Author: Oregon PeaceWorks

The Growing Case for Medicare for All

ANDREW MOSS – In recent weeks, Harris has said that although her policy positions may have changed, her values haven’t. If she is elected president, she should seize the opportunity to align her values – healthcare as a right, not a commodity – with policies that offer the best chance of realizing those values fully.

60 Years After Lyndon Johnson’s “Daisy Ad,” the Silence on Nuclear War Is Dangerous

NORMAN SOLOMON – “These are the stakes,” Johnson said in the daisy ad as a mushroom cloud rose on screen, “to make a world in which all God’s children can live, or to go into the dark.” Those are still the stakes. But you wouldn’t know it now from either of the candidates vying to be the next president of the United States.

Project 2025 Provides a GOP Blueprint for Destroying America’s Labor Unions and the Rights of America’s Workers

LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – Project 2025 provides a powerful reminder to the labor movement and its supporters of how important it is to defeat the election of Trump and his MAGA Republicans this November. In addition, if anyone had any doubts about what Trump and his MAGA Republicans would do in the future about workers’ rights, they had only to look at the labor record of the first Trump administration. That record included sabotaging America’s labor unions, presiding over massive plant closures and job losses, blocking workers’ wage gains, and undermining the health and safety of American workers.

In CNN Interview, Harris Dodged Gaza Genocide and Damaged Her Election Prospects

NORMAN SOLOMON – Time is running out for Kamala Harris to distance herself from U.S. policies that enable Israel to continue with mass murder and genocide in Gaza. Polling shows that a pivot toward moral decency would improve her chances of defeating Donald Trump. But during her CNN interview Thursday night, Harris remained in lockstep with President Biden’s unconditional arming of Israel.

How A Tie-Breaking Vote Fueled America’s Economy

DAVID MCCALL – IRA-funded projects are increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and shoring up supply chains, better positioning the nation to manufacture the goods needed both for domestic consumption and to trade with the world. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate in 2022 to pass the IRA and unlock billions for an advanced manufacturing economy. Not a single Republican in either chamber of Congress voted for this historic legislation, which is revolutionizing the cement, chemical, glass, and steel sectors along with other traditional core industries.

The Ghost of Hubert Humphrey Is Stalking Kamala Harris

NORMAN SOLOMON – If Kamala Harris loses to Trump after sticking with her support for arming the slaughter in Gaza, historians will likely echo words from biographer Offner, who wrote that after the 1968 election Humphrey “asked himself repeatedly whether he should have distanced himself sooner from President Johnson on the war. The answer was all too obvious.”

Who Caused the Ukraine War?

JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER – The question of who is responsible for causing the Ukraine war has been a deeply contentious issue since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The answer to this question matters enormously because the war has been a disaster for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that Ukraine has effectively been wrecked.

Extinction Rebellion: Navigating the Great Paradox of Climate Action

GAIA MARTINO – The core characteristics of XR are all part of a strategy of political prefiguration. As a young female foreigner, Gaia Martino witnessed first-hand XR’s efforts to be as inclusive as possible and to adopt a care culture coherent with the group’s vision for change. As a participant of many organizational meetings, Marino also witnessed first-hand XR’s successful efforts to grant organizing autonomy to local chapters. Nonviolent action, inclusivity, autonomy and care culture are all coherent with XR’s design to create a paradigm shift in how people organize for environmental justice. To obtain a culture that will heal the planet as well as society, we must rise above the paradox that climate action must simultaneously be local and transcend the local. And for this, everyone must believe they can play a small part in shaping, setting up and enacting change.

Escalation and Miscalculation: How a Bigger War Might Happen in the Middle East

MEL GURTOV – In the Middle East, none of the contending parties seems to want either war or peace. Retribution seems to fit with each of their strategies. That is the latest Middle East tragedy, portending no imminent release of hostages or prisoners, no letup in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, and no movement toward a permanent cease-fire and Palestinian statehood.

Eastern Europe’s purchase of US nuclear reactors is primarily about military ties, not climate change

MAHA SIDDIQUI and M.V. RAMANA – Investments in nuclear power in Eastern Europe hide geopolitical and military motivations behind a smoke screen of fighting climate change. When these motivations result in the massive acquisition of military equipment, manufacturing and operating them will increase carbon dioxide emissions. Worse, military buildups will also increase the risk of conflict, potentially leading to a catastrophic war that could involve nuclear weapons.

Blank Checks for War: Congressional Abdication from Tonkin to Gaza

CHRISTIAN G. APPY – With the U.S.- backed carnage in Gaza continuing and the threat of growing violence looming throughout the region (in Lebanon, Iran, and who knows where else), we need to think more deeply than ever about how the American people have historically been excluded from foreign policy decision-making. An upcoming anniversary should remind us of what sent us down this undemocratic path.

The ADVANCE Act: a Bipartisan Surrender to the Nuclear Lobby

MAYS SMITHWICK and JACQUI DRECHSLER – With the passing of the ADVANCE Act (S870, section B), or the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act, the nuclear lobby has seized our democratic processes and co-opted the climate movement with pervasive lies and profit grabbing. The bipartisan support of the bill arose through widespread corruption, coupled with a nearsighted fantasy of innovation. The already-underregulated nuclear industry has now obtained the legislative means to sacrifice a survivable future for all living things.

“Beat Trump” is the Wrong Message

PETER BERGEL – By now everyone who could be recruited by the “Beat Trump” message has been recruited. People who fear the autocracy and unhinged “leadership” Trump offers need to recruit to our ranks the uncommitteds and those who don’t trust the Establishment. To accomplish that, three messages must characterize the upcoming campaign. Everyone can help by steering discussions to address these points and lobbying prominent Democrats.

Trump Lied About Immigrant Violence

MATT SHUHAM – Over and over at [last] week’s Republican National Convention, politicians who know better — or who ought to — falsely said or implied that undocumented migrants and asylum seekers pose an unthinkable criminal threat to innocent, native-born Americans. The reality is the opposite

French nuclear giant scraps SMR plans due to soaring costs, will start over

GILES PARKINSON – The federal Coalition has argued that nuclear might be expensive to build, but will deliver cheaper power to consumers. It has not explained how, but it has said that its reactors would be government owned, suggesting that – like France and Ontario – the costs would be borne by taxpayers and the supply of power to customers would be heavily subsidized.

This Election’s Impact on Immigration

ANDREW MOSS – With enough engagement and the right kinds of pressure, we might just get the kind of immigration system our nation needs: not the policies that squander tens of billions on a carceral, dead-end deportation machine, but a just system that invests in enough people and the right kinds of processes to minimize backlogs, expedite asylum claims, and provide the legal pathways that will help immigrants begin working and contributing to a land that needs them.

Joint Statement of U.S. Government Officials who have Resigned over U.S. policy towards Gaza, Palestine, and Israel

JOSH PAUL (for himself and eleven other former U.S. government officials) – We are former U.S. Government Officials who resigned from our respective positions over the last nine months due to our grave concerns with current U.S. policy towards the crisis in Gaza, and U.S. policies and practices towards Palestine and Israel more broadly.

Air Pollution Is Killing Millions and Rising Exponentially—A Shift in Agriculture Can Solve It

JIMMY VIDELE – Today’s biggest epidemic is the exponential rise of CO2-equivalent atmospheric emissions. With COVID-19, the world changed protocols within weeks of the outbreak. This shows that we can change today to stop the harm inflicted on the planet, the more than 8 billion humans, and countless other Earthlings. We need to realize that there is no bigger threat facing us currently.

Minding the Debate: What’s Happening to Our Brains During Election Season

MELINDA BURRELL – Some of us are convening watch parties and others deliberately will not tune in. Either way, the June 27 presidential debate is the real start of the election season, when more Americans start to pay attention. It’s when partisan rhetoric runs hot and emotions run high. It’s also a chance for us, as members of a democratic republic. How? By setting expectations for ourselves and our leaders. A peek at our neurobiology can help us make this debate something we learn from rather than something that divides us further.

Are the prospects for Small Modular Reactors being exaggerated? Five key characteristics examined

ED LYMAN – Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are being presented as the next generation of nuclear technology. While traditional plants face cost overruns and safety issues, SMRs are seen by their champions as cheaper, safer, and faster to deploy. But evidence casts these claims into doubt. In five sections of this article, the reasons why are listed and analyzed.

Climate Superfund Law Enacted; Vermont Becomes First State to Hold Big Oil Financially Responsible for a Fair Share of Climate Damages

VERMONT NATURAL RESOURCES COUNCIL – Legislation authorizing the State of Vermont to recoup financial damages caused by climate change from major fossil fuel companies became law today (May 31, 2024) when Governor Phil Scott failed to sign or veto the bill during the constitutionally-mandated five-day consideration period.