TOM H. HASTINGS – Democracy is way deeper than one vote every few years. It will live or die, depending on our commitment to it. We are powerful, every one of us.
Category: Archive
US Foreign Policy Is a Scam Built on Corruption
JEFFREY D. SACHS – The $1.5 trillion in military outlays each year is the scam that keeps on giving—to the military-industrial complex and the Washington insiders—even as it impoverishes and endangers America and the world.
The Winter Without Snow – A Wake-Up Call
RIVERA SUN – Let The Winter Without Snow be a wake-up call for all of us. There isn’t a moment to waste. There are countless actions that we can take. And we must take them. Now, not next year.
How The Hell Did We Get Here?
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE – We could have been so much more.
I Am Gaza City’s Mayor. Our Lives and Culture Are in Rubble
DR, YAHYA R. SARRAJ – The Israeli invasion has caused the deaths of more than 20,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and destroyed or damaged about half the buildings in the territory. The Israelis have also pulverized something else: Gaza City’s cultural riches and municipal institutions.
What If Soldiers Refused to Fight? It Has Happened Before.
ARNOLD J. OLIVER – An iconic song back in the 1960’s addressed the causes of war, and what leads young people to fight in them. Buffy Saint Marie’s Universal Soldier advised that we could end war if soldiers refused to fight. So what if we gave her idea a test this winter? Let’s suggest to the soldiers among the various warring parties from the Middle East to Europe to Africa and beyond that they refuse to kill each other for a while.
Unchecked Human Activity Is Pushing Ecosystems Toward the Brink
ERIKA SCHELBY – The planet is facing multiple severe challenges that require our immediate attention. Putting an end to the dirty and suffocating fossil fuel emissions may be the most significant global priority, but limiting the misuse of water and restoring degraded land are also essential projects. These two actions could help put the brakes on extreme weather events and slow down mounting losses in biodiversity, biocapacity, and the economy.
How to Make Recyclable Plastics Out of CO2 to Slow Climate Change
ANN LESLIE DAVIS – Chemists are manipulating carbon dioxide to make clothing, mattresses, shoes, and more. These products are already on the market around the world. And others are in the process of being developed. They’re part of a growing effort by academia and industry to reduce the damage caused by centuries of human activity that has sent CO2 and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.
The No-State Solution Becomes More and More Real as Israel’s Permanent Nakba Continues
VIJAY PRASHAD – The U.S. veto in the Security Council and the votes against in the General Assembly are effectively votes for the Permanent Nakba of the Palestinian people, the No-State Solution. At least, that is how they will be read across the world, not only in al-Mawasi, as the bombs get closer, but also in the demonstrations from New York to Jakarta.
Election Defenders’ Top 2024 Worry: Online Rumors, Deceptions, Lies Swaying Masses
STEVEN ROSENFELD – Rumors, misperceptions, mischaracterizations, deceptions, lies, and violence in politics are as old as America itself, as political historians like Heather Cox Richardson have noted. There is no simple or single solution, said Starbird. Nonetheless, she ended her Stanford address with a “call to action” urging everyone to redouble their efforts in 2024: “We’re not going to solve the problem with misinformation, disinformation, manipulation… with one new label, or a new educational initiative, or a new research program,” she told trust and safety researchers. “It’s going to have to be all of the above… It’s going to be all these different things coming at it from different directions.”
Capitol Hill Interns Accuse Congress Of Suppressing Cease-Fire Demands
MOLLY REDDEN – Congressional interns and fellows released a letter on Monday accusing Congress of having “suppressed and ignored” a tidal wave of constituent support for a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Return to an Abandoned UN Precedent for an End to the Ukraine War
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Based on both international law and precedent, the UN Security Council has the authority to impose a settlement of the disastrous Ukraine War. What kinds of international action this would require would need to be determined by the world organization, just as the final terms of a peace agreement would ultimately need to be accepted by the contending parties. But, given the overwhelming support in the UN General Assembly for the withdrawal of Russian military forces from Ukraine and for a lasting peace agreement, such a peace settlement is likely to be a just one.
Scientists skip COP28 to demand climate action at home
ANIL OZA – From his research, Nathaniel Geiger observes, “If scientists can show that their advocacy is based both on a combination of the science and values that they share in common with regular, average Americans, the more their efforts will potentially resonate.”
Predicting Pestilence in Gaza
KATHY KELLY – Calling the Israeli-Gaza War a war on children, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder warned that “inaction by those with influence is allowing the killing of children.” We, the citizens of the world, are those with influence as well as our elected officials. It is the citizens of the world who came out by the hundreds of thousands in recent weeks that caused the seven day truce to happen. Now we must urgently pay heed to another persecution of Gaza’s children and families, waged by one of war’s more silent partners: disease.
Time for a Transnational Uprising Against a Reckless Escalation of the Arms Race?
NORMAN SOLOMON – What Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism” finds its supreme expression in the routine of nuclear weapons policies, which rely on an extreme shortage of countervailing outcry and activism. The ultimate madness thrives on our daily accommodation to it.
Parties to Nuclear Ban Treaty Agree Nuclear Deterrence is the Problem
INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS (ICAN) – The Second Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW has successfully concluded and agreed that nuclear deterrence is a significant security problem, requiring urgent attention by the international community, that more research on the impacts of nuclear weapons is needed, and that the harms caused by nuclear weapons use and testing require ongoing attention.
Bayard Rustin knew that winning required a team
GEORGE LAKEY – As the new ‘Rustin’ biopic shows, the great organizer of the 1963 March on Washington was always working to join more people together in the struggle for greater justice and peace.
Bloodshed in the Middle East: When Will It End? Some Might Prefer It Didn’t
MEL GURTOV – in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is still in command, blocking roads to peace.
Bernie Sanders: This is Our Future
BERNIE SANDERS – Failure to act in response to the climate emergency will doom future generations to a very uncertain future. For the sake of our common humanity we cannot allow that to happen.
The Brotherhood of Billionaires
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – In recent decades, a growing similarity has developed between the Chinese and U.S. economic systems. Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s talk of “socialism,” the rapidly-expanding Chinese economy has become increasingly capitalist, with the private sector accounting for about two-thirds of China’s Gross Domestic Product in 2021. Not surprisingly, then, the two countries currently lead the rest of the world’s nations in their number of billionaires. This March, according to Forbes, the United States had 735 billionaires (worth a collective $4.5 trillion) and China had 562 (worth $2 trillion) out of a global total of 2,640.
Merkley Just Second US Senator to Demand Gaza Cease-Fire
JESSICA CORBETT – U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley on Monday became just the second member of the Senate to demand a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, over six weeks into Israel’s brutal bombardment and ground operations that have killed over 13,000 Palestinians, including 5,500 children.
Does Modern Science Already Allow Us to Manage the Weather?
JOHN P. RUEHL – Weather manipulation is increasingly common around the world, but the dangers of privatization and weaponization abound.
Russian artist sentenced to 7 years in prison for Ukraine war protest
CLYDE HUGHES – A Russian artist who admitted to passive acts to protest Moscow’s war against Ukraine was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday after being found guilty of “knowingly spreading false information about the Russian army.”
The Israeli Attack on Palestinian Health Workers in Gaza and the Failure of the American Medical Association
RUPA MARYA and VIJAY PRASHAD – Amid Israel’s unprecedented attacks on healthcare workers and infrastructure in Gaza, the AMA censored a resolution proposed by its members to call for a ceasefire.
Talk to a Neighbor, Feel Better, Save Humanity
PAUL HELLWEG – It’s only through collective action that we can respond effectively to the problems that threaten our quality of life and potentially our very survival.
How the National Infrastructure Program Creates Jobs for Today and Tomorrow
DAVID MCCALL – President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) on November 15, 2021, unleashing $1.2 trillion for tens of thousands of projects nationwide. It is upgrading transportation, communications, and energy systems while building back manufacturing capacity, generating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, and investing in the middle class.
Reactor Plans Smashed by Costs
WILL WADE – NuScale Power Corp., the first company with US approval for a small nuclear reactor design, is canceling plans to build a power plant for a Utah provider as costs surge. The move is a major setback to the burgeoning technology that has been heralded as the next era for atomic energy.
Israel’s Military Is Part of the U.S. War Machine
NORMAN SOLOMON – In January 2019, House speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi was recorded on video at a forum sponsored by the Israeli American Council as she declared: “I have said to people when they ask me — if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid, I don’t even call it aid — our cooperation — with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.” Even making allowances for bizarre hyperbole, Pelosi’s statement is revealing of the kind of mentality that continues to hold sway in official Washington. It won’t change without a huge grassroots movement that refuses to go away.
Seeing Through the Economic Bait and Switch
SONALI KOLHATKAR – The values of the U.S. public are not the same as those of the wealthy and corporations. It took a UN official—an outsider—to point out the dissonance. Furthermore, evaluations of the U.S. economy by the U.S. media and politicians are based on corporate prosperity while the UN’s evaluation is based on individual prosperity.
If You Love Nuclear Energy, Then You Love Nuclear Weapons
HARVEY WASSERMAN – There is no separation between nuclear power and nuclear war. The “Peaceful Atom” is a radioactive myth. The world’s fleet of atomic reactors is the happy-faced infrastructure for the global radioactive weapons industry.
Biden’s Failure on Gaza Could Cost Him the Election
STEPHEN ZUNES – By refusing to call for a ceasefire as civilian deaths rise, Biden is alienating young and left-leaning voters.
The War in Israel: Costs and Consequences
MEL GURTOV – That Netanyahu is the only top Israeli national security official who has not accepted any blame for the Hamas attack is indicative. Will postwar Israel again be plunged into political chaos? Will the far right be empowered or discredited because of the war? Will Israel after the war continue expansion of settlements and deprivation of Palestinians’ rights in the West Bank? One outcome of the extraordinary violence seems certain: The hope for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence, not to mention a two-state arrangement, has been dashed for many years to come.
The Osage want you to know their story doesn’t end with Killers of the Flower Moon
GREG PALAST – Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon describes the struggles of the Osage people. Here’s why they are still fighting.
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.”
Stop Fighting over Deck Chairs While the Ship Is on Fire and Sinking!
JOHN MIKSAD – Martin Luther King was correct when he said we will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools. The choice is ours.
Fridays for Future: Greta’s school strikes led a third of Swiss citizens to change their habits
ANGELA SYMONS – ‘Collective action can have a direct effect on society’, study on climate strikes shows.