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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Since World War II ended, the U.S. President has gained nearly dictatorial control over foreign policy

May 26, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

It was bad enough when previous presidents were in power. But after 9-11-2001, it has gotten worse. Congress passed the “Authorization to Use Military Force” (AUMF) and keeps supporting it. This is virtually a blank check for a president to make wars or do virtually anything anywhere if it is about “fighting terrorism.” Now Trump makes the AUMF’s implications even worse. The problem is THOROUGHLY BI-PARTISAN. Senators Corker and Kaine have introduced a bill that they say would tend to solve the problem. The article at the link below says their bill would NOT solve the problem. The article also […]

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Stop the U.S.’s cruel habit of “regime change.” It is WRONG to violently overthrow governments.

May 26, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

The U.S. has a long, horrible, cruel habit of violently overthrowing governments and abusively meddling in elections to manipulate their outcomes even if the U.S. militarily does not overthrow those governments violently. I am appalled by the hypocrisy of Americans — a majority of ordinary people, along with politicians and the mainstream news media — who express moral outrage that Russia has meddled in the U.S.’s 2016 election.  The U.S. has done this to other countries VERY OFTEN for many decades. This article summarizes the U.S.’s violent overthrows of other nations.  American politicians and news media and ordinary people do not […]

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Two creative nonviolent ways to protest the abuse of the environment

May 26, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Here is a creative nonviolent way to protect forests from abuse:  Women are marrying trees in Mexico. See this article: https://www.treehugger.com/conservation/why-are-women-marrying-trees-mexico.html   Excessive plastic is an environmental problem. Here is a simple solution anyone can do to nonviolently resist excessive packaging: In about 1969 a friend used to unwrap packages after paying for them at the retail stores. He said he did not want to buy the packaging — just the products inside. The stores could throw away the unnecessary packaging. Perhaps we need a NATIONWIDE MOVEMENT to force companies to STOP EXCESSIVE PACKAGING.

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Changing our economic system can reduce climate disruption

May 26, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

The vast majority of people who say they want to protect the climate are stuck within the confines of our current economic system.  This severely restricts the progress we can make.  If we really want to make significant progress, we must change our economic system. In addition to the article by Naomi Klein that I posted just now, see this article from another source.  This website has a variety of information, so look for materials that are relevant to the economic aspects of the climate crisis: http://systemchangenotclimatechange.org/

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The world could save $20 TRILLION by getting serious about climate change.

May 26, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

This article says that climate disruption will be VERY EXPENSIVE, and that the cost of bold climate action is far, far less than the cost of not taking bold action. Therefore, investing in bold actions to protect the climate would be a very smart investment financially, let alone the human and environmental reasons for protecting the climate. There is a strong financial incentive to fight global warming. A new study says the world could save $20 trillion by limiting warming to the more ambitious Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.  The Los Angeles Times wrote an article about this. […]

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How can we challenge this dominant but destructive economic assumption?

May 24, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Embedded very deeply in our American culture — and many other nations’ cultures too — is an assumption that is embedded so deeply that nobody recognizes it, let alone challenge it. The assumption is this:  It is OK if what I do kills people, so long as I’m making money from what I do. At the surface level — the explicit level — if you were to ask people whether it is moral to kill other people, they would say “no.” But below the surface — at the implicit level — our society tolerates behaviors that knowingly kill people because […]

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Public frustration with endless war. Odd implications result from this.

May 24, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

People in the peace movement keep complaining about “endless wars.”  The general public — and Republicans and reactionaries — might also be upset.  There might be some odd implications and consequences from this. The peace movement is right to point out that the “War on Terror” that began with Republicans Bush & Cheney continued under Democrat Obama, and now it persists under Republican Trump.  The U.S.’s bi-partisan policies of persistent militarism — regardless of which parts of the world we are fighting in — have existed for many years. What are the political implications of this? The U.S. started the […]

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An 11-point Agenda for America’s Economic Future

May 23, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Progressives spend much time protesting what we oppose. We should spend much more time organizing to accomplish what we want instead. Here is a good example for progressive economic and social justice: See the 11-point Agenda for America’s Economic Future at this link: http://campaignforamericasfuture.org/?link_id=4&can_id=1d662460c0abb8939c5044c82927552b&source=email-pledge-news-hightower-lowdown-pledge-issue&email_referrer=email_358386&email_subject=pledge-news-hightower-lowdown-pledge-issue Read Jim Hightower’s supportive article about the Agenda for America’s Economic Future at this link: https://hightowerlowdown.org/article/economic-agenda/?link_id=0&can_id=1d662460c0abb8939c5044c82927552b&source=email-pledge-news-hightower-lowdown-pledge-issue&email_referrer=email_358386&email_subject=pledge-news-hightower-lowdown-pledge-issue

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Death Penalty = Archaic, creepy ritualized killing to serve symbolic rather than practical purposes

May 23, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Many people assume that the death penalty serves some useful purpose, such as protecting public safety.  Actually, as other items I’ve posted on this blog explain, the death penalty does NOT deliver what it promises, and it causes other problems instead.  See http://parallaxperspectives.org/testimony-for-legislation-to-abolish-washington-states-death-penalty Beyond the death penalty’s ineffectiveness, we should also recognize it for what it is:  an archaic, creepy example of conducting ritualized killings that serve only symbolic rather than practical purposes. In some primitive societies, people were aware of “evil” and created ritualized exercises to periodically purge the “evil” from their societies.  They did this in different ways. One […]

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“A Creative, Practical Way to Fund Jobs, Infrastructure, Climate Cures”

May 20, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

The June 2018 episode of “Glen’s Parallax Perspectives” presents an exciting way for the federal government to fund the creation of jobs and solutions to many nationwide problems (housing, climate, etc.).  You can watch Glen Anderson interview Randy Mandell (an expert on Modern Monetary Theory — MMT) at the first link below, and/or read a thorough summary of what we said at the second link.  Near the end of the thorough summary you can see links to many excellent sources of information. To watch the interview, click this link:  WATCH THE INTERVIEW HERE. To read the thorough summary and see […]

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Profound Nonviolence for a Truly Just Society

May 15, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

In slightly more than three pages, the article at this link provides wisdom, compassion, insights, and encouragement to fix our society’s problems. I believe you will find that reading this is a good use of your time. Here is the link: Profound Nonviolence for a Truly Just Society

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Here is a way to understand Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election

May 15, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

You don’t need to be a Hillary Clinton supporter (and I certainly am not) to recognize the strong evidence that elements from Russia flooded American social media with racially polarizing social media during the 2016 election campaign. Why did it occur? How about considering the following context? Traditionally socialism has envisioned a joining together of the entire working class, across nations and across races. When the USSR existed and the Communist Party USA was active, especially from the 1930s and subsequent decades, the CPUSA really worked vigorously for racial integration and equality as part of this larger struggle. Instead of […]

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We urgently, desperately need HONEST SCIENCE so we can solve problems

May 7, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Do you remember the decades-old saying, “Garbage in — Garbage out”?  It referred to the problems with computer systems that receive inputs that are not accurate and — as a result — produce inaccurate outputs. The remedy, of course, is to make sure we have valid, accurate inputs in order to produce good results. Nowadays, the Trump/Republican federal government and many state governments are stuffed with climate deniers, dogmatic religious extremists, and other people who are subservient to special interests.  Instead of open-mindedly and honestly trying to solve problems, they exploit governments in order to distort public policies for corrupt […]

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The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty + other orgs do very good work.

May 7, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

For several decades the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP, www.ncadp.org ) has been doing very good work, including working with state-level organizations working to abolish the death penalty.  They recently moved to new office space shared with other organizations at “WeWorks,” so they  have a new mailing address and a new address for receiving donation checks. Mail correspondence to: NCADP c/o WeWorks 80 M Street S.E. Washington, DC 20003. Mail donation checks to a different new address: NCADP P.O. Box 829846 Philadelphia, PA 19182-9846. Other great organizations include the ACLU (at nationwide and state levels), the Death […]