Civil Disobedience

The Elian Gonzalez story continues to unfold like an opera: the daring escape, his mother's heroic struggle to fasten him to an inner tube before she drowned, his grandmothers' staged visit and the Catholic nun's astonishing change of mind about his return to communist Cuba. This week, the last act may play in Miami as a showdown between Attorney General Janet Reno, who issued an ultimatum, and the voices of opposition. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas appear reluctant to cooperate with the feds and pleaded with Reno to suspend her campaign.

Antiwar activists lit candles in dozens of cities yesterday, created major disruptions in San Francisco, blocked a bridge in Washington, and tried a new tactic by e-mailing their support to U.S. troops heading into battle. During the first full day of the invasion of Iraq, peace groups had mixed success in grabbing public attention to protest a war they couldn't prevent. Debate within their ranks centered on how to disrupt normal activity without creating resentment. "There is a fine line, and we're not looking to create a backlash," said Joe Flood, 21, a Harvard University student, as he marched across a bridge into downtown Boston.

In his commentary "Thou shalt not be meddlesome" (Aug. 19) Steven Lubet condemns Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore for refusing to obey a judge's order to remove a display of the Ten Commandments from the State Judicial Building. He also condemns the U.S. House for voting to prohibit the Justice Department from using federal funds to implement the order to remove the display. Lubet compared Moore's stand to Alabama Gov. George Wallace's stand at the entrance of the University of Alabama in 1963 in his futile gesture to prevent the university from being racially integrated.

During the last two decades of the 20th century, the world watched with amazement as one popular nonviolent uprising after another helped topple the old-guard leadership in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, South Africa, the Philippines, and most recently in Serbia against Europe's last despot. Most of these events were entirely unpredicted by the sagest of observers, who believed that such action could never be successful against entrenched and antidemocratic regimes.

In what organizers called "a turning point for the pro-choice movement," a half-dozen chanting demonstrators were carted off by police yesterday after several dozen stormed across Fifth Avenue and raised a five-point "proclamation" at the door of St. Patrick's Cathedral. "This is a real turning point," said Merle Hoffman, founder of the New York Pro-Choice Coalition. "It's the first time we've ever employed civil disobedience as a tool in our struggle to maintain women's rights.

The Indiana judge, with the brio of an abstract artist, and similar results, improvised. "I didn't want to send them to jail," he said of the criminals whose crimes were two misdemeanors, obstructing pedestrian traffic and trespassing during protests at two abortion clinics. "But I did want them to do something that would make them uncomfortable, make them think about what they're doing. " To fine-tune their thoughts, this judge sentenced them to sit quietly in an abortion clinic for eight hours.

Granted, it takes a lot of commitment to sit down in the middle of an expressway on-ramp for a cause; a lot of courage to stay put once you have the full attention of even the most well-behaved police department, and a lot of character to keep cool as you're singled out and carted off to an unknown fate. But translating those actions into societal change takes a vision. Achieving a vision takes planning, training and discipline. It takes an awareness of the possibly dire consequences of your actions, and a willingness to accept those consequences.

If U.S.-led forces attack Iraq, antiwar activists in Philadelphia and around the country plan to blockade federal buildings and disrupt major business districts with large protests and nonviolent civil disobedience. Many organizers have kept their intentions under wraps, so that police and officials at targeted sites, including large corporations and U.S. military bases, will be caught off guard. But drafts of some plans have appeared on Web sites, and training sessions on topics such as "nonviolent blockades" are under way. In Philadelphia, more than 1,200 people have signed a pledge to protest at the Federal Building two days after the war begins, said Robert M. Smith of Brandywine Peace Community.

Members of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity vowed yesterday to keep up the pressure on the city and state with acts of civil disobedience - as a way of having their say in the future of the city's public schools. About 25 clergy - including the group's president, the Rev. Vernal E. Simms Sr. - protested the state's planned takeover of the school system Friday by blocking Broad and Vine Streets and the entrance and exits to the Vine Street Expressway. Yesterday, as the group contemplated other demonstrations, Mr. Simms gave thanks that he was in church addressing his congregation - and not in jail.

I've been among the sleepy crowds defending Philadelphia abortion clinics, and I'll keep going back until Operation Rescue is chased out of town. I believe Operation Rescue is a dangerous new right-wing organizing gimmick, exploiting human emotions to make money and gain political power - cynically trying to turn fertilized eggs and fetuses into piteous (and profitable) little MIA-POWs of the womb. But some well-intentioned proponents of abortion rights want to do more - they want to use the law to stop Operation Rescue and if they succeed, they will come dangerously close to making civil disobedience impossible in America.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - Opponents of a massive Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline converged on a snowy Nebraska town Thursday for a critical hearing on the project, but they already were preparing for acts of civil disobedience should President Obama approve it. Despite a storm that brought sleet and snow to Nebraska, the U.S. State Department hearing in Grand Island drew more than 1,000 supporters and opponents from around the state, as well as outside activists...

I KNOW that people are always searching for truth and often try to find it in a trendy, cool, new religion. The central tenet of this hot new religion in Pennsylvania appears to be that the PSSA and other standardized tests are the Devil's work. Does this bold new claim come from Pope Francis, seeking a return to Catholic orthodoxy? Does it come from any of the Protestant sects that broke with the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation? Maybe Jews or Muslims have discovered this in a sacred text?

The words, about 7,000 in all, were scribbled in the margins of newspapers and on other scrap paper. They did not show the soaring rhetoric he would use in a famous speech in Washington just months later. But some say the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From Birmingham Jail" – a sharp, at times line-by-line rebuke of arguments white clergymen made denouncing King's tactic of nonviolent protest – marked a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement, swaying clergymen to become more and more involved.

SANFORD, Fla. - Thousands joined a march Saturday through the Florida town where 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, vowing to continue protesting until an arrest is made. Protesters carried signs, chanted "Justice for Trayvon," and clutched the hands of their children while they walked from Crooms Academy of Information Technology - the county's first high school for black students - to the Sanford Police Department. The march was organized by the NAACP and was one of several taking place over the weekend.

Gossip guzzlers are going stark raving nuts over a TMZ photo that shows America's sweetie, Drew Barrymore , 37 Wednesday, outside a physician's office holding a sonogram photo print. This must mean she and fiancé Will Kopelman are expecting their first baby! Heck, it could also mean Drew had a friend's photo! Perhaps she wanted to mess with TMZ and asked some random patient, "Ma'am, may I borrow your sonogram?"   Whitney cemetery closed The Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, N.J., where Whitney Houston was laid to rest on Sunday, closed its gates to the public Monday following an onrush of fans who clogged its tiny lanes with more than 100 cars.

Despite its significant history, the Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library in Philadelphia is an unimposing structure - save for the two armed guards standing out front. Bedecked in Union blue, the guards leaned on their rifles Sunday ushering in patrons with a tip of the kepi. During the first Sunday of each month, the museum opens its doors to the public and invites speakers to discuss topics that have thematic relevance. In recognition of February's being Black History Month, Sunday's topic was a man who was a major advocate for racial equality - nearly 100 years before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Octavius Catto's vast contributions to the cause of civil rights were outlined for an audience of nearly 40 by Andy Waskie, a Civil War historian, professor of foreign languages at Temple University, and member of the museum's board of directors.

Updated at 8 a.m. Monday Philadelphia police arrested 15 people associated with Occupy Philadelphia on Sunday after blocking Eighth Street near Race Street just outside Police Headquarters. The sit-in began about 17 hours earlier as a protest march against police brutality nationwide. They were the first arrests since the movement began in the first week of October. Occupy Philadelphia, part of a larger national protest, is a grassroots demonstration against Wall Street and corporate greed that has taken on other issues, such as police brutality.

The morning of Aug. 24, Judy Wicks put her driver's license and $100 cash in her pocket. She wore no jewelry. Now, she was ready to be arrested. So many would join her that she needed to be unencumbered, so she wouldn't hold up the processing line. Wicks, former owner of the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, and 1,251 others - including a dozen or more from this area - were arrested during a two-week action in front of the White House to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada's tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico.

Former Delaware County congressman Bob Edgar and 10 other clergy members from around the country were arrested Thursday in Washington after they knelt to pray in the Capitol Rotunda to protest proposed cuts in social services. Edgar, 68, a United Methodist minister who heads the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause, was handcuffed with plastic binding, searched, and taken into custody about 1 p.m., said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for the group. The 11 were arrested as the impasse in Congress over raising the debt ceiling drew nearer to the Aug. 2 deadline.

Former Delaware County congressman Bob Edgar and 10 other religious leaders were arrested by Capitol police in Washington, D.C., Thursday afternoon after they knelt to pray in the Capitol Rotunda to protest proposed cuts to social services. Edgar, 68, a United Methodist minister who now heads the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause, was handcuffed with plastic binding, searched and taken into custody at about 1 p.m., said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for the group. "The point is to call on Congress, to essentially pray for Congress to have the wisdom and insight not to balance the budget on the backs of America's poor and middle class," Boyle said.