New Clear Vision


constructive commentary for the chronically farsighted


The Arc of the Moral Universe

September 26, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, Ecology, Politics, Randall Amster

Justice May Be Just Around the Bend

by Randall Amster

Let’s face it: things are bad and getting worse every day. Even a casual glance at the daily headlines provides ample reason for dismay, from perpetual warfare and the ravages of climate change to economic collapse and the abject brutality of the “criminal justice” system (a cruel misnomer if ever there was one). It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, a millenarian, or even an avowed cynic to surmise that the ship is sinking and that actual justice is but a faded memory.

Still, despite all evidence to the contrary, I maintain that we might not be as bad off as it seems. This isn’t an exercise in wide-eyed optimism, strategic denial, or the power of positive thinking. Rather, it is reflective of what I take as an inexorable impulse in nature — and thus within humankind, as part of its workings — toward productive, sustainable, and ultimately just relations at all points in the web. In short, I want to suggest that life is good, and that it matters. (more…)

Going Neutral on Obama?

July 19, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, David Swanson, Economy, Politics

Not on a Moving Train!

by David Swanson

How often have we been told that we can’t have a serious nonviolent movement resisting our government’s destructive path as long as the Democrats are better than the Republicans?

How often have we been told that we can’t back third-party candidates as long as the Democrats are better than the Republicans?

This week has seen an inordinate number of realizations that the Democrats are as bad as or worse than the Republicans. And what has the response been?

Activist groups are proposing not to donate money to President Barack Obama. Some have even suggested declining to volunteer for him. Most responses have been even weaker than that. Citizens have transformed themselves into pundits and announced that Obama will not be reelected. (more…)

End the Longest War

July 12, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Brian J. Trautman, Current Events, Economy, Politics

Shifting from Rhetoric to Reality

by Brian J. Trautman

President Obama addressed the nation on June 22 to explain his strategy for troop withdrawal in Afghanistan. Of the 100,000 U.S. troops currently deployed there, the announced drawdown of 10,000 soldiers by year’s end and another 23,000 by September 2012 does little to end the longest war in U.S. history.

Under this plan, approximately 70,000 troops will remain in the country, roughly twice as many as when Mr. Obama took office in January 2009. According to the President, these troops will be removed “at a steady pace” through 2014. In the meantime, the human and financial costs of this war will continue to grow. (more…)

Independent Thinking

July 04, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, David Swanson, Ecology, Economy, Politics

King George III Won — Happy July Fourth!

by David Swanson

The Declaration of Independence is best remembered as a declaration of war, a war declared on the grounds that we wanted our own flag.  The sheer stupidity and anachronism of the idea serves to discourage any thoughts about why Canada didn’t need a bloody war, whether the U.S. war benefitted people outside the new aristocracy to whom power was transferred, what bothered Frederick Douglas so much about a day celebrating “independence,” or what the Declaration of Independence actually said.

When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power.  And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain’s rule over the 13 colonies. (more…)

In Defense of the Environment

May 27, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, Diane Lefer, Ecology, Economy, Politics

Why the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia Is Still a Bad Idea

by Diane Lefer

For five years, the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiated between the administrations of George Bush and Colombian president Alvaro Uribe was stalled in the US Congress because of violence against Colombian workers, including 51 union leaders assassinated in 2010 alone.

On April 7, President Obama and current Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced they had reached an agreement that would smooth the way for passage. Under this plan, actions that violate labor rights would be criminalized (as though assassination isn’t already criminal); investigators would be assigned to look into abuses, and leaders could request protection. I do wonder how Colombia will be able to provide this protection given the extent of the violence. In the past months, I’ve received word almost every week of new murders: not only union organizers but small farmers and the honest judges who hear these cases, while the perpetrators too often are members of or linked to the security forces. (more…)

Challenging Ideological Hegemony

May 10, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, Economy, Harry Targ, Politics

Remaking Our Conceptual Maps of the World

by Harry Targ

I read about the dangers of federal deficit, the connection between markets and democracy, capitalist institutions and human well-being, insurance companies and quality health care, and the historic victories for peace and justice resulting from killing Osama bin Laden, and the son and grandchildren of Muammar Gaddafi.

I am reminded of Antonio Gramsci’s perceptive analysis about how people are ruled as much by what they learn to think and believe as by the use of force. Ideological hegemony refers to the idea systems that ruling classes construct to create willing and pliant citizens in political regimes that lack moral legitimacy or economic rationale.

I am also reminded of theorists from the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School, particularly Herbert Marcuse, who wrote about how the fundamental contradictions in peoples’ lives — capitalists versus workers and rule by the few versus the possibility of the rule by all — are transformed into a unanimity of thinking among people whose interests should make them adversaries and not collaborators. (more…)

Violence Is Not Greatness

May 08, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Brian J. Trautman, Culture, Current Events, Politics

Restoring National Unity Through Collective Compassion

by Brian J. Trautman

My reaction to news of the targeted assassination of al-Qaeda founder and most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden was unlike many Americans’. Celebrating killing and death felt wrong, and to witness my fellow citizens cheering jubilantly and chanting nationalist slogans with joy and pride was disheartening. Instead of reveling in more militarism and murder, our energies should be devoted to bringing home the roughly 150,000 American soldiers still deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq and in harm’s way every minute of every day.

National unity shouldn’t be born of and driven by acts of aggression; it should be shaped and inspired by individual and collective compassion and an altruistic desire to advocate for and alleviate the suffering of the tens of millions of civilians around the world, especially the children, who live in conflict zones and engage in a daily struggle to avoid the inhumanity and indiscriminate brutality of oppression and war. (more…)

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