International Politics and Economy

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Syria’s parliamentary elections on October 5 raised alarm flags for me on several grounds. First, they were not conducted on the basis of a direct vote. Sixty “constituencies” were established to elect 121 members of the People’s Assembly of Syria (only 119 were actually elected). Another 70 members will be […]

Authoritarianism

We Must Not Look Away from Palestine: Resisting Oppression and Pursuing Justice

Roy Eidelson

Roy Eidelson Note: This essay is adapted from the author’s August address at the American Psychological Association annual convention and from a webinar he presented in early September. The webinar includes many visual depictions of the topics discussed here. ( Counterpunch ) – Welcome everyone. I’m Roy Eidelson, president of the Society for the Study of Peace, […]

Dissent

A Case for Nonviolent Resistance: MAGA Men and Rage

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com ) – One strangely hot November afternoon, I waited for my elementary-school-aged kids to arrive at their bus stop. The quiet in our rural area was eerie. It captured the mood in the days after a national election that no one in my little community yet knew exactly how to respond to. In […]

Featured

No, Despite Hegseth, we Don’t need an even “More Lethal” NATO

Anne-Ruth Wertheim

By Pieter Smit and Anne-Ruth Wertheim | – Translated by Kevin Cook | – ( BNNVARA.NL ) – After Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in his concluding address at the NATO summit in The Hague on 24 and 25 June that NATO should become more lethal, there have been very few concerned responses in the Dutch […]

Authoritarianism

The 6 Superpowers that Faith Communities bring to nonviolent Struggle

Waging Nonviolence

While religion has far too often been a tool of authoritarianism, faith institutions and communities have also been the life force of so many freedom movements. Maria J. Stephan ( Waging Nonviolence ) – In June, Catholic Bishop Michael Pham of San Diego, who fled Vietnam as a 13-year-old refugee in 1980, was part […]

Donald Trump

The Gulf Cooperation Council, NATO, and the Collapse of Collective Security

Ibrahim Al-Marashi

San Marcos, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Within the span of 24 hours in early September, Russia deployed drones into Polish airspace, and Israel launched an aerial attack in Doha, Qatar. Although few commentaries were made connecting the two events, both states deployed airpower to regional collective security organizations, specifically the Gulf Cooperation […]

Nonviolence

Veterans for Peace and Justice: Can Warriors Stop Endless Wars?

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the former “Fox and Friends” cohost, claims to be obsessed with making the Pentagon and the military services about “the warfighter.” His main approach to doing so is a deeply misguided campaign to reduce “distractions” like commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (the dreaded “DEI”). No […]

Authoritarianism

A Strategy for Controlling an Out-of-Control Government: Alliance, Defiance, Noncompliance

Tomdispatch

By Nan Levinson ( Tomdispatch.com ) – On July 17th, I joined a group of Vermonters for a Good Trouble Lives On action in a village near where we were staying that month. Over the past 161 straight days, a small but determined contingent of mostly White, mostly grey-haired, mostly too-polite-to-make-much-trouble residents had been gathering […]

Islamophobia

Muslim-Led Story-Telling is Changing the TV Narrative of Irrational Violence

The Conversation

By Tazeen M. Ali, Washington University in St. Louis (The Conversation) – For over a century, Hollywood has tended to portray Muslim men through a remarkably narrow lens: as terrorists, villains or dangerous outsiders. From shows such as “24” and “Homeland” to procedural dramas such as “Law and Order,” this portrayal has seldom allowed for […]