Autumn Convergence: Readings

Recommended Readings for the Autumn Convergence

Michelle Alexander, “Breaking My Silence“.   “For years I have written about mass incarceration, while staying mute about drones and other injustices. It is time to connect the dots.”  The Nation, September 23, 2013

Kevin Martin, “Towards a Foreign Policy for the 99 percent“.  “There is a growing U.S. movement linking human and environmental needs with a demand to end our wars and liberate the vast resources they consume.” Foreign Policy in Focus, December 18, 2012

Cole Harrison, “America After Hegemony“.   “The peace movement needs to make it clear not only what we are against, but what we are for.”  Foreign Policy in Focus, March 29, 2013

Neta Crawford, “Implications of Reduced Military Spending for National Security“, testimony presented at the State Legislature’s hearing on the Budget for All resolution, July 10, 2013

Neta Crawford, “War! What Is It Good For? Rethinking the Utility and Costs of Violence and War”, presented at the conference “Justice and Violence”, Frankfurt, Germany, May 15-16, 2013.

Note: Crawford’s new book, Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America’s Post-9/11 Wars, will be available for signing at the Convergence.

Peter Grier and Peter C. Cohen, “The Peace Vision“. “There is a growing U.S. movement linking human and environmental needs with a demand to end our wars and liberate the vast resources they consume.” , Truthout, August 7, 2010

AFSC and FCNL, “Shared Security“. A new vision for shared security premised on peaceful ends through peaceful means, a planetary imperative, global cooperation and the rule of law, and restorative approaches to heal a broken world, April 2013. 

Michael McKee, “Are we Depending too much on the Military’s Media Management?“.  “If Americans were able to compare the public statements many of our leaders have made with classified data, this credibility gulf would be immediately observable.” Truthout, November 8, 2013.

 Bill McKibben. (2010) Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. “Our hope depends…on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale.” Henry Holt and Company. 2010.

Bill McKibben. (2012) “Global warming’s terrifying new math”. “If people come to understand the cold, mathematical truth – that the fossil-fuel industry is systematically undermining the planet’s physical systems – it might weaken it enough to matter politically.”
 Rolling Stone, July 19, 2012.

Michael Klare. “World Energy Report”. “The energy industry’s ability to boost production of oil, coal, and natural gas in North America… [ensures] we are all in a race to see who gets to the Apocalypse first.” Tom’s Dispatch, November 27, 2012. 

Frances Moore Lappe. “Eco-Mind: Changing the way we think, to create the world we want“. “Once we realize that what the economists have been describing as growth is actually not that at all but a highly inefficient economics of waste and destruction, we can move right out of the growth/no-growth debate and take the discourse to another level.” (Nation Books, 2011).

Paul Hawken. Blessed Unrest. “A leading environmentalist and social activist’s examination of the worldwide movement for social and environmental change.” (Penguin, 2007). 

Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone. Active Hope: how to face the mess we’re in without going crazy. “Highly recommended for anyone who ever feels despair, anger, grief etc. about global problems—includes practical exercises focusing on emotional and spiritual issues, and discussion of paradigm changes.” (New World Library, 2012).  

Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, Why Civilian Resistance Works. “A study of 323 nonviolent campaigns from 1900-2006 showing nonviolence’s effectiveness.” (Columbia Univ. Press, 2011).

Barry Sanders. The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism. “The earth can no longer absorb the punishment of war, especially on a scale and with a ferocity that only the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world—no, in history—knows how to deliver.” (AK Press, 2009).

Jeff Crosby and Bill Fletcher Jr. “Viewpoint: AFL-CIO Convention Repositions Unions to Speak for All Workers“. “The AFL-CIO Convention in September took an important turn to re-position unions toward speaking for all working people in the United States.” Labor Notes. October 17, 2013.