PAMELA HAINES – From the Navajo Nation to a small town in Pennsylvania to Ecuador, then across the world, the idea of enshrining the rights of nature is only growing.
Category: September 2022
How We Could Use Peace and Diplomacy to Break the Cycle of Insecurity
ROGER PEACE – Continuation of the current system of big power competition and rival blocs bodes ill for the future. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set its “doomsday clock” at 100 seconds to midnight, closer than it has ever been, based on nuclear and global warming threats, an indication of how close humanity is to “destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.” Moving toward mutual security and cooperation will set the clock back and allow humanity to move forward.
Get Mad About Nuclear Madness
DAVID SWANSON – But right now there’s not a single U.S. Congress Member seriously sticking their neck out for peace, much less a caucus or a party. Lesser evil voting will always have the strength of logic it has, but none of the choices on any of the ballots includes human survival — which merely means that — just as throughout history — we need to do more than voting. What we can’t do is allow our madness to become meanness, or our awareness to become fatalism, or our frustration to become a shifting of responsibility. This is all of our responsibility, whether we like it or not. But if we do our very best, working in community, with a vision of a peaceful and nuclear free world before us, I think we just might find the experience likable. If we can form pro-peace communities everywhere like the one we’ve been part of this morning, we can make peace.
The Military to American Youth: You Belong to Me
ROBERT KOEHLER – The U.S. military needs more than just money (a trillion dollars or so) in its annual budget. It needs access to America’s young people as well — their wallets, their bodies, and their minds.
Activist Shareholders for Smith & Wesson Embrace the Long View in Struggle to Curb Gun Violence
ARNIE ALPERT – Despite failing to pass a human rights resolution, one group of investors will continue the fight to hold the world’s biggest firearms manufacturer accountable.
Putin, Biden Not Trying Hard Enough to Avoid World War III
BRAD WOLF – We have it within our means to not only “avoid World War III,” but to fundamentally change the world and create an enhanced quality of life for all. We have “weapons” of our own, nonviolent and effective. Hopefully, we will unite and realize the power we have before we all are boiled alive. There is literally no time like the present.
Active Today or Radioactive Tomorrow?
ROBERT MOORE – It’s not too soon to conclude that continued reliance on nuclear energy to generate electricity can be weaponized, as we never know when a plant might become a military target. If a conventionally powered power plant had an accident or became a military base, the area near it could recover. That’s just not the case with nuclear energy.
Stick to your guns? No, stick to your songs
BRAD WOLF – The resolution to endless war just might be found in the eternal mystery of music, its ability to attract, to rebuild, to connect. It calls to something deeper than reason, since too often we can reason ourselves into or out of anything we wish. It offers the chance to regain our fundamental nature, a trading of swords for symphonies. Why not Bach? Why not his “Prelude”? And after Bach, on to Liszt. Once we quietly listen, we may come out the other side and remember who we truly are.
We have a violence problem – Campaign Nonviolence strives to solve it
RIVERA SUN – Violence may be everywhere, but so are we. Tens of thousands of people will move into action between Sept 21-Oct 2 to bring a nonviolent world one step closer to reality. Will you?
Nine Stupid Nations
WINSLOW MYERS – “Stupid” is the most harsh and humiliating adjective that can be flung at a person, let alone a nation-state. What’s the usual response to being called stupid? Nothing positive. We just go into reaction and resistance. I’m sorry, but there is no other word to describe the obstinate refusal of the nuclear powers to cooperate to dismantle their nuclear arsenals even as the climate emergency sweeps across the world.
Did Boris Johnson Help Stop a Peace Deal in Ukraine?
CONNOR ECHOLS – Russia and Ukraine may have agreed on a tentative deal to end the war in April, according to a recent piece in Foreign Affairs.
The West’s Dangerously Simple-Minded Narrative About Russia and China
JEFFREY D. SACHS – The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts.
Is Curiosity the New Form of Patriotism?
MELINDA BURRELL – In our dynamic world, we need to get comfortable with complexity. Good solutions to our myriad problems require it. Is that the 21st century version of patriotism? If we love our country and want to help it succeed, is our best tool our choice to be inquisitive about people and issues?
Gorbachev Ended Cold War, Eased Nuclear Tensions But Trusted US Too Much
NEWS GHANA – Late Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was a good, well-meaning man who ended the Cold War and dramatically reduced superpower and global nuclear tensions, but he put too much trust into the unwritten assurances of American leaders, experts
Remembering the Genius of Bayard Rustin
GEORGE LAKEY – Thirty-five years after his death, the man who mentored Martin Luther King Jr. still has much to teach movements about harnessing the power of ‘people in motion.’
There’s No Place for Burnout in a Burning World
CHARLIE WOOD – Climate activists can start to build a stronger culture of care by taking burnout seriously and understanding its root causes.