In planning a conference that is coming up in Toronto, I’ve been seeking out stories of peace and justice in Toronto and Canada. Wow are there a lot of them, as well as plenty of war and injustice as well. One of my favorites has got to be the story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. Terry “Typhoon” Swinton, who got his name from Carter, sent me a copy of the book he co-authored with Sam Chaiton in 1991, and co-lived with an amazing group of
Talk Nation Radio: Victoria Law on the Struggles of Women in Prison
Victoria Law is a freelance journalist focusing on women’s incarceration. She is the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women which I highly recommend and co-author of Your Home Is Your Prison (coming out next year).
Since 2003, she has edited Tenacious: Art and Writings by Women in Prison. She recently published an article in In These Times magazine called “Corporations Are Profiting From Immigrant Detainees’ Labor. Some Say It’s Slavery.”
The Limits of Empathy
Paul Bloom’s book Against Empathy was bound to be either advocacy for cruelty and sadism, or a horribly misguided attempt to improve the world, or false advertising (it would turn out he’s only against the most narrowly or bizarrely defined concept of empathy), or genuinely interesting. It turns out to be a combination of the last two, plus a third part made up of numerous lengthy but tangentially related topics — some of them also interesting.
The book’s subtitle is “The Case for Rational
Talk Nation Radio: Francesco Duina on Why Poor People in the U.S. Believe Better-Off Countries Are Horrible Places
Francesco Duina is the author of Broke and Patriotic: Why Poor Americans Love Their Country.
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Producer: David Swanson.
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Alan Dershowitz Is Not the Only One Who Gets Impeachment Bassackwards
The eternal question of U.S. politics rears its ugly ass again: “Why in the hell does anyone ever listen to Alan Dershowitz?”
No court can overturn a Congressional impeachment and conviction. Will somebody at Fox and CNN page the nearest genocidal torture-defending lawyer, who is either Alan Dershowitz or someone joining him on a search for the real O.J. Simpson killer at a five-star restaurant for lunch today, and get Dershowitz a copy of the United States Constitution?
The Constitution gives
They Went to Jail for Justice
C.J. Hinke has produced probably the best collection I’ve read of writings by and about conscientious objectors and war refusers behind bars. It’s called Free Radicals: War Resisters in Prison.
The book is a bit of a time capsule, somewhat along the lines of Daniel Ellsberg’s recent book revealing the substance of the other half of the Pentagon Papers decades later. In fact, Hinke actually found this manuscript, which he had begun in 1966 and lost a couple of years later in the
Silicon Valley Will Not Save You from the Surveillance State
There was something quite odd about the very welcome news that some Google employees were objecting to a military contract, namely all the other Google military contracts. My sense of the oddness of this was heightened by reading Yasha Levine’s new book, Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet.
I invited Levine on my radio show (it will air in the coming weeks) and asked him what he thought was motivating the revolt over at Google.
Monbiot’s New Story Uncut and Unrated
I’m going to praise the heck out of yet another terrific book I’ve just read while yet again exclaiming (into a deep empty echoing canyon?) my bewilderment and outrage at the glaring omission it makes — the same one as all the other books.
George Monbiot’s Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis is part familiar; part original, creative, and inspiring; and pretty much all right-on and necessary. Its first chapter should be required reading everywhere — with the
Talk Nation Radio: William Geimer on the Case for Canada Staying Out of Other People’s Wars
William Geimer, author, peace activist, is a veteran of the U.S. 82d Airborne Division and Professor of Law Emeritus, Washington and Lee University. After resigning his commission in opposition to the war on Vietnam, he represented conscientious objectors and advised peace groups near Ft. Bragg NC. A Canadian citizen, he lives with his wife near Victoria, British Columbia where he is a member of the Vancouver Island Peace and Disarmament Network. He is the author of Canada: The Case for Staying
Ban Tear Gas
Tear gas is among the least of the problems facing those who care about the murder and destruction of war. But it is a major element in the militarization of local policing. In fact, it is widely deemed illegal in war, but legal in non-war (although what written law actually creates that loophole is unclear).
Like blowing people up with missiles from drones, shooting people for being Palestinian, holding people in cages for decades without charge or trial on a stolen corner of Cuba, or zapping