New Clear Vision

Nonviolence, the Peace Process, and Future Directions

by Michael Walzer

(Editor’s Note: This week on NCV, as part of a thematic series, we are featuring articles focusing on the Israel-Palestine conflict and attendant issues, hoping to stimulate a dialogue and suggest potential ways forward.)

I have been coming to Israel every year for the past thirty years, and I spend most of my time here talking about politics. But I don’t understand what’s been going on recently, in Jerusalem and in Washington, beginning with Obama’s big speech. It wasn’t the reference to the 1967 borders that was new in this speech but rather the proposal to deal now with borders and security and postpone all questions about Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem. This makes sense to Israeli leftists, my friends here, who think that it’s to Israel’s advantage to get out of the territories — indeed, that withdrawal is an urgent necessity, and more so for the Jews than for the Arabs. (more…)

Overcoming Self-Destruction with a New Human Story

by Tim Hicks

We appear to be at a momentous point in our human story, the culmination of all our activities as a species to date, an ironic chapter in which those characteristics that have made us so successful — our inquisitiveness, creativity, and inventiveness — threaten our survival.

It seems that unless we change our behaviors very soon, climate change will radically alter the conditions for all life on the planet.

Climate change is a threshold event that calls into question much of what we are and what we do as a species. In this sense, climate change is a maturation point in human history, in concert with several trends in humanity’s social evolution that include the movement toward human rights and civil liberties, gender equality, and non-violent conflict resolution, but also the concurrent evolution of weapons development that has produced the thermonuclear bomb. (more…)

Finding Common Ground on Climate Change

by Rick Chamberlin

“They loved each other beyond belief; She was a strumpet, he was a thief.” — Henrich Heine, “New Poems,” 1797-1856

The vocabulary of religion is not serving us well when it comes to battling — or even discussing — climate change.

Recently a friend sent me a link to a video of Karen Armstrong accepting the TED prize in 2008. In her speech the former nun turned world-renowned scholar and author had this to say:

“Belief is only a very recent religious enthusiasm. It surfaced only in the West in about the 17^th century. The word ‘belief’ itself originally meant to love, to prize, to hold dear. In the 17^th century, it narrowed its focus … to include, to mean, an intellectual assent to a set of propositions. Credo, ‘I believe,’ … did not mean ‘I accept certain credal articles of faith’. It meant ‘I commit myself. I engage myself’…. So if religion is not about believing things, what is it about? What I’ve found across the board is that religion is about behaving differently. Instead of deciding whether or not you believe in God, first you do something, you behave in a committed way, and then you begin to understand the truths….” (more…)

What Celebrating bin Laden’s Death Reveals About Ourselves

by Caty Gordon

In the wake of the announcement that Osama bin Laden has been killed by US forces, his life and death (both saturated in controversy) merit reflection.  He proudly laid claim to killing nearly 3000 people in a single day, and openly touted his financial and military support for numerous other attacks on humankind. The man lived with the intent to oust any person or regime that threatened his goals of a dogmatic Islamic government and a Middle East free of American-sponsored dictators and military occupations. He even penned a fatwa in which he prescribed the killing of Americans as a duty of all Muslims. Bin Laden has also come to exemplify all that is evil about Arabs and Muslims in the corporate American media.  So it is understandable that Americans would react strongly to the news of his death. (more…)

Arizonans Stand Together for a Nuclear-Free Future

by Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa

The sun shone brightly and the wind showed its power in Phoenix, Arizona on Tuesday, April 26, the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.  Their prominent presence underlined the abundance of alternative energy resources in the Solar State.

To mark the anniversary, fifty people from Bisbee, Prescott, Tucson, and throughout the Phoenix area joined the Stand Together for a Nuclear Free Future demonstration to condemn the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) recent decision to grant a 20-year license extension for the Palo Verde nuclear power plant, and to call for an end to uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.

Holding colorful signs with a smiling sun proclaiming “Nuclear Power, No Thanks!” we gathered downtown in front of Arizona Public Service (APS) headquarters, owner/operator of the three-reactor Palo Verde nuclear power complex 50 miles west of Phoenix, the country’s largest.  Accompanied by a large puppet, Auntie Nuke, whose sign read “Nuclear Power is Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive!” we listened to speakers and songs. (more…)

Uranium Mining Threatens Grand Canyon Communities

by Simone Crowe

Over a thousand uranium mines have already contaminated water across the Southwest, poisoning communities with radiation that leads to cancer, harming the biodiversity of rivers and dissipating toxic ore dust into the air. Despite the immeasurable damage the mess of these abandoned mines has inflicted, including the official designation of the Four Corners as a “national sacrifice area,” the federal government and foreign mining companies want to continue uranium mining in the Grand Canyon.

Currently federal mineral land, this area of the Grand Canyon has been subjected to mining since 1872 due to the antiquated General Mining Law. In 2009, the federal government mandated a two-year moratorium on mining, protecting the land, surrounding communities and the Colorado River from any additional mine development. With the moratorium’s expiration date looming, pressure from foreign mining companies and the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) history of allowing invalidated mines, the ecological health of the Grand Canyon vicinity could be at risk. (more…)

Japan Struggles to Survive the Unimaginable

by Sabu Kohso

While we are observing the new impetus of global uprising against capitalism and the state, the catastrophic situation is arising in Japan. Triggered by the earthquake and tsunami of maximal scale, Northeastern part of Honshu has been devastated by the increasing number of losses and refugees, and the worsening nuclear disaster.

The activity of the planet has shown not only its unequivocal nonhuman force but also the degree in which our societies and their apparatuses forged by capitalism are relying on, merging with, implicated in and expanding over the planet in an extremely ominous manner. What the so-called natural disaster is showing on this occasion is nothing but the implication of the apparatus on the environment and its fatal effects.

In this situation, we intend to translate, quote and analyze as much information as possible from Japanese into English, and translate your encouragements, comments, suggestions, analysis, proposals and anything written in English into Japanese for the vantage point of the people struggling there and everywhere. (more…)