MEXICO NEWS DAILY – The municipal council of Tijuana, Baja California, has unanimously approved a prohibition on plastic bags.
Category: August 2018
Victory in Superdelegates Fight Means: Grassroots Can Win
NORMAN SOLOMAN – When members of the Democratic National Committee voted to take power away from themselves and other “superdelegates†— removing their leverage over the presidential nominating process — they took a big step toward heeding a sign that activists held outside their decisive meeting: “Democratic Party: Live Up to Your Name.â€
Sanctions on Russia Hurt the U.S.
STEPHEN F. COHEN – For nearly 100 years, Russia has been under US sanctions, often to the detriment of American national security.
Afghani Peace Activists Ask Us to Rethink War
DR. HAKIM (DR. TECK YOUNG, WEE) – It’s frustrating that whereas all human beings wish to live meaningful lives, we seem helpless in the face of a few individuals waging wars and exploiting our world. But we can each do something about this insensible status quo, as ordinary folk of the People’s Peace Movement ( PPM ) show us by taking one barefoot-step at a time, traveling to the Northern areas of Afghanistan to persuade fellow Afghans, whether they’re with ‘insurgent groups’ or with the U.S./NATO/Afghan forces, to stop fighting.
Trump’s Military Drops a Bomb Every 12 Minutes, and No One Is Talking About It
LEE CAMP – We live in a state of perpetual war, and we never feel it. While you get your gelato at the hip place where they put those cute little mint leaves on the side, someone is being bombed in your name. While you argue with the 17-year-old at the movie theater who gave you a small popcorn when you paid for a large, someone is being obliterated in your name. While we sleep and eat and make love and shield our eyes on a sunny day, someone’s home, family, life and body are being blown into a thousand pieces in our names. Once every 12 minutes.
Bipartisan Dysfunctionality Puts The World At Risk
POPULAR RESISTANCE – All of humanity is being put at risk by the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans opposition to dialogue with Russia. The combination of Russophobia and the Democratic Party’s compulsion to criticize Trump’s every action, even when he accidentally does something sensible, is preventing the two largest nuclear powers, with the two most advanced militaries in the world, from working together to create a safer and more secure world.
NATO: Time To Re-Examine An Alliance
CONN M. HALLINAN – It is finally time to re-think alliances. NATO was a child of the Cold War, when the West believed that the Soviets were a threat. But Russia today is not the Soviet Union, and there is no way Moscow would be stupid enough to attack a superior military force. It is time NATO went the way of the Warsaw Pact and recognize that the old ways of thinking are not only outdated but also dangerous.
Curing Fascism
DAVID SWANSON – Fascism is a disease, a delusion, a toxic worldview. It’s encouraged and manipulated by propaganda. Its characteristics are numerous and to various degrees widespread and long-lasting.
Border Security: Wall vs. Principles
ROBERT KOEHLER – Consider the limited thinking that produces a concept such as “border security.†The essential assumption here is that the United States of America is primarily a physical container – three and a half million square miles of freedom and prosperity, whoopee, but the supply is limited. Sorry, have-nots, we don’t have room for you.
Liberals and the New McCarthyism
DERRICK JENSEN – It’s easy enough, some sixty years after the fact, for us to cluck our tongues at the cowardice and stupidity of those who went along with McCarthyism.
Trump’s Foreign Policy Is Awful, But There’s a Better Alternative than the Establishment’s Version
LAWRENCE WITTNER – People searching for an alternative to the nationalist and military alliance-driven approaches of the past would do well to consider strengthened global governance. It’s a foreign policy that has enormous potential for addressing current world problems, as well as substantial public support.
The Cummington Story: A Town Comes to Terms with Foreign Refugees
RICHIE DAVIS –
While Rome (and Most Everywhere Else) Burns: Climate Change Asserts Itself
MEL GURTOV – Every world leader who shrinks from directly addressing climate change through public and international policy is, to my mind, guilty of a crime against humanity. A harsh judgment? As I read scientists’ reports about just how fast the polar ice caps are melting, how quickly seas are rising, and how temperatures worldwide are making new records, I conclude that worsening environmental conditions are outrunning both scientific predictions and the ability to act in time. Inaction in such dire circumstances is inexcusable, and should be punishable, on behalf of humanity.
How Women Led a Peaceful Flotilla to Reclaim their Island from the Sri Lankan Navy
LISA FULLER – 100 Sri Lankan community members have permanently moved back to their navy-occupied island of Iranaitheevu. After a quarter century of displacement, they have begun to rebuild the long-neglected, war-ravaged town. Their success was not a result of luck, nor did the navy have a sudden change of heart. Instead, a group of women from the community had developed and implemented a nonviolent strategy that closely resembles techniques implemented by professional civilian peacekeepers in conflict zones across the world.
Let’s Tax the Rich
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Whatever happened to the notion that rich people should pay their fair share of the cost for their country’s public programs?