Report, Analysis, Blog & Vid (2 mins) CHICAGO - 125+ Catholic Workers converge in anti-NATO Chicago. Arrests in occupation of U.S. Prez Obama's campaign offices.

by Chicago Tribune Tue May 15, 2012 22:12

By Andy Grimm and Cynthia Dizikes Tribune reporters

4:59 p.m. CDT, May 14, 2012
Dozens of demonstrators dashed into the Loop building housing President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters this morning, slipping past security guards and running up escalators as they kicked off what they called a "Week Without Capitalism."

Eight protesters were led out in handcuffs about half an hour later after they refused to clear the lobby. They were cheered by other demonstrators who began dancing and singing folk and gospel songs.
ARTICLE CONTINUED....
http://tinyurl.com/buerv23

by Updates Tue May 15, 2012 22:17

1) Court Support of Arrested Catholic Workers: TODAY!
2) Report back on Catholic Worker Resistance Retreat
3) Media Coverage of Catholic Worker Direct Action Against NATO
4) Join the Catholic Worker Affinity Group for upcoming NATO protests
5) Appeal for Support

TODAY: COURT SUPPORT FOR NATO PROTESTERS

Five Catholic Workers will appear in misdemeanor court at 2:30pm this afternoon at 2452 West Belmont, Chicago, IL 60618. There will be a vigil and press conference held at 2:00pm for the NATO protesters who were charged with trespassing at the Obama Campaign Headquarters in the Prudential Building yesterday. Come out and support us!

Report Back

We've had an incredible weekend here at the convent at 1447 W. Superior! After welcoming about 100 Catholic Workers from around the nation, we dove into NATO analysis with Kathy Kelly on Saturday morning and a spokescouncil to clarify our understanding of integrative resistance in the afternoon. Ken Butigan of Pace e Bene joined us in the evening following a rousing (and hilarious!) liturgy presided over by St. Louis' Carl Kabat.

But we never could have anticipated the strikingly beautiful action that unfolded this morning in front of Obama's campaign headquarters. Hoping to set the stage for peaceful dissent against the systems of violence and oppression being represented in Chicago this week, we decided to host a celebration of performing the works of mercy outside of Prudential Plaza. Dancing and singing filled the sidewalk, along with invitations to break bread together, until we gathered for a moment of silence and made our way into the building (from Jerica Arents).

"Come to the table of community instead of the table of war."

That was the message that 125 Catholic Workers brought to Obama's campaign headquarters in Chicago, IL this morning. The demonstrators came to invite President Obama and NATO leaders to break bread and discuss ending the occupation of Afghanistan. After singing, dancing, and sharing breakfast with passers-by on the sidewalk, demonstrators entered the atrium to read their statement and continue to sing and dance. A smaller group continued upstairs in an attempt to reach the Obama campaign office with their invitation, but could not get farther than the second floor, as the building's elevators had been shut off as soon as the group entered the building. After approximately 15 minutes police officers instructed demonstrators to leave, and arrested eight who instead attempted again to go upstairs (from Robyn Haas as she wrote in NCR).

This morning's gathering was the final event of the 2012 Midwest Catholic Worker Faith & Resistance Retreat, a weekend of discussion, reflection, prayer, and action that drew activists from as far away as Massachusetts and California.

Media Coverage of Direct Action:

From Plato to NATO (updated blog on NATO protests): http://fromplatotonato.blogspot.com

Waging Nonviolence: http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/05/catholic-workers-j...17160

Reuters: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFBRE84D14A20...20514

MSNBC: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/14/11699629-c...er-gr...

Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/14-7
Chicago Sun-Times:http://posttrib.suntimes.com/news/12523397-418/8-protes....html

Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/natosummit/chi...march...

ABC News Channel 7 in Chicago: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=...60930
CBS Chicago: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/05/14/police-arrrest-p...ding/

Join the Catholic Workers at the NATO protests
CW Affinity Group for Sunday, May 20th Rally Downtown and other actions

Join us for this historic event!!! Will you join us in a nonviolent protest to injustice, war-making, and ecological destruction?! We are organizing a group to go downtown for the CANG8 Rally on May 20th to protest the NATO Summits in Chicago. We will meet at Holy Innocent's Convent (1447 W Superior) at 9am for a breakfast and some last minute coordinating and then head downtown. Please join us at the convent if you would like to be apart of our affinity group. All ages welcome to join us!

The Rally starts at Jackson and Columbus at Noon and the march kicks off at 2pm.

You can contact Marie for more information at [email protected] or 901.201.1151. Let us know if you have questions or want to get involved! Please help spread the word! There is housing available.

Appeal for Support

While we are doing the best we can to stretch our limited resources by living simply, re-using things, and begging for donations such as food, we have incurred some significant financial costs in preparing the resistance retreat as well as our NATO protests. Please consider making a donation, if you are able, by sending them to the White Rose Catholic Worker. Checks can be made out to the "White Rose Catholic Worker" and mailed to 2127 W. Devon, Chicago, IL 60659. [Phone: 773.856.0315]

Online donations can be made and contact Jerica Arents for more information.

by Vetserans for Peace (USA) Wed May 16, 2012 08:39

Veterans for Peace works for the abolition of war, and while that process will take many steps, one that should be taken immediately is the dissolution of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

NATO has always been a war-making institution lacking in accountability to the peoples of the nations it claims to represent. But NATO at least once claimed a defensive purpose that it neither claims nor represents any longer.

NATO has militarized the nations of Europe against the will of their people, now maintains hundreds of nuclear weapons in non-nuclear European nations in blatant violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and is threatening Russia with missile base construction on its borders.

Having fought aggressive wars in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, NATO remains in Afghanistan, illegally, immorally, and to no coherent purpose. The people of the United States, other NATO nations, and Afghanistan itself, overwhelmingly favor an end to NATO's presence, while Presidents Obama and Karzai, against the will of their people, work to commit U.S. forces to at least 12.5 more years in Afghanistan.
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http://tinyurl.com/c8dwl3t

by Banks foreclosure evictions Thu May 17, 2012 07:44

CHICAGO (Reuters) - About 150 protesters in Chicago marched to banks and government offices on Wednesday to demand a one-year moratorium on local home evictions and foreclosures, the latest in a series of demonstrations leading up to next week's NATO summit.

The protesters performed a piece of street theater at Daley Plaza featuring a bank trying to evict a family from their home, and neighbors stepping in to stop it.

More than two dozen Chicago police officers were on hand but no arrests were made. The demonstration included members of "Occupy Chicago" and Communities United Against Foreclosure and Eviction, a Chicago group.
ARTICLE CONTINUED.....
http://tinyurl.com/c2svdwx

by from Amy Goodman Fri May 18, 2012 03:22

Veterans of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are now challenging the occupation of Chicago.

This week, NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is holding the largest meeting in its 63-year history there. Protests and rallies will confront the two-day summit, facing off against a massive armed police and military presence. The NATO gathering has been designated a "National Special Security Event" by the Department of Homeland Security, empowering the U.S. Secret Service to control much of central Chicago, and to employ unprecedented authority to suppress the public's First Amendment right to dissent.

ARTICLE CONTINUED........
http://tinyurl.com/6qgnyzs

by lefty Fri May 18, 2012 04:01

Kudos and best wishes on your actions against NATO in Chicago, catholic workers and veterans. Give 'em Hell! ;-)

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun May 20, 2012 12:45

..from the summit

http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/19027-chicago.html

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun May 20, 2012 13:46

..this morning.

A US grunt dies every 36 hours...and a US vet commits suicide every 18 minutes.

by Nuclear Resister Mon May 21, 2012 07:59

From the White Rose Catholic Worker – May 15

Report Back

We’ve had an incredible weekend here at the convent at 1447 W. Superior! After welcoming about 100 Catholic Workers from around the nation, we dove into NATO analysis with Kathy Kelly on Saturday morning and a spokescouncil to clarify our understanding of integrative resistance in the afternoon. Ken Butigan of Pace e Bene joined us in the evening following a rousing (and hilarious!) liturgy presided over by St. Louis’ Carl Kabat.

But we never could have anticipated the strikingly beautiful action that unfolded this morning in front of Obama’s campaign headquarters. Hoping to set the stage for peaceful dissent against the systems of violence and oppression being represented in Chicago this week, we decided to host a celebration of performing the works of mercy outside of Prudential Plaza. Dancing and singing filled the sidewalk, along with invitations to break bread together, until we gathered for a moment of silence and made our way into the building (from Jerica Arents).

REPORT CONTINUED (scroll down the page after Chicago Tribune report)
http://tinyurl.com/6mbnpuy

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon May 21, 2012 11:04

..or your commitment and well-intentioned actions.

But i do have a problem with your religious self-promotion and cultish behaviour...it has too many echoes of leftist and religious 'we are the elite cadre of chosen avant garde'...for comfort..

The word 'catholic' means universal, therefore all inclusive...but your rituals seem to contradict the label, being redolent of the Roman sectarian cult many of us were negatively inducted into before we developed the psychological independence to extricate ourselves to adulthood.

No offence, but any time any of us raise these points we seem to get anonymous hate bombings, and a dead silence from the self-indentified 'catholic' posters.

Am I wrong to suspect an agenda more self-serving than objectively dispassionate?It smacks of group propagandising, a technique developed and refined by the vatican over centuries and incorporated under its Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Its the same cloak of benevolence the dagger of european imperialism has used to vortex the wealth of the world into its warlord royal coffers cumulating in the Nato war machine you now purport to protest.

Many of us have experiences which alienate us from such sub-surface agendas.

Can these points be rationally responded to?

by fred Mon May 21, 2012 12:11

Hey Opus, we can count angels on the head of a pin after all the nukes are disarmed!! Alas, that won't be for a while yet. It seems the almighty is leaving that one up to us to sort out.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon May 21, 2012 12:25

..'the almighty' works off a policy of almighty is alrighty...its the almighty 'muscular christian' Right that cloaks NATO's daggers, drones and Dynacorporate war machines...here's a few of the 'players'.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?contex=va&aid=30891

and the methodism of propagation of their faith