LAWRENCE WITTNER – On June 19, 2019, President Donald Trump bragged at his re-election kickoff rally in Orlando that, thanks to his leadership, the wages of American workers “are rising at the fastest rate in many decades.†The reality, however, is that they are not. Indeed, wages rose at a faster rate only a few years before, under his predecessor. And a key reason for the very limited wage increases since Trump entered the White House is his administration’s success in blocking any wage increases for some workers and in reducing wage increases for others.
Category: Archive
There Once Was a President Who Hated War
STEPHEN M. WALT – American elites used to see war as a tragic necessity. Now they’re completely addicted to it.
The Trump Administration’s Approach to the Climate Crisis is a Crime Against Humanity
MEL GURTOV – The President of the United States is a criminal. I’m not referring to the twenty-odd investigations of him currently underway for violations of the Constitution, obstruction of justice, and collaboration with the Russian election attack, among other misdeeds. No, I’m referring to his and his administration’s intentional and reckless pursuit of national policies that condemn American and the world’s citizens to environmental destruction and the end of life as we know it.
Virgin Plastic Pellets are the Biggest Pollution Disaster You’ve Never Heard Of
ZOE SCHLANGER – “Pellets make up the second most common type of microplastic that we find, second to fragments which break down from things that are bigger,†says Sherri Mason, a plastics pollution researcher at Pennsylvania State University who has published foundational studies on microplastics found in freshwater. She spends much of her time collecting and counting bits of plastic in the environment. “I can go to any beach, give me five minutes and I’ll find a nurdle,†she says. “Along a river, 10 minutes. Once you know what a nurdle looks like you find them everywhere.â€
2019’s States with the Most Underprivileged Children
ADAM MCCANN – In an ideal world, all children would live worry-free and have access to their basic needs: nutritious food, a good education, quality health care and a secure home. Emotionally, they all would feel safe and be loved and supported by caring adults. When all such needs are met, children have a better chance of a stable and happy adult life. But in reality, not every child is so privileged — even in the richest and most powerful nation in the world.
Why the West Has Historically Feared Russia
NATYLIE BALDWIN – Russia’s vast size – the largest country geographically in the world – and its prodigious resources are present for all to see. But now, having overcome its historical issues with poor agricultural policies, it also has the ability to feed itself, a highly educated citizenry, and the industrial infrastructure to support a space program as well as a sophisticated nuclear and defense system. It has the ability to build cars, trucks, and airplanes completely within its own borders. Unlike many countries in the world, it has very little external debt and major gold reserves. It is weathering the sanctions against it better than Iran or Venezuela.
Hiroshima Unlearned: Time to Tell the Truth About US Relations with Russia and Finally Ban the Bomb
ALICE SLATER – August 6th and 9th mark 74 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where only one nuclear bomb dropped on each city caused the deaths of up to 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 people in Nagasaki. Now, with the US decision to walk away from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) negotiated with the Soviet Union, we are once again staring into the abyss of one of the most perilous nuclear challenges since the height of the Cold War.
Earthquakes Repeatedly Striking Proposed US Nuclear Waste Site
EMMA SNAITH – Officials fear deadly radioactivity could seep into earth if another high-magnitude quake strikes Nevada desert.
To Tackle Climate Change We Need to Rethink Our Food System
KATHLEEN ROBERTS and DR. SHENGGEN FAN – Our food system is broken, but not irrevocably so. The challenges are enormous, but by understanding the problem and potential solutions, we can effect critical changes in the ways we produce, consume and dispose of food.
Trump is Trying to Revive the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site
DERRICK BROZE – “The United States is brokering land deals to enrich corporations and deprive the Shoshone of our lawful property rights and interests,†Ian Zabarte, a member of the Western Shoshone nation, says while sitting at his home in the Las Vegas area. Zabarte recently celebrated his 54th birthday and also marked 30 years of defending his community against the controversial Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste site.
Rotary International as a Model for Statecraft
WINSLOW MYERS – The United States is strong enough to lead the way into a new paradigm of self-interest, where dominance is replaced by a global network attuned directly to meeting human and ecosystem needs. Anything less threatens everyone’s survival. If we can offer help to our adversaries because we see it as self-interest, a different world is possible.
It’s In Our Hands Now: Localizing Resistance to Fight Climate Change
OAKLEY HILL – As the climate crisis becomes more prominent and imminent, the world has looked to the top echelons of global power to save us from ourselves. Too often, we look for top down change when problems so profound and systemic must also be addressed from the bottom up. Everyday citizens can slash emissions and move the planet toward environmental sustainability—especially if they leverage their power at the community and city levels. Around the world, this is already a growing reality as hundreds of communities take matters into their own hands to resist the climate crisis and build alternative institutions.
U.S. Asylum Policy Should Treat Asylum Seekers as Human Beings
ANDREW MOSS – Considering the magnitude and urgency of human suffering involved in the situation of asylum seekers, the larger task ahead will be to foster a rights awareness that will lead to genuine, substantive change in the foreseeable future.
Fighting Climate Change Means Ending War
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – A serious part of a new consciousness concerning climate change must be addressing what it means to live as part of one global community that is in peril from the consequences of exploitative human behavior. This is not a mere moral abstraction, something to do because it’s right and good. We will disappear as a species if we don’t — no matter how much money we have.
Ongoing Dread in Gaza: Israel Continues Attacks Against Civilians
KATHY KELLY – Palestinians in Gaza cope with constant tension. Denied freedom of movement, they live in the world’s largest open-air prison, under conditions the United Nations has predicted will render their land uninhabitable by 2020.
Dear Moderators of the Presidential Debates: How about Raising the Issue of How to Avert Nuclear War?
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Moderators of the presidential debates, don’t you—as stand-ins for the American people—think it might be worthwhile to ask the candidates some questions about U.S. preparations for nuclear war and how best to avert a global catastrophe of unprecedented magnitude?
Using Language to Make the World of Fossil Fuels Strange and Ugly
MATTHEW HOFFMANN – Our words reflect a view that fossil fuels are the default norm — even benign. We need to change that.
How Corporate Media Are Fueling a New Iran Nuclear Crisis
GARETH PORTER – The U.S. news media’s coverage of the Iran nuclear issue has been woefully off-kilter for many years. Now, however, those same outlets are contributing to the serious crisis building between Washington and Tehran.
New Common Cause Site Tracks Which Members of Congress Have Actually Read the Mueller Report
DAVID VANCE – Common Cause is tracking which members of Congress have read, or not read, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian attacks on the 2016 presidential election. The new easily searchable “Will Congress Act?†website (willcongressact.org) allows people to see whether their Members have read the report and contact them to ask that they read it if they have not.
‘Completely Terrifying’: Study Warns Carbon-Saturated Oceans Headed Toward Tipping Point That Could Unleash Mass Extinction Event
JULIA CONLEY – The continuous accumulation of carbon dioxide in the planet’s oceans—which shows no sign of stopping due to humanity’s relentless consumption of fossil fuels—is likely to trigger a chemical reaction in Earth’s carbon cycle similar to those which happened just before mass extinction events, according to a new study.
Using Nonviolence and Trust to Keep the Peace
TOM H. HASTINGS – Building trust is what our public discourse and decision-making is about. While Trump lies an average of 12 documented times each day and wrecks trust, millions of us average folks are working to rebuild it at every level.
In Afghanistan We Have Three Dreams
DR. HAKIM YOUNG – We’re the Afghan Peace Volunteers in Kabul, and we have three dreams. Our three dreams are about reuniting with nature and 7.7 billion other human beings! Our dreams aren’t prescriptions. They’re music and movements, distilled from today’s nightmares.
We’ve All Heard of a Green New Deal. But This is What it Will Actually Look Like
MATHEW LAWRENCE – Driven by a step-change and expansion in public policy, investment, and democratic ownership, a UK green new deal can rescue our collective futures from climate catastrophe and create the conditions for universal human flourishing. It can start in our town of 2030.
OR Lawmakers Send Campaign Contribution Cap to Voters
ERIC TEGETHOFF – Oregon voters will have a chance to weigh in on the role of money in politics next year.
An Honorable Course in Iran: End Sanctions, Resume Dialogue
KATHY KELLY – Rather than punish Iran, the United States should immediately return to the Iran nuclear agreement and support proposals regularly advanced at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty conferences for a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in the Middle East.
Here’s One Way Democrats Can Defeat Trump: Be Radically Anti-War
MARK HANNAH and STEPHEN WERTHEIM – Democrats have a unique opportunity to close the traditional national-security gap with Republicans, but only if they choose a clear direction for foreign policy and not just against Trump. They should listen to the American people and offer them a genuinely pro-peace message — standing firmly against Trump’s bellicosity as well as decades of bipartisan military intervention.
Insurance Giant Ditching Coal Industry Called ‘Major Step Forward’-Especially If Others Follow
JON QUEALLY – Chubb has become the first major U.S. insurance company to acknowledge the key role the insurance industry has to play in stopping the climate crisis.
Rethinking Reparations for Slavery
TOM h. HASTINGS – We need to radically reduce racism going forward and make reparations thus more than simple legal settlement that ignores ongoing harm.
Behind Oregon’s GOP Walkout Is a Sordid Story of Corporate Cash
ZOE CARPENTER – Industry and belligerence won out over climate legislation.
How to Avert the Impending War on Iran
ERIC STONER – The military is currently putting the breaks on the drive to war in Iran, says a former colonel and diplomat, but concerned citizens need to step up.
The Antiwar Movement No One Can See
ALLEGRA HARPOOTLIAN – What if there’s an antiwar movement growing right under our noses and we just haven’t noticed? What if we don’t see it, in part, because it doesn’t look like any antiwar movement we’ve even imagined?
War Begets War . . . and Nothing Else
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – “War-making must be renounced. It is past time for the paradigm shift. We have one planet and we must see ourselves as one and we must take a stand.†Dud Hendrick of Veterans for Peace
Listening for Immigration at the Democratic Presidential Debates
ANDREW MOSS – If you’ve been repelled by the family separations and other immigration-related cruelties perpetrated by the Trump administration, and if you plan to watch either or both of the upcoming Democratic presidential debates, please listen carefully – not just to what the candidates are saying, but how they’re saying it: how they frame the issues. Will they present immigration as a discrete set of concerns (“fixing our broken immigration system”), or will they describe it in relation to broader historical struggles, distinctly American struggles, for human rights?
Nuclear Weapons: Experts Alarmed by New Pentagon ‘War-Fighting’ Doctrine
JULIAN BORGER – US joint chiefs of staff posted then removed paper that suggests nuclear weapons could “create conditions for decisive results.”
Iran—Who and Where is the Threat?
MEL GURTOV – Donald Trump and his minions are the chief threats to America’s—and for that matter, the world’s—real security.
Vision is Finally on the Rise in U.S. Politics
GEORGE LAKEY – From grassroots movements to presidential hopefuls, the importance of creating visionary plans for change is no longer being ignored.
Snub of Russia on D-Day a Worrisome Omission
DOUG MALLOUK – Has the current tide of hysteria against all things Russian risen to the point that European and American policymakers are now attempting an Orwellian rewrite of the history of World War II? This is no mere academic matter of misrepresenting the past but has life-and-death importance for the here and now.
Anti-Occupation Coalition Grows Stronger in the Face of Israeli Military Violence
RAFI ELLENSON – When diaspora Jews and those living in Israel join with Palestinians, they forge a more powerful and just movement to end the occupation.
When Countries Increase Their Military Budgets, They Decrease Public Health Spending
PEACE SCIENCE DIGEST – One key argument against military spending is that it “crowds out†government spending in public health. The evidence is mixed. Some argue that increased military spending has indirect but positive effects on public health — whether through the diversity of military expenditures or other “growth-stimulating†effects. Others suggest that there is a trade-off between military and public health priorities because government spending is constrained by limited resources. Using sophisticated statistical techniques, this article examines whether a causal relationship exists between military spending and public health spending.
Why the Trade War with China is So Dangerous
MEL GURTOV – The trade war with China that Trump so confidently predicted would result in a great new deal now threatens to become a permanent feature of US-China relations. Why that is likely may have less to do with the specific trade issues in dispute than with the vastly different negotiating styles and operating principles of the two countries’ leaderships.
UN Secretary General Reminds the World of the Importance of Disarmament
ALYN WARE – On May 24, the International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament, UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres released a video message highlighting the importance of disarmament, in particular nuclear disarmament.
Seeking True Diversity; Leaving Shame Behind
JOHN HEID – “Don’t Label Me, An Incredible Conversation for Divided Times†(by Irshad Manji, St. Martin’s Press, 2019), opens with an invitation to expand our moral imagination and concludes with an 11-step “moral courage regimen.†The pages in-between read like a manifesto as radical, i.e. deeply rooted, as any I have come across in years. This is a book acutely for our times. Irshad Manji offers critical analysis, alongside a crash course in nonviolent engagement techniques. Theory and practice all in one. The content is as at once a life-size mirror and flashing red lights for the progressive left.
If Democrats Want to Beat Trump, They Better Not Nominate a ‘Free Trade’ Candidate
THOM HARTMANN – If the Democrats promote pro-corporate trade policies in 2020, get ready for four more years of Donald Trump gloating at us all from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Let’s Not Spend $1.7 Trillion on Our Nukes, a Group of N.J. Professors Says. Let’s Get Rid of Them, and the Threat of a Catastrophic War.
ZIA MIAN, ALAN ROBOCK and SHARON WEINER – On May 23rd, the New Jersey General Assembly approved Resolution 230, urging the federal government to pursue a broad range of measures to reduce the danger of nuclear war and to join the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. California and some American cities have already adopted similar resolutions to call for action in Washington on nuclear weapons. Here’s why.
Norway Refuses to Drill for Billions of Barrels of Oil in Arctic, Leaving ‘Whole Industry Surprised and Disappointed’
HARRY COCKBURN – The largest party in Norway’s parliament has delivered a significant blow to the country’s huge oil industry after withdrawing support for explorative drilling off the Lofoten islands in the Arctic, which are considered a natural wonder.
US Department of Energy is Now Referring to Fossil Fuels as “Freedom Gasâ€
MEGAN GEUSS – The Department of Energy is on its path to “energy dominance” with bizarre re-branding.
Memorial Day: a Day of Bad Memory
WIM LAVEN – The frustration I experience with dishonest politics reached a peak with Memorial Day this year. I saw protest signs and memes to the effect of: “Some gave all. All gave something. Trump gave nothing.†While it perfectly captured my frustration, it was oversimplified and failed to articulate the real failures.
“Emergency” Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia Lack an Emergency
MEL GURTOV – Trump has authorized the dispatch of 1500 additional troops to the Middle East and the sale of several billion dollars in “precision-guided†weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The arms sale is being made without Congressional authorization or consultation, on the argument (made by Pompeo) that an “extreme emergency†eliminates the legal requirement to make the case to Congress. But there is no emergency.
Strategic Bottom Line: Go for the Money
RIVERA SUN – With divestment, strikes, boycotts, shareholder action, and more, activists’ campaigns need to find strategic and creative ways to pressure business into taking more ethical, just, peaceful, and sustainable practices.
Plastics Found in Stomachs of Deepest Sea Creatures
MATTHEW TAYLOR – Very worrying finding’ from nearly 11km deep confirms fears that synthetic fibres have contaminated the most remote places on Earth.