Maybe the Way to Combat Groups like ISIS is to Examine our Assumptions about What Lures People to Pursue Violence By Bert Sacks  first published in Real Change, December 16th, 2015, reprinted by permission of the author The day after the terrorist attacks in Paris, I watched the Democratic presidential debate. The consensus I heard was the U.S. must join a coalition to defeat the Islamic State terrorist group known as ISIS. I agreed. But can we defeat ISIS with war? How well have recent U.S. wars in the Middle East worked? How many fighters have our wars recruited for ISIS? It has been almost 25 years since the U.S. assumed the title of the world’s sole superpower and began to…

What the COP21 Paris Climate Summit Accomplished, What it Failed to Do, And Our Next Steps by Glen Anderson ten days later on December 22, 2015 The global climate summit in Paris (the 21st Conference of the Parties – COP21) ran from November 30 to December 12, 2015 (lasting one day later than originally scheduled).  Within a week after adjournment, many articles have been written about: What COP21 accomplished What it failed to accomplish What next steps the climate movement to take, starting from the grassroots. The articles that had been written before COP21 varied widely in viewpoints and framing.  Some asserted that the Paris climate summit would be a “make or break” summit on which everything depends, so if…

Voices From the Appalachian Coalfields – A review by Larry Kerschner Voices From the Appalachian Coalfields by Mike and Ruth Yarrow with photographs by Douglas Yarrow (Published by Bottom Dog Press, Huron OH, 2015) is a book filled with the voices of the coal miners and their families that fill you in on the day to day health and safety issues found in the dangerous work of underground coal mining.  It shows the camaraderie that develops between people who “don’t care what a man’s religion is or what his politics is”. The voices of women miners and miner’s wives are well represented.  Woman Miner “Connie” “At first they didn’t like the idea of us women being in there. One crew…

Corporate Greed by Miner “Ed” (Interview by Mike Yarrow; arranged by Ruth Yarrow) Before we came out on strike, the owner asked us, “If you all go non-union, and you work for this one company, we can make you millionaires in 20 years.” We asked, “What happens if this one company shuts down?” “Your retirement starts over.” We asked, “How about our grandpas and our daddies that are on retirement?” “We don’t care about them. None of them work for us.” We told him flat “No.” He wanted the whole mines to have a decertification vote. But our grandparents and our daddies made this union, And without them you wouldn’t have the Social Security they helped push through, you wouldn’t…

One Man’s Mission: Justice for Iraq Published Friday, 09 October 2015 by Dahr Jamail, Truthout |reprinted by permission of the author While in Boston in 1994, full-time peace activist Bert Sacks made a decision that changed his life forever. He decided to seek out a study produced by a group called the Harvard Study Team, which had reported to The Washington Post that the deliberate destruction of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure by the US military, along with the US-led economic sanctions against that country, were likely to cause 170,000 Iraqi children to die. Unfortunately, that estimate would turn out to be far, far too low, as President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, infamously boasted on national television when she said the price of 500,000…

Reflections on the Value of Life in America by Larry Kershner What is the value of a life in our country?  Do we value life in a country that generally approves of State sponsored death?  Many court battles have been fought over the question of what is a life worth after murders or death in accidents of many kinds.  How would you value the life of your child or your parent?      Varying estimates have been made of the value of life in the Unites States. Most private and government-run health insurance plans worldwide use $50,000 per year of quality life in order to determine whether to cover a new medical procedure. An  analysis of kidney dialysis procedures by Stefanos…

Finance as Class Warfare By John M Repp A review of Killing the Host (2015) Michael Hudson The wealth of the 1% comes from the 99%. The 99% are enriching the 1%. There are many ways this happens, for example low wages and high prices. But increasingly, today, the 99% redistribute their wealth through indebtedness. In order to try and live in dignity, the 99%, or at least two-thirds of them that have debts, pay off their debts with interest as they educate themselves, buy houses or small businesses, buy a car, and use their charge cards. Debt peonage is ancient, much older than the industrial revolution and this older pattern is becoming more prominent every day Since the crash…