Tag: human rights
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#AmericanAutumn
Over at Waging Nonviolence, I’ve been doing a bunch of coverage of some of the big protest actions being planned this fall, efforts to turn people’s attention away from the nonsense straw polls and candidate posturing and onto masses of people in the streets. I’ve been going to planning meetings for both those intending to…
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Text Messages Live from Madison
My fellow Killing the Buddha editor?Quince Mountain is, as we blog-speak, in the occupied Capitol building of Madison, Wisconsin. Over the course of yesterday, he and I had an extended text-message exchange, which tells the dramatic story of a rumored crackdown, a victory, celebrations, and preparations for the next crisis. The full account of yesterday…
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Gene Sharp and the Science of People Power
It’s a happy day when good ideas—and the people who create them—get their due. Today was one of those days. Thanks in large part to The New York Times’s feature on the backdrop of the revolution in Egypt, and then a profile devoted to him (which as I write is still #1 on the most-emailed…
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The Kabul Scarf
It’s New Year’s Eve, and last night my colleague at Waging Nonviolence, Eric Stoner, returned safely from Afghanistan. He was there as a journalist and activist with an envoy of peacemakers, meeting networks of Afghans and internationals who are working to end the endless war, to which so many young people in that country have…
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Doing Theology
At The Immanent Frame today, I interview Charles Villa-Vicencio, a theologian who served as National Research Director for the historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission in his native South Africa. We discuss peacebuilding, forgiveness, and the kind of spirituality that he sees emerging in his country as part of the challenge of building a new nation.…
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Will Boycotting Mass Spur Reform?
What would happen if, one Sunday morning, the Catholic hordes stayed home from mass in protest? Would the priests listen to the people’s demands? Or would they carry on without us? Over the weekend I had an essay at Religion Dispatches about an elderly Irish woman who proposed just such a protest in order to…
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Studying Religion Is Revolutionary in China
Like pretty much everything else over there right now, religion is a growth industry in China. After decades of official repression a whole bunch of new religious movements—and, even more, new forms of old religions—are gathering steam. Trying to get a handle on this from back here in New York, I did an interview with…
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The Significance of Borders
In an attempt to tame the back-and-forth we had on Bloggingheads recently, religious and philosophical ethicist Richard Amesbury and I have a text interview today at The Immanent Frame, which covers a similarly broad range of themes: human rights, the definition of religion, and New Atheism. NS: Is there something that, above all, ties together…