RIVERA SUN – In the United States, this week (Jan. 27-Feb. 2) [saw] both authoritarian moves from the Trump/Vance Administration … and a heartening surge of resistance. In dramatic ways, people are shifting from paralyzed dread to outraged defiance. And defiance is working.
Category: January 2025
Trade Disputes are Not Wars
CHRIS HOUSTON – I long for a future with more international collaboration and dialogue. I dream of a Canada that promotes peace and a world where leaders prioritize dialogue. Until then, let’s not frame this economic upheaval as a war. Let’s not normalize war. The world doesn’t need more wars. It needs more peace.
“Choose Democracy” offers needed perspective on Trump
GEORGE LAKEY – Trump can lose when we fight. He is not invincible and he is not all powerful.
Big data centers, big problems
R.J. CROSS, QUENTIN GOOD, JOHANNA NEUMANN, and ABE SCARR – The rapid growth of data centers can deepen America’s reliance on fossil fuels and is putting consumers and communities at risk.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Provides a Way to Avert Nuclear Catastrophe
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Given the weapons-obsession of a small group of nations, the current prospect for an effective ban on nuclear weapons is bleak. But, longer-term, the revival of a massive antinuclear movement, combined with pressure from an empowered United Nations, could bring the holdouts into the treaty and, thereby, avert nuclear catastrophe.
Is Iran’s Weakness America’s Opportunity?
MEL GURTOV – Reflecting on long-term consequences should lead to a US policy based on win-win diplomacy rather than one based on zero-sum confrontation.
Doomsday Clock Announcement Highlights Global Danger from Nuclear Weapons
PETER BERGEL (contact) – The 2025 setting of the Doomsday Clock on January 28 will be yet another warning to the world, and especially the Nuclear 9, that we must either eliminate nuclear weapons or they will eliminate us.
How U.S. Media Hide Truths About the Gaza War
NORMAN SOLOMON – The Gaza war has received a vast amount of U.S. media attention, but how much it actually communicated about the human realities was a whole other matter. The belief or unconscious notion that news media were conveying war’s realities ended up obscuring those realities all the more. And journalism’s inherent limitations were compounded by media biases.
US Hastens Decline by Denying Internal Problems
RICHARD D. WOLFF – Societies survive and grow when they successfully navigate their contradictions. Eventually, however, accumulating contradictions overwhelm existing means of navigating them. Then social problems arise that persist or worsen inside such societies because they are unsuccessfully navigated or go unattended. Sometimes, the dominant conscious reaction to such social problems is denial, a refusal to see them. Denial of internal social problems displaces navigating the contradictions that cause them. The resulting social decline, like the set of internal contradictions it reflects, is denied and ignored. Instead, narratives or rhetorics can arise that position such societies as victims of abuse by foreigners. The United States in 2025 illustrates this process: its rhetorics of refusal aim to end its victimization.
Kamala Harris Paid the Price for Not Breaking With Biden on Gaza, New Poll Shows
RYAN GRIM – Twenty-nine percent of non-voters who supported Biden in 2020 said U.S. support for the genocide was the top reason they sat the 2024 election, according to a survey by YouGov.
43 Lawmakers Back Youth in Climate Case Against US Government
JESSICA CORBETT – A 17-year-old plaintiff commended the federal lawmakers for “using their voices to weigh in on the importance of our rights to access justice and to a livable climate.”
Dr. Martin Luther King’s Prophetic Warning, Denouncing the Merchants of Death
KATHY KELLY – MLK: “This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Archiving as resistance to genocide denial in Gaza
ELEFTHERIA KOUSTA – Law for Palestine members discuss their database of genocidal statements by leading Israeli figures and how it can help defend human rights.
Guide to Preserving Sacred Land Near You
JIMMY VIDELE – Preserving biodiversity is among the most urgent issues of our time, and it needs to be addressed regionally to succeed.
How a Community Collaborative in Arkansas Is Pioneering Solutions to Long-Standing Social Problems
DAMON ORION – Sankofa Village Arkansas is building an “intentional community centering Black healing, liberation, and regeneration.”
Genocidal President, Genocidal Politics
NORMAN SOLOMON – When news broke over the weekend that President Biden just approved an $8 billion deal for shipping weapons to Israel, a nameless official vowed that “we will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defense.” Following the reports last month from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch concluding that Israeli actions in Gaza are genocide, Biden’s decision was a new low for his presidency.
Killing of the United Healthcare CEO Sparked Long Overdue Conversation About Greed
SARENA NEYMAN – The murder of the United Healthcare CEO, as horrendous as it was, forced us to confront the injustices we’ve been taught to tolerate. This moment must unite us against the true enemies of the American dream: unchecked greed and exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few. We can either remain manipulated by scapegoating and fear or see the truth and demand change. Only then can we build a society where no one feels driven to such desperate measures again.
World Security Likely to Decline Across the Board in 2025
MEL GURTOV – The global citizen agenda for 2025 is very much like that for 2024—and probably for some years afterward. It includes global warming and related environmental crises; US-China tensions; challenges to democracy and peace in Europe and Africa; interstate and intrastate violence in the Middle East; and nuclear weapons upgrading. A new addition to this list is another Trump administration, which creates the potential for exceptional chaos in the US and worldwide.
Nonviolence News Reports 366+ Success Stories in 2024
RIVERA SUN – Upon reflection, 2024 was not just a year of disaster and political upheaval. It was also the year that Julian Assange was finally freed. It was the year Net Neutrality was restored. It was the year that corrupt leaders fell from power in South Korea and Bangladesh. When we remember all of these, we also remember the most important thing of all: nonviolent action achieved all this. What will we use nonviolence to accomplish in 2025?