Promoting Peace at Home and Abroad: A Challenge for Peace Activists
by John Whitehead Among the many challenges facing peace activists is how widely to spread their peacemaking efforts. Should they devote their energies to opposing wars and other hawkish policies pursued by their own countries? Or should they work against hawkish policies pursued by all countries, everywhere? Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages and,…
Not Your Pawns: A CLE Examination of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict
by Sonja Morin “But if you remember nothing else, please remember this: Chess is just a game. Real people aren’t pieces, and you can’t assign more value to some of them than to others. Not to me, not to anyone. People are not a thing that you can sacrifice. The lesson is that anyone…
January 22, Day of Horror & Hope: Reflections 2022
Rachel MacNair The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) bans the use, possession, testing, and transfer of nuclear weapons under international law. I had been following its progress for some time, of course. I would get word this nation had ratified and that one had and we were getting close to the…
Seeing War’s Victims: The New York Times Investigation of Civilian Casualties in Iraq and Syria
by John Whitehead The New York Times recently published the results of an in-depth investigation into American bombing and its consequences. The Times articles, which came out in late December 2021, focused on the American bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria against ISIS. Drawing on internal Defense Department documents and extensive interviews, including with those…
Scientific Integrity Problems – Psychology
The following letter (lightly edited) was sent in December, 2021. Membership Department, American Psychological Association (APA) Dear colleagues: I have been a member since 1996, and have (for identification only) served as membership chair and 2013 president of Division 48, peace psychology. I tolerated having occasional disagreements with APA organizational policy because this was my…
December 28: Day of the Massacre of the Innocents
Happy Holidays! For the source on the Massacre of the Holy Innocents, see the Biblical book of Matthew, chapter 2. This echoes Exodus 1:16. Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, pp. 80-81 (reading for) December 28 After Jesus was born, Matthew’s gospel records that King Herod was…
The Impact of Family Caps on Abortion
by Sarah Terzo Women sometimes choose abortion due to poverty. Therefore, the existence of social programs to help the poor have an impact on the abortion rate, according to numerous studies. Researcher Laura Hussey asked the following question to women who had abortions: Other countries provide a lot of assistance to women and their families…
The Consistent Life Ethic and Traditional Tantra
(Not the Tantra That You May Have Heard Of) by Acyutananda First let me say that I could be wrong in my beliefs. Like any member of any faith tradition who lives in a cosmopolitan environment, I meet people every day whose beliefs seem to flatly contradict my own, and who are not dumb. So…
Open Letter to Governor Stitt: the Pro-life Case against the Death Penalty
Dear Governor Stitt: As an organization, we at the Consistent Life Network have signed on to the letter calling on you to stop Oklahoma executions. The letter was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma, which was seeking many signatories. As a pro-life/pro-peace group, we strenuously object to the ACLU’s position on…