North Korea Offers U.S. Deal to Halt Nuclear Test

January 28, 2015
North Korea Offers U.S. Deal to Halt Nuclear Test

CHOE SANG-HUN - Jan. 10, Seoul, South Korea — North Korea said Saturday that it had told the United States that it would impose a temporary moratorium on nuclear tests if Washington canceled its joint annual military exercises with South Korea to help promote dialogue on the divided Korean Peninsula.

Inside the Uniform, Under the Hood, Longing for Change

January 26, 2015
Inside the Uniform, Under the Hood, Longing for Change

KATHY KELLY - From January 4-12, 2015, Witness Against Torture (WAT) activists assembled in Washington D.C. for an annual time of fasting and public witness to end the United States' use of torture and indefinite detention and to demand the closure, with immediate freedom for those long cleared for release, of the illegal U.S....

“We Are All Charlie” – But Is That Story So Simple?

January 24, 2015
“We Are All Charlie” – But Is That Story So Simple?

JAN OBERG - Eleven points as a reflection on the terror in Paris and – not the least – the reactions to it:

Celebrate 2014’s Disarmament Success Stories

January 22, 2015

MINES ACTION CANADA - The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots had a pretty good 2014 but many people view 2014 as a terrible year full of death, war and disease around the world. Fortunately, things are not as bleak as the news makes them look. The humanitarian disarmament world has seen a lot of...

How Rich Are the 400 Richest Americans – and What Do They Do with Their Money?

January 20, 2015
How Rich Are the 400 Richest Americans – and What Do They Do with Their Money?

LAWRENCE S. WITTNER - In the supposedly classless society of the United States, the wealthiest Americans are doing remarkably well. According to Forbes, a leading business magazine, the combined wealth of the 400 richest Americans has now reached the staggering total of $2.3 trillion. This gives them an average net worth of $5.7...

The Revenge of the CIA: Scapegoating Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling

January 19, 2015
The Revenge of the CIA: Scapegoating Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling

NORMAN SOLOMAN - This week, in a federal courtroom, I’ve heard a series of government witnesses testify behind a screen while expounding on a central precept of the national security state: The CIA can do no wrong. Those CIA employees and consultants are more than mere loyalists for an agency that soaks up...

CIA on Trial in Virginia for Planting Nuke Evidence in Iran

January 18, 2015
CIA on Trial in Virginia for Planting Nuke Evidence in Iran

DAVID SWANSON - Since Tuesday and continuing for the coming three weeks, an amazing trial is happening in U.S. District Court at 401 Courthouse Square in Alexandria, Va. The trial is open to the public, and among the upcoming witnesses is Condoleezza Rice, but -- unlike the Chelsea Manning trial -- most of the...

Taking a Meaningless Progressive Stand in Congress

January 16, 2015
Taking a Meaningless Progressive Stand in Congress

DAVE LINDORFF - The Democrats are showing their true colors now that they have lost control of both houses of Congress. Suddenly, with the assurance that they don’t have to worry about being taken seriously, the “party of the people” has come forward with a proposal to levy a 0.1% tax on short-term stock...

Historian Poses Ten Questions for Conservatives

January 14, 2015
Historian Poses Ten Questions for Conservatives

LAWRENCE WITTNER - Now that the Republican Party―the conservative voice in mainstream U.S. electoral politics―has attained the most thoroughgoing control of Congress that it has enjoyed since 1928, it’s an appropriate time to take a good look at modern conservatism.

Climate Politics at a Dead End – How to Build a New Road

January 12, 2015
Climate Politics at a Dead End – How to Build a New Road

PATRICK MAZZA - Climate politics is dead-ended. It may seem strange to make such a statement in the wake of the much-heralded U.S.-China climate deal announced November 12. So let me clarify.

Nuclear Harbinger: Vermont Yankee Plant Shuttered

January 10, 2015
Nuclear Harbinger: Vermont Yankee Plant Shuttered

JOHN LAFORGE - On December 29, the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor was shut down for good, cancelled 18 years before its license expired. The shutdown comes after thousands of protest actions; widespread uncontrolled leaks of radioactive tritium; the shocking collapse of a cooling tower; operator mismanagement; lying and cover-ups; and the state legislature’s 2010...

Day 2 of the Fast for Justice to Close Guantanamo

January 8, 2015

CLIFF SLOAN - When I began as the State Department’s envoy for closing the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, many people advised me that progress was impossible. They were wrong.

In the U.S. 49.7 Million Are Now Poor, and 80% of the Total Population Is Near Poverty

January 6, 2015

SIMEON ARI - If you live in the United States, there is a good chance that you are now living in poverty or near poverty. Nearly 50 million Americans, (49.7 Million), are living below the poverty line, with 80% of the entire U.S. population living near poverty or below it.

The Threshold For Nuclear War Between Pakistan and India Keeps Dropping

January 4, 2015
The Threshold For Nuclear War Between Pakistan and India Keeps Dropping

RUSS WELLEN - Most people think that, since the end of the Cold War, chances that a nuclear war will break out are slim to none. Though some nervousness has surfaced since the Ukraine crisis, it’s true that, barring an accident, the United States and Russia are unlikely to attack each other with nuclear...

Renaming Afghan War, Renaming Murder

January 2, 2015
Renaming Afghan War, Renaming Murder

DAVID SWANSON - The U.S.-led NATO war on Afghanistan has lasted so long they've decided to rename it, declare the old war over, and announce a brand new war they're just sure you're going to love.

The Christmas Truce: Pitting Sanity Against Insanity

December 31, 2014
The Christmas Truce: Pitting Sanity Against Insanity

WINSLOW MYERS - A hundred years after the "Christmas Truce" it seems we would prefer to sentimentalize the story of Christmas in the trenches rather than using it as a measure of our own mental health. In the way we think about war, most of us suffer equally from group schizophrenia, made infinitely more...

It’s Time Oregon Put a Price on Carbon

December 29, 2014
It’s Time Oregon Put a Price on Carbon

CAMILA THORNDIKE and DAN GOLDEN - Climate change hurts Southern Oregon. It hurts local businesses that rely on skiers and snowboarders when Mount Ashland fails to open. It hurts ranchers and farmers with drought and unseasonable heat. It hurts our forests when the fire season starts sooner and ends later each year. But these...

Resisting the Unspeakable in Afghanistan

December 27, 2014
Resisting the Unspeakable in Afghanistan

PAT KENNELLY - 2014 marks the deadliest year in Afghanistan for civilians, fighters, and foreigners. The situation has reached a new low as the myth of the Afghan state continues. Thirteen years into America’s longest war, the international community argues that Afghanistan is growing stronger, despite nearly all indicators suggesting otherwise. Yet, there is...

Take the Next Step After Vienna – Global Mobilization to Abolish Nuclear Weapons!

December 25, 2014
Take the Next Step After Vienna – Global Mobilization to Abolish Nuclear Weapons!

ABOLITION 2000 - Global coalition follows-up Vienna conference with mobilization to achieve a nuclear abolition agreement at the 2015 NPT Review Conference.

How About Another Christmas Truce?

December 24, 2014
How About Another Christmas Truce?

ARNOLD OLIVER - On the evening of December 24th a century ago, peace broke out in the most unlikely of places. In the blasted, putrid trenches of Belgium and France, soldiers fighting on the Western Front put aside their arms in what became known as the Christmas Truce. Although World War I was then...

Why #BlackLivesMatter Should Transform the Climate Debate

December 23, 2014
Why #BlackLivesMatter Should Transform the Climate Debate

NAOMI KLEIN - What does #BlackLivesMatter, and the unshakable moral principle that it represents, have to do with climate change? Everything.

Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question

December 21, 2014
Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question

ERIC LINDBERG - We have a situation, then, where one half of the population says it is not happening, and the other half says it is happening but fighting it doesn’t have to change our way of life. Like a dysfunctional and enabling married couple, the bickering and finger-pointing, and anger ensures that nothing...

Three Members of Congress Just Reignited the Cold War While No One Was Looking

December 19, 2014
Three Members of Congress Just Reignited the Cold War While No One Was Looking

DENNIS KUCINICH - Late Thursday night , the House of Representatives unanimously passed a far-reaching Russia sanctions bill, a hydra-headed incubator of poisonous conflict. The second provocative anti-Russian legislation in a week, it further polarizes our relations with Russia, helping to cement a Russia-China alliance against Western hegemony, and undermines long-term America’s financial...

Vienna Conference Could ‘Change the Calculus’ of US Nuclear Policy

December 17, 2014
Vienna Conference Could ‘Change the Calculus’ of US Nuclear Policy

JOE CIRINCIONE - While Iran negotiations get screaming headlines, recent conferences on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons have not gotten much attention. Maybe they should. They are generating a growing movement that could have a bigger impact on U.S. nuclear policy than many have assumed.

Catholic Church Revises Nuclear Weapons Stance

December 15, 2014
Catholic Church Revises Nuclear Weapons Stance

KEVIN CLARKE - The Catholic Church seemed to throw its support behind what is, in Europe at least, an accelerating movement demanding the abolition of nuclear weapons during the first day of the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons on Dec. 8.

America is on a “Hot War Footing”: House Legislation Paves the Way for War with Russia?

December 13, 2014
America is on a “Hot War Footing”: House Legislation Paves the Way for War with Russia?

MICHAL CHOSSUDOVSKY - America is on a war footing. While a World War Three Scenario has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than ten years, military action against Russia is now contemplated at an “operational level.” Similarly, both the Senate and the House have introduced enabling legislation which provides...

Germany Does Something the U.S. Hasn’t for Peace

December 11, 2014
Germany Does Something the U.S. Hasn’t for Peace

DAVID SWANSON - Imagine a letter co-signed by former presidents, former representatives from both sides of the aisle, House speakers, former governors, attorneys general, cabinet members, ambassadors, CEOs, movie stars and directors, writers, astronauts, religious leaders, mayors, academics, mainstream media correspondents, and more — all united in stating “Nobody wants war.” Imagine the...

U.S. ‘Group Think’ on Syria, Ukraine Endangers World Peace

December 9, 2014
U.S. ‘Group Think’ on Syria, Ukraine Endangers World Peace

ROBERT PARRY - Neocon ideology appears to have seized near total control over the editorial pages of America’s premier news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, contributing to an information crisis inside “the world’s superpower,” a development that should unnerve both Americans and the world community.

Climate Change Challenges: Support the Environment or the U.S. Military?

December 7, 2014
Climate Change Challenges: Support the Environment or the U.S. Military?

KATHY KELLY - It seems the greatest danger – the greatest violence – that any of us face is contained in our attacks on our environment. Today’s children and generations to follow them face nightmares of scarcity, disease, mass displacement, social chaos, and war, due to our patterns of consumption and pollution.

How We Learned to Stop Playing With Blocks and Ban Nuclear Weapons

December 5, 2014
How We Learned to Stop Playing With Blocks and Ban Nuclear Weapons

RAY ACHESON - “It is in the interest of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances.” This is the view of the 155 states that endorsed the joint statement delivered by Ambassador Dell Higgie of New Zealand. “The only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons will...

Costa Rica Celebrates 66th Anniversary of the Abolition of its Army

December 3, 2014
Costa Rica Celebrates 66th Anniversary of the Abolition of its Army

MANUEL A. GONZALEZ SANZ - Costa Rica abolished its army 66 years ago. During national celebrations children and young people as the main protagonists carry the Costa Rican flag and proudly parade in their school uniforms. The image of a military parade with thousands of soldiers displaying their weapons and equipment is unknown to...

NATO: Rebellion in the Ranks?

December 1, 2014
NATO: Rebellion in the Ranks?

JOHN FEFFER - The countries of the former Warsaw Pact are not knuckling under to pressure from Russia. They're trying to avoid a new cold war.

Obama’s ISIS War is Illegal

November 29, 2014
Obama’s ISIS War is Illegal

SENATOR RAND PAUL - The president is subverting the Constitution—and America’s latest undeclared war in the Middle East is just the latest example.

Ferguson: Reliving or Reversing a Violent Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

November 27, 2014
Ferguson: Reliving or Reversing a Violent Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

DAVID RAGLAND with WAYNE ADAMS, MAHDIS AZARMANDI and MARK LANCE - It’s been 100 days since Darren Wilson killed unarmed young African American Michael Brown and the world is watching and waiting to hear the forgone conclusion of white officer Wilson’s non-indictment. Many expect a violent reaction from an angry community when there is...

Obama Extends War in Afghanistan

November 25, 2014
Obama Extends War in Afghanistan

KATHY KELLY - News agencies reported this morning that weeks ago President Obama signed an order, kept secret until now, to authorize continuation of the Afghan war for at least another year. The order authorizes U.S. airstrikes “to support Afghan military operations in the country” and U.S. ground troops to continue normal operations, which...

U.N. Predicts New Global Population Boom

November 23, 2014
U.N. Predicts New Global Population Boom

DAVID TALBOT - A new analysis suggests that the world’s population will keep rising through 2100, and not flatten around 2050 as has been widely assumed. Such an increase would have huge implications, but the prediction’s reliability is debatable, given that it does not take into account future hardships a large population would likely...

American Journey From Terror to Peace, 9/11 to 11/11

November 21, 2014
American Journey From Terror to Peace, 9/11 to 11/11

ELIZABETH KUCINICH and DENNIS KUCINICH - America's future may well be described by whether we can successfully navigate the path from terror to peace, a path from 9/11 to 11/11 and the spirit of Armistice. It is a path that requires truth, reconciliation, commitment and courage. War-weary Americans are ready for a new direction,...

The Bases Of War In The Middle East

November 19, 2014
The Bases Of War In The Middle East

DAVID VINE - With the launch of a new U.S.-led war in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (IS), the United States has engaged in aggressive military action in at least 13 countries in the Greater Middle East since 1980. In that time, every American president has invaded, occupied, bombed, or gone to...

Divestment on Campus: Debate is One-Sided

November 17, 2014
Divestment on Campus: Debate is One-Sided

EVAN J. MANDERY - Climate change is our era’s defining challenge, but most of America’s universities are planning to sit this one out. Though students and faculty members at more than 400 colleges have called for administrators to divest from fossil-fuel energy companies, fewer than 20 have committed to doing so. Stanford recently divested...

Ten Things to Know About the Climate Deal

November 15, 2014
Ten Things to Know About the Climate Deal

BILL MCKIBBEN - November 12: Last night, just weeks after the largest climate mobilization ever, the world's two biggest polluters -- the United States and China -- announced their most ambitious climate action yet. That is not a coincidence: it's a sign that our pressure is working, and that we need to apply much...

Apocalypse Now: Seriously, It’s Time for a Major Rethink About Liberal and Progressive Politics

November 13, 2014
Apocalypse Now: Seriously, It’s Time for a Major Rethink About Liberal and Progressive Politics

DON HAZEN - We are losing badly to the corporate state. Here's what we need to do.

The Disturbing Expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex

November 11, 2014
The Disturbing Expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex

MAIREAD MAGUIRE - How can we explain that in the 21st century we are still training millions of men and women in our armed forces and sending them to war? There are more choices than war or peace, there are multi-optional choices and a civilian-based non-military diplomatic-political policy has more chance of succeeding in...

How We Are Being Led to War – Again

November 9, 2014
How We Are Being Led to War – Again

DANNY KATCH - The reactionaries of ISIS are being depicted as uniquely violent and barbaric--but as Danny Katch argues, the most violent force in the Middle East is U.S. imperialism.

What the Election Results Mean for the Climate Movement

November 7, 2014
What the Election Results Mean for the Climate Movement

MAY BOEVE - The results of the November 4, 2014 election were pretty rough. But when times get tough, it’s really important to remember to breathe, and focus on how we’re going to fix this problem together. Here’s my early sense of what this election means for the climate movement:

Nuclear Power’s Dangers Are Not Banished by Denial

November 5, 2014
Nuclear Power’s Dangers Are Not Banished by Denial

JOHN LAFORGE - Weakening radiation standards, a cap on accident liability, reactor propaganda vs improvements, old units running past expiration dates, revving the engines beyond design specs …. You’d think we were itching for a meltdown. The Environmental Protection Agency has recommended increased radiation exposure limits following major releases. It would save the industry...

The Umbrella Revolution: Nonviolent Struggle Erupts in Hong Kong

November 3, 2014
The Umbrella Revolution: Nonviolent Struggle Erupts in Hong Kong

ROLIEN HOYNG and MURAT ES - Two professors in Hong Kong interview fellow academics, student activists and graduate students from mainland China in order to draw out Hong Kong’s history in relation to globalizing forms of political expression. Colonial history, neoliberal urban governance, and Chinese authoritarianism all bear on the current unrest.

Why Don’t We Build a Movement?

November 1, 2014
Why Don’t We Build a Movement?

KAZU HAGA - What if all organizations in Oakland who work for social justice put down their egos and worked to create a COLLECTIVE work-plan for the next 10 years? Not just deciding to work together on 1 campaign for a year. Actually built integrated workplans that allow us to still do what each...

Massive Protests Lead Guatemala to Reject ‘Monsanto Law’ in Court

October 30, 2014
Massive Protests Lead Guatemala to Reject ‘Monsanto Law’ in Court

TEX DWORKIN - In a landmark decision on September 4, following intense pressure by indigenous people, trade unions, farmer’s organizations and others, the Guatemalan judiciary ruled to suspend the controversial Plant Variety Protection Law, commonly referred to as the ‘Monsanto Law’ because of the multinational biotech company’s involvement in it.

The United States is No. 1 — But in What?

October 28, 2014
The United States is No. 1 — But in What?

LAWRENCE WITTNER - American politicians are fond of telling their audiences that the United States is the greatest country in the world. Is there any evidence for this claim?

New Pentagon Study Confirms Risks of Climate Change

October 26, 2014
New Pentagon Study Confirms Risks of Climate Change

CORAL DAVENPORT - The accelerating rate of climate change poses a severe risk to national security and acts as a catalyst for global political conflict, a report published in May, 2014 by a leading government-funded military research organization concluded.