JAMES A. HAUGHT – One of my history-minded friends has a long-range political view summed up in three words: Liberals always win. Complex social struggles may take centuries or decades, he says, but they eventually bring victory for human rights, more democratic liberties, a stronger public safety net, and other progressive goals.
Author: Oregon PeaceWorks
The Pope Is Lining Up to Ban Nuclear Weapons
JOE CIRINCIONE and TOM Z. COLLINA – Under Pope Francis the Catholic church is moving away from Cold War nuclear acceptance faster than Congress and the Obama administration; some people are not going to like this key shift in church doctrine on nuclear weapons.
More than 325 Actions for Peace and Justice across the U.S. this Week
REV. JOHN DEAR – Starting Sept. 20, more than 350 demonstrations, marches, vigils and other public events will be held all across the U.S., covering every state, as part of the second annual “Campaign Nonviolence†week of actions. Tens of thousands of people will be gathering and taking to the streets to speak out against all the issues of violence, including poverty, war, racism, police brutality, gun violence, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction, and call for a new culture of peace and nonviolence as Dr. King envisioned.
Campaign Nonviolence Lights a Spark of Peace
RIVERA SUN – Once a year, Campaign Nonviolence invites thousands of people to light a spark of active nonviolence in communities nationwide. This spark is then nurtured and fed year-round to build a light of nonviolence that shines brightly in our world. Through classes, films, speakers, actions, and campaigns for change, this fire of nonviolence can be tended into a central hearth for a whole community, growing a life-changing force that helps humanity evolve.
University Scientists Caught Conspiring with Biotech Industry to Manipulate Public Opinion on GMOs
DAVE MURPHY – What happens when a private company with a long history of producing some of the most toxic chemicals on the planet and now produces our food starts facing public pressure from a growing national grassroots movement to label their products to conform with basic principles of democracy and transparency? Well, if the company in question is Monsanto, then you take a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook and hatch a secret plan to enlist public university scientists to bury the potential harm of your genetically engineered crops by whitewashing negative studies and systematically demonizing your opponents in the media to mislead elected officials and the American public about the safety of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and their accompanying toxic pesticides.
Tiny Guam Faces Huge U.S. Marine Base Expansions
SYLVIA FRAIN – On Saturday morning August 29, 2015, the United States Navy signed the Record of Decision (ROD), the final document needed for the implementation of one of the largest “peacetime†military build-ups in American history. This will cost between $8 and 9 billion, with only $174 million for civilian infrastructure, which Congress has not released yet. As a central aspect of American’s foreign policy ‘Pivot to the Pacific’, the build-up will relocate thousands of Marines and their dependents from Okinawa, Japan to Guam. This does not auger well for the people of Guam.
A Peace Activist Leads the Labour Party
DAVID SWANSON – I wonder if people in the United States understand what it means that the Labour Party in London now has a peace activist in charge of it. Jeremy Corbyn does not resemble any U.S. politicians. He doesn’t favor “only the smart wars” or prefer drone murders to massive invasions. Corbyn opposes wars, and he works to end militarism.
Nonviolence May Offer the Solution to Gun Violence
ROBERT J. GOULD – We need weapons of mass instruction, not mass destruction, in order to slow, stop, and reverse the tragic mass shootings that plague our country.
Seek Accessible and Affordable Renewable Energy Sources
LAURIE DAUGHERTY – Peter Nelson, author of the Aug. 22 guest opinion, “Time for energy realism in Oregon,” and president of Marc Nelson Oil Products, Inc., should join the 21st century.
Maine Sail Freight Revives Salty History of Revolution, Independence
RIVERA SUN – In this new millennium marked by the looming threat of transnational trade deals like the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), one unusual trade adventure, Maine Sail Freight, will embark on a creative and bold journey as an act of defiance against what has become a poor standard of business-as-usual. When Maine Sail Freight launches its maiden voyage at the end of August carrying 11 tons of local, Maine-made cargo, the Greenhorns – a plucky band of young farmers – and the sailing crew of a historic wooden schooner are declaring their independence from corporate tyranny and re-invigorating sail freight as a wind-powered transportation agent of the booming local food economy. And, interestingly, they will be carrying one freight item that has a long history of revolutionary potential: salt. Yes, salt.
Pentagon Slush Fund Continues to Grow
MEL GURTOV – The dynamics of how the American taxpayer is endlessly tapped to provide massive and unnecessary funds for the US military is explained. Gurtov is not writing about the core military requests for defense of the U.S., but rather the corruption and global adventurism that places US personnel in harms way, and cheats the U.S. itself out of funds needed for the well being of our people.
Ten Years Since Katrina. What Have We Learned?
RAE BREAUX – I’m writing you from the coast of southern Louisiana. I’m here because today marks an important anniversary for those of us who care about both climate change and racial justice.
Fukushima Baby Milk Formula Declared Unfit by China
JOHN LAFORGE – Chinese authorities seized more than 881 pounds of baby milk formula that had been imported from Japan because it had been produced in areas known to be heavily contaminated with radioactive material emitted by three damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi complex. China’s Xinhua news agency reported that quarantine officials said that no excessive radioactive material was found in the formula, but the baby food was sent back to Japan because China has had a ban on any imports from the areas around Fukushima.
Best Way to Get Rid of Enemy Iran: Get Unstuck
TOM H. HASTINGS – We are SOS in the Middle East. Stuck on Stupid. Can we get unstuck?
Letter to the Editor
DIANE RUSHCAMP – Organizing means bringing people together around an issue we all can relate. In this spirit, explain why an action is being requested, and when using acronyms, take the time to spell them out.
Fracking Fight Heats Up in Ohio
TISH O’DELL [Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund] – With the oil and gas industry already reveling in a recent Ohio Supreme Court decision stripping local control on fracking and other extraction activities away from communities, the Secretary of State has now handed the industry another victory, opening the door for fracking infrastructure projects to spread even faster across Ohio.
Unlimited Power: Poison to the Nation’s Soul
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – The awareness that must emerge from a decade-and-counting of torture revelations is that absolute power over others does not keep us safe and should not be pursued. And torture is only a minute fraction of the wrong we promulgate through unchecked militarism, the aim of which is domination of the planet. Step one in the unhealthy pursuit of power is the dehumanization of “the enemy.†The consequences of what we do after that will always haunt us.
Stop Committing the Sin of Nuclear Weapons
REV. JOHN DEAR – Los Alamos sits above the second poorest county in the U.S. and is located in New Mexico, one of the poorest states in the country. The land was originally stolen from indigenous peoples by the U.S. government. Radioactive waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory was routinely dumped into the canyons below and has poisoned the water, the land, the animals, and the indigenous people. Annually, Los Alamos Labs spends $2 billion for the sole purpose of preparing the weapons that have the potential to kill millions of people. That’s why I call Los Alamos “the world’s greatest terrorist training camp.â€
Tell Your Senator to Oppose War on Iran
DAVID SWANSON – If both proponents and opponents of the nuclear agreement with Iran depict Iran falsely as a nuclear threat, the danger of a U.S. war on Iran is going to continue, with or without the deal. The deal could end with the election of a new president or Congress. Ending the agreement could be the first act of a Republican president or a Schumerian Democratic Leader. So, don’t just urge the right vote while pushing the propaganda. Oppose the propaganda as well.
Edward Snowden Wins Swedish Human Rights Award for NSA Revelations
EWEN MACASKILL – Whistleblower Edward Snowden received several standing ovations in the Swedish parliament after being given the Right Livelihood award for his revelations of the scale of state surveillance.
Recent Civil Resistance Against Shell Oil Shows Important Role Nonviolence Plays
PATRICK T. HILLER – I don’t know any of the 13 activists who lowered themselves from the St. John ’s Bridge in Portland, Oregon, nor any of the dozens of kayakers paddling in the Willamette River below them, but they succeeded in a temporary blockade of the Shell-leased Arctic-bound icebreaker MSV Fennica. I know that the activists participated in our democracy—they were nonviolent and far more civil than many members of Congress. The ship was in Portland for repairs of damage to the hull, which ironically occurred when it was scheduled to leave for the Arctic as part of the safety conditions Royal Dutch Shell Oil needed to fulfill for federal approval to drill for oil after a series of accidents in 2013.
Would Jeffrey Sterling Be in Prison If He Were White?
NORMAN SOLOMAN – [In late June] CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling went to prison. If he were white, he probably wouldn’t be there.
What Do Americans Think About Economic Inequality?
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – Academician Dr. Lawrence Wittner performed many literature reviews in his scholarly career; this essay is a mini-version of US citizen opinion on the questions surrounding our growing gap between rich and everyone else, as well as the decimation of the middle class. In this clear and objective logical survey of the wishes of the American people on serious questions, Wittner poses the unstated query: If we want it, why can’t we get it? The more times we ask this, the closer we come to saying it out loud and acting on it.
Obama and Osama: Where Does the Truth Lie?
IBRAHIM S. BAHATI – Since Osama bin Laden’s death 2 May 2011, the official account of the Navy Seals’ raid has been challenged, most recently and cogently by journalist Seymour Hersh, alleging that “Washington’s official account of the hunt for Bin Laden and the raid that led to his death was a lie.†In fact, there have been more “conspiracy-factual theories†about this event than there are on Illuminati. Was OBL there? Was he even alive then? Is he still?
Resist the Pro-Violence Conspiracy
DAVID SOLEIL – As thoughtful, caring parents, we would never want to teach our kids that violence is the answer to any or every problem. We want our children to learn to get along with others, share, be kind, say “excuse me,” and try their best at an empathetic, “I’m sorry.” I thought I was attuned to the violence that surrounds us in American culture. However, a trip to our local department store with my kids yesterday was shocking. We stepped into the toy aisles. Here is a quick rundown of the toys and action figures, in order…
In Iraq, I Raided Insurgents. In Virginia, the Police Raided Me.
ALEX GORDON – I had done this a few dozen times myself, 6,000 miles away from my Alexandria, Va., apartment. As an Army infantryman in Iraq, I’d always been on the trigger side of the weapon. Now that I was on the barrel side, I recalled basic training’s most important firearm rule: Aim only at something you intend to kill. I had conducted the same kind of raid on suspected bombmakers and high-value insurgents. But the Fairfax County officers in my apartment were aiming their weapons at a target whose rap sheet consisted only of parking tickets and an overdue library book.
Obama Must Ignore Middle Eastern Whiners About Iran
MEL GURTOV – One of the predictable outcomes of any US effort to reset relations with an adversary is that allies start whining about their vulnerability and demanding some sort of compensation for it. Thus, no sooner was the nuclear deal with Iran concluded than the Israelis, Saudis, and other Middle East partners criticize it as representing abandonment and emboldening Iran to become a stronger meddler in neighbors’ affairs. All sorts of dire predictions about horrendous consequences are already on record, clearly intended to influence the Obama administration to give these folks something for their pain—like money, arms (both of which they get in abundance), and especially new commitments.
NBC Dares Mention Climate in Spread of Lyme Disease, But Not Who Created Lyme Disease
DAVID SWANSON – Climate change is apparently encouraging the spread of Lyme disease, and a report by NBC News dares to say so. This may seem like a fresh breath of honest sanity in a media context in which even the weather reports usually avoid the topic of human global destruction. However, another topic is clearly still off limits: the topic of who created Lyme disease.
F16s for Iraq: Good for Profiteers; Bad for Everyone Else
TOM H. HASTINGS – The US has delivered the first batch of F16 fighter jets to Iraq. How long until ISIS grabs them? How long before Iraq’s BFF Iran reverse engineers them from nose to tail? How exactly is this even remotely in the interest of the security of the US citizens whose government approved this deal?
Heavily Armed Does Not Equal Being Secure
ROBERT KOEHLER – The more that people lose touch with their own humanity, the more, I fear, they will feel the need to be armed – desperately imagining it’s the same thing as being secure. And the news cycle will continue, endlessly bringing us more of the same.
Nonviolence Was an Important Part of the U.S. Struggle for Independence
STEPHANIE VAN HOOK – When Gandhi met with the British viceroy Lord Irwin after his imprisonment following the 1930 Salt Satyagraha, they shared a pot of tea. Gandhi, mischieviously took out a package of contraband salt, opened it and sprinkled a bit into his cup. Looking at the astounded Lord Irwin he told him he did so in remembrance of the Boston Tea Party.
Obama’s Legacy for Africa Needs Improvement
FODAY DARBOE – In light of President Obama’s 2015 trip to Africa, likely his last trip to Africa as the U.S. president, it is appropriate to evaluate his government’s foreign policies in Africa since he assumed office. Through this assessment, it is sadly plain to see that Obama’s policies have not helped the vast majority of Africans. Instead, the policies have allowed the suppression of the African people’s hoped-for democratic reforms while simultaneously bolstering the power of corrupt African elites.
Who Pays Taxes in the US? Everyone but the Super-Rich
THOM HARTMANN – Why are our seniors paying higher taxes on their social security benefits than billionaires pay on stocks? The IRS released a new report that reveals the staggering amount of money that the top one-thousandth of the 1% in the US is hoarding.
Are Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament Agreements of Any Value?
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – The recent announcement of a nuclear deal between the governments of Iran and other major nations, including the United States, naturally draws our attention to the history of international nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements. What accounts for their advent on the world scene and what have they accomplished?
GOP Attempting to Kill Environmental Regulations Across the Board With Sneaky Budget Riders
EMERSON URRY – It seems like we, at EnviroNews, have been reporting on this type of thing all year. That is, sketchy environmental riders being attached to totally unrelated appropriations bills in backdoor efforts to kill environmental and wildlife protections. Yes, this year’s spending bills are littered with Republican-stamped provisions seeking to gut current regulations, while rolling back what little painstaking progress the government has made on the climate issue – this, in an attempt to open the door for limitless carbon pollution, and myriad other industrial plunders.
Bang Bang! You’re Not Dead
CLANCY SIGAL – I hold no special brief for the British police at whose hands and batons I’ve split a lip or two. But here in Los Angeles, where our trimly athletic LAPD shoots fewer civilians than, say, in Albuquerque or Baltimore, we’re seeing a spike in “he was reaching into his waist band†or “coming at me with a knife (or rock).” Police in Gardena, LA, shot two unarmed Hispanics looking for their stolen bike, one died (you can see the police-camera video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkjGBEbfKyo); a few days ago police in the beach city of Venice shot and killed a homeless guy who allegedly had a knife; police in Los Feliz, LA, shot an unarmed jogger who approached them. The dead guys tend to be black, brown or homeless. It’s a weekly sometimes daily occurrence. The city has paid victims’ families over $20m in recent years. From the WashPost and the UK Independent, I’ve put together one or two factoids for perspective.
Boeing Patents Nuclear-Powered Airplane
KARL GROSSMAN – Consider getting on to an airplane with nuclear-powered engines. Consider the consequences if an atomic airplane crashes. The Boeing Company last week received approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for an airplane engine that combines the use of lasers and nuclear power. “Boeing’s newly-patented engine provides thrust in a very different and rather novel manner,†heralded Business Insider. It’s a leap into mad science—and backwards to a 1950s notion of nuclear-powered aircraft.
Greek Financial Debacle is a Crisis of Soulless Economics
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – Austerity, the brutal tool of neoliberal capitalism, stands up to Greek democracy and stares it down. Oh well. We’re remarkably comfortable with soulless economics. Pope Francis, speaking this week in Paraguay, cried to the nations of Planet Earth: “I ask them not to yield to an economic model … which needs to sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit.â€
What’s Being Ignored in the Iranian Nuclear Deal?
WINSLOW MYERS – I’m not an expert, just another interested citizen who follows the news, but something genuinely bothers me about the U.S. negotiations with Iran, whether they are ultimately successful or not.
New Oil Drilling Threatens New Disasters
MEL GURTOV – On January 17 the New York Times reported that, to appease environmentalists, the Obama administration would “ban drilling in portions of the Arctic Ocean’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.†But in return, Republicans and the oil and gas industry got federal approval to drill in a large swath of the Atlantic Ocean, a move that I believe risks another BP-type disaster.
Pope Francis is Taking on Climate Change
ETHICAL MARKETS – The encyclical from Pope Francis [the week of June 1, 2015] marks yet another significant milestone in our planet’s march toward a global climate change agreement in Paris this December. The fact that the leader to more than 1 billion Catholics—roughly 14 percent of the world’s population—is urging action on climate change is undeniable evidence of growing support for an agreement that even global warming naysayers cannot refute.
Historic Peace Ship Is Re-Launched
ARNOLD OLIVER – Along the rugged coast of northern California’s Humboldt County, maritime history is being made. June 20th marked the launch ceremony of the rebuilt sailing ketch, the Golden Rule, after four years of hard work by a restoration team led by Veterans for Peace. As we shall see, the Golden Rule is no ordinary sailboat.
If U.S. Military Spending Returned to 2001 Level
DAVID SWANSON – The House of Representatives has headed out of town to memorialize wars without managing to achieve agreement with the Senate on reauthorizing some of the most abusive “temporary†measures of the PATRIOT Act. Three cheers for Congressional vacations! What if not just our civil liberties but our budget got a little bit of 2001 back?
How We Can Overcome Nuclear Apartheid
RICHARD LENNANE – At the closing session of the NPT review conference on 22 May, South Africa described the NPT regime as a form of “nuclear apartheid.” This certainly captures the idea of a privileged minority unjustly imposing its will on a disenfranchised majority. But in many ways, a better analogy is that of the struggle for civil rights in the United States in the 1950s and 60s.
Will There Be a Dawn of Justice?
KATHY KELLY – “Guantanamo Diary,†by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, is his story of being imprisoned in Guantanamo since 2002. In all his years of captivity, he has never been charged with a crime. He has suffered grotesque torture, humiliation and mistreatment, and yet his memoir includes many humane, tender accounts, including remembrances of past Ramadan fasts spent with his family.
Supreme Court Rejects EPA’s Regulation of Power Plants’ Emissions of Mercury and Other Toxins
METEOR BLADE (TIMOTHY LANGE) – The U.S. Supreme Court plunked a setback into the lap of the Environmental Protection Agency Monday [6-29-15] by trashing the agency’s regulation of emissions of mercury and other air toxins (MATS) from electricity-generating plants. The court overturned a lower-court decision in the case of Michigan v. EPA stating that the agency had acted reasonably when it chose not to consider compliance costs first in its effort to control those emissions. The justices split 5-4, with the four liberals on the side of the EPA and the four conservatives and Justice Anthony Kennedy on the side of industry and the states that had sued.
Eyewitness Reports on Life in Afghanistan
MARTHA HENNESSY – Despite uncertainties over the future, the APV community pursues small but significant efforts at the Borderfree Center. They give a fine example of how a community can cooperate toward reaching shared goals, rather than compete. Roses keep blooming in Kabul amid the chaos and dust, and a tiny light of joyful collaboration remains graciously alive.
War, Murder and the American Way
ROBERT KOEHLER – Every war and every mass murder spreads fear and hatred — and inspiration — in their aftermath. We can’t go to war without spawning imitators. The day after nine members of Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church were murdered, USA Today reported, the vigils at two South Carolina churches, in Charleston and Greenville, were disrupted by bomb threats and the churches had to be evacuated. “At some point,†President Obama said, “we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. . . . ” Until we begin demilitarizing our relationship with the world, such words uttered by presidents are as empty as the words Dylann Roof uttered in prayer at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that fateful night.
Corvallis Council Votes to Divest from Fossil Fuels
KRIS PAUL – The Corvallis, Oregon divest campaign which started last fall came to a successful conclusion with the Corvallis City Council voting to divest on June 15th, 2015. Excited supporters in the audience clapped as the council unanimously voted to pass the resolution and were gently reminded by Mayor Traber that clapping during council meetings is not expected behavior.
These Four Steps Could Help End Gun Violence
TOM H. HASTINGS – What can we imagine would be important to ending gun violence in our increasingly Tombstone Territory USA, where cars are getting safer and guns are getting more lethal? I’d offer four starter steps toward addressing a combination of necessary and contributory causes.