It is critical to understand how blocking the regime change agenda with respect to Venezuela is integrally connected to confronting the challenge of climate change. Fighting the Media War Continue reading

We just returned from nine days in Iran with a 28-person peace delegation organized by CODE PINK. It is clear that people in Iran want two things: To be respected as an independent, sovereign nation To have peace with the United States without threats of war or economic sanctions seeking to dominate them. Continue reading

One of the lessons from our recent visit to Iran as a Peace Delegation is that Iran is a mature country. It is 2,500 years old, ten times as old as the United States and one of the world’s oldest continuous major civilizations with settlements dating back to 7,000 BC. It was an empire that controlled almost half the Earth for over 1,000 years. It is hard not to see the US-Iran relationship as one between an adolescent bully and a mature nation. Continue reading

Edwin Starr, in his 1970 hit single asked "War, what is it good for?" His catchy answer was "absolutely nothing!" On the face of it Mr. Starr's point seems obvious. But if so why has the United States engaged in seemingly endless war in places like Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq, since Mr. Starr's song hit the charts? Why are policy makers in Washington D.C. fomenting for more war in Venezuela and Iran? Apparently, war is good for something as the U.S. continues engaging it. Continue reading

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King This essay represents a snapshot of my own understanding of the Venezuelan crisis. It started as a very limited effort to better educate myself in order to write my representatives and argue against a U.S. military invasion of Venezuela, however I soon uncovered far more than I had anticipated when I began, and furthermore discovered that most of this information flatly contradicted what we are reading in the mainstream press and hearing from most politicians. All of the opinions expressed are my own and they are based upon reading the references provided for the reader in this report. Continue reading

The Green New Deal has recently become a popular and controversial topic of conversation since New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey introduced HR 109. This is a non-binding House Resolution to transition the country to 100 percent clean energy by 2030 while providing high-wage jobs to millions of workers and addressing “systemic injustices.” Republicans are calling the “completely outrageous” proposal a “socialist fantasy” whose goal is “ending air travel, destroying American energy and banning cow farts” while secretly rejoicing that it will seal the doom of Democratic economic policies. Continue reading

Much fanfare and criticism have accompanied the announcement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey’s (D-Mass.) Green New Deal. Both are necessary. It is positive that the idea of a Green New Deal is receiving attention, but the actual resolution falls far short of what is needed to address the climate crisis. As Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, said, “At the moment, the Green New Deal is a mirror that allows anyone to see their own interest." Continue reading

By now, most of us have noticed a paradigm shift that has made traditional political labels obsolete. Red versus Blue (Republican conservative right-wing versus Democrat liberal left-wing) seemed to work for the last century, but it’s not working for the mess we’re in now. Continue reading

The political system in the United States is a plutocracy, one that works for the benefit of the wealthy, not the people. Although we face growing crises on multiple fronts – economic insecurity, a violent and racist state, environmental devastation, never-ending wars and more – neither of the Wall Street-funded political parties will take action to respond. Instead, they are helping the rich get richer. Continue reading

Democrats may hate Trump, but they join in white supremacist solidarity with his aggression against the mostly non-white people of Venezeula. “It is accepted as normal that the U.S. and Europe have the right and, indeed, the responsibility to police the world.” Continue reading