JOHN P. RUEHL – Weather manipulation is increasingly common around the world, but the dangers of privatization and weaponization abound.
Category: October 2023
Texas nuclear waste storage permit invalidated by US appeals court
CLARK MINDOCK – A U.S. appeals court canceled a license granted by a federal agency to a company to build a temporary nuclear waste storage facility in western Texas, which the Republican-led state has argued would be dangerous to build in one of the nation’s largest oil basins.
NATO’s Steadfast Noon Is Ready-made Doom
JOHN LAFORGE – Steadfast Noon is not just code language, or public relations. The event is a large-scale, psychological operation intended to teach us to pretend that nuclear attacks can do good. Of course if nuclear firestorms saved lives and ended war — as U.S. mythology goes with Hiroshima and Nagasaki — then the Pentagon would have used them in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. People love to be fooled.
How the Fourth Level of Socialism Improves on the Other Three
RICHARD D. WOLFF – This fourth kind of socialism repairs the other three kinds’ relative neglect of the micro-level transformation of capitalism into socialism. It does not reject or refuse those other kinds; it rather adds something crucial to them. It represents an important stage reached by prior forms of and social experiments with socialism.
800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza
JAKE JOHNSON – “The ongoing and imminent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip are being conducted with potentially genocidal intent.”
U.S. Plan to Put Weapons-Grade Uranium in a Civilian Reactor Is Dangerous and Unnecessary
ALAN J. KUPERMAN – The Biden administration’s intention to use dozens of bombs’ worth of highly enriched uranium as fuel in a new civilian reactor sets a dangerous precedent, one that could help our foes get nuclear weapons.
When Violence Fails, Try Nonviolence (Think Ukraine, Middle East)
DR. TOM H. HASTINGS – Exercising nonviolent power is ultimately up to a people. Do we accept that war and violence is inevitable? Do they justify themselves with tales of trauma and atrocity? Often, yes. But not always. Humans choose. It’s what we do.
Why China’s New Map of Its Borders Has Stirred Regional Tensions
JOHN P. RUEHLE – China’s release of its standard map has produced outrage and alarm in several countries, yet Beijing remains steadfast in continuing its historical approach toward its borders.
New Nuclear Plants Don’t Exist; Old Ones Are Decrepit
HARVEY WASSERMAN – To quickly bury at last the immensely powerful fossil fuel industry that threatens us all, the only clear solution comes with a fast-as-possible shift to safer, cleaner, cheaper truly green Solartopian renewables that actually do exist. That are constantly evolving.
The Savagery of the War Against the Palestinian People
VIJAY PRASHAD – The many Israeli attacks on Gaza pulverize the minimal infrastructure that remains intact in Gaza and hits the Palestinian civilians very hard. Civilian deaths and casualties are recorded by the Health Ministry in Gaza but disregarded by the Israelis and their Western enablers. As the current bombing intensified, journalist Muhammad Smiry said, “We might not survive this time.” Smiry’s worry is not isolated. Each time Israel sends in its fighter jets and missiles, the death and destruction are of an unimaginable proportion. This time, with a full-scale invasion, the destruction will be at a scale not previously witnessed.
Over 5,000 actions were organized for Campaign Nonviolence Action Days 2023
RIVERA SUN – During the 10th annual Campaign Nonviolence Action Days from Sept. 21 to Oct. 2, hundreds of local, national and international groups organized actions and events to build a culture of peace and active nonviolence, free from war, poverty, racism and environmental destruction. In 2023, a staggering 5,057 actions were planned across the United States and 20 countries. Over 60,000 people took part in these actions and events.
Thousands protest around the world against Japan’s nuclear waste dumping
KERRY SMITH – Ahead of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Summit on September 18–19, thousands of people in 16 cities across 8 countries gathered to call on the UN and governments to stop Japan’s discharge of nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean.
As RFK Jr. Shifts His 2024 Strategy, He’s Bad News for Progressives
JEFF COHEN and NORMAN SOLOMON – If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. follows through on his apparent plans to run for president in the fall 2024 general election, that will make it all the more important for progressives to have a clear understanding of who Kennedy is and what he really stands for. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offers progressives a mishmash of appealing statements, “free market” corporatism and assorted political toxins. Not a good deal.
A major win against factory farming points to a powerful new direction for the climate movement
NICK ENGELFRIED – Small farmers in Oregon, backed by a coalition of animal rights and climate activists, secured a big legislative victory over industrial factory farms, providing inspiration for wider action. “Part of our philosophy is you cannot only oppose or restrict the bad actors, although that is important,” Alice Morrison said. “You also have to lift up folks doing things that align with good stewardship of the land. Any solution to factory farming will be more viable if it puts forward that kind of positive vision.”
FCC details plan to restore the net neutrality rules repealed by Ajit Pai
JON BRODKIN – Democrats finally have 3-2 majority needed to regulate ISPs as common carriers, but the road ahead is challenging.
Finding a Way Out of the “Security Dilemma”
WINSLOW MYERS – As Stephen Kinzer argues in an op-ed in the Boston Globe: “In the coming years, China and its partners will work intensely to strengthen their military power—only to counter American threats, of course. So will the United States and its partners—only to counter Chinese threats. Each side insists that it seeks only to defend itself. Neither believes the other, so both prepare for war. That makes war more likely. Because this spiral of mistrust is so common, it has a name: the security dilemma. It tells us that steps one country takes to increase its security often provoke rivals to take countersteps. That leads to competition that makes all parties less secure.”