Search results for: police

Black Toronto residents 20 times more likely to be shot dead by police, study says

Black people made up 61% of cases where police used force that resulted in death, Ontario human rights commission report said Leyland Cecco in Toronto Mon 10 Dec 2018 photo above: rt.com WN: The article from a year and a half ago highlighted below was brought to mind by today’s “Trudeau: Canadians watching US unrest […]

For Abolition: Prisons and Police Are More Than Brutality, They’re State Terror

Saturday, 12 November 2016 00:00 By Frank Castro, The Hampton Institute | News Analysis photo above: Jobs For Felons Hub; Edited: LW / TO This is an incredibly powerful assessment of “state terror” in arguably the most oppressive democracy of recent times: the United States of America. The author’s analysis rings true at every turn: […]

Ex-Seattle Police Chief Condemns Systemic Police Racism Dating Back to Slave Patrols

Thursday, 14 July 2016 00:00 By Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, Democracy Now! | Video Interview an excerpt: On Wednesday, President Obama met at the White House with law enforcement officials and civil rights leaders. President Obama hosted the meeting one week after the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and […]

Of Lethal Drones and Police Shootings

Friday, 08 July 2016 00:00 By Kathy Kelly, Consortium News | Op-Ed photo above: Demonstrators record a crowd of police officers on hand in New York’s Times Square, where a large crowd protested after fatal police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota on July 7, 2016. (Christopher Lee / The New York Times) WN: Police brutality […]

War, Police and Prisons: Cross-Examining State-Sanctioned Violence

War, Police and Prisons: Cross-Examining State-Sanctioned Violence Streams of Justice, September 28, 2009 WN: I was asked by the above-named Justice group to do this as part of a series. I never learn well to do such presentations to the right tailor length! You may also find interesting my discussion of WAR and HELL. An […]

Comments On: Amazing Disgrace

By Sarah Posner Illustration above by Brian Reedy. Think of the illustration in conjunction with this hugely ironic quote, one that said far more about Christian Nationalist sentiment than the good reverend knew: “We put God right at the center of the White House.” —Paula White, speaking at an Evangelicals for Trump event at Solid […]

Extensive Commentary On: What white Christian support for Trump reveals about systemic racism

By Robert P. Jones | November 12, 2020 WN: Beyond tragic the pullquote to the right, this means four-fifths of American white evangelical Christians subscribe to “heresy” (an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth—Merriam-Webster). And this not limited to America! And many religious white non-evangelicals (Catholics, mainline Protestants, other faith members, etc.) also are […]

Restorative Justice and Spiritual Origins, November 19, 2004

WN: Some of the papers on Restorative Justice are understandably repetitive, though I culling the obviously such. image above: sikhnet.com Restorative Justice and Spiritual Origins, November 19, 2004 By Wayne Northey In 1974 two youths who had been drinking and had been “talked to” by the police already, took out their frustrations on the small […]

Thoughts on: “White People Explain Racism to Me”

By Elie Mystal Twitter November 15, 2021 photo above: (Fizkes / Shutterstock) WN: We Whites, lacking the lifelong experiences described in the article highlighted below, just don’t begin to get it. Anymore than a victim of serious and violent crime knows no one but others similarly harmed really get it. The next best, which is […]

Walter Wink & “The Myth of Redemptive Violence”

November 8, 2021 by Robert Koehler WN: The author of the highlighted article below is right on. For background to Walter Wink’s use of the term, please see: Facing the Myth of Redemptive Violence The myth of redemptive violence and ‘The Hateful Eight’ Book Extract: The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium by […]

Reflections on “Drone Strikes and Torture Will Cause Big Blowback”

November 5, 2021 by Brian Cloughley photo above: AK Rockefeller – CC BY 2.0 WN: It is ominous to read at the end of the highlighted article: Although the long-term consequences are measureless, there is no doubt that “explosive events” will blow back for a long time to come. The military-industrial complex has been manufacturing […]

Nearly a Third of Republicans Surveyed Are Ready to Support Violence

By Matthew Rozsa, Salon Published November 2, 2021 photo above: aljazeera.com WN: Founder and CEO of PRRI, Robert Jones said: I’ve been doing this a while, for decades, and it’s not the kind of finding that as a sociologist, a public opinion pollster, that you’re used to seeing. This is deeply ominous . . . […]

Interaction With “The CIA: 70 Years of Organized Crime”

September 22, 2017 by Douglas Valentine – Lars Schall photo above by Tom Thai | CC BY 2.0 WN: Welcome to America the Beautiful. As kids, my brothers and I loved the highlighted song, as sung by George Beverly Shea–who performed in front of more people than any other singer in history. We played it […]

Responding to Persecution

By Luma Simms October 11, 2021 WN: What a beautiful, compelling, encouraging story. excerpt: [su_dropcap]I[/su_dropcap]n 2007, my friend Ishraq was an Iraqi biologist working in quality control in a government agency testing products coming into the country for contaminants – food products and plants, anything meant for consumption or planting – a job she had studied and […]

Justice and Peace:

Lumen Christi Institute Streamed live, October 7, 2021 image above: smp.org WN: The Catholic Criminal Justice Reform Network does excellent events. One presentation you will hear is not just about reform: it is about “radical reconsideration” of Public Safety, including a call for abolition of the police–in favour of a far more powerful communal presence […]

On A letter from Hell

By Robin Schumacher, Exclusive Columnist photo above: pxhere.com WN: It is interesting that the photo chosen for the article highlighted below (not shown above) is along the lines of what Larry Dixon wrote (The Other Side of the Good News: Contemporary Challenges to Jesus’ teaching on hell 1 in apparent approval of an instance of […]

They Went to Bible College to Deepen Their Faith.

Becca Andrews September 30, 2021 photo above: yelp.com WN: The article highlighted below begins with Megan Wohlers telling her story of abuse, and ends with these understated words from her: And that’s not how Jesus would have acted. I added October 24, 2021 almost an identical story, only from Jerry Falwell’s (Founder) Liberty University. His […]

Trump Extremists Brought Numerous Guns on January 6, Evidence Shows

Mark Follman, Dan Friedman, Ryan Little, and Sam Van Pykeren September 30, 2021 photo above: Mother Jones illustration; John Minchillo/AP; Official Congressional Directory WN: And so it goes . . . Tragic. Sick. Dangerous. Deadly. Some family members are speaking out against some of the rally’s ringleaders: Republican Accountability Project, which has been calling out […]

How America Fractured Into Four Parts

By George Packer July/August 2021 Issue The Atlantic image above: Lucy Jones WN: Wow! The essay is stunning as it is brilliant. At least read my excerpts below. Better though, purchase the book it is excerpted/adapted from: Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal. It challenges understanding about America’s past and present place in […]

Covid Is Now a Crisis for the Unvaccinated

By Aaron E. Carroll Dr. Carroll is the chief health officer for Indiana University. He’s also a writer who focuses on health research and policy. photo above: Tim Gruber for The New York Times WN1: The consistent messaging is: If for no other reason, because of our neighbour, we should get vaccinated. There is also […]

Opinion: The Jan. 6 select committee is already exceeding all expectations

Opinion by Columnist Jennifer Rubin July 28, 2021 photo above: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) hugs Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn on Tuesday after he testified to the House select committee hearing on regarding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Pool/Reuters) WN: Officer Harry Dunn’s words highlighted in the pullquote below capture a profound […]

What were the Capitol rioters thinking on Jan. 6?

By Dan Zak and Karen Heller July 20, 2021 photo above: (Robert Carter for The Washington Post) WN: Sadly, the person guilty of First Degree Insurrection–along with a sycophantic GOP almost en masse–is not yet in the dock or jail. May his day hasten . . . Please see also: ‘Some are still suffering’: Months […]

Screaming into silence

By Cindy Blackstock June 30, 2021 photo above: Memorial to residential school victims outside Parliament Hill in Ottawa. (Shelby Lisk)  WN: Just what will it take? . . . See too my post, December 10, 2018: Black Toronto residents 20 times more likely to be shot dead by police, study says. Just what will it […]

This entire country is haunted

By Alicia Elliott July 12, 2021 photo above: The Mohawk Institute Residential School, referred to by former students as ‘the Mush Hole’ (Photograph by Alex Jacobs-Blum) WN: This statement from the article highlighted below haunts me: These acts were done on behalf of every non-Indigenous family who proudly calls themselves Canadians, because this is what […]

The Ascension of Bernie Sanders

Opinion Maureen Dowd July 10, 2021 photo above: Senator Bernie Sanders heading back to his office after breakfast in Burlington, Vt. Credit… Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times WN: Go for it, Bernie! excerpts: At 79, Bernie Sanders is a man on a mission, laser-focused on a list that represents trillions of dollars […]

Haiti’s fate is intertwined with the U.S.

By Ishaan Tharoor with Claire Parker  Email photo above: A man speaks on the phone next to a mural in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami on July 8. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) WN: Haiti is a made-in-France-and-America tragedy . . . Please see Egberto Willies on this: My wife Esther and I visited there in 1991, […]

The war inside the Canadian Armed Forces

By Marie-Danielle Smith July 8, 2021 illustration above: by Anna Minzhulina WN: Military. Police. Prisons.1 All are rife with abuse within. As the article states: The Canadian Armed Forces, as an institution, has a necessarily coercive culture. Leaders must have a high degree of authority and control over their subordinates in order for the military […]

Welcome to crazy town: The QAnon movement explained

By Brian Bethune July 7, 2021 photo above: mindbrews.in WN: Loony and terrifying! You will also find interesting this story by Shawn Boburg, July 7, 2021, interesting and . . . sick: From corporate America to conspiracy theory promotion: How a Minnesota man made a career out of anonymously amplifying dark plots. We learn: Turnbull’s […]

War Criminal Donald Rumsfeld Found Dead at 88

by Phyllis Bennis July 1, 2021 photo above: Then-US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld addresses a press conference at the Pentagon on 4 May 2004, more than a month after the US invasion of Iraq (AFP/File photo) WN: Rumsfeld did monstrous evil around the world, on a scale not unlike that of World War II […]

Inside the Capitol Riot: An Exclusive Video Investigation

By The New York Times June 30, 2021 WN: While video images can be selectively strung together, they are real images just the same. And this was anything but the proverbial walk in the park–or a tourist visit to the Capitol. Søren Kierkegaard wrote: The crowd is untruth. Anthropologist René Girard spent a career explicating […]

Opinion: It’s ‘The Code’ of the NHL, and it has no cure for stupid

Opinion by Ken Dryden May 27, 2021 photo above: Toronto center John Tavares is taken from the ice on a stretcher on May 20 after being injured during Game 1 of the Maple Leafs’ first-round playoff series against Montreal. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)  Ken Dryden, a former goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens and […]

Why Canada’s special forces ‘shadow army’ is still fighting ISIS

By Adnan R. Khan May 11, 2021 photo above: Spec Ops Magazine WN: In short, Canada’s Special Operations Regiment (CSOR), are a bunch of trained hitmen. There is no declared war Canada is in1. Testimonials are ubiquitous that intelligence gathered by CSOR and others by its very nature is often faulty, frequently manipulated, at best […]

Alfred McCoy, How Washington Lost the Ultimate Drug War

May 6, 2021 By Alfred McCoy photo above: Afghan War Kills 3 Children a Day: Report | Common Dreams News WN: The folly and futility of American Empire Wars know no bounds. This applies to Canada too and the West in general–all bundled together by greed, fear, will to domination, xenophobia, and arrogant incompetence. Democracy?–not […]

Empire Politician:

The new president’s paper trail reveals a man who has often betrayed his own bedrock principles. Jeremy Scahill April 28 2021 WN: The article highlighted pulls no punches in underscoring Biden’s war-hawk and pro-police brutality policies over a lifetime as a politician. He–as anyone–still may change! But not his brutal record, as laid out in […]

Opinion: The American right is becoming completely untethered from reality

Opinion by  Max Boot April 28, 2021 photo above: President Biden in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 8. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post) WN: The article highlighted speaks to the current tragedy of the GOP. Please also see: Almost Everything Biden Said About Ending the Afghanistan War Was a Lie. Trump is […]

Opinion: Prolonged solitary confinement is torture. It’s time for all states to ban it.

Opinion by Tammie Gregg and Donna Lieberman April 28, 2021 at 5:00 a.m. PDT image above: Julie Lai for The Washington Post WN: My wife Esther and I felt uniquely fortunate to have attended the Conference below: CURE International Conference Costa Rica 2017 Over 40 prison reform advocates representing a dozen countries participated in CURE’s 7th […]

Almost Everything Biden Said About Ending the Afghanistan War Was a Lie

April 27, 2021 by Sonali Kolhatkar image above: Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair chart below: The Washington Post, Fatal Force WN: Ethicist A. J. Coates writes in The Ethics of War: The moral prohibition of lying, for example, makes good sense in the context of personal relations, but no sense at all in affairs of […]

The look in Derek Chauvin’s eyes was something worse than hate

By Jake Jackson April 24, 2021 photo above: Daily Sound and Fury WN: The Prophets and Jesus constantly call us to have eyes to see, ears to hear . . .  A documentary series based on events of the April 19, 1989, Central Park jogger case, has the riveting title: When They See Us. To […]

America’s unique gun violence problem, explained in 16 maps and charts

By German Lopez @germanrlopez german.lopez@vox.com Updated Apr 16, 2021 WN: I will embed below the video produced. Please view that first, then read the article and charts carefully. My brother gave me a book years ago claiming studies showed that the more guns in a population, the less crime. While the research was flawed according […]

Dear White America – “History Has its Eye on You”

By Community April 16, 2021 photo above: The quote is from The Talmud. WN: The above from The Talmud echoes Micah 6:8, seen to the left. It in turn is picked up in Matthew 23:23, featuring Jesus’ indictment of the religious establishment of the day: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you […]

Compliance Will Not Save Me

April 19, 2021 Ibram X. Kendi, Contributing writer at The Atlantic photo above: Charmaine Edwards (left) speaks to supporters during a protest outside a courthouse in Dallas in 2017. Her stepson, Jordan Edwards, was a 15-year-old in Balch Springs, Texas, when he was shot and killed by police. LM Otero/AP WN: According to The Washington […]

Driving While Black is still a death sentence

By BRAKKTON BOOKER 04/13/2021 WN: Words fail. . . . Please also see here and here: Black Toronto residents 20 times more likely to be shot dead by police, study says. Canada is also deeply racist: rampant in the criminal justice system. excerpts: Some were already aware that a DWB — Driving While Black — […]

Why America’s Great Crime Decline Is Over

March 24, 2021 Derek Thompson Staff writer at The Atlantic photo above: wisegeek.com WN: The “new model” called for in the interview highlighted below is ever one of the “Beloved Community.” Brutal, violent response to crime is in itself the greater crime; one that has short-term benefits, but massive long term harms. I argue this […]

The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America

Of the extraordinarily valuable and informative works for which Mr. Valentine is responsible, his latest, CIA As Organized Crime, may prove to be the best choice as an introduction to the dark realm of America’s hidden corruptions and their consequences at home and around the world. This new volume begins with the unlikely but irrevocable framework by which Mr. Valentine’s path led to unprecedented access to key Agency personnel whose witting participation is summarized by the chapter title: “How William Colby Gave Me the Keys to the CIA Kingdom.”

By illuminating CIA programs and systems of surveillance, control, and assassination utilized against the civilian population of South Vietnam, we are presented with parallels with operations and practices at work today in America’s seemingly perpetual war against terror.

Houses of hate:

Dangerous, racist and falling apart. By nearly every metric, the nation’s penal system is not just failing, it’s making things worse. By Justin Ling February 28, 2021 photo above: Medium security range at Stony Mountain Institution in Stony Mountain, Manitoba (Correctional Services Canada/Flickr) WN: The article highlighted does not sugar-coat the reality: Canadian prisons (and […]

Technology of Death:

March 26, 2020 by Ramzy Baroud photo above: Sgt. Paul L. Anstine III, U.S. Marine Corps – Public Domain WN: Israel is a brutal Empire, only less so than the U.S in one respect: scale. excerpts: The Middle East region, battered by wars and adjoining humanitarian crises that have left millions of people stateless, hungry […]

His pastors tried to steer him away from social media rage.

By Peter Manseau Feb. 19, 2021 photo above: Michael Sparks, far left, stands with other Trump supporters as they are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers outside the Senate chamber on Jan. 6. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP) WN: The article highlighted is an anatomy of a Trump cultist who stormed the Capitol. It did not turn […]

The American Abyss

A historian of fascism and political atrocity on Trump, the mob and what comes next. By Timothy Snyder Jan. 9, 2021 photo above (screenshot): The police forced the crowd out of the Capitol building after facing off in the Rotunda, Jan. 6, 3:40 p.m.Credit…Ashley Gilbertson/VII, for The New York Times WN: This is brilliant–and scary!–analysis. […]

Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity.

Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity. By Christine Mungai, Truthout Part of the Series: Religion’s Role in the Struggle for Justice December 16, 2020 photo above: howafrica.com WN: This is the central theme of this website! A significant portion of what follows is from the previous highlighted part. There is […]

Manmeet Singh Bhullar Left A Legacy Of Making Others Feel Like They Belong

Manmeet Singh Bhullar Left A Legacy Of Making Others Feel Like They Belong The grief and lessons, five years after I lost my brother. By Tarjinder Bhullar, Special To HuffPost photo: Courtesy of Tarjinder Bhullar WN: This testimonial is powerful and delightful, while tinged with acknowledging a tragic loss to his family–also to Canada and […]

Is This the Beginning of the End of American Racism?

Is This the Beginning of the End of American Racism? Donald Trump has revealed the depths of the country’s prejudice—and has inadvertently forced a reckoning. by Ibram X. Kendi September 2020 Issue Ideas image above: The Atlantic WN: I love the ironic optimism of this piece! As you will see excerpted in context below, I […]

RCMP Perpetuates Misogynistic, Homophobic And Racist Culture: Report

11/19/2020 By Samantha Beattie photo above: Jeff McIntosh/THE CANADIAN PRESS WN: My short response to the current Commissioner: She does not know (or admit knowing) and does not care to know (more); so there will be no external review–and no systemic change–unless imposed and done independently of police and prison personnel. Then who will implement […]

The United States Is Not a Democracy. Stop Telling Students That It Is.

When our students only learn about this exceptionally strange system from their corporate-produced history and government textbooks, they have no clue why this is how we choose our president. Published on Wednesday, November 18, 2020 by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca (Zinn Education Project) photo above: Students deserve an explanation for the origins of the Electoral College. (Photo: […]

Trump’s Politics Fractured My Family. Where Do We Go After The Election?

Trump’s Politics Fractured My Family. Where Do We Go After The Election? I’m a Democrat, they’re Republicans. Healing the political divide will be America’s next challenge. Updated 11/13/2020 By Jenn Merritt, Special To HuffPost     WN: The article highlighted below holds special sadness for me, given a similar concern in our family with some […]

The Trial of the Chicago Seven: A Review by Martha Sonnenberg

The Intersection of Memory and History: A Review of “The Trial of the Chicago Seven,” written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, Netflix By Martha Sonnenberg October 28, 2020 WN: While I lived through this history as a young university student, I was largely oblivious, since back then politics had (so I thought, and a Regent […]

The Unraveling of America

by Wade Davis August 6, 2020 Wade Davis holds the Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. His award-winning books include “Into the Silence” and “The Wayfinders.” His new book, “Magdalena: River of Dreams,” is published by Knopf. WN: This is an exceptional article! There is however a […]

Life Under the Bomb Means a Life of Resistance

Published on Thursday, August 06, 2020 by Common Dreams by Rev. John Dear photo above: “Our message over the years has been simple and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us. They don’t make us safer; they don’t provide jobs; they don’t make us more secure—these are age-old lies. Instead they bankrupt us, economically and […]

An Open Letter To Joe Biden

Dear Mr. Biden. If I might be so bold, I wonder about connecting some dots at this incredible kairos moment of U.S. and world history. I was moved by your empathetic videoed message to the Floyd family during the funeral service in Houston. You have deeply suffered multiple losses as this article sensitively points out: […]

Beyond the Economic Chaos of Coronavirus Is a Global War Economy

Beyond the Economic Chaos of Coronavirus Is a Global War Economy By William I. Robinson, Truthout March 23, 2020 photo above: Image by Unknown Owner WN: Great wisdom here. Only the extremely naïve believe that the militarized capitalism of the West is about democracy. Anything but! excerpts: What does a virus have to do with […]

“A FIRE STRONG ENOUGH TO CONSUME THE HOUSE”:

by William T. Cavanaugh first published in: Modem Theology 11:4 October 1995 ISSN 0266-7177 WN: Dr. Cavanaugh has been producing an impressive list of scholarly works challenging certain Enlightenment narratives about Christianity in the West. I previously reviewed two of his books together: The Myth of Religious Violence and Migrations of the Holy. I can […]

Uncovering Russiagate’s Origins Could Prevent Future Scandals

There are legitimate grounds to probe the intelligence officials behind the all-consuming Trump-Russia affair. By Aaron Maté October 28, 2019 photo above: Trump shakes hands with Attorney General William Barr before taking the podium in the East Room of the White House in September. He was awarding police officers and civilians for their role in […]

Saying Goodbye to Sam

Oct 28, 2019 Opinion | TD originals sketch above: Mr. Fish / Truthdig Chris Hedges Columnist Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers… And so much more! WN: Chris Hedges is […]

Donald Trump: An American Tragedy for the U.S. and the Entire World

By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay Global Research, October 24, 2019 “If this [U.S.] government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful […]

Crises in Iraq and Haiti Expose the Failure of Militarized Neoliberalism

It should be no surprise that the new governments installed by all these U.S. wars and coups are among the most corrupt regimes on earth.  Published on Thursday, October 10, 2019 by Common Dreams by Medea Benjamin and by Nicolas J S Davies photo above: Not only are they reeling from protests against government corruption […]

Why this ‘genius’ scholar is mapping out the world’s largest jail system

photo above: Kelly Lytle Hernández, who received the MacArthur ‘genius’ grant, views prison abolition through the eyes of rebels Fri 11 Oct 2019 by Sam Levin WN: In a revised forthcoming publication by Wipf and Stock Publishers, namely Volume One of Justice That Transforms, I write: Longtime Restorative Justice promoter Howard Zehr once directly critiqued […]

Playing the Trump Card in Ukraine

October 1, 2019 by Victor Grossman WN: Indeed! excerpts: Yes, we all detest Trump and would be gladdened and relieved to see the last of those orange-yellow tresses now defiling the pure White House! Therefore: impeachment – olé! But does all such current enthusiasm have the same motivation? The reasons stressed by most of the […]

Beyond Impeachment: Remove This Regime from Below

October 1, 2019 by Paul Street photo above: White House – Public Domain WN: This is a powerful broadside against the Ultimate Bad Guy on the Planet: the Evil Empire of the United States of America! The vehemence is found not only in the colourful language, but even in the typos . . . Mr. […]

Donald Trump Is Finished

Sep 30, 2019 TD originals Bill Blum photo above: President Donald Trump, with Vice President Mike Pence at left, takes part in an Armed Forces event at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va., on Monday. (Evan Vucci / AP) WN: Of all the vile presidents I have lived through, Trump is clearly the worst: as I […]

A Killer Cop Gets Fired, and Somehow the Cops Are Angry

Daniel Pantaleo suffered the absolute minimal consequence for killing Eric Garner. The fact that the police union is throwing a tantrum is sick and outrageous. By Elie Mystal August 21, 2019 photo above: Police Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch, left, speaks during a press conference at PBA headquarters following a decision to terminate Daniel […]

Facial Recognition Tech Is Growing Stronger, Thanks to Your Face

By Cade Metz July 13, 2019 photo above: The Brainwash database, created by Stanford University researchers, contained more than 10,000 images and nearly 82,000 annotated heads. .CreditCreditOpen Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License, via Megapixels WN: The article highlighted is very foreboding. Please read some of the other articles that are clickable in the […]

How Can We Celebrate “Freedom” While Kids Are in Concentration Camps?

How Can We Celebrate “Freedom” While Kids Are in Concentration Camps? By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout Published July 4, 2019 photo above: Pro tip, flag-waver: Your July Fourth “freedom” narrative is a bald-faced lie.Lauren Walker / Truthout WN: And damned if anyone out there for the most part cares!… I have a close relative who […]

Good Friday Sermon and Easter Sermon, 2017 by Randy Klassen

Good Friday Sermon and Easter Sermon, 2017 by Randy Klassen photo above: Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem WN: Randy Klassen is an esteemed member of the CoSA Canada Board, and past National Restorative Justice Coordinator for the Mennonite Central Committee Canada. That position and others were sadly eliminated due to financial restructuring at MCCC […]

Ecuador legalized gangs. Murder rates plummeted.

Ecuador legalized gangs. Murder rates plummeted. A stunningly successful experiment has the potential to upend the mainstream US approach to deviance. By Sigal Samuel Mar 26, 2019, 7:40am photo above: insightcrime.org WN: All the evidence-based research supports what we read in the article highlighted below. In it we read: Absolutely. It’s all about a progressive, […]

Christchurch, the White Victim Complex and Savage Capitalism

Christchurch, the White Victim Complex and Savage Capitalism March 15, 2019 by Ben Debney drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair WN: There is much on “savage capitalism” on this website. This expression likely references Rudyard Kipling’s famous line “The savage wars of peace” from his classic pro-American Empire poem: “The White Man’s Burden: The United States […]

Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity

Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout Published March 14, 2019 photo above: CNN Politics WN: The article highlighted below describes a continuing horror story… Lord, have mercy. Then, I must confess that this article makes me hopping furious for another reason! I’m livid about the majority of […]

On the Record: Jody Wilson-Raybould’s Devastating Testimony on the SNC-Lavalin Scandal

On the Record: Jody Wilson-Raybould’s Devastating Testimony on the SNC-Lavalin Scandal Trudeau tried to pressure justice minister to cut deal to let corporation avoid bribery prosecution, she says. By Tyee Staff February 27, 2019 | TheTyee.ca photo above:Jody Wilson-Raybould: ‘I come from a long line of matriarchs and I am a truth teller in accordance with the […]

How Colin Kaepernick Beat the NFL

How Colin Kaepernick Beat the NFL His settlement with the league is a major victory for the leader of the league’s protest movement. By Jeremy Stahl Feb 15, 2019 5:22 PM photo above: New York City, New York, JuLY 12 ,2020: In this photo we see a graphic artist drawing, painting, an artist made of […]

Why today’s criminal justice reform efforts won’t end mass incarceration

Why today’s criminal justice reform efforts won’t end mass incarceration WN: The article highlighted below is outstanding commentary on the horror and bankruptcy of mass incarceration. John Pfaff December 21, 2018 excerpts: Even with all the attention it receives, the scale of incarceration and punishment in the United States can still be hard to comprehend. […]

Former New York Times reporter slams grand jury report on clerical abuse

Former New York Times reporter slams grand jury report on clerical abuse Jan 11, 2019 by Thomas Reese, Religion News Service Accountability Opinion   photo above: Attorney General Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania speaks at a news conference in the state Capitol after legislation to respond to a landmark grand jury report accusing hundreds of Roman […]

Tucker Carlson has sparked the most interesting debate in conservative politics

Tucker Carlson has sparked the most interesting debate in conservative politics “All I’m saying is don’t act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God.” By Jane Coastonjane.coaston@vox.com Jan 10, 2019, 5:00am EST   photo above: Tucker Carlson, host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, in his Fox News Channel studio in New York on […]

Trump routinely says things that aren’t true. Few Americans believe him.

Trump routinely says things that aren’t true. Few Americans believe him. Polling A new Washington Post Fact Checker poll Take the quiz to see how your fact-checking skills stack up against others nationwide. Reporting by Glenn Kessler and Scott Clement Graphics by Kevin Schaul Analysis and fact-checking by Emily Guskin, Meg Kelly and Salvador Rizzo […]

Justice That Transforms — Book Series

First 3 Volumes Fall 2018; Volume One Republished January 2020; two more projected late 2023 SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. WN: I’m pleased to add this page about three books produced fall 2018. They are of my writings on Restorative Justice over the years, including (in Volume One) […]

Trump’s Pantheistic Temptation

February 06, 2017 by Vern Redekop WN: Anything my friend and scholar Vern Redekop writes — and he is prolific! — is invariably thoughtful/thought-provoking. To understand a greater context for his article copied in full below, please see: René Girard. Vern is a noted Girardian scholar. ********** In the book, René Girard and Creative Mimesis, […]

Millennial Evangelicals Diverge from Their Parents’ Beliefs

The separation of families at the border, climate change, and various progressive causes have galvanized young Christians. By Eliza Griswold August 27, 2018 WN: I have a white Canadian Evangelical friend who expresses being fed up with white Evangelical-bashing — in particular towards white Evangelicals south of the border1. I argue on the contrary that […]

The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism

The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean August 24, 2018 Slavery and the Origins of Capitalism by Louis Proyect WN: I wrote the following in introduction to a book similar in its findings about 19th-century American capitalism to 17th-century colonial capitalism, entitled The Half  Has Never […]

Enough Bombs Bursting in Air. We Need to Love One Another.

By William Rivers Pitt Truthout, Published July 4, 2018 WN: I love it when people not necessarily in the faith reflect back to us Jesus’ central message to “love one another”. And I think it singularly sobering that they remind people of faith about its central tenet. Would that the white evangelical majority everywhere in […]

The Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, and American Exceptionalism

Posted on July 21, 2015 by christian hegemony Challenging Christian Hegemony Practical tools for recognizing and resisting Christian dominance WN: Every time I read an essay so well presented as that highlighted below (and so beyond tragic!), as a committed follower of Jesus, I know that I don’t have to wear the blame, but I […]

Pope Francis’ blind spot on sexual abuse

Jan 25, 2018 by Thomas Reese, Religion News Service Opinion photo above: Pope Francis talks with Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, left, as they arrive for a consistory at the Vatican on Feb. 13, 2015. (Courtesy of Reuters/Tony Gentile) WN: Given so many cover-ups of the horror of sexual abuse by priests, Pope Francis on down […]

Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race

For years, racism has been defined by the violence of far-right extremists, but a more insidious kind of prejudice can be found where many least expect it – at the heart of respectable society Listen to the audio version of this long read Tuesday 30 May 2017 05.30 BST (Last modified on Wednesday 31 May 2017 […]

On 9/11: How We Hyped Terrorism and Slighted the Real Threat: Climate Change

SEP 11, 2017 Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and the proprietor of the Informed Comment e-zine. He has written extensively on modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf and South Asia and has given numerous media interviews on the war on terrorism and […]

We Must Speak Out: Christian Leaders on the White Nationalist Rally

The hate must end. August 13, 2017 This weekend, hundreds of alt-right white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, to hold a “Unite the Right” rally. Their stated goal was to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a park. Their rally, which consisted of neo-Nazis, heavily armed militia members […]

How to Challenge Media Narratives Without Being Called a Conspiracy Theorist

August 12, 2017 John Kiriakou Contributor photo above: President Kennedy minutes before his assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Also in the presidential limousine: Jackie Kennedy, Texas Gov. John Connally and Connally’s wife, Nellie. (Walt Cisco / Wikimedia) WN: As to the last line of the quote below: You can fool all the people […]

Who Weeps Not, Sees Not: Celebrating Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables

Friday, June 30, 2017 by Abby Zimet, staff writer full text: For a break from the current squalor, we pay tribute to Victor Hugo (1802-1885), who on this date in 1862 published the last chapter of Les Misérables, his extraordinary, timeless, 1,500 page paean to the wretched of the earth that gave voice to the long-suffering voiceless. […]

Ajamu Baraka, “Uncle Tom,” and the Pathology of White Liberal Racism

AUGUST 24, 2016 by ERIC DRAITSER WN: White Supremacy has many disguised faces. One is “white liberal”, worn by those who supported a Black President because it is the “liberal thing” to be anti-racist, and who smugly know they do the right thing: end of all discourse. But the issue is far deeper – and […]

The world vs Donald Trump

Dear friends, The unimaginable has happened. President Trump. And worse, there are Trumps in every town. Threatening all our democracies. What’s most important now is to build a global movement to stop them. Over 2 million of us have signed the open letter, below, from the world to Trump, and it’s been covered across major […]

Nasty Women: Donald Trump, the Greatest Victim in the History of the World

Tomgram: Ann Jones, Donald Trump’s Open Carry | TomDispatch By Ann Jones an excerpt: Donald Trump grabbed a new lifeline. Speaking at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 15th, he raised a hand as if to take an oath and declared: “I am a victim!” The great business tycoon, the one and only […]

Donald Trump’s Campaign Has Been Vile and Offensive—and We Should Thank Him for That

How Trump stopped the gaslighting of America. By Matthew Arnold October 26 9:07 photo above: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Monday, October 10, 2016, in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci) an excerpt: It’s quite possible that a decade from now, we’ll look back on Donald Trump’s norms-transgressing, concession-refusing […]

Buying sex is a crime – though you’d never know it in BC

by Flyn Ritchie October 21, 2016 photo above: Gwendoline Allison was one of several speakers at an October 18 press conference / rally which urged the police and government to enforce Bill C-36. an excerpt: Two years ago the federal government passed Bill C-36, which made the purchase of sex illegal. So far, however, no […]

Marjorie Cohn: President Obama: ‘Patron’ of the Israeli Occupation

Marjorie Cohn: President Obama: ‘Patron’ of the Israeli Occupation – Truthdig Posted on Sep 29, 2016 By Marjorie Cohn President Obama has without fanfare pursued some of the most evil policies of any previous president: • creation of a permawar culture in Washington with consequent thousands into the millions of victims slaughtered in the Greater Middle East […]

LeBron And Friends Opened The ESPYs With A Speech You Need To Hear

“The urgency to create change is at an all-time high.” 07/13/2016 09:04 pm ET Updated Jul 15, 2016 Read the text, and watch the video (linked below) of the four honoured athletes who articulately and straightforwardly call for all gun violence to end: in particular by police, and in retaliation for police killings of Blacks. […]

Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

September 26, 2014 by CHARLES R. LARSON WN: There is someone of my acquaintance who rails against the US Black community for its violence of Black on Black, while almost completely downplaying police violence against Blacks. He also rails against them for their poverty: they just are not enterprising, and therefore deserve their state, end […]

Platform – The Movement for Black Lives

photo above (from this article): A sign marking the number of days activists have occupied Freedom Square, an encampment across the street from the Chicago Police Departments’s “black site” of Homan Square. (Photo: Sarah Ji) Released August 1, 2016 Click on each of the six categories below “DEMANDS” to read the much fuller statements. an […]

Diaspora Jews Are Joining Palestinians in Nonviolent Resistance to the Occupation

There’s a power in using our privilege as American Jews to stand for peace and justice. By Ilana Sumka August 17, 2016 photo above: Protesters march in an annual demonstration to reopen Shuhada Street to Palestinians, Hebron, West Bank, February 2015. an excerpt: The entire premise of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence is that there’s […]

‘They’re Coming for the Ones You Love’: My Weekend of Gun Training in the Desert

photo above: “John Wayne,” an active- duty serviceman, watches his trainer demonstrate a “controlled pair”—two shots to the center of a target. (Evan Simko-Bednarski) At Front Sight Firearms Training Institute, fear is a booming business. By Patrick Blanchfield August 9, 2016 WN: John Lott published a book that has gone through two reissues, most recently […]

Michael Jordan: ‘I can no longer stay silent’

His statement on the shootings of African-Americans and the targeting of police officers July 25, 2016 an excerpt: “As a proud American, a father who lost his own dad in a senseless act of violence, and a black man, I have been deeply troubled by the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement […]

Donald Trump’s Acceptance Speech Reconfirmed His Fascist Authoritarianism

Friday, 22 July 2016 05:14 MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT an excerpt:   “Law and order” were the key code words for Nixon’s Southern strategy that finalized the conversion of the deep South from voting Democratic in presidential elections to voting Republican. The words sent the message that Nixon would seek to keep […]

The Network

Leaked Data Reveals How the U.S. Trains Vast Numbers of Foreign Soldiers and Police With Little Oversight Douglas Gillison, Nick Turse, Moiz Syed July 13 2016, 7:00 a.m. photo above: U.S. Special Forces members advise and assist soldiers assigned to the Belize Special Assignment Group during a marksmanship range exercise near Belize City, Belize, April […]

Beyond Dallas and Orlando, a Global Arc of Violence

Thursday, 14 July 2016 00:00 By Michelle Chen, Truthout | Op-Ed photo above: Motorcycle officers in a motorcade escort for the coffin of Dallas police officer Lorne Ahrens, one of the five victims of the gunman-involved shooting that took place at an otherwise peaceful protest, after funeral services at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, […]

23 Ways You Could be Killed While Being Black

The video features celebrities such as Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, and Rihanna. Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn Jul. 13, 2016 6:50 PM In the week after shootings that left two black men dead, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé and other notable celebrities have teamed up to create this powerful video on the everyday interactions that can get black people killed in […]

State Terrorism and Racist Violence in the Age of Disposability: Expanded Version

Sunday, 10 July 2016 00:00 By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed photo above: Demonstrators record a crowd of police officers on hand in New York’s Times Square, where a large crowd protested after fatal police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, July 7, 2016. (Photo: Christopher Lee / The New York Times) an excerpt: Note […]

The System That Killed Alton Sterling and Philando Castile Cannot Be Reformed

Friday, 08 July 2016 00:00 By Aislinn Pulley, Truthout | Op-Ed photo above: Demonstrators protest police violence after Alton Sterling was killed by Baton Rouge police officers in the parking lot of a Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, July 7, 2016. (William Widmer / The New York Times) an excerpt: There are […]

In Transparent Act, Obama Administration Erases Civilian Deaths From Drone Strikes

photo above: President Barack Obama convenes a meeting in the Situation Room to discuss the latest on the San Bernardino, Calif., shootings, Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015. Photo by the White House on Flickr. Obama and his administration are not only outright liars: they are mass serial killers with impunity. Under either Clinton or Trump, the […]

War Crimes in a Punitive Age

2 May 2016 Joseph Margulies photo above: Joseph Margulies an excerpt: Do you want to know the real problem with criminal justice reform? If we cut through all the stories that now dominate the airwaves—all the chatter about bad police, underfunded defense lawyers, over-zealous prosecutors, and heartless prisons—it is this: Criminal justice reform, as it […]

In Wake of Coup, Should Brazil’s Olympics Be Moved or Become a Site of Protest?

Wednesday, 01 June 2016 00:00 By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Report an excerpt: AMY GOODMAN: Jules Boykoff, can you talk about the police violence and the hypersecurity situation around the Olympics? JULES BOYKOFF: Absolutely. Eighty-five thousand security officials will descend on Rio. That’s double the number of the London Olympics just four years […]

A Modest Proposal Lite

WN: Another now-and-then article. An excerpt: In Western civilization, logic and ethics are usually mutually exclusive, while ideology and ethics are invariably bedfellows. Take Michael Ignatieff for instance, a great Canadian intellectual and current Liberal Party leadership hopeful. He salutes the United States as Empire-Lite (title of one of his books), and applauds its Nation-Building […]

Making Friends of Enemies: Father Elias Chacour

WN: I love this story! Father Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Christian still very active today (and now Archbishop Chacour) in making peace between Palestinians and Jews, was confronted for several months by the cold, unforgiving hearts of his parishioners. Then: On Palm Sunday of his first year as pastor of Ibillin, Elias looked from the […]

The Criminal Justice System and “Criminal” Justice

image above: hub.wsu.edu WN: This is a true story in which in 2000 we intervened on behalf of a friend, with names changed or removed. The first part was a letter sent to two police officers; the second part an attached reflection. They never responded. They were also never heard from again in relation to […]

Just War Against Terror

The Burden of American Power in a Violent World, Jean Bethke Elshtain, New York: Basic Books, 2003, 240 pp. The book is a compelling apologia and call for America to be the police force for the world… Elshtain’s book is grounded in the horror of September 11, 2001, which “provided the historical, political, and rhetorical […]

WAR AND HELL – and Exception-Clause Footnote Theology

WN: War and Hell is an interactive essay with a movie and a book. The movie: Saving Private Ryan. The book: The Other Side of The Good News: Contemporary Challenges to Jesus’ Teaching on Hell, Wheaton: Victor Books, 1992 (later published by one other at least). The current iteration of this document was prepared for […]

Restorative Justice

  NOTE: Some of what follows is excerpted from Chapter One of Justice That Transforms: Volume 1 WN: From a Canadian vantage point, Dr. Herman Bianchi, a Dutch criminologist, is one of the three “grandfathers” (if one must use that term) chronologically of Restorative Justice, together with Mark Yantzi and Dave Worth, the first and longstanding […]