Before the latest clash erupts into a real nuclear war, we must commit to truly ending the Cold War by demanding immediate and unconditional talks with North Korea, in which the United States also works toward a nuclear-weapons free world. The recent anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a sobering reminder of what is at stake.
In a speech last week, President Trump announced that the 17 year old war in Afghanistan will go on pretty much as it has. The war against Afghanistan is as much a war about race and white supremacy as was the Civil War. And the violence that we see in American streets is a direct and inevitable result of the violence of our county’s wars abroad.
Imagine a world with as many as one billion people facing harsh climate change impacts such as devastating droughts or floods, extreme weather, destruction of land and natural resources, and the consequences of famine and starvation. The speed with which climate change has been taking place might lead to such a scenario by 2050. If so, 1 in 9 human beings would be on the move by then.
Source: Juan Cole
The images from Houston and its environs are heart-breaking and we at IC wish all those affected a speedy and safe return to normality.
Extreme weather events are associated with climate change, and whenever they occur, they raise the question of their relationship to that process.
Human-induced climate change did not “cause” Hurricane Harvey. There have after all been hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico all along, and some of them have been monstrous. So can we relate Hurricane Harvey to human pumping of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere by driving cars, heating or cooling buildings, etc.?
Source: Waging Nonviolence
Nazism and white supremacy are forms of violence. Let’s start there.
The constitution does not protect violence, and I’m happy to see that the California chapter of the ACLU has taken a stand against protecting the “free speech” of hate groups.
But with or without marching permits, it is clear that public displays of hatred are a growing trend in the United States. And as much as I don’t want to give these groups more attention, it is also clear that simply ignoring them is not going to make them go away.
Source: The Nation
Now, for the first time, an adviser recalls a remarkable 1971 conversation with Chile’s socialist leader.
On September 11, 1973, a military coup in Chile—assisted by the CIA under orders from President Richard Nixon and his national-security adviser, Henry Kissinger—violently overthrew the socialist government of President Salvador Allende, ended his life, and brought to power the murderous dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Shortly after Allende took office, he gave a long interview to the radical French intellectual Régis Debray, who questioned Allende about the Chilean road to socialism, which seemed to contradict the prevailing view that socialism could only be achieved through armed struggle and revolution, not electoral politics. An extended version of that interview appeared in Debray’s book Conversations With Allende, still available from Verso Books.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019