By Paxton Smith and Sylvia Ghazarian

In a few short weeks many of us will return to college or university. As a junior, I know firsthand the time pressures we face. Classes start early in the morning and some don’t end until 10 pm. Not to mention the sleepless nights writing papers and studying for exams. It’s an exciting – but busy time with barely enough time to eat and little time to prepare for the unexpected.

College is not a 9-to-5 job. Our personal lives and our school lives are deeply integrated, with many of us living on campus or walking distance from it, but only a few campuses have 24-hour access stores open for when we have an urgent need. That’s where vending machines come in, providing snacks, sodas, and yes, even contraceptives.

As a college junior, my friends and other students understand that in the quest for broader access to contraception, vending machines have emerged as a progressive and innovative solution, empowering individuals with greater control over their reproductive health choices. As advocates and federal officials champion broader contraceptive access, the presence of vending machines (which are available 24/7) selling Plan B, condoms, and other essential health products like ibuprofen and pregnancy tests is proving to be a critical lifeline, particularly for students facing the dilemma of choosing a college in a state where abortion is banned and/or the college is located in areas that lack access to reproductive health centers – contraceptive desserts.

In recent years, the fight for reproductive rights has reached a pivotal juncture, with state-level restrictions on abortion and limited access to contraception threatening to undermine hard-won advancements. Recognizing the urgent need for proactive measures, advocates have been tirelessly advocating for solutions that provide individuals with the tools to take charge of their reproductive choices. Vending machines, placed strategically on college campuses and in public spaces, have emerged as a discreet and accessible option to meet these needs.

Moreover, vending machines do more than just provide access; they foster a culture of empowerment and destigmatization. Their public placement not only helps elimate barriers to contraceptives, but also prompts a more open dialogue surrounding sexual health. Despite public placement, however, their very nature allows anonymous purchase of reproductive health products because there’s no cashier. Taking unnecessary interaction out of the access equation helps to reduce the shame and embarrassment that some individuals may feel when seeking out these essential items.

There are now 39 universities in 17 states with emergency contraceptive vending machines, and at least 20 more considering them, according to the American Society for Emergency Contraception. We can thank a number of advocates and organizations for that, including Emergency Contraception for Every Campus (EC4EC), a by-student-for-student organization.

Many of the efforts for the vending machines are student led. We understand our needs more than anyone can, and these vending machines not only help meet our access needs, being open at all times and in central locations, but they also help meet our cost needs. The beauty of a school owned and operated vending machine is that the school can choose the price of products. In the vending machines across the country already, emergency contraception is often sold at a fraction of the price of what drug stores would sell it for. If a school chooses not to fund or subsidize the items in the vending machines, students could potentially work with local reproductive health nonprofits to keep the machines stocked with menstrual products, emergency contraception, and hopefully in early 2024 the new over the counter birth control pill. Ideally the school will take up the responsibility for these vending machines, serving as tangible manifestations of an institution’s commitment to its students’ well-being and reproductive health.

It is vital to acknowledge that vending machines alone cannot address the systemic challenges faced by the reproductive rights movement. Broader access to contraception and abortion requires comprehensive policy changes and legislative efforts that extend far beyond college life. Nevertheless, vending machines serve as a practical and impactful step in the right direction, offering immediate assistance to individuals seeking reproductive health products without judgment or obstacles.

To make vending machines a ubiquitous resource, colleges and universities must take the lead in adopting and promoting this initiative. By partnering with reproductive rights organizations and health providers, institutions can ensure that vending machines are well-stocked, easily accessible, and affordable across campuses. Additionally, public awareness campaigns can be launched to dismantle any lingering stigma surrounding the use of vending machines for obtaining contraceptives and other reproductive health products.

Vending machines selling Plan B, condoms, and other health products represent a powerful stride forward in the battle for broader access to contraception and reproductive health choices. As students grapple with the impact of abortion bans in their life, these machines provide a much-needed lifeline of support and empowerment. By advocating for the installation of vending machines on college campuses and beyond, we take a meaningful step towards creating a society where individuals can make informed choices about their reproductive health without unnecessary barriers.

Paxton Smith is a pop musician, abortion rights activist, and a UT Austin college junior. She currently serves on the board of directors at WRRAP. Sylvia Ghazarian is executive director of the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP) and works with and mentors students.

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By Shabtai Shavit and Alon Ben-Meir

As Israel prepares for the parliamentary election in September, its second in five months, most national security experts, politically savvy individuals, and academics suggest that this election may well be the most critical since the year 2000. Since that time, the geopolitics and regional security have changed dramatically, which could lead either to regional conflagration or peace, which largely depends on who the next Israeli prime minister will be and the general political leaning of the new government.

There is a growing consensus among Israelis that if Prime Minister Netanyahu forms the next government, Israel will lose a historic opportunity to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based on a two-state solution, in the context of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.

The question is, how to deprive Netanyahu and his Likud party of winning a relative majority that will allow him to form the next right-wing government—a government which would dangerously escalate regional tensions and forfeit any prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace for the foreseeable future.

The answer is that if Kahol Lavan (Blue and White Party), which was established last April and led by Gantz and Lapid, put the country’s national interests first by ending their personal squabbles, articulating a unity of purpose, and focusing only on national security – where they have an overwhelming advantage over Netanyahu – it can potentially defeat a Likud Party led by Netanyahu and form the next government.

Netanyahu, who is now the longest-serving prime minister since the founding of the state, has skillfully made his name synonymous with Israel’s national security. It is true that he has contributed to making Israel a regional power, but he failed to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace, which would provide the ultimate security for the state. Instead, he resorted to fearmongering, persuading a majority of Israelis that the Palestinians cannot be trusted and that a Palestinian state will pose the greatest menace to Israel’s long-term national security.

Now, Netanyahu is running again using the same sinister technique of fearmongering, presenting himself as “Mister Security” who alone can save the country from a perilous future. After serving 11 consecutive years as prime minister, however, Netanyahu has become ever more power-hungry and corrupt. He faces possible charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in connection with three cases. He is now fighting for his political life, hoping that his re-election will spare him from facing up to 10 years in jail if convicted.

As such, Netanyahu has now become a greater liability than an asset to Israel’s security. His vow to never to allow the establishment of a Palestinian state under his watch and his leaning toward the annexation of the West Bank will render Israel nothing short of a garrison and apartheid state living by the gun, which is to Israel’s detriment as an independent democratic state with a sustainable Jewish majority.

This is particularly worrisome at a time when the Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, have openly allied themselves with Israel against their common enemies — Iran and Global Jihad/Radical Islam — and clearly indicated their willingness to forge peace with Israel, once an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is achieved.

Kahol Lavan must now seize the unprecedented opportunity to deny Netanyahu another term by assuming the mantra of national security. They should dramatically change Israel’s trajectory toward peace with the Palestinians, even though they are avoiding speaking about a two-state solution which most of them privately embrace, provided that Israel’s security is not compromised now or at any time in the future.

Although Israel can militarily defeat any country or a combination of countries in the region, Israel has legitimate reasons to be concerned about its national security, which is embedded in the psyche of every Israeli. These concerns can be traced back to the Holocaust, decades of enmity from the Arab states, Iran and its surrogates’ (Hezbollah and Hamas) continuing existential threats, terrorism, and future uncertainty given the region’s instability and power rivalries.

By embracing national security, they entertain unquestionable superiority in matters of security over Netanyahu, which is a prerequisite to any peace. Lieutenant General Gantz and his colleagues, former Defense Minister and Lieutenant General Moshe Ya’alon and Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi have the credentials and enjoy tremendous credibility in safeguarding the country’s national security.

What is critically important, however, is that Israel’s ultimate national security rests on a permanent peace with the Palestinians. In any peace talks, they will insist that every measure must be taken to ensure the security of the state, without compromising the establishment of an independent Palestinian state that fully cooperates with Israel on all security matters.

The shifting political dynamic in the region, in addition to Egypt and Jordan’s peace with Israel, is that the majority of the Sunni Arab states recognize that Israel is the region’s superpower, with the most advanced technology, which these states desire. But above all, Israel’s military prowess provides the ultimate shield to protect them from Shiite Iran.

To be sure, Israel faces a critical crossroad and the stakes have never been higher. The leaders of Kahol Lavan stand an excellent chance to garner a relative majority and form a new coalition government with the center and left-of-center parties.

According to almost all polls, a majority of Israelis fully support the two-state solution. They want to be assured, however, that the state’s security will not be compromised with the creation of a Palestinian state but rather enhanced, especially if an Israeli-Palestinian peace is achieved in the context of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, as part of the new Middle East which is being built in front of our eyes.

Kahol Lavan, together with a block of the center-left parties, have a historic opportunity to realize it.

Shabtai Shavit is a former Director of Mossad. Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

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When the Chicago Cubs called up Ken Holtzman from the Rookie Pioneer League in 1965, some within the organization predicted that the lefty flamethrower would be the next Sandy Koufax. Both were tall, lean, Jewish flamethrowers.

Holtzman had an outstanding 17-year-long career that included two stints with the Cubs, and one go-around each with the Oakland Athletics, the Baltimore Orioles, and the New York Yankees. During his time on the slab with the A’s, Holtzman peaked. From 1972 through 1975, Holtzman won 19, 21, 18, and 19 games. In the World Series, when the chips were down, Holtzman excelled on the mound and with the lumber. Against the Hall of Fame-stacked, powerful Cincinnati Reds—Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez—Holtzman won the 1972 World Series opener, and would eventually record a 4-1, 2.55 ERA during the five fall classics he participated in. As if to mock the as yet unheard of universal designated hitter, Holtzman had a career World Series .333 batting average that included two doubles.

Upon joining the Cubs, Holtzman soon became to rotations go-to guy. In his 1966, in first-ever major league start against the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Don Drysdale, Holtzman earned a 2-0 victory. One highlight that year was a late-season matchup between Holtzman and his boyhood idol, and the hurler he had been compared to, Koufax. The matchup took place at Wrigley Field on September 25th. The 24th was Yom Kippur and neither Holtzman nor Koufax was in uniform; both were observing the Jewish Holy Day. The Cubs scored two runs in the first inning against Koufax, all the support Holtzman needed. He entered the ninth inning with a no-hitter before giving up two harmless singles. Holtzman got the complete-game 2-0 win, striking out eight. In 1969, Holtzman notched his first no-hitter, 2-0 against the Atlanta Braves, and 318-game winner-to-be Joe Niekro. Holtzman’s masterpiece included a peculiar footnote—he didn’t strike out a single batter. Since 1901, a no-hitter without a strike out had happened only four times. With today’s 100 pitch limit, the baseball oddity will never happen again. Holtzman pitched his second no-hitter against the Reds in 1971.

After Cubs manager Leo Durocher directed anti-Semitic slurs at Holtzman, the pitcher demanded a trade, a fortuitous development for the lefty. In exchange for outstanding Cubs’ outfielder Rick Monday, an Arizona State All-American, Holtzman went to the A’s, a team on the cusp of winning three consecutive World Series championships. One of Holtzman’s new teammates was Mike Epstein, a one-time University of California fullback and defensive tackle. The irreverent, bombastic A’s nicknamed Holtzman and Epstein, “Jew” and “Superjew.” Neither took offense at the crude clubhouse labels.

On September 5, 1972, during an off day in Chicago, when news reached Holtzman that Palestinian terrorists took 11 Israeli Olympic athletes hostage, and killed two, he sought out Epstein. They walked the streets, comforting each other, wondering what the Israelis had done to precipitate such hate, and why the Munich Massacre happened. Explaining their long walk on Chicago’s empty streets, Epstein who had once drawn the Star of David on his mitt, said to a Pittsburgh Press reporter: “I put on tefillin at different shuls in different cities. I was Bar Mitzvahed. I can read Hebrew. I’m a Jew.” The next day, in remembrance of the deceased, Holtzman and Epstein donned black arm bands on their jerseys’ sleeves, and kept them on through the playoffs. Remembered Epstein: “It was an emotional period. I’m glad we did something.”

After Epstein went hitless in the 1972 World Series, A’s owner Charles O. Finley dumped him and his 26 home runs to off to the Texas Rangers. Two years later, Epstein ended his 9-year career with the California Angeles where he hit .206. Out of baseball, he began a successful batting school on the West Coast. Now retired, Epstein is 80.

Holtzman never achieved the Koufax-like Hall of Fame success that some had predicted for him. But he was elected to the 1972 and 1973 American League All-Star games. Holtzman finished his career with a record of 174-150, and a 3.49 ERA. He won nine more games in his career than Sandy Koufax’s 165 total which made Holtzman history’s winningest Jewish pitcher. In 2007, Holtzman briefly returned to baseball when he managed the Israel Baseball League’s Petah Tikva Pioneers. His experience with the league was an unhappy one, and he left the team before the season ended. Holtzman, now 80, is retired and lives outside St. Louis, his birthplace.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

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Ben Cline just can’t quit self-styled Leninist Steve Bannon.

Seven months after his last appearance, Cline, the Republican who represents the Sixth District of Virginia in the U.S. House, was again a guest on Bannon’s conspiracy-friendly podcast “War Room.”

Cline stuck close to his far-right Freedom Caucus talking points.

Once again there was the irony of Cline complaining about the Biden administration’s alleged lack of cooperation with congressional committees while on a podcast hosted by a man who was sentenced to four months in prison and a $6,500 fine after he was convicted for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Bannon is free pending appeal.)

Once again there were the reflexive digs at Nancy Pelosi (who is no longer in a leadership position in the House of Representatives) and complaints about “woke and weaponized” government.

To avoid a government shutdown which Freedom Caucus members are threatening, Cline said, the Commerce Department, the Education Department and the Labor Department “need to be defunded just a lot.” Someone needs to ask him what he means by “just a lot” and which programs need to be defunded.

On Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement of an impeachment inquiry on President Biden, Cline claimed that the evidence of criminality by Biden is “overwhelming.”

But as CNN reported after fact-checking McCarthy’s claims: “House Republicans have not presented any proof that Joe Biden ever profited off his son’s business deals or was influenced while in office by his son’s business dealings.” Even many of Cline’s fellow Republicans in the Senate think it’s a bad idea.

Gene Zitver is the editor of ClineWatch.

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“You and I, my fellow citizens, need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice.”
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his Farewell Address, 17 January 1961

Our holidays all mark something aspirational, or at least they should, until they are commodified. Some are more joyous, some more reflective.

Now comes the International Day of Peace, 21 September.

The UN declared this day by unanimous resolution in 1981. Over the years, some have striven to make it more than a nod to a nice idea.

Few are perfectly peaceful people. The vast majority of us are generally peaceful for much of the time most days.

The idea of the International Day of Peace isn’t so much about perfection, but rather about reminding ourselves that peace is a mighty and worthy goal.

In the US, thousands of events, vigils, dances, trainings, religious services, protests, kids’ celebrations, and much more will be part of Campaign Nonviolence Action Days, beginning on the International Day of Peace and concluding on the International Day of Nonviolence, so September 21-October 2.

The UN resolution declaring October 2 the International Day of Nonviolence was adopted in 2007 and marks the birth of Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948). While Gandhi was far from the first person to practice nonviolence, he pioneered the strategic use of mass liberatory nonviolent action to change policies–whether corporate, public, or institutional.

So the Campaign Nonviolence Action Days are a dozen days of focus on deeper understanding of the roots of a peaceful approach to everything from parenting to teaching to community relationships to peace with the earth and much more. Coördinator Rivera Sun, nonviolence trainer and author of novels that open vistas of human possibilities to transform conflict, notes that these Action Days have been building every year for the past decade.

From a handful of actions in the beginning to more than 4,600 of them last year, the network is growing across the US and the world. Coördinator Sun and others have built a Campaign Nonviolence Toolkit to help people and groups think about how to create an event in their town.

They have created a searchable list of nearly 5,000 Campaign Nonviolence actions, organized by locale, for the 12 days coming up.

If you can’t find some action near you, consider creating your own. Then register it on the Campaign Nonviolence website and others will be drawn to join you. I decided to do a nonviolence training in my town, for example, and it is full with a waiting list.

Since I began this look at peace commemorations with a quote from a warrior, I’m going to give him the last word as well.

“I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”–Dwight Eisenhower, Broadcast with Prime Minister Macmillan in London, 8/31/59

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is Coördinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University, and PeaceVoice Senior Editor. 

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Those who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that the government exists at the behest of its citizens. It is there to protect, defend and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them.

Unfortunately, although the Bill of Rights was adopted as a means of protecting the people against government tyranny, in America today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

In the 22 years since the USA Patriot Act—a massive 342-page wish list of expanded powers for the FBI and CIA—was rammed through Congress in the wake of the so-called 9/11 terror attacks, it has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

The Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments—the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments—and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well.

The Patriot Act also redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience are now considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.

The Patriot Act justified broader domestic surveillance, the logic being that if government agents knew more about each American, they could distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding citizens—no doubt a reflexive impulse shared by small-town police and federal agents alike.

This, according to Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., was a fantasy that “had been brewing in the law enforcement world for a long time.” And 9/11 provided the government with the perfect excuse for conducting far-reaching surveillance and collecting mountains of information on even the most law-abiding citizen.

Federal agents and police officers are now authorized to conduct covert black bag “sneak-and-peak” searches of homes and offices while you are away and confiscate your personal property without first notifying you of their intent or their presence.

The law also granted the FBI the right to come to your place of employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors and fellow employees, all without notifying you; allowed the government access to your medical records, school records and practically every personal record about you; and allowed the government to secretly demand to see records of books or magazines you’ve checked out in any public library and Internet sites you’ve visited (at least 545 libraries received such demands in the first year following passage of the Patriot Act).

In the name of fighting terrorism, government officials are now permitted to monitor religious and political institutions with no suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government has subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation; monitor conversations between attorneys and clients; search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without showing probable cause; and jail Americans indefinitely without a trial, among other things.

The federal government also made liberal use of its new powers, especially through the use (and abuse) of the nefarious national security letters, which allow the FBI to demand personal customer records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and credit companies at the mere say-so of the government agent in charge of a local FBI office and without prior court approval.

In fact, since 9/11, we’ve been spied on by surveillance cameras, eavesdropped on by government agents, had our belongings searched, our phones tapped, our mail opened, our email monitored, our opinions questioned, our purchases scrutinized (under the USA Patriot Act, banks are required to analyze your transactions for any patterns that raise suspicion and to see if you are connected to any objectionable people), and our activities watched.

We’re also being subjected to invasive patdowns and whole-body scans of our persons and seizures of our electronic devices in the nation’s airports. We can’t even purchase certain cold medicines at the pharmacy anymore without it being reported to the government and our names being placed on a watch list.

In this way, “we the people” continue to be terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance by a government that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.

The bogeyman’s names and faces have changed over time (terrorism, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, a viral pandemic, and more to come), but the end result remains the same: in the so-called name of national security, the Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded with the support of Congress, the White House, and the courts.

A recitation of the Bill of Rights—set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and the like (all sanctioned by Congress, the White House, and the courts)—would understandably sound more like a eulogy to freedoms lost than an affirmation of rights we truly possess.

What we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Sadly, most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights.

Here is what it means to live under the Constitution, with the nation still suffering blowback from the permanent state of emergency brought about by 9/11 and COVID-19.

The First Amendment is supposed to protect the freedom to speak your mind, assemble and protest nonviolently without being bridled by the government. It also protects the freedom of the media, as well as the right to worship and pray without interference. In other words, Americans should not be silenced by the government. To the founders, all of America was a free speech zone.

Despite the clear protections found in the First Amendment, the freedoms described therein are under constant assault. Increasingly, Americans are being persecuted for exercising their First Amendment rights and speaking out against government corruption. Activists are being arrested and charged for daring to film police officers engaged in harassment or abusive practices. Journalists are being prosecuted for reporting on whistleblowers. States are passing legislation to muzzle reporting on cruel and abusive corporate practices. Religious ministries are being fined for attempting to feed and house the homeless. Protesters are being tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and forced into “free speech zones.” And under the guise of “government speech,” the courts have reasoned that the government can discriminate freely against any First Amendment activity that takes place within a so-called government forum.

The Second Amendment was intended to guarantee “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Essentially, this amendment was intended to give the citizenry the means to resist tyrannical government. Yet while gun ownership has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as an individual citizen right, Americans remain powerless to defend themselves against red flag gun laws, militarized police, SWAT team raids, and government agencies armed to the teeth with military weapons better suited to the battlefield.

The Third Amendment reinforces the principle that civilian-elected officials are superior to the military by prohibiting the military from entering any citizen’s home without “the consent of the owner.” With the police increasingly training like the military, acting like the military, and posing as military forces—complete with heavily armed SWAT teams, military weapons, assault vehicles, etc.—it is clear that we now have what the founders feared most—a standing army on American soil.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits government agents from conducting surveillance on you or touching you or encroaching on your private property unless they have evidence that you’re up to something criminal. In other words, the Fourth Amendment ensures privacy and bodily integrity. Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment has suffered the greatest damage in recent years and has been all but eviscerated by an unwarranted expansion of governmental police powers that include strip searches and even anal and vaginal searches of citizens, surveillance (corporate and otherwise), and intrusions justified in the name of fighting terrorism, as well as the outsourcing of otherwise illegal activities to private contractors.

The Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment work in tandem. These amendments supposedly ensure that you are innocent until proven guilty, and government authorities cannot deprive you of your life, your liberty or your property without the right to an attorney and a fair trial before a civilian judge. However, in the new suspect society in which we live, where surveillance is the norm, these fundamental principles have been upended. Certainly, if the government can arbitrarily freeze, seize or lay claim to your property (money, land or possessions) under government asset forfeiture schemes, you have no true rights.

The Seventh Amendment guarantees citizens the right to a jury trial. Yet when the populace has no idea of what’s in the Constitution—civic education has virtually disappeared from most school curriculums—that inevitably translates to an ignorant jury incapable of distinguishing justice and the law from their own preconceived notions and fears. However, as a growing number of citizens are coming to realize, the power of the jury to nullify the government’s actions—and thereby help balance the scales of justice—is not to be underestimated. Jury nullification reminds the government that “we the people” retain the power to ultimately determine what laws are just.

The Eighth Amendment is similar to the Sixth in that it is supposed to protect the rights of the accused and forbid the use of cruel and unusual punishment. However, the Supreme Court’s determination that what constitutes “cruel and unusual” should be dependent on the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” leaves us with little protection in the face of a society lacking in morals altogether.

The Ninth Amendment provides that other rights not enumerated in the Constitution are nonetheless retained by the people. Popular sovereignty—the belief that the power to govern flows upward from the people rather than downward from the rulers—is clearly evident in this amendment. However, it has since been turned on its head by a centralized federal government that sees itself as supreme and which continues to pass more and more laws that restrict our freedoms under the pretext that it has an “important government interest” in doing so.

As for the Tenth Amendment’s reminder that the people and the states retain every authority that is not otherwise mentioned in the Constitution, that assurance of a system of government in which power is divided among local, state and national entities has long since been rendered moot by the centralized Washington, DC, power elite—the president, Congress and the courts.

Thus, if there is any sense to be made from this recitation of freedoms lost, it is simply this: our individual freedoms have been eviscerated so that the government’s powers could be expanded.

It was no idle happenstance that the Constitution, which was adopted 236 years ago on Sept. 17, 1787, opens with these three powerful words: “We the people.” As the Preamble proclaims:

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.

In other words, it’s our job to make the government play by the rules of the Constitution.

We are supposed to be the masters and they—the government and its agents—are the servants.

We the American people—the citizenry—are supposed to be the arbiters and ultimate guardians of America’s welfare, defense, liberty, laws and prosperity.

Still, it’s hard to be a good citizen if you don’t know anything about your rights or how the government is supposed to operate.

As the National Review rightly asks, “How can Americans possibly make intelligent and informed political choices if they don’t understand the fundamental structure of their government? American citizens have the right to self-government, but it seems that we increasingly lack the capacity for it.”

Americans are constitutionally illiterate.

Most citizens have little, if any, knowledge about their basic rights. And our educational system does a poor job of teaching the basic freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Teachers and school administrators do not fare much better. A study conducted by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis found that one educator in five was unable to name any of the freedoms in the First Amendment.

Government leaders and politicians are also ill-informed. Although they take an oath to uphold, support and defend the Constitution against “enemies foreign and domestic,” their lack of education about our fundamental rights often causes them to be enemies of the Bill of Rights.

So what’s the solution?

Thomas Jefferson recognized that a citizenry educated on “their rights, interests, and duties”  is the only real assurance that freedom will survive.

From the President on down, anyone taking public office should have a working knowledge of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and should be held accountable for upholding their precepts. One way to ensure this would be to require government leaders to take a course on the Constitution and pass a thorough examination thereof before being allowed to take office.

Some critics are advocating that students pass the United States citizenship exam in order to graduate from high school. Others recommend that it must be a prerequisite for attending college. I’d go so far as to argue that students should have to pass the citizenship exam before graduating from grade school.

Here’s an idea to get educated and take a stand for freedom: anyone who signs up to become a member of The Rutherford Institute gets a wallet-sized Bill of Rights card and a Know Your Rights card. Use this card to teach your children the freedoms found in the Bill of Rights.

A healthy, representative government is hard work. It takes a citizenry that is informed about the issues, educated about how the government operates, and willing to do more than grouse and complain.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, “we the people” have the power to make and break the government.

The powers-that-be want us to remain divided over politics, hostile to those with whom we disagree politically, and intolerant of anyone or anything whose solutions to what ails this country differ from our own. They also want us to believe that our job as citizens begins and ends on Election Day.

Yet there are 330 million of us in this country. Imagine what we could accomplish if we actually worked together, presented a united front, and spoke with one voice.

Tyranny wouldn’t stand a chance.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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You probably couldn’t have asked for a more thoughtful Chair of the Joint Chiefs than Mark Milley, whose term ends on Sept.  30. He was one of the good guys who repeatedly restrained President Trump from veering into dubious schemes—such as a war of choice with Iran.

But there is also no mistaking that Milley is a general, a military person through and through. From a recent interview in the Princeton Alumni Weekly (Milley graduated from Princeton in 1980):

“Milley and others believe that new technologies such as precision-guided munitions, global positioning systems, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, and hypersonic weapons are already transforming how militaries are trained, supported, and operate, and that the pace will only accelerate.

‘All these technologies are coming at us very, very quickly,’ Milley argues. ‘And we, the United States, need to be on the front side of that curve. We don’t have to be perfect, but we have to be better than our enemy.’”

In a world of hypersonic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads, what exactly does it mean to be “better than our enemy”?

As Stephen Kinzer argues in an op-ed in the Boston Globe:

“In the coming years, China and its partners will work intensely to strengthen their military power—only to counter American threats, of course. So will the United States and its partners—only to counter Chinese threats. Each side insists that it seeks only to defend itself. Neither believes the other, so both prepare for war. That makes war more likely.

“Because this spiral of mistrust is so common, it has a name: the security dilemma. It tells us that steps one country takes to increase its security often provoke rivals to take countersteps. That leads to competition that makes all parties less secure.”

The security dilemma puts generals, no matter how cautious and intelligent, in an ever more impossible position. Is there any other way out except for military officials in opposing camps to openly acknowledge the issue and begin to talk with one another about how to resolve their nations’ conflicts in ways other than mutual suicide?

Ultimately, the only way to be “better than our enemy” is to think in a new way: to accept that security is interdependent: mine depends on yours and yours depends on mine. And to accept that the way to rethink global security cannot be through technological competition, which will never end except in a general conflagration.

And finally, to turn to the cooperative realization of shared goals: survival and the transformation of energy sources in order to mitigate global climate change. This new way is also an old way: the way of the Golden Rule, an ethic shared by all the world’s major religions.

Of the hundreds of scientists who worked under Dr. Robert Oppenheimer to develop the first atomic bomb, only one ceased his research and left Los Alamos on moral grounds once it became clear that Hitler had been unable to make a weapon. His name was Joseph Rotblat. He is not mentioned in the popular film about Oppenheimer.

Rotblat went on to be instrumental in developing the Pugwash Conference, where scientists meet yearly to engage in a frank exchange of ideas—exactly as the militaries of the world’s superpowers ought to be doing. Rotblat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, a half-century after the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan.

There are technologies necessary to confirm that arms control agreements have not been violated. And it remains crucial to further develop technologies that can help stop the illegal transfer of radioactive materials.

But ultimately it is not technological advance, it is only people, like Rotblat or Mikhail Gorbachev, who will enable us to move beyond the security dilemma. I wonder if Mark Milley, ideally along with equivalent military leaders in China or elsewhere, as they lie awake pondering the paradoxes of military force in the nuclear age, will see the flashing “No Exit” sign before it is too late.

There is still time, brother.

Winslow Myers, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of “Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide” and serves on the Advisory Board of the War Prevention Initiative.

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Freedom’s just another word for . . . blowing up your children? Giving them cancer?

Militarism is obsolete, for God’s sake. Its technology is out of control. The latest shred of news that has left me stunned and terror-stricken is this, as reported by Reuters: “The Biden administration will for the first time send controversial armor-piercing munitions containing depleted uranium to Ukraine. . . . It follows an earlier decision by the Biden administration to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, despite concerns over the dangers such weapons pose to civilians.”

Russia’s war on Ukraine is a disaster at every level. Some 70,000 Ukrainians have died, according to the New York Times, and possibly another 120,000 have been wounded, with Russia’s casualty level actually far higher.

The war (like all wars) has to stop, but NATO and the U.S., just like Russia itself, are looking not for peace and conflict resolution but victory. Killing the enemy is what matters, the more the better.

War is humanity’s most horrific addiction. When it takes hold of a people’s soul, all environmental and human concerns vanish. And today – indeed, throughout the course of my lifetime – with the development of nuclear weapons, we’ve been at the brink of self-generated extinction. And we’re still playing with it, rather than trying to move beyond it.

Depleted uranium – DU – is one of the playthings of war: At 1.6 times the density of lead, DU shells are the last word in penetration power: locomotives compressed to the size of bullets. The shells ignite the instant they’re fired and explode on impact.

I first started writing about depleted uranium in 2003, when I heard Doug Rokke (who died two and a half years ago) speak in Chicago. Doug, a career soldier, was involved in the first Gulf War, leading a team of soldiers whose job was to clean up the war zones in the aftermath of our bombing raids.

As I wrote then:

Depleted uranium “isn’t really depleted of anything. It’s dirty: U-238, the low-level radioactive byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. And when the ammo explodes, poof, it vaporizes into particles so fine — a single micron in diameter, small enough to fit inside red blood cells — that, well, ‘conventional gas mask filters are like a barn door.’

“. . .What’s not to love, if you’re the Pentagon? We pounded Saddam’s army with DU ammo in Gulf War 1 and destroyed it on the ground. Maybe you’ve seen pictures of what we did to it; GIs cleaning up afterward coined the term ‘crispy critters’ to describe the fried corpses they found inside Iraqi tanks and trucks.”

But the horror of DU is what happens after the battles are over. DU stays in the environment, and has been linked to huge rises in cancer and birth defects in the conflict zones. As Doug Rokke said: “You can’t clean it up.”

But so what? According to Sydney Young, writing for the Harvard International Review:

“In the past, leaders did not pay the necessary amount of attention to the risks of depleted uranium. Documents suggest that the United States may have known about the potential consequences of depleted uranium during conflicts in which it was used. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published a 1991 report indicating that deploying depleted uranium in the Gulf War could have caused 500,000 cancer deaths.

“However, the United States still used depleted uranium in the Middle East despite the risks, deeming that its military benefits outweighed the potential civilian impact. This calculus reflects a common trend in which western countries justify human rights abuses under the guise of ‘national interest’ or military necessity.”

Another tactic of the political militarists is to deny there’s any negative consequences to their actions. Young also notes:

“Research also faces political barriers. Governments that use depleted uranium have a vested interest in preventing research that suggests it has negative effects on human health. For instance, the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and France all opposed a 2001 United Nations resolution to document depleted uranium in war.”

There’s a collective human addiction not simply to militarism and war, but to winning: to domination. A focus on winning in the moment obliterates any sense of the larger future. The creation of peace is not a simplistic game. It has no weapons to parade before the public, whose use will obliterate the enemy of the moment and make the world a better place once and for all.

Noting the horrific extent to which the Ukraine war has stalemated, Jeet Heer writes at The Nation: “The time is surely ripe for a diplomatic push. Unfortunately, the passions ignited by war always make negotiations difficult” . . . and, alas “a strong ‘taboo’ against public discussion of diplomacy pervades the NATO countries.”

This is understandable, he notes, considering the criminality of the Russian invasion and the horror it has inflicted on Ukraine: “But an interminable bloodbath on Ukrainian soil is also horrific.”

Humanity has to figure out how to talk to itself, not kill itself.

Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound.

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Ideas about how to end the Ukraine war abound. None come from Ukraine. None have gained traction. Here, nevertheless, are three examples of what knowledgeable people are thinking, along with my evaluation.

After a Stalemate

Two members of the US foreign policy establishment, Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, offer a path to a negotiated peace in the April issue of Foreign Affairs. They acknowledge that “conditions are not yet ripe for a negotiated settlement,” but suggest that a “bloody stalemate” in the war can provide an opportunity. They propose “a sequenced two-pronged strategy aimed at, first, bolstering Ukraine’s military capability and then, when the fighting season winds down late this year, ushering Moscow and Kyiv from the battlefield to the negotiating table.”

The first part of their strategy requires an even greater supply of weapons to Ukraine, “heavy losses” imposed on Russia, and the presumption of a successful Ukraine counteroffensive. The second part would then be a cease-fire, with both armies pulling back behind a demilitarized zone monitored by either the UN or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. As the cease-fire holds, peace talks would begin, on two tracks: Ukraine-Russia talks on one track, NATO-Russia strategic dialogue on the other.

Considering that the authors put great emphasis on weapons help for Ukraine—not just more weapons, but more lethal weapons, including advanced aircraft—it may be hard to understand their conviction in a diplomatic follow-up. Stalemate may occur, as they predict, but that doesn’t necessarily create an incentive for either side to stop fighting. More weapons may mean more war, no?

Logically, the terrible costs of the war to both sides should at some point promote interest in stopping the fight, but when? An equally logical outcome of the current situation is that the war drags on for another year, that no cease-fire or peace talks emerge, and that out of exhaustion, both sides retire behind whatever boundaries their forces occupy.

The Haass-Kupchan article is important because of a news report that the two authors, plus an assortment of other former government officials, met informally in April with certain Russians—including at one point the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov—in talks about ending the war. This type of diplomacy is often called Track 2 to distinguish it from Track 1, or formal negotiations between senior government officials.

According to NBC News, which broke the story, the Russian participants were presumed to have Putin’s ear. The Biden administration was aware of the talks and was surely briefed on their outcome, but it was not officially represented.

Several important details about these talks are unknown: their substance, how many times the participants met, what was communicated to Russia’s or US leaders, whether or not the talks advanced a peace process, who the Russian participants were, and whether or not the Track 2 effort will continue.

Track 2 diplomacy certainly has value in some circumstances. It has been used more than a few times in US dealings with North Korea, including most famously by former Pres. Jimmy Carter when he traveled to Pyongyang in 1994, just as the US and North Korea seemed headed for a nuclear showdown. Whether or not the US-Russia Track 2 talks are wise remains to be determined. Not knowing the names of all the Russian participants raises questions about their access to Putin, not to mention their influence with him.

Most importantly, when it comes to negotiating international agreements, Track 2 talks cannot substitute for Track 1. Former officials and advisers do not have standing to make commitments or decide policies for their governments. (Even Jimmy Carter didn’t; he angered the State Department for going to North Korea, but his trip succeeded anyway.)

The plan for a cease-fire put forward by the two Americans in these talks may, however, be taken by the Russians as indicative of what official Washington is thinking. That plan, heavily reliant on military force, may further convince Putin and his inner circle that only continued fighting is worth pursuing—exactly opposite of the Americans’ hope, and exactly opposite of what any peace plan should encompass if it is to have credibility.

Land for Peace

The chief of staff to NATO’s secretary-general got more than a little attention when he said the path to peace in Ukraine is to trade land to Russia for a peace agreement and the promise of Ukraine membership in NATO. The secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, shot the idea down himself, saying the path to a settlement was “to support Ukraine militarily. If you want a lasting, just peace, then military support for Ukraine is the way to get there. There is no doubt about that.”

He added: “It is Ukraine, and only Ukraine, that can decide when the prerequisites for negotiations are present. And who can decide, around a negotiating table, what is an acceptable solution. Our task is to support them.”

Still, land for peace is an idea that is being heard more and more often, especially so long as the Ukrainian counteroffensive fails to produce any major change on the battlefield. The alternative of unflinching support for Ukraine sounds noble, but it is also a prescription for endless war—a war that has already cost a half-million lives and injuries to soldiers on both sides, according to a US official.

Starting to Talk Now

A New Yorker article by Keith Gessen offers the thoughts of a Russia analyst with the RAND Corporation, Samuel Charap. His views stem from the belief that heavy sanctions on Russia and constant additions to Ukraine’s weapons arsenal undermine any possibility of bringing the war to a close. He favors diplomacy even in the midst of fighting.

Contrary to the prevailing opinion that only battlefield defeat will bring Putin to his senses, Charap favors a freeze on current battlefield conditions and a cease-fire that will contain incentives and sanctions sufficient to prevent a resumption of the war. Russia, he contends, has already been defeated: “Their regional clout, the flight of talent—the strategic consequences have been huge, by any measure.” On Ukraine’s side, any major territorial gains are unlikely, whereas further fighting might lead to an incident that would trigger a new escalation.

Charap has had to fend off many criticisms and harsh accusations. One, from a Ukrainian who heard him speak, pointed to the suffering of all those people in Russian-occupied territory. How would Russia be held responsible for its war crimes? Charap had no answer other than to say that Ukraine’s government would have to choose between two kinds of losses, either in the war or in occupied territory—a terrible choice.

Still, Charap makes the important point that pre-negotiation preparation would be a wise move, in which “you actually devote resources inside the government to thinking through the practicalities and getting the right pieces in place.” But that would require that Russia and Ukraine, as well as the US, designate representatives to begin talking.

The Necessary Ingredients of a Peace Plan

Any peace plan needs to be attentive to at least these three realities. First, as President Zelensky has said, “the fate of Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine.” That includes pre-negotiations, official negotiations, and Track II negotiations. Second, Russia must pay for its aggression. According to news reports, the idea of using some $300 billion in seized Russian assets would violate international law.

An alternative, the New York Times reports, “is to use profits earned by Europe-based financial companies that are holding the assets and channel those profits to Ukraine”—around $3 billion a year. This and other ideas now circulating would seem to be based on one principle: profit from Russia’s assets, but eventually return the principle to Russia.

That dovetails with a third point: With the lesson of World War I in mind, Russia must not be so severely punished as to give aid and comfort to revanchists. Reparations and war crimes trials should leave room for the rise of another Gorbachev, not create conditions for another Putin. The view of the “total victory” school, that Russia must pay dearly so it will never again be imperialist—captured in the title of Eliot Cohen’s article, “It’s Not Enough for Ukraine to Win, Russia Has to Lose”—is a dangerous basis for policy.

Finally, as Samuel Charap says, the US needs a Plan B in the event the war is a stalemate. Ukraine shouldn’t have a blank check to continue fighting endlessly, but neither should deals be struck behind its back.

Negotiations cannot be taboo, as now seems to be the case.

Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and blogs at In the Human Interest.

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I’ll get on my knees and pray

We don’t get fooled again

– The Who

If you an adult born after, say, 1995, you probably recall a fair bit about the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

For most Americans, the terror attack which turned three commercial airliners full of passengers into guided missiles came as a bolt out of the blue, with no idea of why.

For reasonably informed peace activists, the why was completely clear. Western powers had invaded, made war on, and exploited every place in the MENA–Middle East and North Africa–for centuries. From the Crusades to Napoleon to other European colonizers and then to the dominance of the US in oil extraction, it added up. The resentment, bitterness, hatred, and even the willingness to commit atrocity-suicide was a product of that foreign domination.

Understanding the motivation for terrorism is the first step toward preventing it, just as in any criminal mischief. Just as we want researchers seeking a cure for cancer to deeply understand how and why cancer operates, peace researchers and activists stay well informed on why terrorists do what they do.

Those who studied peace and conflict knew what bin Laden was demanding, but the vast majority of Americans did not have any idea, so they were vulnerable to manipulation yet again.

What was bin Laden, founder and lead of al Qaida, demanding? Again and again, western journalists like Peter Bergen and Robert Fiske met with him and interviewed him before 9.11.2001 and he always had the same four demands:

1. Infidel troops (US military) out of the most holy country to Islam (in his view), Saudi Arabia.
2. Palestine needed their own sovereign nation-state.
3. US stop aid to corrupt MENA rulers, such as the royal family in Saudi Arabia.
4. US stop military aid to Israel.

For years after 9.11.2001 I would write these four demands on the blackboard but without attribution. I would ask students, so, who made these demands?

The guesses were all over the ballpark, from “Gandhi” to “Malcolm X” to “the Pope” to “Archbishop Tutu” and more. Literally one student one time got it right, an amazingly effective, smart, and savvy Marine corpsman.

So when George Bush, Dick Cheney, and others were telling Americans that al Qaida had attacked us because they were affronted by women in bikinis, or our inclusion of gay people, or just our “way of life,” that was yet another pack of lies added ultimately to the other whoppers that got us to invade Afghanistan and then Iraq.

So here we are, 22 years after the largest terror attack ever committed by a nonstate actor (until September 11, 2001, the academic literature on terrorism had accurately noted that the vast majority of terrorism in the world was ruthless dictators slaughtering their own people). We don’t get a do-over, but what might a different path have produced, one that showed the world that such evil would not stand, but the US would show that we were in fact the most compassionate, deeply caring country?

What if, instead of killing more than four million humans in the subsequent war on terror, including approximately 7,000 from the US military, we had addressed both the criminal conduct of al Qaida and the grievances that led to it?

What if, instead of spending eight trillion dollars on the war on terror we had invested only a fraction of that in a combination of actual defense of the US (eliminating overseas bases on other people’s sovereign soil), a decarbonized rail system from coast to coast, an end to any support for dictators, and major humanitarian aid that uplifted millions of the poorest people in places where they instead associate US aid with oppressing them?

What if we the people would pay attention to what is going on in the world? What if we elected candidates who would vote in policies, funding, and laws that brought us peace and prosperity because other peoples and countries would regard us as friends and helpers? Some say this is simplistic naiveté.

Yeah? How did that war on the Taliban go for us? How did it work out when Dick Cheney got Saudi Arabia to host US troops in Gulf War I, setting off the Wahabi/bin Laden rage that culminated a decade later on 9.11.2001?

Sorry, war defenders. Your ideas of peace through invasion and occupation are the real naïve ones.

Peace is the new realpolitik.

Dr. Tom H. Hastings, author of Nonviolent Response to Terrorism, is Coördinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University, and PeaceVoice Senior Editor. 

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