New Clear Vision

Still Cultivating a ‘New Clear Vision’ for 2012, and Beyond

When we started this blog a year ago, there were already signs that the year to come (now the year past) was going to be potentially revolutionary. A lingering economic crisis, the realization of perpetual warfare, the mainstream media’s increasing rightward slide, rapidly worsening environ-mental conditions, and the beginnings of mass mobilizations were already in evidence as 2010 drew to a close. Still, the spectrum of events launched in 2011 was nothing short of miraculous, from the Arab Spring to Occupy; and while much remains to be done, there is also much to be optimistic about. (more…)

A Suggestion for What’s Next…

by Charles Imboden

September 17, 2011 in New York City marked the beginning of a movement that has spread around the world. Inspired by the people and events of the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement quickly grew to over 2,500 cities in dozens of countries. With slogans including “We are the 99%,” a principle aim of this movement is to highlight the gross economic inequality and increasing austerity measures being taken by governments worldwide, in a context of unprecedented corporate profit and personal wealth of the richest “1%.”

These past weeks have seen the destruction of the Occupy Wall St., Boston, Chicago, Oakland, Los Angeles, and most recently Tucson camps, among others. Now the nascent Occupy movement faces one of its strongest tests. (more…)

Amid War, Following Yonder Star Toward Peace

by Kathy Kelly

Beneath our flat, here in Kabul, wedding guests crowded into a restaurant and celebrated throughout the night. Guests sounded joyful and the music, mostly disco, thumped loudly. When the regular call to prayer sounded out at 5:20 a.m., the sounds seemed to collide in an odd cacophony, making all music indistinguishable. I smiled, remembering the prayer call’s durable exhortation to live in peace, heard worldwide for centuries, and went back to sleep.

Through most of my life, I’ve found it easy to resonate with the ringing and beautiful Christmas narrative found in the Gospel of Luke, but less so with that jangling discord with which westerners are so familiar — the annual collision between (on the one hand) the orgy of gift-purchasing and gift-consumption surrounding the holiday and the the sweeter, simpler proclamations of peace on earth heralded by the newborn’s arrival. (more…)

Between the Sphinx and the Bank Vault

by Alon Raab

1929

“Between the sphinx and the bank vault, there is a taut thread that pierces the heart of all poor children,” cried Federico Garcia Lorca after visiting Wall Street in 1929. His vision sharpened by gathering storms of fascism, in his native Spain and across the European continent, compounded by new forms of corporate control in the US, and a broken heart over unrequited love, he poured his soul into the powerful “Poet in New York” poems. Visiting Wall Street, the sidewalks barely swept of fall leaves and the remains of leaping bodies — small‐time investors convinced that untold wealth shall be theirs only to see life‐savings vanish, and of the occasional banker who followed their lead ‐‐ his eyes pierced Capitalism’s many veils.

Wall Street ‐‐ built on Iroquois and Algonquin land, named for the wall that the Dutch colonists erected to keep the English and the Indians away. Soon, the Dutch West Indies Company, early and major importer of slaves, brought them to New Amsterdam, too. Auctions in human flesh were held nearby, a connection deepened by major banks and investment firms turning money from slave transactions to new gold and influence. Later, a place giving birth to economic shenanigans and scams, crises and broken dreams ‐‐ vast fortunes for the few, misery for the many. (more…)

Exploring the Prospects for Peace on Earth

by David Swanson

This time of year is ideal for reflecting on the miracle of Christmas 1914, that famous temporary truce and friendship between opposing sides in the midst of a war. Here was a new type of slaughter confronted with a new type of humanism, the leading edges of two opposing trends.

An op-ed in the New York Times last week by Steven Pinker and Joshua Goldstein argues that peace, rather than war, was the dominant development, and that over the millennia, centuries, decades, and right up to this moment, “War Really Is Going Out of Style.”

Of course, war can potentially be eliminated, and that is already a very valuable point to be making. War isn’t in our genes. We aren’t doomed to always have it with us. Even more valuable would be a successful argument that all types of violence have been decreasing, including war. (more…)

War Is Over (Sort of), if We Want It…

by Robert C. Koehler

The war is over, sort of, but the Big Lie marches on: that democracy is flowering in Iraq, that America is stronger and more secure than ever, that doing what’s right is the prime motivator of all our military action.

And the troops will be home for Christmas. Hurrah! Hurrah!

(The men will cheer, the boys will shout, and we’ll all feel gay, except maybe Rick Perry.)

“The war in Iraq will soon belong to history,” President Obama told the troops at Fort Bragg last week. “Your service belongs to the ages. Never forget that you are part of an unbroken line of heroes spanning two centuries — from the colonists who overthrew an empire, to your grandparents and parents who faced down fascism and communism, to you — men and women who fought for the same principles in Fallujah and Kandahar, and delivered justice to those who attacked us on 9/11.” (more…)

Seeing Beyond the Shadows on the Walls Around Us

by Randall Amster

Social movements, when broadly construed and successfully applied, serve as something akin to elaborate filters. By holding a mirror up to society, a movement causes us to reconsider basic assumptions and structural processes that often exist invisibly yet pervasively in our collective midst. Social movement activities render such practices visible, and subject them to scrutiny in a manner that can become contagious in its breadth and depth alike. Movements make us question those things that we take for granted, assume are unchangeable, or benefit from without repercussions.

In this sense, a movement acts like a lens that sharpens and clarifies the reality we observe and participate in, making the strange familiar and the familiar strange all at once. (more…)