In Our America: Community Building 101

July 27, 2017
In Our America: Community Building 101

ALI KING - As the night of Tuesday, November 8, began to go downhill, like many Americans, I felt stunned and sickened. I hadn't actually allowed myself to imagine things going the way they did and the unthinkable had happened. Just a few months earlier, everyone was scoffing at the idea of Trump becoming...

Is It Time to Restructure US CEO Compensation?

July 25, 2017
Is It Time to Restructure US CEO Compensation?

LAWRENCE WITTNER - An awful lot of Americans are skeptical about the value of their nation’s corporate executives. As a 2016 nationwide survey reveals, 74 percent of Americans believe that top corporate executives are overpaid. This public dismay with CEO compensation exists despite the fact that Americans drastically underestimate what top corporate...

The U.S. State of War – July 2017

July 23, 2017
The U.S. State of War – July 2017

NICHOLAS J.S. DAVIES - This is the state of war in the United States in July 2017.

KAICIID, United Nations Join Forces to Prevent Incitement to Violence

July 21, 2017
KAICIID, United Nations Join Forces to Prevent Incitement to Violence

PETER KAISER - The International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID) Secretary General Faisal Bin Muaammar represented the Centre at the launch of the first ever action plan specifically designed to enable religious leaders to prevent and counter incitement to violence.

Businesses Urge Interior Dept. to Preserve Public Lands

July 19, 2017
Businesses Urge Interior Dept. to Preserve Public Lands

ERIC TEGETHOFF - Public lands provide a major economic boost to local communities in Oregon. That's the view of groups that support the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument being kept as it is, as the U.S. Interior Department reviews its status.

An Open Letter To Rep. Barbara Lee: ‘Think Through The Implications Of Our Actions’

July 17, 2017
An Open Letter To Rep. Barbara Lee: ‘Think Through The Implications Of Our Actions’

NORMAN SOLOMON - More than a decade and a half ago, your eloquent words and courageous vote set a high bar as you stood up against a war frenzy on the House floor. Three days after 9/11, you implemented the kind of brave wisdom that we desperately need in a world beset by the...

Trump Is Missing an Opportunity in Cuba

July 15, 2017

MEL GURTOV - President Obama’s engagement with Cuba was one of his administration’s success stories. The policy shift was based on the entirely realistic as well as humanitarian assessment that permanent estrangement deepens enmity, isolates two peoples and separates families, reduces opportunities for improvement in the quality of life in Cuba, inhibits the...

China Firmly Opposes U.S. Arms Sale to Taiwan

July 13, 2017

MU XUEQUAN - China firmly opposes the U.S. arms sale to Taiwan and urges the United States to immediately revoke its decision, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy here said Friday, June 30

Pruitt Will Launch Program to ‘Critique’ Climate Science

July 11, 2017
Pruitt Will Launch Program to ‘Critique’ Climate Science

EMILY HOLDEN - U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is leading a formal initiative to challenge mainstream climate science using a "back-and-forth critique" by government-recruited experts, according to a senior administration official. The program will use "red team, blue team" exercises to conduct an "at-length evaluation of U.S. climate science," the official said, referring to...

Trump’s Wall: Ultimate Symbol of an Ultimate Con

July 9, 2017
Trump’s Wall: Ultimate Symbol of an Ultimate Con

ANDREW MOSS - Though Donald Trump failed to get his wall funded when Congress passed a recent $1.1 trillion federal spending package, he did succeed in creating a wall of sorts. Fashioned partly out of words and partly out of existing physical structures and technologies, Trump's wall has effectively cast a shadow of...

Trump Abdicates Control of US Military Interventions

July 7, 2017

MEL GURTOV - Now, just below the radar, the US military is engaged in an ever-increasing number of “advise-and-assist” missions, supplemented by major arms deals and CIA-run drone strikes, that commit the US to long-term intervention in Africa and the Middle East. And Donald Trump, unlike Barack Obama, is happy to cede operational...

The Trump-Putin Meeting and the Fate of the Earth

July 5, 2017
The Trump-Putin Meeting and the Fate of the Earth

NORMAN SOLOMON - Any truthful way to say it will sound worse than ghastly: We live in a world where one person could decide to begin a nuclear war -- quickly killing several hundred million people and condemning vast numbers of others to slower painful deaths. Given the macabre insanity of this ongoing situation,...

July 4: An Appropriate Day to Defend Liberty

July 3, 2017

WIM LAVEN - With a long holiday weekend lined up for the 4th of July most people are probably worried about having enough food for the barbeque, or hoping that their get-togethers aren’t too political. Facebook will be littered with messages of freedom, and assorted dissents. I post a link to Frederick Douglass’ 1852...

Salem Unitarians Vote to Become a Sanctuary Congregation

July 2, 2017

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CONGREGATION OF SALEM (UUCS) PRESS RELEASE - With many Salem and Mid-Willamette Valley families living amid suspicion and fears of deportation, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem (UUCS) voted to become a sanctuary congregation.

What Does it Mean to Vote With Your Dollar?

June 30, 2017

GREENAMERICA - Want to create a greener world that works for all people? One of the most important things you can do is vote with your dollars. Where you spend and invest your money is a powerful way of voting each day to support local communities, fair wages, and a healthy planet.

Let’s Have ““A Decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind” and Ban Nukes

June 28, 2017
Let’s Have ““A Decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind” and Ban Nukes

WINSLOW MYERS - The distractions of the Trump presidency, even including Russian attempts to hack our democracy, have swamped events that may in the long run be of far greater historical significance. A primary example is the historic ongoing U.N. conference concerning the prohibition and eventual abolition of nuclear weapons— and our own nation’s...

Subcommittee Passes Bill to Make Yucca Mountain the U.S. Nuclear Repository

June 26, 2017

CRAIG FIEGENER and MARVIN CLEMONS - Despite Nevada protests against it, a measure to make Yucca Mountain the nation's nuclear waste repository advanced in a congressional subcommittee Thursday morning.

The Unifying Force of War Abolition

June 23, 2017
The Unifying Force of War Abolition

DAVID SWANSON - It's not unusual for an activist, focused on one of the millions of worthy causes out there, to try to recruit other activists to that particular cause. That's not exactly what I want to do. For one thing, if we are going to succeed we are going to have to recruit...

The Real Reason Your City Has No Money

June 21, 2017
The Real Reason Your City Has No Money

CHARLES MAROHN - America needs a different model of growth and development.

Coal Miners Are Pawns in Trump’s Fossil Fuel Agenda

June 18, 2017
Coal Miners Are Pawns in Trump’s Fossil Fuel Agenda

ROB BYERS - Earlier this spring, I was asked a question about my late father, who had been a coal miner in the 1970s and ’80s. It had to do with a familiar romantic storyline: Did he feel at home underground? Was it a calling that tugged at him during the layoffs, a longing...

Will “Nones” make America more liberal?

June 16, 2017

JAMES A. HAUGHT - The steady retreat of religion in America may shift politics to the left. Surveys find that young Americans who say their faith is "none" generally hold humane progressive values, supporting women's equality, gay rights, universal healthcare, legal marijuana, free college and other liberal goals. Decline of religion is perhaps...

A Call to Mobilize the Nation over the Next 18 Months

June 14, 2017
A Call to Mobilize the Nation over the Next 18 Months

REV. JOHN DEAR - While the media and the nation sit transfixed over the Trump scandals and attacks on democracy, those of us who work for justice and peace know that we have to keep working, resisting, and mobilizing people across the country if we are going to have the social, economic and political...

Trump’s Handling of North Korea Is Going to Lead Us Straight Into Nuclear Disaster

June 12, 2017
Trump’s Handling of North Korea Is Going to Lead Us Straight Into Nuclear Disaster

RAJAN MENON - President Donald Trump wouldn’t be the first leader, confronted with trouble at home, to trigger a crisis abroad and then appeal for unity and paint critics as unpatriotic. Keep in mind, after all, that this is the man who has already warned of “a major, major war” with North Korea.

A Dying Man’s Gift of Awareness

June 10, 2017
A Dying Man’s Gift of Awareness

ROBERT C. KOEHLER -- “Tell them, I want everybody to know, I want everybody on the train to know, I love them . . .” These words are also part of the geopolitics of murder — these words of light and hope, alive and pulsing amid the bullet casings, the blood and wreckage, the...

Swim for Peace: Reaching Out in Peace to Russia

June 3, 2017
Swim for Peace: Reaching Out in Peace to Russia

ELIZABETH MURRAY - The mainstream U.S. media bristles with hostility toward Russia – fueling a New McCarthyism – but the press finds no space for grassroots American gestures of peace.

President Trump: Toss Your Generals’ Escalation Plans in the Trash

June 1, 2017
President Trump: Toss Your Generals’ Escalation Plans in the Trash

RON PAUL - By the end of last month, Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Advisor HR McMaster were scheduled to deliver to President Trump their plans for military escalations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. President Trump would be wise to rip the plans up and send his national security team back to...

Class War in the Capital City

May 30, 2017
Class War in the Capital City

DON MCINTOSH - There’s a top-down class war under way, but unlike the 1930s, when thugs shot workers on strike picket lines, today’s business organizations are using “hired gun” lobbyists in state capitols, to rewrite the laws — all of them — in their favor. That’s the basic argument made by political scientist Gordon...

This Is What’s Really Behind North Korea’s Nuclear Provocations

May 28, 2017

BRUCE CUMINGS - It’s easy to dismiss Kim Jong-un as a madman. But there’s a long history of US aggression against the North, which we forget at our peril.

US Support of Saudi Attacks on Yemen Must Cease

May 26, 2017
US Support of Saudi Attacks on Yemen Must Cease

KATHY KELLY - The U.S. has decidedly taken the side of the Saudi-led coalition. Consider a Reuters report, on April 19, 2017, after U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis met with senior Saudi officials. According to the report, U.S. officials said “U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition was discussed including what more assistance the United...

Lockheed Martin-Funded Experts Agree: South Korea Needs More Lockheed Martin Missiles

May 24, 2017
Lockheed Martin-Funded Experts Agree: South Korea Needs More Lockheed Martin Missiles

ADAM JOHNSON - As tensions between the United States and North Korea continue to rise, one think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), has become a ubiquitous voice on the topic of missile defense, providing Official-Sounding Quotes to dozens of reporters in Western media outlets. All of these quotes speak to...

Gorbachev: It Was Worse Than This, and We Fixed It

May 22, 2017
Gorbachev: It Was Worse Than This, and We Fixed It

DAVID SWANSON - On Friday, May 12, in Moscow I and a group from the United States met with former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. He said the current relationship between Washington and Moscow alarmed him. But, he said, it is possible to rebuild trust. “We had a situation that was worse,...

Tunnel Collapse at Hanford Nuclear Dump-Harbinger of the Collapse of the Entire Industry?

May 20, 2017
Tunnel Collapse at Hanford Nuclear Dump-Harbinger of the Collapse of the Entire Industry?

HARVEY WASSERMAN - The collapse of a tunnel at the massive nuclear waste dump at Hanford, Washington, 200 miles east of Seattle, has sent shock waves through a nuclear power industry already in the process of a global collapse.

The American Way of War Is a Budget-Breaker

May 18, 2017
The American Way of War Is a Budget-Breaker

WILLIAM D. HARTUNG - Never has a society spent more for less.

What If He’s Not an Idiot?

May 16, 2017
What If He’s Not an Idiot?

JOHN ATCHESON - It’s worth considering what we are not talking about as we watch the political pornography of the Trump Administration play out and also how the focus on Russia undercuts the Democratic Party. In other words, what if this is exactly what Trump intended when he fired Comey? It’s worth remembering...

Cherokee Nation Lawsuit Holds Drug Distributors Accountable for Opioid Diversion

May 14, 2017

KARLA JO HELMS - Prescription opioid overdose deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives have increased nearly four-fold since 1999. Novus Medical Detox Center believes a new Cherokee Nation lawsuit against opioid distributors may be the first of many.

Killer Drones Take Another Step Into the Mainstream

May 12, 2017
Killer Drones Take Another Step Into the Mainstream

NORMAN SOLOMON - No longer will the pilots who steer drones and fire missiles while staring at computer screens be confined to remote areas like the Nevada desert. With scant public information or debate, sizable American communities are becoming enmeshed in drone warfare on other continents. Along the way, how deeply will we understand...

Portland, Ore., Becomes First Major U.S. City to End All New Investment in Corporations

May 10, 2017
Portland, Ore., Becomes First Major U.S. City to End All New Investment in Corporations

MELISSA HELLMANN - To avoid doing business with socially irresponsible corporations, the city is willing to lose investment income—about $4.5 million a year.

Needed: A Public Plan for Peace

May 8, 2017
Needed: A Public Plan for Peace

ROBERT C. KOEHLER - The American will to wage war — endless war, pointless war, total war — is, I fear, impervious to public opinion and even political action. It remains alive deep in the underground bunker of American militarism, protected from sanity. This goes beyond the staying power of our loser generals, who...

Oil Price Collapse is ‘Permanent’; Analyst Says Fossil Fuel has had Its Day

May 6, 2017
Oil Price Collapse is ‘Permanent’; Analyst Says Fossil Fuel has had Its Day

JILLIAN AMBROSE - The latest collapse of the oil market is the harbinger of a global energy revolution which could spell the end-game for fossil fuels. These theories were laughable less than a decade ago when oil prices grazed highs of more than $140 a barrel. But the burn out of the oil industry...

The Crash of Cassini and the Nuclearization of Space

May 3, 2017
The Crash of Cassini and the Nuclearization of Space

KARL GROSSMAN - Despite protests around the world, the Cassini space probe—containing more deadly plutonium than had ever been used on a space device—was launched 20 years ago. And this past weekend—on Earth Day—the probe and its plutonium were sent crashing into Saturn.

Hunger Strike Begins in Rural Oregon

May 2, 2017

PRESS RELEASE - ICE’s attempt to break strike greeted with resistance in Oregon.

Get Real About Preventing War with North Korea

April 30, 2017
Get Real About Preventing War with North Korea

PATRICK T. HILLER - It is time for the public and its servants – our elected officials – to get away from the pretense that there are no alternatives to projecting and using military force, when indeed there are many constructive responses. This matters greatly, because a study has shown that there is a...

‘Too Cheap to Meter’ Nuclear Plants Seek Welfare Again

April 28, 2017
‘Too Cheap to Meter’ Nuclear Plants Seek Welfare Again

JOHN LAFORGE - You have to hand it to the nuclear industry for socializing costs and privatizing profits. Last year, lobbyists for operators of dirty, deadbeat old reactors won massive public subsidies -- bailouts -- in New York and Illinois that will keep decrepit, retirement-age reactors from shutting down. Instead of turning off the...

Trump Quadruples Obama’s Rate of Drone Strikes

April 26, 2017
Trump Quadruples Obama’s Rate of Drone Strikes

JOSEPH GIBSON - “Trump has taken Obama’s massive and limitless drone war and quadrupled strikes—more than one a day now,” said Courage to Resist's Jeff Paterson. “My hope is that because it’s now The Donald lawlessly murdering people with flying robots, folks will begin to realize how insane this ‘less interventionist’ policy is. Aside...

Trump’s Climate Demands Roil U.S. Allies

April 24, 2017
Trump’s Climate Demands Roil U.S. Allies

ANDREW RESTUCCIA - President Donald Trump’s abrupt turnaround on U.S. climate policy is fueling tension with several of America’s closest allies, which are resisting the administration’s demands that they support a bigger role for nuclear power and fossil fuels in the world’s energy supply.

The Democratic Party’s Anti-Bernie Elites Have a Huge Stake in Blaming Russia

April 22, 2017
The Democratic Party’s Anti-Bernie Elites Have a Huge Stake in Blaming Russia

NORMAN SOLOMON - After Hillary Clinton’s devastating loss nearly six months ago, her most powerful Democratic allies feared losing control of the party. Efforts to lip-synch economic populism while remaining closely tied to Wall Street had led to a catastrophic defeat. In the aftermath, the party’s progressive base -- personified by Bernie Sanders --...

The Potential of an “Oregon Climate Test”

April 20, 2017
The Potential of an “Oregon Climate Test”

ERIC DE PLACE - After a string of successes defending the Northwest from ill-conceived dirty energy projects, the thin green line—the Northwest’s opposition movement to coal, oil, and gas exports—is starting to play offense. Local governments around the region are already updating land use laws to protect their communities from the depredations of fossil...

Keep Your Eye on Trump’s Main Agenda

April 18, 2017
Keep Your Eye on Trump’s Main Agenda

PETER BERGEL - Not so fast, fellow progressives! We’ve underestimated Donald Trump a couple of times now. Let’s not do it again. He may be all the things we think he is – racist, xenophobic, narcissistic, homophobic, anti-Muslim, power-mad. At the same time, though, he’s also getting away with a deadly distraction game –...

Civil Rights Advocates Renew Efforts to Oust Bannon

April 17, 2017
Civil Rights Advocates Renew Efforts to Oust Bannon

NEWS RELEASE - As news outlets continue to report on whether embattled White House chief strategist and white nationalist Stephen Bannon will continue serving in the administration, 23 diverse civil rights groups are reminding the Trump Administration that governing through Bannon’s divisive and hateful campaign style is out of step with the country.

Intelligence Professionals: Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation

April 15, 2017
Intelligence Professionals: Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation

VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY - More than two dozen ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Trump to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib and to pull back from his dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia.