Activism

The new documentary Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas proves that democracy can and should be more than casting a ballot every four years. This empowering film gives hopeful and concrete examples from around the Americas of people taking back the reigns of power and governing their own communities. Beyond Elections is a road map for social change, drawing from communal councils in Venezuela and social movements in Bolivia to participatory budgeting in Brazil and worker cooperatives in Argentina.

The time has come for humanists to actively assert that they are as committed peace and ending U.S. militarism as they are to the separation of church and state. Humanists, atheists, and assorted freethinkers should join anti-war/peace organizations in assertively calling for a dramatic change in U.S. foreign policy away from neoliberal imperialism and militarism.

"What the cynics fail to understand," Barack Obama declared in his inaugural address, "is that the ground has shifted beneath them-that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply." Can progressive social movements in the United States apply the new president's own words toward successful strategies for truly meaningful change under his administration? What does the lack of visible dissent at Obama's inauguration suggest about the politics of protest and the prospects for global justice in the post-Bush era?

Just three companies control approximately 80 percent of the beer industry in the US. Brewing beer at home is one way to counter this corporate monopoly. However, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama and Oklahoma still outlaw the craft. Recently, a victory for homebrewers was scored in Utah, when on February 19th the State Senate legalized homebrewing, bringing the state out of the shadows of prohibition.

This online film remembers King's overlooked critique of exploitation and militarism. A familiar refrain, as of late, has been Rosa sat, King walked so that he (Obama) could run or some variation thereof. Was that the goal of King's struggle?