JEAN MITSCH – For activists or non-activists of any age, the memoir, Activist Odyssey: Inside Protest Movements, Some of Which Worked, brings to life an historic journey by a committed activist.
Author: Oregon PeaceWorks
After 4 Decades of Plowshares Actions, It’s Nuclear Warfare That Should Be On Trial – Not Activists
FRIDA BERRIGAN – Forty years ago, the Plowshares Eight sparked a movement of nuclear disarmers that continues to take responsibility for weapons of mass destruction.
New Webinar Series Explores How to Build Effective Movements in a Pandemic and Beyond
KATHERINE HUGHES-FRAITEKH – Waging Nonviolence and Solidarity 2020 and Beyond are launching a new webinar series featuring experienced grassroots activists from a broad array of international struggles.
Conservationists Say State Regulators are Allowing Power Plant Developers to Avoid Carbon Fees
TED SICKINGER – Opponents of a proposed power plantin Umatilla County say state regulators are poised to allow construction of a “road to nowhere†that would allow the plant’s backers to avoid paying millions of dollars in extra fees under a strengthened global warming standard established this spring by Gov. Kate Brown.
American Workers Have Been Given a Raw Deal Throughout the Trump Era
LAWRENCE WITTNER – It’s hard to take seriously Trump’s claim that U.S. workers have thrived during his presidency. Indeed, even before the disasters wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, American workers received a raw deal.
Voting – Our Most Basic Patriotic Duty
CRAIG CLINE – When we vote, we strengthen our Constitution — the foundation we stand upon together. Every American should protect it, preserve it, and keep it from crumbling.
Ashland Activist: Systemic Change Starts with Us
IRENE KAI – The first World Peace Flame in North America was installed in the lobby of the Civil Rights Museum, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee in 2002. Ashland (Oregon) Culture of Peace Commission (ACPC) installed the second North American World Peace Flame on the International Day of Peace two years ago, 21 September 2018.
The Israel-UAE Agreement: Good for a Few, Bad for Most
MEL GURTOV – Commentators evidently desperate for good news are touting the Israel-United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreement as a welcome path to Middle East peace. The agreement trades Israel’s promise not to annex portions of the West Bank for the UAE’s recognition of Israel. One conservative writer for the Washington Post actually thinks Trump’s role in helping bring the agreement about makes him a Nobel Prize candidate. But hold on.
What New Orleans’ Common Ground Collective Can Teach Us about Surviving Crisis Together
SHANE BURLEY – Fifteen years after Hurricane Katrina, the Common Ground Collective’s uncommon success offers lessons on how to build effective mutual aid projects today.
Listen Democratic Party: Your Supporters Want Military Budget Cuts
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – Democratic majorities were crucial this summer to the defeat of three separate bills, introduced by progressive Democrats, to reduce military spending and/or undo the militarization of police departments. These included amendments in both the Senate and the House to the National Defense Authorization Act, diverting 10 percent of the Department of Defense budget to health care, education and jobs; as well as a Senate proposal to end the 1033 Program, which allows the Pentagon to transfer military gear to the police. The amendment’s defeat in the House was especially an outrage in that the Dems hold a majority in the House and could have passed it.
Andrew Bacevich’s Prescription for Biden’s First Two Weeks
ANDREW BACEVICH – Free of charge, Joe, here is an action plan that will get you from Election Night through your first two weeks in office. Follow this plan and by your 100th day in the White House observers will be comparing you to at least one President Roosevelt, if not both.
Los Angeles County Approves Plan Seeking to Combat Racism and Inequality
ASSOCIATED PRESS – Leaders of the nation’s largest county unanimously approved a sweeping plan to address systemic racism and bias in its policies, practices and services.
An Open Letter to the National Democratic Leadership
PETER BERGEL – In the wake of the COVID epidemic, the movement to ensure that Black Lives Matter, the inadequacies revealed in our health care system, the movement to address climate change and the growing disgust our people feel for the U.S.’s ongoing foreign wars and international bullying, the time has come for system-wide changes.
Mending the Broken Femur: Listening for Each Other’s Humanity
WIM LAVEN – We will start healing as a country, as a people as soon as we start finding the humanity in each other. We are so busy angrily shouting at each other that we have forgotten to listen; let’s take our power back, find our shared humanity, and take care of ourselves—we’ve got work to do.
OR Providence Hospital Workers Call for Livable Wages
ERIC TEGETHOFF – Health care workers at an Oregon hospital say they are rallying for livable wages. Members of the Service Employees International Union local 49 are urging Providence Hospital management in Milwaukie to complete bargaining with workers.
“Reluctant Democracy” Abets Election Theft
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – America’s reluctant democracy: It demands a lot more of us than we’re taught to believe. Yes, voting is important (if you can), but claiming the right to vote and have your vote counted — and being able to vote for more than simply the lesser evil and the maintenance of the status quo — requires continual struggle in the face of lies and teargas. Election season never ends.
Dropping Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Was Unnecessary
GAR ALPEROVITZ and MARTIN SHERWIN – The overwhelming historical evidence from American and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered that August, even if atomic bombs had not been used — and documents prove that President Truman and his closest advisors knew it.
People of Color Are Not Alone in Facing Lethal Discrimination
MENTAL HEALTH ALLIANCE OF PORTLAND, OREGON – While we are doing everything we can to battle the systemic racism that has built up over hundreds of years, we must help those who are struggling with mental health and addictions, and are most likely right now to face excessive police force.
Preparing a Nonviolent Response to a November Surprise
MARIA J. STEPHAN, CANDACE RONDEAUX and ERICA CHENOWETH – With elections four months away, and the rule of law under steady attack, people power could prove decisive in ensuring a constitutional transfer of power without violence.
Pressured by Climate Activist Groups, Deutsche Bank Ditches Drilling in the Arctic
KRISSY WAITE – Deutsche bank joins a list of two dozen others that will not back Arctic drilling projects.
US and Other Arms Sales Prolong War, Yemenis’ Misery
KATHY KELLY – The cries against war in Yemen fall like rain and whatever thunder accompanies the rain is distant, summer thunder. Yet, if we cooperate with war making elites, the most horrible storms will be unleashed. We must learn–and quickly–to make a torrent of our mingled cries and, as the prophet Amos demanded, ‘let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.â€
“Steadfast Commitment” Needed to Preserve and Expand Voting Rights
ANDREW MOSS – For many people, the thought of this November’s general election inspires anything from apprehension to outright dread. Writing in the Atlantic recently, Adam Harris warned of a “voting disaster,” as historic forms of voter suppression disproportionately affecting minority voters (precinct closures, long waiting lines, onerous restrictions on vote-by-mail balloting) are now colliding with the immense challenges of conducting the election during a pandemic.
A Wake-Up Call: The Nuclear Threat!
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL – Americans know how to engage. In the past four years alone, we’ve seen a groundswell of grass-roots activism on threats from climate change and gun violence to racial injustice and gender inequity. Today, we must add one more to the list: the threat of nuclear weapons. As Collina said, “Nuclear disarmament must be part of the new mass movement.â€
Canada’s Biggest Indigenous Police Force Has Zero Shooting Deaths In 26 Years
COLIN PERKEL – In its 26 years of existence, officers with Canada’s largest Indigenous police force have never shot and killed anyone and no officer has died in the line of duty, despite a grinding lack of resources and an absence of normal accountability mechanisms.
Five Pitfalls Black Lives Matter Must Avoid to Maintain Momentum and Achieve Meaningful Change
DANIEL HUNTER – There are steps the Black Lives Matter movement can take to carry on the remarkable energy it has built — and steps that could cause it to disappear.
The Few Violent Protesters Are Boosting Trump’s Electability
TOM H. HASTINGS – Bring the issues raised by Black Lives Matter back to the best policing possible and remove the politics by removing the violence. We as US citizens deserve nothing less.
Ten Reasons Why Defunding Police Should Lead to Defunding War
MEDEA BENJAMIN and ZOLTAN GROSSMAN – If we find indiscriminate state violence in our streets appalling, we should feel similarly about state violence abroad, and call for divesting from both police and the Pentagon, and reinvesting those taxpayer dollars to rebuild communities at home and abroad.
‘Historic Victory for Working People’: Seattle City Council Passes Progressive Tax on Big Business to Fund Relief
ANDREA GERMANOS – The Tax Amazon movement claimed “a historic victory for working people” on Monday, July 6, when Seattle’s city council passed a new tax on big businesses to fund local economic relief.
Humans Are an Endangered Species: Will They Act to Save Themselves?
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Although there is not much time left before the world succumbs to one or more catastrophes, human beings have been able to alter their behavior and institutions. Let’s hope they will rouse themselves and do so again.
The World has Loved, Hated and Envied the US. Now, for the First Time, We Pity it.
FINTAN O’TOOLE – Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.
5 Lessons from the K-pop Fans who Fizzled Trump’s Tulsa Rally, and the Black Organizers who Led the Way
TAMIKO BEYER – As K-pop fans and Black organizers and artists are demonstrating, joyful, powerful movements draw more people in and reflect the kind of world we want to live in.
US Policy Toward Israel and Palestine Is Inconsistent and Unjust
RUSSELL VANDENBROUCKE – What term should citizens apply to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s half-truths, insinuations, and misleading assertions about Palestine and Palestinian aspirations and negotiating stances, especially when repeated insistently enough by government officials to become enshrined, not simply as the party line, but as truth itself? How do we speak truth to power when power hunkers inside an echo chamber where it hears only its own truth?
‘Historic Day’ for Standing Rock as Pipeline Company Told to Shut Down, Remove Oil
KOLBY KICKINGWOMAN – A federal judge has ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline to shut down and remove all oil within 30 days, a huge win for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the other plaintiffs.
George Floyd’s Murder Has Everything to Do With Rampant Militarism
WINSLOW MYERS – Militarism is found in the rhetoric of all those, from the president to Rush Limbaugh, who push a joyless, simplistic us-and-them worldview that tries to negate the existential reality that we are in this together, all challenged to acknowledge our interdependence and steward the life-support system that sustains us. For this great task, militarism is obsolete.
Recent Events Reveal the Bankruptcy of US Arms Addiction
KATHY KELLY – The world that our global empire is swiftly creating, through our devastating oil wars in the Middle East and our arriving cold wars with Russia and China, is a world without winners. We must resist signing contracts with weapon makers profiting from endless immiseration of the Middle East and needless superpower rivalries inviting full nuclear war. Such contracts, inked in blood, doom every corner of our world to perish as a battleground state.
Time to Move Federal Funds Away from Military “Security” In Order to Provide Real Security
DAVID SWANSON – The past month’s activism has changed a great deal. One thing it’s helped with is brushing aside the tired old argument over whether government should be big or small. In its place we have the much more useful argument over whether government should prioritize force and punishment, or focus on services and assistance.
The Limits to Police Authority Must Be Specified and Enforced
WIM LAVEN – Police departments all across America keep proving the same point: they are not training officers to honor the protection of human life.
California’s Internal Democratic Leadership Struggle Has National Implications
NORMAN SOLOMAN – After events of 2016, when facts emerged showing that the Democratic National Committee put anti-Sanders thumbs on the scales, many progressives have become acutely sensitive to shortages of fairness in party proceedings. The last thing we need are fresh examples of powerful politicians opting for self-serving actions over democratic principles.
There’s no predicting when movements will erupt, but this classic activist resource maps their path to success
ARNIE ALPERT – With Black Lives Matter in the midst of an unprecedented moment, now is the perfect time to read “The Movement Action Plan†— a model for understanding the long arc of movements.
As We Focus on Racism, Don’t Forget MLK’s Two Other “Giant Triplets”
ANDREW BACEVICH – The nation’s current preoccupation with race, as honorable and necessary as it may be, falls well short of adequately responding to the situation confronting Americans as they enter the third decade of the twenty-first century. Racism is a massive problem, but hardly our only one. Indeed, as Martin Luther King sought to remind us many years ago, there are at least two others of comparable magnitude.
The Civil Rights Act of 2020
CHARLES M. BLOW – Feel-good gestures from politicians and the police shift no power. Real change lies within a system overhaul.
Corporate Media Are Focusing on Race — and Dodging Class
The last two weeks have opened up a lot more media space for illuminating racial cruelty. But what about economic cruelty?
How Nonviolence Practices Could Help Us Transition to the Society We Want
by Michael N. Nagler George Floyd is becoming the Emmett Till of the 21st Century. The ongoing, passionate, widespread, and no longer violent demonstrations that have come in the wake of his brutal death have given us an opportunity like that of…
Putin Announces Updated Russian Nuclear Strategy Policy; Emphasizes Defense
By Vladimir Kozin On 2 June 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed Decree No. 355 on the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Area of Nuclear Deterrence. The adopted document, which has the status of a…
The Floyd Protests are the Broadest in U.S. History – and are Spreading to White, Small-Town America
LARA PUTNAM, JEREMY PRESSMAN, ERICA CHENOWETH – Across the country, people are protesting the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and demanding action against police violence and systemic racism. National media focuses on the big demonstrations and protests against policing in major cities, but they have not picked up on a different phenomenon that may have major long-term consequences for politics. Protests over racism and #BlackLivesMatter are spreading across the country — including in small towns with deeply conservative politics.
‘The Conversation is the Protest’ – How Black Lives Matter Forced us to Imagine a World without Police
ERIC STONER – Momentum organizer Nicole Carty discusses how the Black Lives Matter movement built consensus on racial justice and the strategy needed to make the goal of defunding police a reality.
Authoritarian State or Inclusive Democracy? 21 Things We Can Do Right Now
ERIC K. WARD – Take seriously — and warn others — that the attempt to create an inclusive American democracy is now on a precipice. Words and actions carry real consequences that could drive us over the edge and to a point of no return.
Nuclear Arms Control: What Happens when US and Russia let it Lapse?
FRED WEIR – In less than a year, the world could enter a period free of nuclear arms control treaties for the first time in more than a half-century. Is such a state of affairs sustainable?
Don’t be Mesmerized by the Fetishization of Protest
LAURA FINLEY – White people need to consider how they can truly be allies to the movement and whether their motives to participate are more self-serving than helpful. I implore everyone who wants to be a white ally to read the tips at Issuu.com, “26 ways to be in the struggle beyond the streets,†and identify the best ways to act.
Consider this a Dress Rehearsal for November: Here’s How We Can Respond
DAILY KOS COMMUNITY MEMBER – To respond fully to the present circumstances, we should understand how Trump’s recent actions fit into his election strategy, which we can expect will focus more on stealing the election than winning it fairly. So let’s start by looking at things from his perspective.