New Clear Vision

Can People Power Overcome Nuclear Power?

by Randall Amster

Search the news for the word “meltdown” these days and you’ll probably get one of three main hits: the situation in Japan; the U.S. economy; and Charlie Sheen. Take a guess which one is most likely to occupy peoples’ attention spans and fill the pages of tabloids going forward? Celebrity gossip is a powerful palliative for troubled times, and most of us know about as much behind the science of nuclear reactions as we do about the inner workings of the economy. Sheen? We know him all too well…

So it’s not surprising that calamitous events – from the BP gusher to the “long hard slog” of Afghanistan – slip beneath the collective radar and result in almost no widespread changes in modern society. The war drags on and the crude is in our food, yet few seem all that outwardly concerned. With the economy, at least there’s been a bit of push-back of late, but across America the malls are still open for business-as-usual and CEOs are laughing all the way to the bank with record bonuses. (more…)

The Nuclear Age Must Yield to a Time of Love

by Jan Lundberg

Three days before the Fukushima nuclear power explosion, I made this comment on a peace activist’s Facebook page: “I believe a successful, final anti-nuke campaign will only take place in one of two ways: (1) collapse puts the entire infrastructure of industry and consumption out of business, forcing the survivors to minimally babysit the nukes forever, or, there’s an accident or deliberate blast or meltdown that motivates people all over the world to shut down the mechanical beast once and for all.”

I didn’t think it would come so soon. But that has been the pattern for our planet in peril in recent years: acceleration of disasters, climate destabilization, peak oil, strife such as wars and revolutions, extremes of elitist wealth and overwhelming poverty, fresh water depletion — all prelude to complete collapse. However, to use the equivalent of jiu-jitsu or aikido to rapidly channel the onslaught of negative energy toward something positive is our duty and opportunity. (more…)

Israeli Schoolchildren to Tour Occupied Palestinian Territories

by Lia Tarachansky

Last week, Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced a new program: taking Israeli school children on tours to the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. It is scheduled to begin in September. This announcement follows closely on an investigation into the death of a 17-year-old Palestinian boy who was killed by Israeli hikers on a tour in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In the past, such tours were permitted by the Israeli Civil Administration authorities but this announcement signals the first open government endorsement.

On 28 January 2011, the David and Ahikam Tours Company took a group of Jewish-Israeli hikers over the lands of the Palestinian village of Beit Ummar in the Hebron governorate. Youths from the village saw the group and threw stones. The hikers shot back, using live ammunition, wounding 23-year-old Bila Mohammad Abed Al-Qador and killing 17-year-old Yousef Fakhri Ikhlayl. (more…)

Nonviolence Rejects ‘Othering’ … and Topples Dictators

by Winslow Myers

Muhammar Khaddafy’s brutal reaction to the aspirations of his own people is becoming a textbook case in the futility of opposing the citizens from whose consent a leader’s political authority derives, however illegitimately. Instead, his stubborn egotism has led to absurd violence, even civil war. At moments like this, the world trembles with indignation and apprehensive hope.

The non-violent invincibility of people power, the argument of Jonathan Schell’s underrated masterpiece of political philosophy, The Unconquerable World, may be coming true before our eyes again as it did in the Philippines in 1986 and Czechoslovakia in 1989. We do not yet know which model will dominate in the short run in the Middle East and Northern Africa, the violence of state power, or the nonviolence of citizens seeking their rights as leaders abdicate peacefully. Citizen invincibility is not manifesting in all cases without additional tragic sacrifice to the callous will of dictators. But in the end it will prevail. (more…)

If at First You Don’t Secede…

by Randall Amster

Progressive eyes have been rightly transfixed on Wisconsin of late, with the en masse display of “people power” directly confronting attempts to erode public infrastructure and eviscerate the leverage of collective bargaining that so many have struggled for over the decades. Coming on the heels of popular uprisings in Egypt and across the region, and with the potential for an ensuing General Strike in the offing if austerity measures persist, the “Wisky Rebellion” has captured the imagination of workers and activists, spawning solidarity actions around America and inspiring people in other states to push back against comparable rightwing machinations.

Arizona has been no exception, as hundreds gathered in Phoenix recently to show their support for protesters in Wisconsin, and to voice their displeasure at similar policies in their midst. If there’s another state in the union with a competing claim to be the frontline of reactionary politics gone haywire, it is surely Arizona. Beset by invidious legislation and a decimated economy, among other issues, the nascent “failed state” ethos that has taken hold in the desert is escalating even as the leading edge of a people’s movement begins to push back half a continent away. While Phoenix bears little overt resemblance to Madison, either geographically or politically, the national assault on sane governance compels us to explore the linkage. (more…)

Justice Depends on Public Spaces

by Jay Walljasper

The influence of the new digital commons in democratic uprisings from Tunisia to Egypt to Bahrain has been chronicled at length in news reports from the Middle East, with Facebook, Twitter and other social media winning praise as dictator-busters.

But the importance of a much older form of commons in these revolts has earned scant attention — the public spaces where citizens rally to voice their discontent, show their power and ultimately articulate a new vision for their homelands. To celebrate their victory over the Mubarak regime, for example, protesters in Cairo jubilantly returned to Tahrir Square, where the revolution was born, to pick up trash.

It’s the same story all over the Middle East. In Libya’s capital city of Tripoli, people express their aspirations and face bloody reprisals in Green Square and Martyr’s Square. In Bahrain, they boldly march in Pearl Square in the capital city of Manama. In Yemen, protests have taken place in public spaces near the university in Sanaa, which students renamed Tahrir Square. Kept out of the central Revolution Square in Tehran by the repressive government, Iranian dissidents gather in Valiasr Square and Vanak Sqaure. (more…)

An Open Letter to Sarah, Michelle, and My American Sisters

by Mary Sojourner

I once shopped at a Safeway in my Tucson neighborhood. On January 8, 2011, a mentally ill young man — nearly a boy — opened fire on U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and a group of people outside that Safeway. Yellow police ribbons drape the parking lot I once parked in. Six people died there, including a 9-year-old girl, a federal judge, and one of Giffords’s staff. At least ten people were wounded.

Giffords has been able to respond to doctors even though she was shot in the head. As I write this on Valentines Day 2011, she is able to say a few words and sing simple songs. Much is not known about what inspired the killer. What is known is that he  left messages on internet sites in which he expressed violent fears and viewpoints that seem to indicate he is seriously ill. What I also know is that he developed his plan — and acted — in a growing atmosphere of viciousness in America. If you doubt that, go to the CNN, Yahoo, Fox, and other major news media and read the comments following the ongoing reports on this story … and almost any story. (more…)