Articles by GlenAnderson

About GlenAnderson
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org
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A Department of Actual Defense in a Time of Coronavirus

May 12, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

The U.S. wastes our tax dollars on militarism and nuclear weapons, when we should be funding better health. You cannot defeat Coronavirus with nuclear weapons or any kind of military violence. This article by David Swanson urges us to think differently – and to push our government to act more wisely and effectively: A Department of Actual Defense in a Time of Coronavirus By David Swanson https://davidswanson.org/a-department-of-actual-defense-in-a-time-of-coronavirus/                  

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Faith-based supports for protecting the environment

May 12, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

  Commonly people think about the environment in purely rational ways (science, etc.) — or in political ways (governmental decisions, etc.) — or in emotional ways (feeling good about being in nature, etc.). In addition, some people draw strongly from their religious and spiritual groundings in order to motivate their environmentalism and also to help them organize for the environment by connecting through their local congregations and larger religious denominations. See a variety of faith-based environmental organizing efforts, resources, etc., at www.greenfaith.org In addition, we have some regional non-profit organizations who are doing this kind of work.  I recommend these: […]

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What Happens If Trump and Biden Both Claim Victory? Legal Scholars Fret Over Plausible Scenarios

May 12, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

In the past few years all of us have seen how Trump and Republicans and the right wing have been threatening democracy.  We’ve even seen constitutional crises based on Trumpism and related power grabs. Now here is a new, related worry.  Legal scholars discussed the real possibility that Trump and Republican-dominated states might screw around with the November 2020 presidential election in ways that could result in them claiming victory even if the Democrats have legitimate grounds for claiming victory. See this long, but interesting article: https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/265025541/what-happens-if-bush-gore-result-happens-again-with-trump-biden            

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MOST members of Congress are millionaires. Some have serious conflicts of interest.

May 12, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

MOST members of Congress are millionaires: The Center for Responsive Politics (www.OpenSecrets.org) is a smart, effective watchdog that works largely through their award-winning website, www.OpenSecrets.org, which is the most comprehensive resource for federal campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis available anywhere.  I subscribe to their e-mail list. Their e-mail on April 24, 2020, they reported that MOST members of the current (116th) Congress are millionaires.  Their e-mail stated:  “Much of the wealth in Congress is concentrated at the top. The top 10 percent of wealthiest lawmakers have three times more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.” Read more at this […]

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Grassroots organizers created a “Thin Green Line” that stopped oil and coal export from our Pacific ports

May 11, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

My workshop in my series on “Nonviolent Grassroots Organizing” recognizes problems and helps people accomplish successes for a variety of issues (peace, environment, climate, human rights, economics, etc.)  We actually have accomplished MANY SUCCESSES in preventing oil export facilities and coal export facilities along our region’s Pacific coast. We worked at the grassroots for close to a decade and stopped nearly all of the proposals for exporting the U.S.’s coal and oil from ocean ports in Washington and Oregon. The odds were decidedly against us when we started, but we organized in strategically smart, vigorous ways and defeated nearly all […]

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Anti-nuclear org’s leader discusses his positive approach to abolishing nuclear weapons

May 11, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

I’m sharing this truly inspiring and compelling information from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) widely with you and other people who want to make a better world by working for peace, protecting the climate, and persisting with a positive “can-do” attitude to make the world better in other ways. I supported NAPF when its founder David Krieger was leading it, and now under its current leader, Rick Wayman. NAPF’s current leader Rick Wayman started when he was young, and now he persists boldly with what they call “shameless idealism” and the confidence that – if we organize effectively – […]

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Build support for the U.N. treaty to PROHIBIT nuclear weapons!

May 11, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

While there are good efforts underway (in Congress, in local communities, and elsewhere) to REDUCE the likelihood of nuclear war, there is also a POWERFULLY INSPIRING AND NECESSARY effort underway WORLDWIDE. The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear War passed the U.N. General Assembly in 2017, and efforts are underway for nations to ratify it.  See this blog’s “Nuclear Weapons” category for information I have posted previously. HERE ARE MORE INFORMATION, UPDATES and OPPORTUNITIES:   TALKING POINTS to support the treaty: In July 2017 a strong majority of the United Nations General Assembly (122 nations) passed the Treaty […]

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You can watch MANY of my previous TV programs through my blog.

May 1, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

From February 1987 through December 2017 I produced monthly TV programs for the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s TV series on Thurston Community Television (TCTV) cable channel 22 for cable TV subscribers in Thurston County WA.  I posted the programs from a number of recent years into the issue categories on my blog (“Climate” and “Peace” and “Economics” and dozens of other issue categories. Starting in January 2018, my TV series became “Glen’s Parallax Perspectives.”  Those TV programs also are posted in this blog’s issue categories, and they are also posted in the “TV Programs” category here. You can see a […]

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U.S. gov’t official body urges REQUIRING WOMEN to REGISTER FOR MILITARY DRAFT!

May 1, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

In January 2020 — and previously — I had reported that the U.S. government was seriously studying what to do about the military draft.  Here is my blog post from January 2020:  http://parallaxperspectives.org/tell-congress-to-abolish-the-agency-that-runs-the-military-draft  You can see my blog’s category for posts about military service to see the previous posts. On March 25, 2020, the National Commission on the Military, National and Public Service has ended its three years of effort and produce an official report that recommends REQUIRING WOMEN TO REGISTER FOR THE MILITARY DRAFT. Draft inductions ended in 1973.  Draft registration ended in 1975, but President Jimmy Carter brought […]

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Medical experts urged VP Mike Pence to use science and promote adequate funding

May 1, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

Trump keeps appointing incompetent persons to positions of power.  As you know, he appointed VP Mike Pence to head federal efforts to deal with Coronavirus.  Pence has ABSOLUTELY NO credentials for dealing with scientific issues.  But — as always — Trump valued absolute loyalty to him rather than competence in making this appointment.  Pence got off to a bad start. In early March 2020 medical experts were urging Pence to use valid science to shape federal policy on Coronavirus.  In early March more than 800 physicians and public health experts have signed an open letter to Vice President Mike Pence […]

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COVID-19 statistics worldwide and by states within the U.S.

May 1, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

This is updated frequently: https://ncov2019.live/data Washington State was the first state to have cases, but we took quick, smart actions and “flattened the curve.” Therefore, although we started out as #1 in numbers, now we are 18th, according to the state-by-state data at the website linked above.        

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Here are several smart articles about the Green New Deal

May 1, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

The Green New Deal was devised for good reasons. Before the 2018 election season ramped up, people wanted to stimulate populist constituencies – including those who were not yet active in the climate movement – to start supporting bold climate actions. For this purpose – and to generate support from the labor movement and from areas that needed jobs – a federal jobs program made sense. Now people do understand at a visceral level that we need bold actions for the climate AND youth organizing such as the climate strikes AND grassroots organizing to meet the needs of local communities, […]

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Learn about the Green New Deal from my MAY 2020 TV program. It’s also posted to this blog.

May 1, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

Here is an article about my MAY 2020 TV program about the Green New Deal. It is airing on Channel 22 of Thurston Community Television (TCTV, TC Media, for cable TV subscribers in Thurston County WA) three times a week all month long:  every MONDAY at 1:30 pm, every WEDNESDAY at 5:00 pm, and every THURSDAY at 9:00 pm throughout May 2020. A technical problem is preventing the TV program’s video itself from being linked to this blog, but I did type up a thorough summary of what we planned to discuss during the interview.  Our actual interview differed somewhat […]

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Governments should take PROMPT, STRONG actions for the climate — as they did for Coronavirus

May 1, 2020 GlenAnderson 0

Some governments did take PROMPT, STRONG actions to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic. The climate crisis is a serious emergency, but they keep dawdling and failing to act. We must push governments to act with the same sense of urgency for the climate crisis. See this: https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-response-climate-change-2645571474.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2