KATHY KELLY – The Borderfree Center is named for Prof. Noam Chomsky’s call, in a 2013 American University of Beirut commencement speech, for participation in “a worldwide struggle to preserve the global commons†so as to secure “decent human survival in a world that has no borders.†The symbol of their participation is the blue scarf they distribute to friends and supporters, symbolizing the blue expanse of sky upon which national boundary lines will never be drawn.
Military-Industrial Complex Conduct Invites Nonviolent Direct Action
SHERWOOD ROSS – Why is there no non-violent outcry against America’s military-industrial complex? (MIC) A Congress that is complicit in its wars, surely will not reign it in.
Afghanistan to Cost More Than Marshall Plan, Watchdog Says
JOSH SMITH – By the time its combat troops depart at the end of 2014, the United States will have appropriated more money trying to fix Afghanistan than it did on the Marshall Plan that helped Europe recover economically after World War II, according to an analysis by a government watchdog.
“Who Speaks for Earth?”
WINSLOW MYERS – Few people remember them today, but there were significant global leadership initiatives in the 1980s against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The dawn of the nuclear era had coincided with the beginning of the Cold War. People in the United States and their leaders viewed the world through the lens of East-West cold war superpower tensions, reinforced by the rigid dualistic convictions of officials like John Foster Dulles, U.S. Secretary of State from 1953 to 1959. A quarter century further into the cold war era, nearly 200 less powerful nations came to realize that a superpower nuclear exchange was potentially just as life threatening to them as to the superpowers themselves.
Apathy or Genocide for Gaza? Citizens Say, ‘Enough!’
ERIN NIEMELA – Israeli, Palestinian and American citizens, between Israelis and Palestinians, we don’t need a “humanitarian pause.†We need actual humanitarians – everyday citizens who work together, rise up and shout “Enough!†to the gunrunning, bloodshed, enmification and apathy. We can end the violence for good and build peace forever – but we have to work together to control those fat, grey leathery legs of war.
Doom from the Depths: Coming Your Way
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – Ever since the horrors of submarine warfare became a key issue during World War I, submarines have had a sinister reputation. And the building of new, immensely costly, nuclear-armed submarines by the U.S. government and others may soon raise the level of earlier anxiety to a nuclear nightmare.