New Clear Vision

Stacking the Shelves with Peace

by Jake Olzen

Scholars and students in peace and nonviolent studies find their bookshelves teeming with new and intriguing works on violence, conflict, and social change. In the past year, a number of very important books — not all without controversy — have appeared, and are widely available, that have taken seriously the inquiry of what will it take for peace and a world without war. Two scholars in particular, Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined and Joshua S. Goldstein in Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide, argue that humanity is actually becoming less violent. In fact, Goldstein and Pinker penned a piece for The New York Times Sunday Review that was published at the end of December 2011 titled: “War Really is Going Out of Style.” The boldness and veracity of their claims — in that article and their books — come from different perspectives, but is suggestive of a new consciousness that reflects the global interconnectedness made possible by the Internet and intertwined economies as well as the increasing prominence of nonviolence in the mainstream purview. The 2011 publishing of The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace confirms the serious role inquiries into war, peace, nonviolence, and social change have in the classroom as well as affirms a growing dexterity with alternatives to war. (more…)

How Much Is an Earth, and Do You Have One in Extra Large?

by David Swanson

Three Books Encapsulate the Spirit of 2011’s Protests

by James Russell

If 2011 was the year of the protester, as TIME Magazine recently declared, then it was also the year of the protest publication. Before Occupy Wall Street encampments set up in early September, handmade pamphlets detailing protesters’ rights were the primary publication of protests. When at a large-scale action and the activists’ goal is arrest, these pamphlets often appear, replete with legal information.

But with the emergence of Occupy movement, mock newspapers replaced these pamphlets. Publications like The Occupied Wall Street Journal and The Occupied Chicago Tribune served as a chronicle of the various speeches, messages and tactics surrounding Occupy. As reported on The Huffington Post via the Associated Press, some of these items, including the newspapers, are now even being acquired by archives, museums and historical societies. (more…)

New Documentary Heightens the Urgency of “Our Deadly Nuclear Legacy”

by Jan Lundberg

“We must outlaw nuclear reactors.” — Admiral Hyman Rickover, the Father of the Nuclear Navy, to Congress in his farewell speech

Gary Null, radio talk show host and author, with Producer Richard Gale, has produced a comprehensive indictment of nuclear power and weapons. The first thing the public needs to know is that it is not merely a debate about which way to go with policy. Rather, the nuclear issue is about life and death now. So a big public service is in exposing the nuclear industry’s lies that are killing people today at increasing rates. Premiered in August, Knocking on the Devil’s Door: Our Deadly Nuclear Legacy has taken on the political, financial, technical and other scientific aspects of a monstrously complicated and scary topic. In 135 minutes the film takes a semi-informed viewer from innocence to mind-blown amazement — and perhaps depression.

If one could just watch an abridged version of Knocking on the Devil’s Door, of maybe only one-fifth of the whole film, it would totally undermine any misplaced faith in the nuclear industry and its handmaiden, the government. The additional four-fifths’ content is excellent for burying the zombie forever. (more…)

An Indomitable Spirit Rises Up to Meet the Challenges Ahead

by Randall Amster

Humankind stands at the cusp of its gravest challenge, and the prospective survival of the species itself hangs in the balance. While there is a clear attempt on the part of many invested in the status quo to depict this crisis as debatable or the product of “fuzzy science,” the reality is that an unprecedented and near-unanimous consensus exists among all credible sources that indeed the predicament is real and the window of action is rapidly closing. Against this backdrop of deniers and the potential disempowerment inherent in dire predictions, a global movement has arisen to meet the challenges of climate change in all of its dimensions — from the social to the ecological, and as to both its short- and long-term impacts.

Brian Tokar’s essential new book, Toward Climate Justice, chronicles the theoretical foundations and pragmatic aims of this emerging global movement. In so doing, the work embodies a critical spirit that embraces challenges by seeing them as equivalent opportunities, and yet does not shirk from starkly depicting the magnitude of the crises before us. (more…)

Restoring Justice for the Children of Incarcerated Parents

by Victoria Law

In 2004, I facilitated a discussion on incarcerated mothers at the MamaGathering, an alternative parenting conference in Minneapolis. The 20-plus parents who attended the discussion were politically conscious, if not politically active. Among them was a social worker who worked with children in foster care.

In 1997, Congress passed the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), which stipulated that states must begin terminating the legal rights of parents whose children are in foster care for 15 of the past 22 months. The termination is irrevocable. Only three states made exceptions in cases of parental incarceration; the third state, New York, only passed its discretion act in August 2010.

The results were dramatic: termination proceedings involving incarcerated parents increased 108 percent nationwide from 260 in 1997 to 909 in 2002. In contrast, in the five years before ASFA, the number of termination proceedings increased from 113 in 1992 to 142 in 1996. (more…)