No Picture

Bush’s Iraq Lies, Uncontested, Will Haunt Us Under Trump

Source: Truthout

The CODEPINK Tribunal taking place December 1 and 2, and live streamed by The Real News, is a historic collection of testimonies about the lies and costs of the Iraq war. It takes on new meaning with the incoming Trump administration, and the hawks who are flocking to join that administration with their sights set on starting yet another war in the Middle East, this time in Iran. 

My testimony started with the first CODEPINK action against the war that took place in Congress. It was September 18, 2002, the day Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld testified before the House Armed Services Committee about why the US military should invade Iraq. He accused Saddam Hussein of having and hiding weapons of mass destruction, raised the specter of an Iraqi-initiated September 11-style attack and told the Committee that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a global threat.  read more

No Picture

The Lesson from Standing Rock: Organizing and Resistance Can Win

Source: The Nation

Indigenous water protectors are showing us how to fight back—and how to live again.

“I’ve never been so happy doing dishes,” Ivy Longie says, and then she starts laughing. Then crying. And then there is hugging. Then more hugging.

Less than two hours earlier, news came that the Army Corps of Engineers had turned down the permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline to be built under the Missouri River. The company will have to find an alternate route and undergo a lengthy environmental assessment.

Ever since, the network of camps now housing thousands of water protectors has been in the throes of (cautious) celebration and giving thanks, from cheers to processions to round dances. Here, at the family home of Standing Rock Tribal Councilman Cody Two Bears, friends and family members who have been at the center of the struggle are starting to gather for a more private celebration. read more

The Base is Not Enough: Labor Organizing Under Trump Means Civil Disobedience and Bridge-Building

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s electoral victory, progressives quickly remembered radical labor activist Joe Hill’s evocative call to his supporters on the eve of his execution—“don’t mourn, organize.” But Hill’s command is more of a battle cry than a battle plan. The most difficult question is still front and center: What is the best way to organize against Trump’s regime?

No Picture

Trump Can’t Hold Back the Tide of Climate Action

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

Market forces, state and local action, and strong social movements could blunt the impacts of a denialist White House.

One of the sad ironies of Donald Trump’s victory is that climate change has risen up the political agenda only after the campaign, when both candidates and debate moderators largely ignored it. Trump’s denialism in the face of an urgent, planetary threat provides some potent imagery for how the devastation caused by his presidency might look.

Climate scientists have been quick to condemn Trump’s election as a “disaster,” and it’s not hard to see why. read more