall, armed self-defense, Arnold Kaufman, black bloc, blowing things up, bombs, Chandler Davis, Clement Markert, Derrick Jensen, FDR, Flint Sit-Down Strike, German American Bund, getting fired, House Unamerican Activities Committee, humor, Inter-Cooperative Council, Jeff Clark, League for Industrial Democracy, League of Industrial Democracy, loyalty oaths, Mark Nickerson, MLK, mooning, Nazi, Occupy, Occupy Wall Street, participatory democracy, Paul Robeson, PIC, pipe bombs, Political Issues Club, Port Huron Statement, racism, revolution without executions, satire, SDS, SLID, SNCC, social security, Social Security Act, soul power, Splinter Group, Stephen Tonsor, street theater, student activism, Student League for Industrial Democracy, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, tudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, violence vs non-violence, Weather Underground, welfare, woodworking, yippies | 26 Comments

UC Davis Chancellor escorted from her office as hundreds of students line her path, staring in deafening silence

By Mark | November 20, 2011

By now, you’ve probably seen the the footage of the UC Davis students being pepper sprayed. It’s disgusting stuff. The students are sitting down in a line, across a sidewalk, protesting recent tuition hires, and, ironically enough, episodes of police brutality elsewhere in the University of California system. They are peaceful. No one is yelling. […]