New Clear Vision

Stopping a War Before It Starts

by Robert C. Koehler

Who’s up for stopping a war?

This is the time, as the next war strains to be born, amid the same old lies as last time, amid the same urgency and pseudo-debate and pretensions of seriousness:

The government of Syria has crossed a “red line.” It has used poison gas, killing hundreds of innocent people and committing a heinous war crime. And suddenly, clear as a bell, we have good vs. evil. Our only course of action, President Obama and his spokespersons tell us, is to “carry out a punitive strike against the Syrian government.”

This is the abstraction of warspeak, which summons a deeply satisfying mythology of righteous vengeance while making the action sound so clear and logical. (more…)

Queer Visions of Another World

by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez

The news this week that Private Bradley Manning had come out as Chelsea made me think first that truth is way stranger than fiction, and second that it makes perfect sense that one of the most courageous warriors of our time would be a queer woman.

Gloria Anzaldua, who has been one of my heroines since I first read her seminal work Borderlands/La frontera back in the 1980s, always insisted that queer folk have a special role to play in bringing about a change in human consciousness — moving us from the patriarchal mold of the past 5,000 years or so to what she called “a new mestiza consciousness,” a much more holistic, inclusive, planetary awareness.

Anzaldua extended Virginia Woolf’s famous statement, in her anti-war tract Three Guineas, that “as a woman, I have no country.  As a woman, I want no country.  As a woman, my country is the whole world,” giving it a new queer mestiza twist: (more…)

Caught in a Single, Interlaced Web of Danger and Possibility

by Robert C. Koehler

What I keep longing to hear, in the hemorrhaging national debate about Edward Snowden, whistleblowing and the NSA, is some acknowledgment of what the word “security” actually means, and what role — if any — the government should play in creating it.

“You can’t have 100 percent security and also have 100 percent privacy.”

A moment of silence, please, for the dying patriarchy. That, of course, was how President Obama explained it to the American public shortly after the spy scandal hit the fan. When did we become “the children” in our relationship with the government, irrelevant to its day-to-day operations, utterly powerless as we stand in its massive, protecting shadow? (more…)

Neighborhood Watch Meets the Big Buddy System

by Missy Beattie

I have this feeling. I have this feeling and thought that people are gathering at water coolers, in hallways near their cubicles, and on the walking paths of their kingdoms, in the interest of country, duty, honor. You know, to scour each other’s lives. It’s not unlike the Buddy System. That other name, Insider Threat Program, sounds harsh.

So, check this out: There’s a woman who lives in my building. Occasionally, her door’s open. Not just unlocked but wide open. I’m fixated on this. And believe me, when I obsess, I cover every clue. I watch from my window when she’s outside — when she’s basking (ostensibly) in nature and checking the plantings — knowing she could be plotting, unearthing, hiding something among the greenery and behind her curious expression and amiable smile. Or is that an enigmatic expression and sly smile?

So, I lurk, examining minutiae that the less observant would miss. The way she gently touches a leaf — probably a ruse. She wants me to believe she’s kind and, yes, approachable. I almost reported her, but then I had this profound hesitation. Mainly about timing. I’m weighing options, thinking that perhaps the government eventually might offer Walmart vouchers for information. Patient I’ll be, waiting, skulking. (more…)

New Book Highlights What We Must Do

by David Swanson

If you’re like me you’ve read several books that list inspiring examples of worker owned businesses and co-ops, suggesting that expanding on such models might begin to right the wrongs of an incredibly unequal society that is growing even more unequal by the day.

The best such collection I’ve found is in a new book by Gar Alperovitz called What Then Must We Do?  This book also offers a powerful argument that radical change is needed, albeit an argument with some possible flaws.  First the inspiring examples:

Workers own and run factories in Cleveland, Atlanta, Washington DC, Amarillo, and many other cities.  Labor unions that once opposed worker ownership, including the Steelworkers and several others, now create worker-owned companies.  Forty percent of Americans are members of cooperatives, including credit unions.  People moved hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, from large banks to credit unions and small banks in 2011 and 2012.  (That should continue!)  Then there are community development corporations and land trusts, alive and thriving.  There are even corporations redesigned, and labeled B Corps, chartered under new laws in 12 states to allow them to legally pursue the social good as well as profits. (more…)

Demonstrations Move for Humane Immigration Policies

by Devon G. Peña

On June 27th, the United States Senate approved an amendment to the evolving comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) bill. The amendment dramatically expands enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border creating what Senator John McCain proudly announced as the greatest border militarization since the Fall of the Berlin Wall.The Arizona Senator did not appear to notice the contradictory irony underlying his statement: The Berlin Wall was finally brought down by people seeking peace and reunification, ending militarization; the Tortilla Curtain keeps going up, promoting conflict and disunity. Does this mean that the human fence consisting of 40,000 border patrol agents is analogous to the East German military border patrol and the Stasi secret police? How is this an accomplishment worthy of a civilized nation? (more…)

Like Love Notes from a Charlatan…

by Missy Beattie

I should unsubscribe to Organizing for Action (OFA) — a group supporting the election of Democrats, but I won’t, because I’m mining data from the obscenely insincere. The emails open with a clever ploy, use of the familiar, my given name. It’s almost intimate. Some are signed “Barack”. Here’s one, minus a few sentences:

Missy –

My administration is taking steps to cut carbon pollution, prepare our nation for the unavoidable impact of climate change, and put America’s best and brightest to work to solve this issue on a global scale.

One thing we know is we’ll face a well-organized and well-financed opposition by the special interests that profit from keeping things the way they are — and there are members of Congress who fundamentally deny the science on this issue.

I need to know you’ll fight alongside me. Say you will. [Subliminal, using the title of a love song.] (more…)