New Clear Vision

Things Are Going Well

by David Swanson

When something goes right
Oh, it’s likely to lose me
It’s apt to confuse me
It’s such an unusual sight
—Paul Simon

Larry Summers has proven unacceptable to oversee the continued destruction of the U.S. economy.  The U.S. public has successfully rejected proposed missile strikes on Syria.  My Congressman was among the majority who listened.  Today was beautiful.  The Orioles won.  The Cowboys lost.  The University of Virginia avoided losing by not playing.  My family is expecting a new baby.  I’ve finished a new book, which Kathy Kelly has written a beautiful foreword for.  I have a sense that if the universe were right now campaigning on “hope and change” I might seriously consider voting for it.

I’m also pretty sure that if everything in my personal life were going slightly to hell and Larry Summers were crowned king of Wall Street, and the Dallas Cowboys were to win (darn them!), my sense of this moment in the movement against U.S. militarism would remain essentially the same.  A major victory has been won, and we need to claim it and celebrate it. (more…)

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…)

Articulating a New Narrative in the Shell of the Old

by Randall Amster

It goes without saying … that we take the greater portion of this world as we find it, not as we might like it to be. In this sense, we primarily play the roles of resigned participant or cynical observer where conscience exists, and where it does not the outcome is often manifested in terms of either willful neglect or conspicuous consumption. A relative though not insignificant few in every era will take up the thankless and unscripted task of confronting the status quo in an attempt to turn harsh realities into humane alternatives. Still, despite such efforts, it goes without saying that the impetus for positive change is seemingly outstripped by the rate of ongoing decay. (more…)

Overcoming Self-Destruction with a New Human Story

by Tim Hicks

We appear to be at a momentous point in our human story, the culmination of all our activities as a species to date, an ironic chapter in which those characteristics that have made us so successful — our inquisitiveness, creativity, and inventiveness — threaten our survival.

It seems that unless we change our behaviors very soon, climate change will radically alter the conditions for all life on the planet.

Climate change is a threshold event that calls into question much of what we are and what we do as a species. In this sense, climate change is a maturation point in human history, in concert with several trends in humanity’s social evolution that include the movement toward human rights and civil liberties, gender equality, and non-violent conflict resolution, but also the concurrent evolution of weapons development that has produced the thermonuclear bomb. (more…)