The Disobedience School: Class of 2012

The Disobedience School: Class of 2012 hosted this past Saturday on the 28th was a big success.

The event took place at UNITE HERE Local 26 on Harrison Ave. near the Chinatown T stop and it brought together about 40 people from different organizations including Jobs with Justice, MassUniting, and several others. The event proved to be a very informative and helpful gathering of passionate individuals who share similar goals but who possess different strengths that would be essential in attaining those goals and making dreams a reality. The program was divided into 11 different segments running from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm. It started off with the Welcome segment followed by two fellow social justice workers sharing their stories on why they have gotten involved with the social justice movement regarding worker’s rights and immigrant rights. Then Russ Davis, the director of Jobs with Justice, gave a quick speech to reinforce our goals in the fight to end corporate greed. Afterwards, everybody was separated into different workshops such as Campaign Creation, Civil Disobedience, Direct Action Planning, Media & Messaging, 1-on-1 Organizing, and Organizing Models.

The workshops I attended included Civil Disobedience and Media & Messaging. Civil Disobedience run by lawyers from the National Lawyers’ Guild, Carl and Chris Williams, helped me to understand civil disobedience as the pushing of the limits of the law in a peaceful manner to attain that which could not otherwise be obtained without resistance from the common people.

Carl and Chris Williams instructed us on the way to bring about a peaceful demonstration and the importance of the tactic of escalation, and bringing matters to a level of crisis where changes can be made. They also informed us of what happens when demonstrators are arrested, the extent of the authority of the police, and the legal proceedings that can be expected. The second workshop Media & Messaging was very helpful in defining how a message can be appropriately spread and effectively conveyed using media. Five approaches that were addressed included determining the goal of the message or action before implementing it, choosing methods of communication in advance whether it be at home or in the streets, making your case to effectively show people why they should care, and finally following up and informing people of other upcoming and related events. This segment was followed by a third workshop which could be chosen from the following list: the economic crisis, immigrants rights, global justice, or labor solidarity. The one I attended dealt with the economic crisis, and it proved to be a good refresher course in the financial crisis that affected our economy and how its occurrence could even be traced back to the deregulation of the financial sector that was enabled during the Carter administration. Towards the end of the segment, we were asked how we ourselves could fight corporate greed in the city of Boston. One suggestion made was an Occupy T movement, where people would protest the unreliability and ineffectiveness of the MBTA.

The Disobedience School: Class of 2012 ended with a small graduation ceremony where all who attended the workshops and were able to understand the effect of corporate greed and the importance of actively fighting against it were granted a certificate of accomplishment. Then with what the participants had learned during the day and the fire that was fueled in them to combat the greedy corporations, all who attended were called to action against Verizon. So they marched down to the downtown Verizon store to spread the word about the corporation’s greedy, union-busting ways. This proved to be a perfect ending to an informative and empowering day of learning about the evils of these corporations that choose to oppress the common man, and the capability that the common man has in preventing his own subjugation under greedy corporate hands.