Organizing & Activism (Also see Nonviolence, Outreach)

No Image

Widely held values actually OPPOSE Trumpism’s cruelty, etc.

February 22, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Many people assume that Trumpism’s cruelty is more widely accepted by Americans than it actually is.  In truth, the vast majority of Americans hold better values.  In order to organize the public to oppose Trumpism, let’s tap into the better values that the vast majority of Americans hold. In order to push against the right-wing extremist agenda of Trumpism, we need to help ordinary Americans recognize that Trumpism seriously violates our nation’s best values. Ordinary Americans support truth, justice (fairness), human rights, the rule of law, science, preventing governmental corruption, etc. Trumpism violates these cherished American values. Exposing Trumpism’s violations […]

No Image

An important post on this blog still reflects my best thinkig

January 30, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

Trump, Trumpism and the Republican Party are doing horrible things to the U.S. and the world, while the Democratic Party and many Americans seem clueless. Often I think I should write something for this blog about the underlying problems that led us into this crisis.  Then I immediately remember that I did convey my best thinking in a long essay I have already posted to this blog.  Some of that article I wrote in January 2017 around the time of the inauguration, and I had added more before posting it in the autumn of 2017.  It is still valid, and […]

No Image

“Death Penalty Does Not Work. It Makes Problems Worse. Let’s Abolish it.”

January 13, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

The February 2018 episode of “Glen’s Parallax Perspectives” TV series focuses on the death penalty.  Here is a summary.  See the end of this summary for a link to watch the program and a link to read the transcript. The death penalty promises many things but does NOT deliver what it promises.  It does NOT deter murder, provide justice, help victims’ families, get used on “the worst of the worst,” or save money. Instead of doing what it supposedly intends to do, the death penalty MAKES PROBLEMS WORSE and CAUSES MORE PROBLEMS.  It escalates the cycle of violence and the […]

No Image

Besides Protesting What We Oppose, Let’s Also Organize to Achieve Positive Goals

January 12, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

by Glen Anderson We need to keep protesting against the cruelty, corruption, injustice and violence that continually assault us. But if we spend most of our time and efforts fighting the bad stuff, the oppressors will continue to have the upper hand because they can keep throwing bad stuff at us and we will always be on the defensive. We need to spend most of our time and efforts taking the initiative to organize for the positive goals that we want instead. We need to be proactive, envision the future we want instead of the current mess, and organize to […]

No Image

Nixon’s scheme against African Americans and against the peace movement

January 12, 2018 GlenAnderson 0

One of President Nixon’s top aides, John Ehrlichman, later reported this: “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did […]

No Image

“Empowering Ourselves for Profound Democracy”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

In modern American society, people recognize that giant impersonal systems have too much power, and often they oppress us.  These include big business corporations that cheat us out of our money, destroy our environment, outsource our jobs to low-wage countries, buy the politicians who make the political decisions, and own the media that control how we perceive the world and what we learn and think about political issues. The big impersonal systems also include governmental systems that make wars despite public opinion and protect big business interests in defiance of the public interest. All of the problems we face seem […]

No Image

“Understanding and Protecting Civil Liberties”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

The American people want our society to provide freedom and social justice. The building blocks for this are human rights and civil liberties. Unfortunately, too few Americans understand and support our basic constitutional rights. If we don’t understand civil liberties, we can’t protect them. As a result, governments and right-wing agitators have been expanding police and surveillance powers, chipping away at our freedom, and reducing our human rights. After September 11, 2001, this process got even more reckless and dangerous. The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s July 2010 TV program helps viewers better understand the range of civil liberties and how […]

No Image

“Honduras”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

In the early morning of June 28, 2009, about 100 soldiers from the Central American nation of Honduras forced their way into the bedroom of Honduran president Manual Zelaya, kidnapped him while he was still in his pajamas, and forced him into exile in another country. This military coup – backed by conservative business leaders – overthrew a freely elected president. Latin American nations unanimously denounced this military coup against democracy. U.S. politicians and news media have distorted the realities, so the American people do not understand what really happened, or why. The crisis has continued ever since.  Human rights […]

No Image

“International Day of Peace: Olympia Connects with the World”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

n 1981 the United Nations established the International Day of Peace to encourage individuals, organizations and nations to create practical acts of peace on a shared date. The first Peace Day was celebrated in September 1982. In 2002 the United Nations General Assembly officially declared September 21 as the permanent date for the International Day of Peace. For 2010, volunteers from the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation, Veterans for Peace Chapter 109, the Rachel Corrie Foundation, Media Island International, Earthbound Productions, and other groups collaborated to produce a truly stunning and inspiring display and international conversation. These events marked the International […]

No Image

“Converting to a Peace Economy”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

Throughout our nation’s history, we had occasional wars and then de-mobilized afterward. But after World War II we launched the Cold War and maintained a permanent war status. We also created a “permanent war economy.” Massive military spending year after year – decade after decade – since the 1940s – has distorted and disrupted the U.S. economy and hurt our society in many ways. This is the topic of the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s December 2010 TV program. Every year Congress makes decisions about how much money to spend for which purposes. For example, Congress could spend less on nuclear […]

No Image

“A Nonviolent Society for the Common Good”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

In recent years American society has experienced a serious upsurge of anti-government rhetoric, including threats of violence against members of Congress – and in January 2011 an actual shooting. We have seen a continuation of war, torture and human rights abuses by our government, cutbacks in vital social and health services, a mania for privatizing public services, intolerance of minority races and religions, and an overall breakdown in the sense of our common humanity. Are these interconnected?  Do they have common roots? Can we find solutions that will resolve these problems and restore our public ethics and our common humanity? […]

No Image

“Causing and Exploiting Economic Crises”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

What do Wisconsin’s Republican politicians, the political aftermath of 9-11, the Wall Street banking crash, and the federal budget crisis all have in common? In each case, a crisis (real or contrived) was used as the excuse to impose preconceived agendas of radical right-wing policies upon our political and/or economic lives. The Patriot Act, for example, was not a carefully crafted response to the 9-11 attacks. Rather, it was a massive collection of proposals for stripping away Americans’ constitutional rights to privacy, due process, and so forth. These proposals were too radical to ever be passed by Congress during normal […]

No Image

“Stories of Working for Peace and Justice”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

For a long time the world has been suffering depressing news about war, violence, eco-nomics, human rights, environment, climate, and other issues. As a result, people who care about these issues can feel depressed and demoralized. But – over the years – people who persist in grassroots movements for civil rights, peace, labor, environment, and so forth keep saying that what keeps moving these move-ments ahead is people sharing their stories. The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s June 2011 TV program features personal experiences, stories and insights from six local people who have worked effectively for peace and social justice. The […]

No Image

“The Arab World’s Democracy Movement”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s July 2011 TV program examines the growing movement for democracy in northern Africa, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf states, and throughout much of the Arab world. The movement really took off in early 2011 and is continuing up through our taping date in June 2011, so it has been referred to as the “Arab Spring.” As usual, the mainstream news media and mainstream politicians have failed to understand or talk about some of the most important aspects of this, and they have described some aspects inaccurately, especially reflecting U.S. government bias, rather than understand […]

No Image

“Teenagers Organize Peace and Justice Activities”

December 3, 2017 GlenAnderson 0

Our culture wants us to be afraid of Muslims, homeless people, immigrants – and young people. The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s August 2011 TV program gives you an opportunity to meet four teen-agers and a 21-year-old who is working with them. You can decide whether to fear them – or to respect them. But don’t decide until you have had the opportunity to get to know them during this hour. Every year starting in 2001 the Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation’s staff and volunteers have developed and carried out some creative and ambitious training for a select number of Puget […]