SAVAIDA MA’ANI EWING -t is time to courageously and humbly acknowledge that our COP system does not work and to boldly reimagine a new system for stemming global warming. In this endeavor we would do well to heed the following words of Robert Schuman uttered in 1950: “World peace cannot be safeguarded without creative efforts commensurate with the dangers that threaten it”.
Category: Analysis
The Collapse of Syria’s Dictatorship Poses Many Questions
MEL GURTOV – Rebel groups that seize power invariably get caught between conflicting aims on the use of their new authority: revenge or governing? HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) could wind up being another jihadist regime, bent on eliminating enemies and building an authoritarian state; or it could focus on human security and friendly relations with all its neighbors. We’ll probably find out soon enough which path HTS is going to take.
World’s Richest Man Pays to Screw America DOGE-style
TOM H. HASTINGS – Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are partnering to create a new US government agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk underwrote the Trump campaign with $200 million in donations (AP estimate) and his own brand of buying votes.
Donald Trump’s Tariff Fantasies
MEL GURTOV – Donald Trump thinks the world of tariffs. But Vice President Kamala Harris referred to her opponent’s tariff policy as a “Trump Tax.” She’s right: Several independent studies have found that the new tariffs, if implemented, would raise costs for the average middle-class family anywhere between $1,350 and $3,900 a year. And J.D Vance claimed that when Trump was president and raised tariffs on Chinese goods, “prices went down for American citizens. They went up for the Chinese but they went down for our people.” Totally wrong. In fact, the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing opposed Trump’s tariffs precisely because US importers would have to pass along higher prices to consumers, making their goods less competitive. But Trump wasn’t listening.
We can stop the MAGA nightmare from becoming a permanent reality
LISA GILBERT and ROBERT WEISSMAN – If we fight — with everything, every damn thing, we’ve got — we *will* prevent at least some damage, and there is every reason to think we can stop the MAGA nightmare from becoming a permanent reality.
Evaluating the Role of Right-Wing Christianity in the Election and Its Aftermath
BOB TOPPER – The problems we face are real. Solutions will come from realists who make rational decisions based on science and facts. Fantasies and superstitious fears will only perpetuate them. Anyone who doubts that should consider the tragic outcomes of religious fanaticism throughout history from the Inquisition to Heaven’s Gate, and then compare the well-being of people living in liberal democracies to those living in the theocratic and autocratic nations, especially those in the Middle East.
When Will the General Assembly Suspend Israel?
KATHY KELLY –
Eight Reasons Why Marco Rubio Would Be a Disastrous Secretary of State
MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS J. S. DAVIES – Of all Trump’s choices for his foreign policy team, Marco Rubio is the least controversial to the neoconservative foreign policy establishment in Washington, and the most certain to provide continuity with all that is wrong with U.S. foreign policy, from Cuba to the Middle East to China.
Some Amount of World Government Desperately Needed
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – The time has come to transform the United Nations into a federation of nations that can effectively uphold international law―a government for the world. With such a government, we would have a much better chance of restraining outlaw nations and averting the nuclear catastrophe that looms before us.
We Have a Sacred Duty – All of Us
RIVERA SUN – On Election Night, I did my civic duty and held it sacred. Now, I’m asking you to do your civic duty and hold it sacred. Stand up for your fellow citizens and human beings. Reject the politics of hate and policies of discrimination. Join us in reclaiming that profound and sacred aspiration of being a country of respect and decency. It’s not just the fate of our nation at stake. Your reputation is also on the line.
A Call to Post-Election Action
PETER BERGEL – What works in Oregon may not work in Ohio, but we desperately need to come together around a vision that allows us to survive. Without that vision, as the Tao says, the people perish.
What’s Certain About Results of the Presidential Election
NORMAN SOLOMON – While the name of the next president is unknown, some outcomes of the election can be foreseen.
War’s Victims Speak the Deepest Truth
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – “The past carries unforgettable trauma and pain across the land and among generations of refugees; yet we choose to transform victimhood into agency. We want to be the authors of our future.” Let these words resonate. In a sense, they’re all we have — if we oppose war and envision a future that transcends it. I’ve quoted these words of Ali Abu Awwad before. They’re part of the Palestinian Nonviolence Charter, but they reach beyond Palestine: deep into the soul, and the hope, of all humanity.
Israel Intensifies Its Disregard of World Opinion; Targets the UN
MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS J. S. DAVIES – Each new week brings new calamities for people in the countries neighboring Israel, as its leaders try to bomb their way to the promised land of an ever-expanding Greater Israel. A US arms embargo against Israel and an end to U.S. obstruction in the UN Security Council could tip the political balance of power in favor of the world’s collective efforts to resolve the crisis.
Men Voting to Support Reproductive Rights Could Help Send Kamala Harris to the White House
ROB OKUN – The clock is ticking. “Do something!” Michelle Obama exhorted us. Talk to the men and young men in your life. Encourage them to speak out—and to vote. The lives of their daughters, partners, wives, aunts and sisters, depend on it.
Court Rules U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production Plan Violates Federal Law
MEDIA CONTACTS FOR NEWS RELEASE – On September 30, United States District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the United States Department of Energy (“DOE”) and its semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (“NNSA”), violated the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with their plan to produce plutonium pits, a critical component of nuclear weapons, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (“LANL”) in New Mexico and, for the first time ever, at the Savannah River Site (“SRS”) in South Carolina. The Court found that the plan’s purpose had fundamentally changed from NNSA’s earlier analyses which had not considered simultaneous pit production at two sites. These changes necessitated a reevaluation of alternatives, including site alternatives, which Defendants failed to undertake prior to moving forward while spending tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars.
How I Became “Mentally Ill” from JFK to Today
KARY LOVE – Today many good people unite to still seek the noble realization of JFK’s peace goal.. But too many are willing to profit from death and they must be repudiated, shunned and excluded from power. As MLK put it, “the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.” This is only true if moral people stand forth, reject the evil, and bend it towards the good.
“Escalation Dominance”. . . and the Prospect of More Than 1,000 Holocausts
NORMAN SOLOMON – Today, with nuclear arsenals vastly larger and more powerful, scientists know that a nuclear exchange would cause “nuclear winter.” And the nearly complete end of agriculture on the planet. Some estimates put the survival rate of humans on Earth at 1 or 2 percent. More than 1,000 Holocausts.
Trying to Outflank the GOP on China Is a Mistake
JAKE WERNER – China bashing is a dead end for Democrats.
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.
The US Operates the Largest Military Base Empire on Earth
GRETA ZARRO – U.S. foreign military bases provoke war, pollute communities, and steal land from Indigenous peoples. If the peace movement is serious about ending the United States’ and its allies’ warmaking, then this global constellation of bases must be curtailed.
How to Decolonize Our Battle Against Climate Change
LAURIE PARSONS – Rich countries have exported climate breakdown through extractive industries, creating a “carbon colonialism.”
The Curious Endurance of Atoms for Peace
HENRY SOKOLSKI – Peaceful nuclear power was a political gambit from the start. Why does it still continue?
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.
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.
How “White Dudes” May Reshape Manhood This Election
ROB OKUN – White men are coming out, but not in the way you might think. Before more than 190,000 men joined a “White Dudes for Harris” call on July 29, the common wisdom parroted by the media is that most white men support extreme right causes and candidates. Not so fast.
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.
Josh Shapiro Would Be a Dangerous Choice for Harris Running Mate
JEFF COHEN and NORMAN SOLOMON – Kamala Harris has gained strong support as the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate. Putting Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on the ticket would likely fracture that support.
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.
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
The World Is Headed Toward Nuclear War
GERRY CONDON – Nuclear War Is Imminent — Unless the U.S. Embraces Peace – and Soon!
Donald Trump’s Reckless Infatuation with Nuclear Weapons
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – Ultimately, the only long-term security for humanity lies in the global abolition of nuclear weapons and the development of a united world community.
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.
Big Banks Break Their Climate Promises by Propping Up Big Meat
MONIQUE MIKHAIL and WARD WARMERDAM – Massive industrial livestock financing sabotages major U.S. banks’ climate goals.
Why Are Conservatives Undermining the Constitution They Claim to Love?
BOB TOPPER – The right’s strategy to overturn democracy is to make people hate the country they love. For organizations like Fox News and the would-be oligarchs the motivation is financial gain. For the fundamentalists, the goal is an American theocracy, and for Trump it is self-preservation. Strange bedfellows.
Banal Militarism Has Infiltrated Our Entire Society
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – The term is “banal militarism” – that is to say, violence and the preparation for violence so utterly commonplace that most people don’t even notice. Banal militarism is as American as apple pie. It’s also global in scope.
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.
Republicans Claiming to Support Minority Voters Suppress Their Votes
ANDREW MOSS – There’s a breathtaking hubris at work when a political party seeks to suppress the votes of an entire people, then claims its leaders are the champions of that same people. You don’t have to look far to find such hubris in the Republican Party today.
Authoritarianism is on the Rise in Many Democracies
MEL GURTOV – Can we draw any general conclusions from these elections? Probably the most important is the authoritarian tendencies of leaders and challengers in these Official corruption, violence against critics, disrespect for domestic and international law, and disregard for public opinion are often features of democratically elected rulers as they are of rulers who are not elected. democracies. We keep learning that winning elections is not the same thing as governing democratically.
How the Military-Industrial Complex is Killing us All
DAVID VINE and THERESA (ISA) ARRIOLA – Though all too many of us will continue to believe that dismantling the MIC is unrealistic, given the threats facing us, it’s time to think as boldly as possible about how to roll back its power, resist the invented notion that war is inevitable, and build the world we want to see. Just as past movements reduced the power of Big Tobacco and the railroad barons, just as some are now taking on Big Pharma, Big Tech, and the prison-industrial complex, so we must take on the MIC to build a world focused on making human lives rich (in every sense) rather than one focused on bombs and other weaponry that brings wealth to a select few who benefit from death.
The GOP’s Stalinesque Plan 2025 to Shape the Future of U.S. Food and Agriculture
ELIZABETH HENDERSON – The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation wants to rid the USDA
of sustainability, climate change mitigation, and racial equity.
What conflict resolution experts wish universities knew about conflict
MELINDA BURRELL – The protests roiling our campuses reveal a great deal about us as a country. Emotions are easily triggered, many of us are comfortable being angry, and most of us need help to handle conflict constructively. And these emotions are likely to keep running high as we head towards the November election. Understanding the importance of creating forums to listen – and of reaching for help in navigating conflict – are good bets.
Nuclear Power’s Lethal, Larcenous End Game
HARVEY WASSERMAN – Burying the “Peaceful Atom” and its fossil-fueled partners will be the task of our lifetimes, and when it comes to the myth of nuke power helping to fight global warming…there’s no there there.
NOW is the Time for Action to Counter Two Existential Threats
WINSLOW MYERS – Everything has changed in our world; we have begun to become aware that everything I do affects you and vice versa. The nuclear deterrence system and George Will-Donald Trump-style climate denial leaves out too much of our reality.