PETER BERGEL – The best peace party in Oregon, Give Peace a Dance, will shake, rattle and roll Salem’s Grand Ballroom (187 High St. NE) from 6-11 p.m. on March 23rd. The event features superb entertainment, silent and oral auctions, delicious food and a no-host bar. The event benefits Oregon PeaceWorks, a statewide peace, justice and sustainability organization based in Salem.
Author: Oregon PeaceWorks
FBI Documents Reveal Secret Nationwide Occupy Monitoring
THE PARTNERSHIP FOR CIVIL JUSTICE FUND – FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund(PCJF) pursuant to the PCJF’s Freedom of Information Act demands reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat even though the agency acknowledges in documents that organizers explicitly called for peaceful protest and did “not condone the use of violence†at occupy protests.
Three-Quarters of Progressive Caucus Not Taking a Stand Against Cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
NORMAN SOLOMON – For the social compact of the United States, most of the Congressional Progressive Caucus has gone missing.
While still on the caucus roster, three-quarters of the 70-member caucus seem lost in political smog. Those 54 members of the Progressive Caucus haven’t signed the current letter that makes a vital commitment: “we will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits — including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need.â€
Supply, Demand, and Activism: What Should the Climate Movement Do Next?
DAVID ROBERTS – I’ve been writing a lot about the activist campaign to block the Keystone XL pipeline. Much of that writing has been devoted to pushing back against the squadron of Very Serious People who want to pooh-pooh the campaign as mistargeted, misguided, and futile.
GE Will Not Chase Nuke Business if Laws Don’t Change
DINESH NARAYANAN – One big multinational is almost certain to be out of the race for nuclear energy business in India. On Wednesday I had met John Flannery, outgoing President and Chief Executive Officer of GE in India for a chat before he left for his new assignment: finding targets for the company to buy. Flannery said GE will rather give up business than play within India’s civil nuclear liability rules.
The Foodopoly: Too Big to Eat
DAVID SWANSON – We’ve come to understand that the banks are too big to fail, too big to take to trial, too big not to let them write our public policy, too big not to reward them for ruining our economy. Why have we come to understand that?
Newly Proposed Carbon Tax Will Fight Global Warming, Protect Low-Income Americans, Reduce Deficit
RICHARD CAPERTON – In the last two years, the biggest extreme weather events cost American families and businesses $188 billion. As we pump more and more greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere, these disasters are only going to become more common.
Bhutan Set to Plough Lone Furrow as World’s First Wholly Organic Country
John Vidal and Annie Kellly – Bhutan plans to become the first country in the world to turn its agriculture completely organic, banning the sales of pesticides and herbicides and relying on its own animals and farm waste for fertilizers.
35 Years in Prison for Embarrassing H-Bomb Guards?
JOHN LAFORGE – Risking your personal freedom for a worthy cause is as American as apple pie. But nonviolently putting your life at risk in defense of others is so rare that the actor is sometimes dismissed as crazy. Some people think the Transform Now Plowshares activists were crazy for sneaking into a nuclear weapons factory — the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. — in order to make a direct, unequivocal and crystal clear demand for an end to the expensive, poisonous, criminal and delusional self-destructiveness of building nuclear bombs.
How Climate Change Affects Communities of Color
HILARY O. SHELTON – With the devastation from Hurricane Sandy fresh in our minds, it is time to deliberately address the menacing climate change concerns that are facing our planet and their disparate impacts on communities of color. With this in mind, we must also recognize and address the air pollutants contributing to issues of climate change. In 2005, many thought Hurricane Katrina would force politicians and decision-makers to pay attention to the buildup of harmful greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and to build momentum for change. Yet here we are again, seven years later, rebuilding after a catastrophic super-storm, which ravaged the Caribbean and U.S. Atlantic Coast. During the election season, the topic of climate change was barely broached. However, President Obama gave it some much needed attention in his victory speech. And, as many know, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and our allies in the environmental justice movement have been speaking with a sense of critical urgency on this issue for years.
Ten Years After Powell’s U.N. Speech, Old Hands Are Ready for More Blood
NORMAN SOLOMON – When Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003, countless journalists in the United States extolled him for a masterful performance — making the case that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The fact that the speech later became notorious should not obscure how easily truth becomes irrelevant in the process of going to war.
Rep. Barbara Lee Introduces Bill to Create Department of Peacebuilding
REP. BARBARA LEE – Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) on February 15 introduced a new bill in the House of Representatives that would create a Cabinet-level “Department of Peacebuilding.”
Shocking Revelation: U.S. Health Care System Wastes More Money than the Entire Pentagon Budget Annually
DR, JOSEPH MERCOLA – A review of U.S. healthcare expenses by the Institutes of Medicine1 has revealed that 30 cents of every dollar spent on medical care is wasted, adding up to $750 billion annually.
Power of One: Ronny Edry Creates Israel ♥ Iran Image
REV. JIM HETZER – An Israeli graphic designer overhead a conversation at a grocery in Tel Aviv between the owner and a customer. The owner said that soon Iran would send 10,000 missiles to rain down on Israel. The customer said it would be 10,000 missiles a day. The Israeli graphic designer is named Ronny Edry. He has heard this kind of story over and over for the last 10 years. He felt that he needed to do something to help the situation.
Congress Must Act to Save Lives: Reauthorize VAWA
LAURA FINLEY – Domestic violence is one of the most common forms of violence endured by women. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that one-fourth of U.S women will endure an abusive relationship, while some 1,300 people are killed each year by intimate partners. Thankfully, we have come a long way since the 1970s, when laws did not directly prohibit domestic violence, police often failed to respond, and few resources were available to victims. Yet we stand at the brink of losing much of that progress if Congress does not act now to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
Peace Village Brings Peace Education to Youth in 10 States and Haiti
KEN MCCORMACK – The tragedy at Newtown is driving a debate over gun control. Gun control is critical. But there is also a need for basic change in our culture of violence. To this end, the Oregon-based Peace Village, Inc. (PV) is taking the message of nonviolence directly to children.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee Introduces Bill to Audit the Pentagon
CONGRESSWOMAN BARBARA LEE – Congresswoman Barbara Lee has introduced the “Audit the Pentagon Act of 2013†for increased transparency and accountability in the defense budget. This bipartisan bill will cut the budget of any Federal agency by five percent that does not receive an independent audit for the previous year. To protect benefits for the nation’s veterans, military personnel accounts and the Defense Health Program would be exempt from cuts.
Nader: Postal Crisis “Manufacturedâ€
INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC ACCURACY – Reuters reported this week that President Obama has endorsed a plan to “rescue†the Postal Service, including by reducing service one day a week.
Bloomberg reports: “A measure that may put the U.S. Postal Service under a control board, end to-the-door mail delivery and close post offices using the same process as military-base shutdowns was approved by a U.S. House panel. The bill, sponsored by Representatives Darrell Issa, a California Republican, and Dennis Ross, a Florida Republican, was approved today with Republican support and Democratic opposition.
First City in U.S. Passes Resolution Against Drones
DAVID SWANSON – Shortly after 11 p.m. on Monday, February 4th, the City Council of Charlottesville, Va., passed what is believed to be the first anti-drone resolution in the country. According to my notes, and verifiable soon on the City Council’s website, the resolution reads:
Nuclear Weapons Waste in Your Water Bottle, Hip Replacement, Baby’s Toys, Jungle Gym?
JOHN LAFORGE – Even the deregulation-happy Wall St. Journal sounded shocked: “The Department of Energy is proposing to allow the sale of tons of scrap metal from government nuclear sites — an attempt to reduce waste that critics say could lead to radiation-tainted belt buckles, surgical implants and other consumer products.â€
How Americans Think About Nuclear Weapons – What You Need to Know to Communicate Successfully
RETHINK MEDIA – The public has conflicted opinions about nuclear weapons. They don’t like them, but they see them as necessary and essential. They like the idea of eliminating them, but don’t see that as realistic. The challenge is to build public confidence in a process of reductions.
Peace Movement Drones On and On: Wisdom from the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk
MIKE FERNER – During the Vietnam war, there was a vibrant, courageous resistance movement within the military itself. Young men and some women did anything they could to end the killing. They demonstrated, sabotaged military equipment, and fragged their officers. They also published dozens of underground newspapers, one of which was put out by the crew of the carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, cheekily called Kitty Litter.
A Letter I Wish Progressive Groups Would Send to Their Members
NORMAN SOLOMON – With President Obama’s second term underway and huge decisions looming on Capitol Hill, consider this statement from Howard Zinn: “When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them.â€
Gene Sharp: The Machiavelli of Nonviolence
JOHN-PAUL FLINTOFF – In a long life of scholarship and dissent, Gene Sharp has been imprisoned and persecuted, but never silenced. His ideas continue to inspire resistance movements across the world. Gene Sharp is not a typical pacifist. “When I used to lecture, I would always get complaints from the pacifists,†says the academic, who turns 85 this month. “They would say I wasn’t pure…”
Carol Bragg’s Fast for a ‘Revolution in Values’
KEN BUTIGAN – The December 14 rampage that claimed the lives of 28 people, including 20 children, in Newtown, Conn., has prompted a vigorous new debate on gun violence in the United States and the emergence of a spate of legislative proposals that the president and Congress may broach sometime this year. While policies designed to outlaw or control guns are needed now more than ever, for many of us these efforts must be rooted in a larger imperative: coming to grips with the culture of violence that makes this kind of tragedy possible and seeing our way clear to an alternative.
The Riddle of the Gun
SAM HARRIS – Editor’s Note: Readers may be surprised to find this article reprinted by The PeaceWorker, since it takes a largely pro-gun stance, but it makes a number of very cogent points which gun controllers need to be able to answer. Comments welcome.
Risking Peace is Our Best Security Policy
WINSLOW MYERS – Because we are the wealthiest nation on the planet, we have the luxury of being proactive in ensuring our future security. But the path to that security looks very different from the way it did even a few years ago.
A primary example of our transformed security context is the realization that there is only one ocean of air surrounding the earth. Unless all nations make a concerted effort to convert to sources of clean energy, global mean temperatures will continue to rise and cause undesirable extremes of weather.
King: I Have a Dream. Obama: I Have a Drone.
NORMAN SOLOMON – A simple twist of fate has set President Obama’s second Inaugural Address for January 21, the same day as the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.
Obama made no mention of King during the Inauguration four years ago — but since then, in word and deed, the president has done much to distinguish himself from the man who said “I have a dream.â€
Time is Money – The Devastating Impacts of American Culture on Foreign Policy
ERIN NIEMELA – Two days before Christmas my brother called, frantically demanding I tell him what to purchase for my two young children and myself. For the kids, I said, buy Legos. For myself, I neither need nor want anything. I requested he write for me a brief letter answering the following question: If you could give me anything in the world for Christmas, what would it be and why? My dear brother’s response was less than agreeable: “What the hell? I’m too busy to do that! Just tell me what you want!†In his defense, he just had a new baby, but his response warrants a closer look into American culture and how it impacts all of us.
Gun Control and Arms Control Are Similar
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – In a number of ways, gun control issues are remarkably similar to arms control issues. Gun controllers argue that the availability of guns facilitates the use of these weapons for murderous purposes. Arms controllers make much the same case, asserting that weapons buildups lead to arms races and wars.
The New Mandate on Defense
BARNEY FRANK – There were so many encouraging signs for liberals in the election results this year that one of the most significant has been overlooked.
Make Pentagon Savings Part of Budget Negotiations
REPS KEITH ELLISON AND MICK MULVANEY – We believe pursuing savings in the Pentagon’s budget must be one part of the larger — and critical — effort to improve our nation’s fiscal condition.
To argue that the defense budget should be off the table ignores the growth in defense spending–which since 2000 has increased more than a third after adjusting for inflation. We can disagree about the proper amount of defense spending, but it is clear that recent growth has not been tied to strategic needs.
Those Who Say “I Support the Troops” Should Just Stop, Out of Respect for the Troops
MICHAEL MOORE – I don’t support the troops, America, and neither do you.
New Year Means New Era for Progressives and Obama
NORMAN SOLOMON – As 2013 gets underway, progressives need to be here now. We’re in a new era of national politics — with different circumstances that call for a major shift in approach.
Court Rules Peace Activists Can Sue the U.S. Military for Infiltration
NATHAN TEMPEY – In a potentially precedent-setting decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that a Guild lawyer’s challenge to military spying on peace activists can proceed. The ruling marks the first time a court has affirmed people’s ability to sue the military for violating their First and Fourth Amendment rights.
Repeal the Second Amendment
TOM HASTINGS – I’m a peace person, as are my friends. I am striving to be nonviolent and have tried to learn nonviolence for years. I can point to alternatives to guns, I can argue against them, and that’s about it. What we need — what would dramatically change our national discourse on this — is for gun owners to stand up and tell the rest of us, “We no longer want our possessions to be regarded under our Constitution as sacred and above the law. We reject the kneejerk response from the NRA and the gun industry every time there is a tragedy. Not once — never, ever one single time — have they admitted that guns can ever be a problem and are just things that should be subjected to laws like anything else.”
How to Build a Peaceful Future for Our Children
LAURA FINLEY – The root problem underlying the Sandy Hook mass shooting tragedy is that the U.S. is a violent, militaristic culture that, in virtually every institution, demonstrates violence as a means of solving problems.
Out with the Old: Recycling Cell Phones, Laptops, TVs…
CHRIS THOMAS – PORTLAND, Ore. – “Out with the old, in with the new†takes on a whole new meaning when the topic is electronic gear. A new national certification program ensures that recyclers properly dispose of items such as laptops, televisions and cell phones. According to the Basel Action Network (BAN), a toxic-waste watchdog group, the oversight is necessary for what’s become an international environmental nightmare.
GravityLight: the Low-Cost Lamp Powered by Sand and Gravity
OLIVER WAINWRIGHT – The problem of bringing light to remote parts of the developing world has been tackled in the past with everything from solar-powered lamps to wind-up devices and rechargeable batteries – all of which require relatively expensive kit or physical effort by the user. But two London-based designers have now developed a light source that operates on the stuff that surrounds you – earth, rocks or sand – with the helping hand of gravity.
We Are the Cause of Our Own Misery
JENNIFER BROWDY DE HERNANDEZ – A couple of weeks ago, when I heard that my 14-year-old son and his friend had been playing with the other boy’s air-soft pistols by shooting each other at close range, I saw red. “But it just stings like a bee-sting, Mom,†my son protested. “It just leaves a welt. Why are you getting so upset?†At the time, I wasn’t sure why I was getting so upset — after all, these were only toy guns…
The Cost of Occupying Planet Earth
DAVID VINE – Editor’s Note: Although this article is long, it provides an excellent overview of what we actually pay to project our national power around the world. For this reason, it is required reading for all peace people.
Nuclear Test in Nevada Condemned by Iran, Japan
JOSEY WALES – Iran has strongly condemned the U.S. for carrying out a nuclear test in Nevada this week, saying the move threatens world peace and shows a hypocritical set of double standards set by Washington when it comes to nuclear research. The Iranian Foreign Ministry said the Wednesday detonation proves that US foreign policy relies heavily on the use of nuclear weapons, disregarding UN calls for global disarmament, PressTV reports.
Understanding the Fiscal Cliff (In 2 Minutes 30 Seconds)
ROBERT B. REICH – MAKE REPUBLICANS VOTE ON EXTENDING THE TAX CUTS JUST FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS. After all the Bush tax cuts expire, have Republicans vote on an extending the Bush tax cut just for the middle-class. If they refuse and try to hold those tax cuts hostage to tax cuts for the wealthy, it will show whose side they’re on. They’ll pay the price in 2014.
The Trifecta of Civil Resistance: Unity, Planning, Discipline
HARDY MERRIMAN – If we accept the axiom that in politics “power is never given, it is always taken,†the conclusion necessarily is that historic nonviolent movements were successful because, somehow, they wielded power that was greater than that of their opponents.
Here’s How to Cut the Military Budget
RANDY SCHUTT – ilitary spending (inflation-adjusted) has nearly doubled in the past 12 years, from $361.3 billion in FY2000 to $610.9 billion in FY2012. This massive increase has taken place during a time when the United States has the most powerful military ever in history and when we have no significant military enemies. The U.S. spends more on the military than the next 14 countries combined and vastly more than any possible enemies: roughly 5 times more than China, 10 times more than Russia, and 95 times more than Iran.
U.S. Has Responsibility to Help Make Peace in Gaza
DAVID MCREYNOLDS – We should be reminded, in looking at anything involving Netanyahu, that we are not dealing with an “ordinary” head of state, but with a man of the far right. His late father was an open racist whose comments about the Palestinians are fully the equal of the Nazi views of the Jews, and was a follower of the Jabotinsky movement – the extreme right of the Zionist movement (Jabotinsky worked with Mussolini before WW II). The Israeli Prime Minister is truly his father’s son.
LA, Moapa Indians to Cooperate on Giant Solar Project
KEITH ROGERS – The sun is shining more brightly on the Moapa River Indian Reservation today. Council members for the city of Los Angeles approved a $1.6 billion, 25-year pact Tuesday to purchase solar power from a company that will build nearly 1 million photovoltaic panels on tribal land.
Nonviolence, Not Violence, Promises a Brighter Mid-East Future
MICHAEL NAGLER – The big picture is this: we live in a violent system. Overriding the unquenchable yearning for peace and unity in every one of us, and which is arguably much closer to our actual nature, is a distorting culture that possesses the world of our thoughts and emotions. We see it in, among other things, The overriding narrative of our culture, which is predicated on a dispiriting image of the human being. Institutions, like retributive justice that operate from this narrative. The guiding principle of competition that has come to be enshrined in business, education, entertainment, sports — and of course war.
Organic Seed Growers Take Monsanto to Court
JIM GERRITSEN – WASHINGTON, DC – November 23, 2012 – On November 21, 2012, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., announced that it would hear the Appeal of Dismissal inOrganic Seed Growers and Trade Association et al v. Monsanto at 10am on Thursday, January 10, 2013. The landmark organic community lawsuit was originally filed in Federal District Court, Southern District of New York, in March 2011.
Message from Sen. Merkley About Military Spending
JEFF MERKLEY – This letter is a reply from Sen. Jeff Merkley to PeaceWorker Editor Peter Bergel in response to Bergel’s request that Merkley support major cuts to the military budget during the upcoming “fiscal cliff†debate, rather than allow cuts to social security, medicare, or other remaining components of the safety net. Let’s hold Merkley to this encouraging approach.