Yet Another #People’sPlatform Has Usual Anti-People Problem

Donald Trump uses backdrops formed by crowds of boy scouts or soldiers. Progressive Democrats use documents called #People’sPlatform endorsed by numerous quasi-grassroots organizations.

Neither remotely approaches the far more desirable governance that one would get using direct democracy, governance by opinion poll. The reason for the pretense of populism is clear: people are wiser, even laboring under today’s relentless sewer of propaganda, than any contingent in either mega-party. There read more

Ethics of Not Ruining Everything

Today I listened to the audio book of Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationship With Animals by Lori Gruen while reading the hardcopy of From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds by Daniel Dennett. As a result I have been better able to empathize with Dennett’s obsession with the uniqueness of human consciousness, and I have been better able to marvel at the complex precision of Gruen’s theorizing. But I don’t seem to be any better off than read more

Why We’re Kayaking to the Pentagon, and Why You Should Join Us

One week before the #NoWar2017: War and the Environment conference, to be held September 22-24 at American Univeristy, World Beyond War will work with the Backbone Campaign and other allies to organize a flotilla for the environment and peace, bringing kayaktivism to Washington, D.C., on September 16th.

Why? What’s the relevance? Who’s drilling for oil on the Potomac?

Actually the Potomac is central headquarters for oil consumption, as the top way in which we consume oil is through preparing read more

Major Mistake Found in Congressional Creation of Space Army

Even CNN struggles to stay solemn, neither laughing nor vomiting, at news of Congress creating a new branch of the U.S. military to fight wars in space.

Of course, one purpose of militarizing space, which other nations have long supported banning by treaty, has for the United States long been to facilitate more unstoppable attacks on various corners of the little planet earth.

But another stated purpose of this legislation is to “guard the galaxy.” Here’s where a massive miscalculation read more

122 Nations Create Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons

On Friday the United Nations concluded the creation of the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty in over 20 years, and the first treaty ever to ban all nuclear weapons. While 122 nations voted yes, the Netherlands voted no, Singapore abstained, and numerous nations didn’t show up at all.

The Netherlands, I’m told by Alice Slater, was compelled by public pressure on its parliament to show up. I don’t know what Singapore’s problem is. But the world’s nine nuclear nations, various read more

Silicon Oligarchs Should Save Themselves, Not Us

After the most expensive Congressional election in history saw a spectacular loss by a much-hyped Democrat who included only two policy topics on his entire website: cutting government spending, and running the government more like a corporation, a couple of Silicon Valley would-be Democratic-Party oligarchs have set up a website called “Win the Future” (guess who loses!) to raise money to buy billboards in Washington, D.C., to say things like “cut spending!*” read more

De-Authorize the Use of Military Force

Last Thursday the U.S. House Appropriations Committee unanimously passed an amendment that would — if passed by the full Congress — repeal, after an 8-month delay, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress just after September 11, 2001, and used as a justification for wars ever since.

Also last week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously passed three resolutions strongly urging Congress to move funding read more