ROBERT C. KOEHLER – This time, the “the fire and the fury†of American mass murder erupted in church. Twenty-six people were killed, including children, one only 18 months old. How do we stroke their memory? How do we move forward? This is bigger than gun control. We should begin, I think, by envisioning a world beyond mass murder: a world where rage and hatred are not armed and, indeed, where our most volatile emotions can find release long before they become lethal.
Author: Oregon PeaceWorks
‘Violent Flank Effects’ and the Strategic Naiveté of Antifa
MOLLY WALLACE – In a 2015 article for the journal Mobilization, Erica Chenoweth and Kurt Schock examined all nonviolent campaigns from 1900-2006 with radical (i.e. maximalistâ€) goals — such as the “removal of an incumbent national government, self-determination, secession, or the expulsion of foreign occupation†— to see how the presence or absence of armed resistance affected the success of these nonviolent campaigns. Their findings offer compelling evidence that violence is not generally a helpful addition to nonviolent resistance movements. How did they arrive at this conclusion? And what lessons do we learn by adhering to this understanding?
Massive Overkill Brought to You By the Nuclear-Industrial Complex
WILLIAM D. HARTUNG – Unless the nuclear spending spree long in the making and now being pushed by President Trump as the best thing since the invention of golf is stopped thanks to public opposition, the rise of an anti-nuclear movement, or Congressional action, we’re in trouble. And of course, the nuclear weapons lobby will once again have won the day, just as it did almost 60 years ago, despite the opposition of a popular president and decorated war hero. And needless to say, Donald Trump, “bone spurs†and all, is no Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Trump’s Hatchet Man and the Plot to Loot America’s Wilderness
ADAM FEDERMAN – A little-known bureaucrat named James Cason is reshaping the Department of the Interior.
How Internet Co-ops Can Protect Us From Net Neutrality Rollbacks
SAMMI-JO LEE – “The FCC is basically taking the regulations off of big companies, but local companies can still offer high-quality internet access at good prices,†Christopher Mitchell says. Without net neutrality, broadband providers will be able to charge more for better access and faster speeds, or be able to restrict traffic to preferred business partners over competitors. More independent ISPs can offer consumers a wider variety of choices.
Congressional “Realists” Call for US to Curtail Its Use of the Military
FINLAY LEWIS – They could caucus in a phone booth. They are known as “realists,†and their default position on questions of foreign policy and national security is one of skepticism about the value of interventions abroad and of respect for privacy at home. In a debate largely being litigated within the ranks of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill, the realists don’t have a prayer of prevailing in an up-or-down vote against the neoconservative wing of the party, proponents of an interventionist ethos to embed American values in lands far removed from domestic shores and traditions.
Why We are Suing the Norwegian Government
TRULS GULOWSEN – For the first time ever, a government is being brought to justice for opening new areas for oil and gas extraction after signing and ratifying the Paris Agreement. This historic court case is set to begin in Oslo, Norway, on November 14. Greenpeace and Norwegian environmental organisation Nature and Youth are challenging the Norwegian government in court for allowing oil companies to drill for new oil in the Arctic.
An Escalating Afghan Crisis of ‘Profit’ over ‘Life’
DR. HAKIM YOUNG – The eyes of potential investors and benefactors, corporations and governments alike, are fixed on ‘profit’, not on the potentially disastrous pollution and depletion of the water supply to Mes Aynak and Kabul residents! This does not auger well for Surkh Gul, Inaam, and the estimated 6 million residents of Kabul.
Top Democrats Stage Anti-Trump Revolt at Bonn Climate Summit
DAVID SIDERS, EMILY HOLDEN AND SARA STEFANINI – A handful of Democratic governors and scores of other lawmakers and mayors are mounting an insurgency at the United Nations climate conference here, orchestrating a highly choreographed campaign to persuade world leaders that President Donald Trump doesn’t speak for the United States on climate change.
Future Still Bright for Electric Vehicles in Ore. Even If Tax Credit is Axed
ERIC TEGETHOFF – The auto industry and supporters of electric vehicles don’t want to see Congress put the brakes on an electric vehicle tax incentive, but the fuel’s future still is looking bright.
How to Respond When Someone Uses a Vehicle as a Weapon of Terror
PATRICK T. HILLER – There are many ways we can respond to vehicles being used as weapons that make such incidents less likely in the future. If we don’t use these alternatives, it is not because they are not available, but because of artificially imposed constraints, lack of interest, or self-interest. The broad social spectrum gives us ample opportunity in our respective contexts to take the contested area away from the terrorists and dissolve any hateful ideology at its roots.
Trump’s Finger on the Button is not the Main Problem with Nukes
WINSLOW MYERS – At some point in the near or semi-distant future, one way or another, Mr. Trump will have departed public office. For many reasons, perhaps most of all because we managed (if we do manage) to avoid nuclear war during his tenure, we will feel relief. But we may also feel a kind of letdown. Instead of having our anxieties focused upon the shallowness, impulsivity, and macho vengefulness of one particular leader, we will be forced to go back to worrying about the craziness of deterrence itself, irrespective of who is leading us.
Tens of Thousands Rally in Tokyo Against Their Government’s Pro-Nuclear Amendment
JAPAN TIMES – Tens of thousands of people staged a rally in central Tokyo on Friday to protest Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push to amend the Constitution.
How Can We Turn Military Spending into a Budget for the People?
FRIDA BERRIGAN – The problem isn’t that we are spending more on the military — it’s that it comes at the expense of just about every social good imaginable. Over the next decade, the Republican-held White House and Congress are planning over $5 trillion in cuts to the safety net.
Dear Baby Boomers, Your Children Need You
LISA FULLER – Dear Baby Boomers: Your children and your grandchildren need you right now- their lives may depend on it. I know, because I am one of them.
Congressional Budget Office: US Nuclear Forces To Cost $1.2 Trillion over 30 Years
PRESS RELEASE from THE LOS ALAMOS STUDY GROUP – On Oct. 31, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its 73-page [analysis] of the future costs of maintaining and modernizing US nuclear weapons, entitled “Approaches for Managing the Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2017 to 2046.â€[1][1] The total cost estimated by CBO was $1.242 trillion (T), of which $800 billion (B) is estimated as necessary to maintain and operate planned forces. The remainder ($400 B) is CBO’s estimate of the cost to modernize these forces. According to CBO, it will cost $4.6 million (M) per hour, 24/7, to keep US nuclear forces for the next 30 years.
General Motors Is Going All Electric
ALEX DAVIES – After more than a century peddling vehicles that pollute the atmosphere, General Motors is ending its relationship with gasoline and diesel. This morning, the American automotive giant announced that it is working toward an all-electric, zero-emissions future. That starts with two new, fully electric models next year—then at least 18 more by 2023.
The Mote in North Korea’s Eye, the Forest in the USA’s Eye
KARY LOVE – Mass murder of 59 is the mote in the eye of that lone “Las Vegas†killer and we all condemn him. Mass murder of all humanity is the forest in the eye of Donny Trump and we are called upon to salute him. Trump has recently threatened North Korea with nuclear annihilation. The USA has thousands of nukes, NK may have 20 and a limited, if any, capacity to deliver them. Thus, the forest in the eye of Donny Trump and the mote in the eye of NK.
Some Corporate Horror Stories You Probably Don’t Know and What to Do About Them
PAUL CIENFUEGOS – In early October, Project Censored released its always-newsworthy Top 25 Most Censored Stories of the past year. These are urgent and essential stories that the mainstream corporate-owned media failed to cover. There’s just one problem with this annual list, and it’s the same problem year after year with Project Censored’s annual Top 25 lists. Sixteen of these twenty-five news stories – 64% of them – really aren’t stand-alone stories at all. They’re actually mere symptoms of what happens to a society when We the People forget who We are, and allow large business corporations to possess more constitutionally protected “rights†than We do. We are in fact The Sovereign People. “Sovereign†means “the authority to ruleâ€.
Partial Victory for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on DAPL
THE INDIGENOUS AMERICAN and PORTSIDE – The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe won a significant victory today in its fight to protect the Tribe’s drinking water and ancestral lands from the Dakota Access pipeline.
Necessity As the Mother of Prevention
TOM H. HASTINGS – This essay is meant to help those who are especially interested in the court proceedings of nonviolent resisters[1] to anthropogenic climate change. The intended readers would include nonviolent resisters, their lawyers, and those experts in strategic nonviolent civil resistance who may be asked to provide expert testimony validating the use of the necessity defense for resisters. In general, the necessity defense is known as an affirmative defense, a narrative that contextualizes and validates the otherwise apparently illegal actions of the nonviolent resisters.
US Bomb Tests and Bidding Wars Herald New (Unlawful) $1.5 Trillion Nuclear Weapons Complex
JOHN LAFORGE – While much of the world pursues the abolition of nuclear weapons — embraced by the adoption July 7 by 122 nations of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — the militarized Trump White House is pursuing plans for a trillion-dollar rebuild of the entire US nuclear weapons complex.
Only Nonviolent Resistance Will Destroy the Corporate State
CHRIS HEDGES – The encampments by Native Americans at Standing Rock, N.D., from April 2016 to February 2017 to block construction of the Dakota Access pipeline provided the template for future resistance movements. The action was nonviolent. It was sustained. It was highly organized. It was grounded in spiritual, intellectual and communal traditions. And it lit the conscience of the nation.
“Heartbreaking” Trial Convicts Heroic Climate Change Activist
TOM H. HASTINGS – Michael Foster was born and raised in Texas, in an oil family. His crime in North Dakota was turning off the Keystone pipeline in a symbolic but real call to all of us to do what we can to stop global climate chaos.
Should Limiting North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions Be the Responsibility of the U.S. Government?
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Leaving aside the wisdom of U.S. policy, why is the U.S. government playing a leading role in the North Korean nuclear situation at all?
ICAN’s Nobel Peace Prize is Humanity’s Rx for Survival
ROBERT F. DODGE. M.D. – Friday’s (Oct. 7) award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) draws attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and the global movement to abolish these weapons as the only reliable way to guarantee that they will never be used again.
Focus on the Violence of Our Culture, not the Details of the Shooting
MICHAEL N. NAGLER – Although I have been studying nonviolence – and therefore indirectly violence – for many years, what I want to share with you about this latest gun tragedy is just plain common sense. And not to keep you in suspense, here’s my answer: this man slaughtered his fellow human beings because he lives in a culture that extols violence. A culture that degrades the human image – those two go together. How do I know? Because I live in the same culture; and so do you. And that uncomfortable fact is actually going to put us on the road to a solution.
What’s North Korea Afraid of?
DAVID SWANSON – “Peace†clubs in U.S. schools are likely to teach that a local bully is afraid and in need of help. They are much less likely to teach that about entities involved in the actual subject of peace (meaning the absence of war), such as — to take the example momentarily most prominent in U.S. propaganda — North Korea.
Our Enemy is Our Weapons
WINSLOW MYERS – It is long past time for us to recognize that the greater enemy is not someone in another country shouting threats, but the weapons themselves. On the basis of this shared truth, new relationships among adversaries can flourish that will allow reciprocal reduction and elimination. Nature within her inmost self divides, and science has unleashed this process on earth as the mighty power of fission, setting before us life or death choices. It is not too late to restrain the rise of the machines we ourselves have created, and choose life.
Growing Violence and Climate Change Are Linked
FODAY DARBOE – Violence is a profound threat and it is likely exacerbated by climate chaos. Global warming as an important effect on civil conflicts has been recently debated by many scholars and policymakers. Scholars from backgrounds as diverse as economics, climate science, peace studies, and political science have explored the adverse effects of climate change and ecological changes on civil conflicts.
The OFF Act: A Necessary Next Step in Addressing the Climate Change Crisis
MARK SCHLOSBERG – Recently Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) introduced the Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act (OFF Act), the strongest, most aggressive climate change legislation we’ve got. But it’s up to us to build the pressure to help make the OFF Act a reality. And we must.
The Silencing of Dissent
CHRIS HEDGES – The ruling elites, who grasp that the reigning ideology of global corporate capitalism and imperial expansion no longer has moral or intellectual credibility, have mounted a campaign to shut down the platforms given to their critics. The attacks within this campaign include blacklisting, censorship and slandering dissidents as foreign agents for Russia and purveyors of “fake news.â€
Communities Prepare to Fight Fracked Gas Pipeline
PRESS RELEASE FROM ROGUE CLIMATE – Landowners, Tribes, and community groups are ready to stop the proposed Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline and Jordan Cove LNG export terminal terminal for the third time in 12 years, following yesterday’s announcement by Veresen Inc. that it has filed its permit application for the project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Are We Watching a Slow-Motion Military Coup?
STEPHEN KINZER – In a democracy, no one should be comforted to hear that generals have imposed discipline on an elected head of state. That was never supposed to happen in the United States. Now it has.
Trump at the UN: “Wrong Speech, at the Wrong Time, to the Wrong Audience”
PATRICK T. HILLER – “It was the wrong speech, at the wrong time, to the wrong audience,†Swedish foreign Minister Margot Wallström expressed about what global and U.S. audiences helplessly had to endure during President Donald Trump’s September 19, 2017 address to the United Nations General Assembly. President Trump acted like a bully, but unaware that he showed up at the wrong playground.
Anti-Pipeline Activists across the Country Unite to #StopETP
BRANDON JORDAN – The company behind the Dakota Access pipeline and many other damaging fossil fuel projects — Energy Transfer Partners — was the focus of nearly 20 actions spanning 10 U.S. states last week. The #StopETP protests, which took place on Friday and Saturday, included a flotilla on a Louisiana bayou, a blockade of pipeline construction equipment in Pennsylvania and a demonstration outside the Texas home of CEO Kelcy Warren.
10 Ways Shame & Blame Hurts Social Justice Efforts
VANISSAR TARAKALI – We have all experienced it. We have inflicted it on ourselves or others. Subtle and not-so-subtle shaming, blaming and self-righteous ostracizing undermine social justice work. But let’s say our community or social justice group decides to take these habitual shame and blame pitfalls seriously. Changing old habits is possible when we are focused and persistent. With that in mind, what can we do?
“Carpe Diem Politicsâ€: How to Do More Than Just Resist
ROMAN KRZNARIC – Here’s something that might surprise you: One of the most powerful weapons we can use against far-right authoritarians like President Donald Trump has its roots in ancient philosophy. In particular, we can draw on the idea of carpe diem, or “seize the day,†a maxim penned by the Roman poet Horace. Let me explain.
Impacts of Trump & Paxton’s Policies: “U.S. Might Not Have Enough Construction Workers to Rebuild”
PRESS RELEASE FROM AMERICA’S VOICE : TEXAS – As Hurricane Harvey’s destruction and devastation continues across Texas and Louisiana, key elected, community, and thought leaders are looking towards the next step: rebuilding. Daniel Gross of Slate reports that Trump’s harsh and un-American immigration policies may have an unintended consequence – hampering construction efforts in the aftermath of Harvey.
Mass Civil Disobedience Campaign Obstructs One of Europe’s Largest Polluters
SARA FREEMAN-WOOLPERT – Red and yellow circus tents rose over the Rhineland farmland of western Germany last weekend, as over 6,000 climate justice activists converged for a series of action days to protest coal mining in the region. This included a mass civil disobedience campaign called Ende Gelände (or Here and No Further), in which 3,000 participants illegally obstructed the coal mining infrastructure on Friday and Saturday.
9 Amazing New Innovations That Are Creating More Fuel Efficiency
MARSHALL TULLEY – We’ve all heard that cars are getting more efficient. But how exactly is this happening? Here are 9 innovations driving the increased efficiency.
German Foreign Minister Joins Calls to Withdraw US Nukes from the Country
RT NEWS – Germany’s top diplomat has backed the suggestion of Social Democrat (SPD) leader and Chancellor hopeful Martin Schulz, who has pledged to rid his country of US nukes. Washington, meanwhile, is pressing ahead to modernize its nuclear stockpile.
Stop Fetishizing These War Victims And The Piece Of Cloth They’re Draped In
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE – The practice of invoking fallen soldiers in order to win debates about toxic US policies is obscene, illogical, and pernicious, and it needs to stop.
Sleeping Near a Forest Fire
JENNIFER HOFMANN – It isn’t exactly the kind of situation you go looking for, pitching your tent mere miles from a forest inferno, sleeping on the ground zipped up into a sleeping bag. But it [is] exactly what is happening in America right now. On the precipice of danger, finding a way to live.
‘There must be another way’: Israeli 19-year-old Jailed for Refusing Military Service
BETHAN MCKERNAN – ‘I do not believe in building walls but building bridges,’ pacifist Noa Gur Golan says in rare case of IDF draft refusal. “When I was little, I dreamt of being an IDF war pilot,†says 19-year-old Noa Gur Golan. Now, however, the teenager is sitting in Military Prison 396 near Haifa. She’s been branded a traitor and a coward. It’s not clear when she is going to be released, because she’s being detained for refusing to do her military service with the Israel Defence Force (IDF).
North Korea Has Many Reasons to Fear the US but the US Has Few to Fear North Korea
JOHN LAFORGE – The US public wants to know why North Korea is so paranoid, militarily hostile and boastful. LaForge answers.
Talk Now. A Nuclear Conflict is Unwinnable
WAR PREVENTION INITIATIVE — Press Release – The War Prevention Initiative strongly argues that there is no military solution to the rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula and that all sectors of society need to disrupt the escalation and insist on talks.
Mayors for Peace Call for Early Adoption of Nuclear Abolition Treaty
MAYORS FOR PEACE – “We call on the cities around the world to unite in cross-border cooperation to pave the way towards the abolition of nuclear weapons.†This call made by the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the establishment of “Mayors for Peace.†Since then, we have appealed for the establishment of a legal framework to prohibit nuclear weapons as we believed it to be essential in achieving their abolition.
Ann Wright Wins 2017 Peace Prize
U.S. PEACE MEMORIAL FOUNDATION – We are pleased to announce that the US Peace Memorial Foundation has awarded its 2017 Peace Prize to The Honorable Ann Wright “for courageous antiwar activism, inspirational peace leadership, and selfless citizen diplomacy.â€
Don’t Feed the Trolls – How to Combat the Alt-Right
KAZU HAGA – Nazism and white supremacy are forms of violence. Let’s start there. The constitution does not protect violence, and I’m happy to see that the California chapter of the ACLU has taken a stand against protecting the “free speech†of hate groups. But with or without marching permits, it is clear that public displays of hatred are a growing trend in the United States. And as much as I don’t want to give these groups more attention, it is also clear that simply ignoring them is not going to make them go away. So what do we do?