New Clear Vision

Finding Good News Amidst the ‘Windy Militant Trash’

by Winslow Myers

The brilliance of the “Mad Men” television series lies in the crackerjack acting and script, but even more in the way the series dramatizes the paradigm shift of American women from gross subjugation to rough equality. In an early episode, protagonist Don Draper reluctantly allows his wife to consult a (male) psychiatrist, and then calls the doctor, who casually violates confidentiality. The series explains much about how the males of my generation often haplessly misunderstood or deliberately ignored the autonomous subjectivity of females.

This begs two questions: what blindnesses operating in the present cultural moment might be illuminated by talented scriptwriters as they look back from the perspective of 2040? And second, what is the vision that orients us as we work to ensure that there will be a future to look back from in 2040? (more…)

War, Consumption, Aggression — Can We Make a Cultural Change?

by Jan Lundberg

When we think of the millions of U.S. Americans who have needlessly attacked or harmed millions of others in dozens of countries, and have harmed themselves — without fully knowing why — and when we acknowledge that many in the U.S. seem resigned to allow more of the same, one can extend this phenomenon to the nation’s population in general. We can call it a common trait, and find it to be a U.S. tendency upon historical analysis or reading between the lines of corporate news. Let us name the national condition confusion.Under this we can lump poor education, being propagandized, exploitation of the poor, rampant ill health, environmental devastation, and the rape of Mother Nature (and therefore of ourselves and our spirit). (more…)

How to Save a Quarter Trillion Dollars

by Lawrence Wittner

In the midst of the current stampede to slash federal spending, Congress might want to take a look at two unnecessary (and dangerous) “national security” programs that, if cut, would save the U.S. over a quarter of a trillion dollars over the next decade.

The first of these is the Obama administration’s plan to spend at least $185 billion in the next ten years to “modernize” the U.S. government’s nuclear weapons arsenal.  At present, the U.S. government possesses approximately 8,500 nuclear warheads, and it is hard to imagine that this country would be safer from attack if it built more nuclear weapons or “improved” those it already possesses.

Indeed, President Barack Obama has declared — both on the 2008 campaign trail and as president — that he is committed to building a world without nuclear weapons. (more…)

(Editor’s Note: August 6th was the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima; and today commemorates the attack on Nagasaki. In remembrance of these events, which helped usher in the atomic age and the permanent war economy, we present three critical reflections by leading voices for peace.)

Truman Lied, Hundreds of Thousands Died

by David Swanson

On August 6, 1945, President Harry S Truman announced: “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T.  It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British ‘Grand Slam’ which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.”

When Truman lied to America that Hiroshima was a military base rather than a city full of civilians, people no doubt wanted to believe him. Who would want the shame of belonging to the nation that commits a whole new kind of atrocity? (more…)

Please, No More Nuclear Options

by Brian J. Trautman

The Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster in Japan is a tragic reminder of the risks and hazards associated with nuclear energy production. Nevertheless, the United States has reaffirmed its commitment to expanding nuclear power domestically. Last year the Obama administration announced billions of dollars in new loan guarantees for reactor construction and billions more in assistance is being requested from the Congress. This is waste.

While the U.S. remains committed to nuclear power, many countries recognize that innovative approaches and sustainable solutions to their growing energy demands must not include atomic options. (more…)

U.S. Mayors Call for End to Wars and Nuclear Weapons

by James Russell

Peace activists won a major victory on June 20th when the US Conference of Mayors voted to adopt two resolutions that call for a drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Both resolutions also demand the reprioritization of defense spending, including the $126 billion spent each year in Iraq and Afghanistan, toward the needs of municipalities.

The group, which represents mayors of municipalities with 30,000 or more residents, has not passed such a resolution in 40 years. (more…)

Humanity’s Future Hangs by the Delicate Threads of Our Resistance

by Winslow Myers

“Every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.” — John F. Kennedy, U.N. Speech, 1961

In 1984, when I started volunteering for the organization Beyond War, it was not so difficult to gather an audience in a living room and have a dialogue about the obsolescence of war.

The horror of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 had not yet faded. Short-range tactical nuclear weapons were proliferating on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Most citizens were willing to entertain the notion that not only could we not win a full-scale nuclear war, but there were three lesser levels of war that we had to prevent: even a limited nuclear war could bring on “nuclear winter.” A conventional war could bring in the nuclear powers. Even small “local” conflicts could escalate into general conventional war and then upward to the nuclear level. War, all war, was a potential extinction machine. It still is. (more…)