DAVID SMITH-FERRI – At a gathering in Redwood Valley, California, on November 6th, I listened while a Native American activist told us that opposition to DAPL shouldn’t be about moving the pipeline off-rez. It should be about an end to pipelines. It should be about the shift we need to make to alternative energy. No doubt nationwide support of the protest at Standing Rock is a complex, multi-faceted reaction. And no doubt it has something to do with the courage of Native people who are standing up to “big petroleum†in an era of growing consciousness and fear of climate change. Maybe we are, at long last, witnessing a dawning consciousness that there is something crucial to be learned from First Nations, a spark of recognition that the people who occupied this continent for twelve or fourteen thousand years without harming it may just have something to teach us about living well on this planet.
First Effect of Trump Win: Al-Qaeda Morale in Aleppo Collapses, Western Campaign against Russian Bombing Ends
ALEXANDER MERCOURIS – One place where Donald Trump’s election victory has had an immediate effect is in the battlefield around Aleppo. Reports from the area of the battlefield speak of a total collapse of morale amongst the Al-Qaeda led Jihadi forces which have been attacking the city from the south west, as whatever lingering hopes there were of a Western military intervention following a victory by Hillary Clinton in the US Presidential election have turned to dust.
Celebrate and Take Action to Support Paris Climate Agreement
REV. CANON SALLY G. BINGHAM – Today [Nov. 4, 2016] is an historic day! The Paris Climate Agreement will become international law. Currently 96 countries have ratified the agreement, representing just over two-thirds of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Paris agreement will reduce emissions toward a shared goal of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius, with an aspirational target of no more than 1.5 degrees.
Measure 97 Defeat Shows Need for Corporate Tax Transparency
CHUCK SHEKETOFF – November 8, 2016, will be remembered as a dark day in Oregon history. An avalanche of corporate money buried with misinformation the best chance in over two decades to finally confront the chronic underfunding of our public schools and other public services. Corporate money won; the people of Oregon lost.
Time for an ACLU Shift on Campaign Finance?
ELIZA NEWLIN CARNEY – The American Civil Liberties Union’s selection of David Cole as its new national legal director creates an opening for the group to revisit a campaign-finance stance that is increasingly out of step with its members and the nation.
Standing with Standing Rock: #NoDAPL
REV. ANTHONY GRIMES – Right now, FOR National Council member Sahar Alsahlani, former National Council member Rick Ufford-Chase, FOR executive assistant Juliette Suarez, and I are traveling to the Standing Rock Sioux nation in North Dakota to join more than 350 faith leaders from across the United States.