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The two biggest cities on the shores of Lake Erie are now centers of political upheaval. For decades, Buffalo and Cleveland have suffered from widespread poverty and despair in the midst of urban decay. Today, the second-largest cities in New York and Ohio are battlegrounds between activists fighting for progressive change and establishment forces determined to prevent it.

Many Palestinians believe that the May 10-21 military confrontation between Israel and the Gaza Resistance, along with the simultaneous popular revolt across Palestine, was a game-changer. Israel is doing everything in its power to prove them wrong. 

 Palestinians are justified to hold this viewpoint; after all, their minuscule military capabilities in a besieged and impoverished tiny stretch of land, the Gaza Strip, have managed to push back - or at least neutralize - the massive and superior Israeli military machine. 

 However, for Palestinians, this is not only about firepower but also about their coveted national unity. Indeed, the Palestinian revolt, which included all Palestinians regardless of their political backgrounds or geographic locations, is fostering a whole new discourse on Palestine - non-factional, assertive and forward-thinking. 

 The challenge for the Palestinian people is whether they will be able to translate their achievements into an actual political strategy, and finally transition past the stifling, and often tragic, post-Oslo Accords period.

For Derek Chauvin, nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds have turned into twenty-two and a half years — the prison sentence he recently received for the murder of George Floyd.

Chauvin famously knelt on George Floyd’s neck last year, as he lay handcuffed and helpless, for those nine-plus minutes, while three colleagues stood by, indifferent to the murder so obviously underway . . . police administering the death sentence to a man accused of trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill at a nearby convenience store. Unfortunately for the smirking Chauvin, his crime was caught on cellphone video and shocked much of the nation and the world. And a year later, something almost unprecedented happened: A police officer was held accountable for killing a black man.

But is this “justice” or is it simply bureaucracy? George Floyd is still dead. His young daughter remains robbed of her father; his loved ones, his family, still have a terrifying void in their lives. And the racist social structure in which Chauvin acted, though now under intense scrutiny, remains intact. People continue to needlessly suffer and die at the hands of our militarized police.

The horrifying collapse of a south Florida condo should alarm us all about the next reactor catastrophe.

The owners of that 13-story condo were warned years ago that it could implode. They were apparently getting ready for repairs, but in the interim did nothing.

The owners of America’s 93 licensed reactors have been warned for decades that they could both implode and explode. They have also done nothing.

More than 150 people may have died in this avoidable Florida disaster. The death toll from the next avoidable reactor disaster could stretch into the millions, with property damage in the trillions, a blow from which our economy and ecosystems might never recover.

South Florida authorities have now ordered inspections of large buildings over forty years old. Nearly all US reactors – including four on the ocean in South Florida – are also now around forty years old.

They all must be immediately shut for rigorous inspection. To wait is to invite a radioactive version of what just happened to that condo.

The argument is not about nuclear power. It’s about basic sanity.

A new freely downloadable book.  I would like to announce the publication of a book, which discusses the reasons why the institution of war continues to threaten human civilization and the biosphere, and the steps that might be taken to rid the world of war. The book may be downloaded and circulated free of charge from the following link:

https://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Why-War-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf

Albert Einstein's letter to Sigmund Freud

“Why War?”, the title of this book, was also the title of a famous letter written to Sigmund Freud by Albert Einstein.

The killing of a Muslim family on June 6 in Ontario, Canada, again presented an opportunity for Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, to brand himself as a voice of reason and communal harmony. However, Trudeau’s amiable and reassuring language is designed to veil a sinister reality which has, for many years, hidden the true face of Canadian politics.

Remarks for Peace and Justice Works, June 24, 2021

When former US President Barack Obama used an old cliché to denigrate his political opponent, the late US Senator, John McCain, he triggered a political controversy lasting several days. 

When will we as a nation admit it? Barbara Lee was right.

She was the only member of Congress to vote against the Authorization for the Use of Military Force back in 2001, following the 9/11 disaster, which allowed George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan. A year later she voted against a second AUMF that launched the invasion of Iraq and Bush’s alleged Global War on Terror, a.k.a., our endless war to pummel evil into dust and sweep it out of the universe.

When Hillary Clinton endorsed Nina Turner’s main opponent last week, it was much more than just an attempt to boost a corporate Democrat. Clinton’s praise for candidate Shontel Brown was almost beside the point.