New Clear Vision

Judging Society by Its Prison System

by David Swanson

Prisoners risking death by refusing food in the Pelican Bay supermax, and those hunger striking in solidarity in prisons around California, are a judgment of our sickness. “The degree of civilization in a society,” said Dostoyevsky, “can be judged by entering its prisons.”

Civilization is something we no longer seem to aspire to. The United States locks up more people and a greater percentage of its people than anyone else. We lock them in training centers for anger and violence. We subject them to rape, assault, humiliation, and isolation. We throw the innocent in with the guilty, the young with the old, the nonviolent with the violent, the hopeful with those who’ve lost all interest in life. (more…)

It’s Getting Hot in Here…

by Winslow Myers

In the 1980s, to help awaken people to the danger of thermonuclear holocaust, the organization I volunteer for, Beyond War, used what is now a scientifically discredited metaphor: if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it would immediately leap out, but if you put the same frog in a pot of cold water and gradually heated it, it would sit passively in the pot and slowly boil to death — the point being that if citizens continued to sleep and nations to drift, we would all get overtaken by nuclear war.

Unfortunately a metaphor can remain apt even if its literal source is untrue. This came involuntarily to mind as we sweated through the latest heat wave in our third floor walkup in Boston. We’re right under the roof of the building; meaningful survival is not possible without at least one room with AC into which to retreat. Yet there’s something about air conditioning that comes around to bite us in the butt. (more…)

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…)

Articulating a New Narrative in the Shell of the Old

by Randall Amster

It goes without saying … that we take the greater portion of this world as we find it, not as we might like it to be. In this sense, we primarily play the roles of resigned participant or cynical observer where conscience exists, and where it does not the outcome is often manifested in terms of either willful neglect or conspicuous consumption. A relative though not insignificant few in every era will take up the thankless and unscripted task of confronting the status quo in an attempt to turn harsh realities into humane alternatives. Still, despite such efforts, it goes without saying that the impetus for positive change is seemingly outstripped by the rate of ongoing decay. (more…)

What is to be Done?

by Peter Bergel

Recently my email brought two items on the same day which, when I put them together, seemed like a strong message for Independence Day — and beyond.

The first was a New York Times article (reprinted in The PeaceWorker on June 16) about how a British firm is preparing to bring appropriate technology to the U.S. to “do well by doing good” in the area of conserving energy. The second was the graph showing the one area where the U.S. really is number one.

I Have a Dream…

What if — I thought — after 9/11 we had decided to revenge ourselves not on Afghans and Iraqis who had done us no harm, but on Saudi Arabia, from which country the 9/11 attackers actually hailed? What if — assuming you don’t buy the “capture the terrorists” justification for the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq — we had decided to choose a different tool than war to defend our energy supply?

We could have spent some portion of the difference between the 2001 military budget of approximately $350 billion annually and today’s military budget of $700+ billion on developing a domestic green energy supply. (more…)

Preparing to Sail to Gaza

by Kathy Kelly

Last week, newly-arrived in Athens as part of the US Boat to Gaza project, our team of activists gathered for nonviolence training.  We are here to sail to Gaza, in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, in our ship, “The Audacity of Hope.” Our team, and nine other ships’ crews from countries around the world, want Israel to end its lethal blockade of Gaza by letting our crews through to shore to meet with Gazans.  The US ship will bring over 3,000 letters of support to a population suffering its fifth continuous decade of de facto occupation, now in the form of a military blockade controlling Gaza’s sea and sky, punctuated by frequent deadly military incursions, that has starved Gaza’s economy and people to the exact level of cruelty considered acceptable to the domestic population of our own United States, Israel’s staunchest ally. (more…)

What’s Next for Peace Activism in the U.S.?

by David Swanson

Five years ago was a high point for participation in the peace movement in the United States.  This was because the Iraq war was young and violent, but also because the pitiful, poorly funded organizations driven by opposition to war were joined by the major well-funded organizations and individuals and funders who oppose the Republican Party in any way available, including through opposition to wars that are identified as Republican wars.  The Democratic Party was in the minority in Congress and not in the White House.  It didn’t promise peace and justice, but its supporters poured money and time and energy into bashing the Republicans for their wars and injustices. (more…)