Frida Berrigan
Frida Berrigan, a columnist for WagingNonviolence.org, serves on the board of the War Resisters League and organizes with Witness Against Torture.
Articles by this author
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Views Tuesday, January 28, 2020 Sometimes We Can Make Our Own Hope “YES!” he yelled, thrusting his fist in the air. “We get to live in the mayor’s house!” My son’s reaction when I told his two sisters and him that I was running for mayor of our town became the laugh line of my campaign. But in real time, I had to burst his bubble. “Oh Seamus,” I said, smiling, “... Read more |
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Views Thursday, October 03, 2019 Protecting the Children on a Trumpian Planet Okay, I'll admit it. Sometimes I can't take the bad news. It's too much. It's so extra, as the kids like to say. When I hit that wall of hopelessness and anxiety so many of us have become familiar with, I take what I think of as a "kid break." I stare into the faces of my three children seeking... Read more |
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Views Sunday, April 21, 2019 Nuclear Weapons Ruined My Life, and I Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way I want to offer you something different than the barrage of facts and figures around nuclear weapons. But let’s establish the basics. There are nine countries that possess them: France, China, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and — of course — Russia and the United States... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 14, 2019 A Mother Swept Away by Climate Change Kids are taking over the streets in other countries, rallying and chanting and refusing to go to school one day a week. Young people across the world are striking to draw attention to the ravages of climate change. They are demanding -- with their bodies and their voices -- that the catastrophe... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, October 02, 2018 The Cheetah in Us All “I don’t want to live in a world without cheetahs, Mom.” Seamus loves cheetahs and what’s not to love -- unless you are a Thomson’s gazelle ? Cheetahs are the fastest mammals on the planet, formidable predators, sleek, saucy looking, and they even have spots. My six-year-old boy can’t imagine a... Read more |
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Views Thursday, May 17, 2018 50 Years Later, the Spirit of the Catonsville Nine Lives On It was a big moment. More than a hundred people watched as a college professor held one end of a heavy vinyl cover, helping an 88-year-old woman, pull it from the top of a tall metal sign. Together, they unveiled a familiar looking historic marker — the kind that draws attention to battlefields... Read more |
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Views Monday, April 16, 2018 Gunning Down the Easter Bunny: On the Weaponization of Everyday Life Guns. In a country with more than 300 million of them, a country that’s recently been swept up in a round of protests over the endless killing sprees they permit, you’d think I might have had more experience with them. As it happens, I’ve held a gun only once in my life. I even fired it. I was in... Read more |
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Views Saturday, April 07, 2018 How Do You Tell the Kids that Grandma is in Jail for Resisting Nuclear Weapons? “Our grandma is in jail,” Madeline tells a woman wrestling a shopping cart at Target. “She went over a war fence and tried to make peace,” Seamus adds helpfully. “They arrested her, and she is in jail now.” “Where?” the woman asks, looking from them to me in disbelief and maybe pity. “We don’t... Read more |
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Views Monday, January 08, 2018 'Do Kids Die, Mom?: Parenting in a World on Fire As a mother and an activist, here’s what I’ve concluded as 2018 begins: it’s getting harder and harder to think about the future -- at least in that soaring Whitney Houston fashion. You know the song: “I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way...” These days,... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, October 24, 2017 How Can We Turn Military Spending into a Budget for the People? Connecticut is the only state in the union that does not have a budget, and the state’s bills are being paid in emergency supplementals — or going past due. The state is budget-less, so my town of New London — one of its smaller urban communities — doesn’t have a budget either. That means a hiring... Read more |