Greenfield, MA (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – I am heartened each time I come across a study affirming that waging war is not an innate part of human nature, that we humans are just as likely to be peaceful as we are to be violent. To quote the revered anthropologist Margaret Mead, “warfare is only […]
Beating Warheads into Windmills
By H Patricia Hynes and Timmon Wallis | – While we were planning this article, a cascade of crises shattered climate records. July 3-6 set a record for the hottest world average temperatures yet measured. In our state, western Massachusetts was saturated almost daily with heavy humidity and record-setting rain, whose floods devastated $10 million […]
P.O.V: Negotiate for Peace in Ukraine
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – A sign hung in a Greenfield, Massachusetts storefront window: “Negotiate for Peace in Ukraine” – the most direct of the many “Peace,” “and singular “Make Tea Not War;” “Food For All, Not War; “Books Not War;” “Brew Beer Not War;” “Solar Not War;” “Shoes Not War;” “Art Not […]
Not just Cards and Flowers: The 1st ‘Mother’s Day for Peace’ was Held in New York in 1872
Greenville, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment – Feature) – The 19th century origins of Mother’s Day differ vastly in spirit and purpose from celebrations of it in the 20th and 21st centuries. Mother’s Day was first inspired by two women with diverse but compatible social and political purposes. Prior to the Civil War, Ann Reeves […]
As Tax Day Approaches: Is the Federal Budget Moral or Immoral?
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – April, the month tax filings are due, prompts us to ponder what our income taxes pay for. Are they used to provide all citizens sufficient resources and public goods for human security and well-being – the core of our national security? How much of our taxes pay […]
How local Peace Work changes Culture, Town by Town, Generation by Generation
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – Signs abound in Greenfield, Massachusetts’ downtown shop windows, among them PEACE, ART NOT WAR, FOOD FOR ALL NOT WAR, SOLAR NOT WAR, MAKE TEA NOT WAR… Why have so many shop owners and institutions, including the Greenfield Library and Greenfield Community Television, agreed to offer their store windows […]
Imagining a World Without Nuclear Weapons
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – January 22 marks the second anniversary of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a global lifeboat supported by 70% of the world’s countries. Meanwhile, the US Department of Energy’s 2023 budget request for nuclear weapons’ upgrade is more than $21 billion and close to $8 […]
A Letter to President Joe Biden: About that pledge you Made of “Diplomacy First”
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – Dear Joe, Remember the mid-March snowball fight with some boys in our 8th grade class at St Helena’s School in Wilmington, Delaware? The snow was wet and made for hard, icy snowballs, so I hid my young sister Monica behind a parked car. You joined me against the […]
The Other Way of Celebrating Armistice Day: Soldiers and Vets for Peace
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – The first Armistice Day November 11, 1919 was a celebration of the moment – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918 – that the brutality of that first industrial war, World War I, which robbed 40 million soldiers and civilians of life, ended; […]
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