Embedded Files
The costs of American militarism: the lost peace dividend - Oct 4
Our elected representatives vote to hand the Pentagon and weapons manufacturers $778 billion one week, then say the United States “can’t afford” things like child care the next week. The US accounts for 39% of the world's total defense spending. The peace dividend that would result for our nation from re-directing military spending to domestic and global concerns is enormous. We could end hunger and homelessness, provide universal health care and childcare, increase job-training and community college assistance, address climate change, prepare for future pandemics, and still have more than $300 B left for defense....READ
If history is to be our guide, Democrats will not retain their slim Congressional majority in the 2022 midterms. The President's party loses an average of 28 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate in these elections. Given the GOP's nationwide voter suppression measures targeting Democratic constituencies, retaining a Congressional majority will be even more difficult. Without filibuster reform and a voting rights act passed by Congress, it will be nearly impossible...the racist history of the filibuster, organizations working to overcome obstacles to voting...READ
Live up to our highest democratic ideals: the alternative to imperialism and militarism - Oct 20
America's greatness lies in its values and democratic ideals, and our values should not stop at our borders. When political leaders champion a distorted view of American exceptionalism, such as the neocon "Project for a New American Century", when they confuse capitalism with democracy, the United States engages in military and imperialistic ventures at odds with our true values. There is no better place to look for an alternative to militarism and imperialism than MLK's vision of the Beloved Community...READ
World News Briefs: Democracy, Human Rights and Freedom of Expression - Oct 28
Sudan's steps towards democracy at risk after coup, Myanmar coup confirmed death toll tops 1100, Israel faces backlash after labeling human rights groups "terrorist organizations", journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitri Muratov share 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, United States again tries to extradite Julian Assange from Great Britain and prosecute him for exposing US war crimes...READ
Takeaways from the off-year elections - Nov 5
With Donald Trump neither in power nor on the ballot, suburban voters returned to the Republican fold, and the anti-Trump fervor of the Democratic base petered out. As a result, Democrats lost Virginia and barely held on to deep blue New Jersey in off-year state elections. Some takeaways from the elections and what the results mean for the coming months of the Biden Administration and the 2022 mid-terms...the new Republican template for campaigns...READ
Armistice Day - Nov 11
"I wonder how foreign policies would look if we...thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never...wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children." - Howard Zinn
One hundred three years ago, an armistice signed between Germany and the Allied Powers put an end to the fighting in one of the most inexplicable and horrific wars in history. The Great War/WW I far from being "the war to end all wars" as it was touted shaped the twentieth century mainly for the worse...the costs of war and possible answers, political repression during and after WWI, our shameful treatment of veterans, the international arms trade...READ
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Nov 19
News items from the past couple of weeks...Glasgow Climate Change Conference, the pandemic, death penalty, two wrongly convicted men exonerated after 50 years, Rittenhouse's acquittal and the future of far-right vigilantism, Congressmember Gosar's video and censure...READ
Ten to be thankful for in 2021 - Nov 25
News items and people to be thankful for in a year that has had its challenges...READ
Iran Nuclear Talks Resume - Nov 30
Amid generally low expectations and after a five month hiatus, the United States and Iran returned to their indirect talks to salvage the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. By not agreeing to end the illegal Trump sanctions while negotiating with the moderate Rouhani government, President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken may have already lost their best chance to act...the context of the talks...how Iran and the United States became adversaries...READ
World News Updates - Dec 10
Ethiopian conflict, Myanmar coup, Honduran election, Israeli settler violence, tensions on the Ukraine-Russia border...READ
Will Republicans finally kill democracy on Joe Biden's watch? - Dec 17
If the events of the past year have told us one thing, it is this: There is now only one major political party in the United States committed to democracy. Aided and abetted by the conservative-majority Supreme Court, Republican-held state legislatures have worked for the past dozen years to end America's 56-year-old democracy. Bad as this was, the last 12 months have seen an even greater assault on democracy's most basic rights - the right to vote and to have that vote counted...The Big Lie...The Insurrection...The Aftermath...How to Stop the War on Voting...READ Democracy Watch
Google Sites
Report abuse