To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.

×
  • Home
  • Politics
  • Climate
  • Economy
  • Rights & Justice
  • War & Peace
  • Breaking News
  • Opinion
  • News
  • Newswire
  • Further
  • Planned Parenthood Action Fund
  • Trade Justice Education Fund
  • Profile Organization Test
  • ProsperUS
  • Repairers of the Breach
  • Fix Our Senate
  • ACLU Florida
  • Alliance for Retired Americans
  • Concerted Action
  • Green New Deal Network
  • Costs of War
  • Fossil Free Media
  • Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights
  • Independent Jewish Voices Canada
  • Cascadia Wildlands
  • Congressman Jamaal Bowman
  • Environmental Defense
  • National Coalition for the Homeless
  • Riverkeeper
  • U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines
  • Free Gaza Movement
  • Friends of the Earth Europe
  • Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
  • Basel Action Network
  • Healthy California Now
  • Groundwork Collaborative
  • One Fair Wage
  • Progressive International
  • Data for Progress
  • Congressman Ro Khanna
  • Fight Corporate Monopolies
  • Mijente
  • Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
  • Oxfam America
  • Repair Our Democracy
  • Farm Action
  • Accountable.Senate
  • The Sentencing Project
  • Hunger Free America
  • Fridays for Future
  • Family Farm Action
  • National Family Farm Coalition
  • Protect the Results
  • AFSCME
  • Color Of Change PAC
  • MPower Change
  • Western Watersheds Project
  • WildEarth Guardians
  • The Elders
  • Gwich'in Steering Committee
  • Stop the Money Pipeline
  • United Nations Human Rights - Special Procedures
  • Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO)
  • Communications Workers of America
  • The Endangered Species Coalition
  • Center for Climate Integrity
  • Climate Power
  • NORML
  • Lower Drug Prices Now
  • National Education Association (NEA)
  • Democracy Initiative
  • Small Business for Paid Leave
  • Campaign Legal Center
  • Muslim Advocates
  • Congresswoman Ilhan Omar
  • Accountable.US
  • Climate Mobilization
  • GLAD
  • Out & Equal
  • American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
  • The Sunrise Project
  • American Economic Liberties Project
  • Bend the Arc
  • Poor People's Campaign
  • Jewish Voice for Peace Action
  • The Revolving Door Project
  • Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
  • TIME'S UP Now
  • Oil Change U.S.
  • Vote Climate U.S. PAC
  • Community Change Action
  • Democracy 21
  • Environmental Justice Foundation
  • Center for Popular Democracy Action
  • Climate Justice Alliance
  • Free Press Action
  • International Rivers
  • JVP Action
  • Open Markets Institute
  • Center for Popular Democracy
  • Stand Up America
  • Demand Justice
  • Stand.earth
  • By the People
  • The Sanders Institute
  • Tax March
  • Friends of the Earth Scotland
  • Justice Democrats
  • Sunrise Movement
  • Western Values Project
  • Good Jobs First
  • Climate Works for All
  • Democratic Socialists of America
  • Freedom From Facebook & Google
  • National Center for Transgender Equality
  • As You Sow
  • Rootstrikers
  • Every Voice
  • Direct Action Everywhere
  • Earthworks
  • Global Witness
  • National Abortion Federation
  • Representative Keith Ellison
  • Transgender Law Center (TLC)
  • Sea Shepherd
  • American Promise
  • Americans For Tax Fairness Action Fund
  • Biofuelwatch
  • Grassroots International
  • Climate Justice Programme
  • End Rape On Campus (EROC)
  • Stop the Wall
  • Organization for Competitive Markets
  • Balestra Media
  • Pacifica Foundation
  • The LGBT Network
  • Compassion in World Farming
  • UNHCR
  • Community Alliance for Global Justice
  • Elders Rising
  • Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America
  • The Right Livelihood Award
  • Women's Earth & Climate Action Network (WECAN)
  • The International Rescue Committee
  • Women Cross DMZ
  • Acadia Center
  • American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC)
  • The New York Immigration Coalition
  • GAIA
  • The Culinary Union
  • The American Immigration Council
  • Citizens Against Monopoly
  • Our Revolution
  • United We Dream
  • National Women's Law Center
  • SumofUs
  • Global Zero
  • The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC)
  • NAACP Legal Defense Fund
  • Network Lobby
  • NIAC Action
  • Asian Americans Advancing Justice
  • Freedom of the Press Foundation
  • Progressive Congress Action Fund
  • The Main Street Alliance
  • Millions Marching For Medicare For All
  • The World Health Organization
  • Senator Elizabeth Warren
  • Rep. Barbara Lee
  • John Conyers, Jr., Congressman
  • The Commonwealth Fund
  • Social Security Works
  • Mercy for Animals
  • American Federation of Teachers
  • Climate Disobedience Center
  • Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
  • Open Media
  • Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
  • Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
  • Bold Alliance
  • The Greenlining Institute
  • Physicians for Reproductive Health
  • Americans for Tax Fairness
  • Climate Action Tracker
  • American Federation of Government Employees
  • Patriotic Millionaires
  • Congresswoman Barbara Lee
  • Progressive Change Campaign Committee
  • Indivisible
  • Friends of the Earth Action
  • Stop the War Coalition
  • Earthrights International
  • Free Speech for People
  • National Employment Law Project
  • Navdanya International
  • Open Debate Coalition
  • Shut It Down - Climate Direct Action
  • SOA Watch
  • Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
  • Green Party of the US
  • Live Share Grow
  • Advancement Project
  • Chicago Teachers Union
  • Indigenous Environmental Network
  • Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition
  • Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
  • The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
  • Stop Mass Incarceration Network - Chicago
  • International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
  • Progress Michigan
  • 350 Action
  • Climate Action Network International
  • Climate Tracker
  • Regeneration International
  • Ecojustice
  • Together for Global Justice (CIDSE)
  • Carbon Underground
  • Fight for $15
  • sHELLNO
  • Pembina Institute
  • Global Justice Now
  • Grassroots Leadership
  • La Via Campesina
  • New York Civil Liberties Union
  • Privacy International
  • National Iranian American Council (NIAC)
  • Restaurant Opportunities Centers United
  • U.S. Right to Know
  • Share the World's Resources
  • National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
  • Don't Shoot Coalition
  • Fight for the Future
  • Environmental Action
  • Oceana
  • UltraViolet
  • Huu-ay-aht First Nations
  • Latino Advocacy
  • Western Environmental Law Center
  • Rolling Jubilee
  • Coalition for Peace Action
  • Rodale Institute
  • Food Research and Action Center
  • Reject and Protect
  • The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars
  • Center for Reproductive Rights
  • People's Action
  • Iraq Veterans Against the War
  • Jewish Voice for Peace
  • US Robin Hood Tax Campaign
  • Chesapeake Climate Action Network
  • Council of Canadians
  • Haiti: Make Births Safe
  • Center for Corporate Policy
  • Our Children's Trust
  • The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
  • Friends of the Earth International
    Common Dreams. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
    Common Dreams Globe
    LATEST NEWSOPINIONCLIMATEECONOMY POLITICS RIGHTS & JUSTICEWAR & PEACE
    LATEST NEWS
    OPINION
    Common DreamsTo inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.

    gus speth

    We're Stepping Up--Join Us For a Day to Halt This Climate Crisis

    We're Stepping Up--Join Us For a Day to Halt This Climate Crisis

    We’re calling for a global strike on 20 September. Disrupting our normal lives is the only way to secure our future

    Bill Mckibben
    Naomi Klein
    Nnimmo Bassey
    May 24, 2019

    On 20 September, at the request of the young people who have been staging school strikes around the world, we're walking out of our workplaces and homes to spend the day demanding action on the climate crisis, the greatest existential threat that all of us face. It's a one-day climate strike, if you will - and it will not be the last. This is going to be the beginning of a week of action all over the world. And we hope to make it a turning point in history.

    We hope to make it a turning point in history.

    Keep ReadingShow Less
    Opinion
    A People's State of the Nation

    A People's State of the Nation

    We now face a daunting, festering array of challenges that were decades in the making. If we are to save ourselves, we must take an honest look at where we are and then act urgently to get where we want to go.

    James Gustave Speth
    Mar 29, 2019

    With Democratic candidates for president coming forward and progressives nationwide defining the agenda ahead, this is a good time to look hard at where we are as a country. Abraham Lincoln put it best: "If we could first know where we are... we could better judge what to do and how to do it."

    So where are we? There are many ways to judge, but one important way is to compare ourselves to other advanced democracies and see where we stand in the rankings. Let's focus on twenty well-to-do countries, all members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In addition to the U.S., the group includes the fifteen major countries of Western Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

    Surely it is time to think clearly about how we arrived at this place, and what it means when huge problems arise and persist across almost the whole spectrum of national life. Now it is time to decide "what to do and how to do it."

    Next, we need to know which rankings are important. People have different aspirations for the U.S., as we know all too well. The information presented below seeks to bypass abstractions like the overall economy and look instead at the situation facing actual people. To this end, it looks at U.S. performance in the areas of social welfare and economic security, environment and climate, health and well-being, education, gender rights and women, and democratic governance.

    Theses realities deserve our most serious attention and links to all the referenced data are included for further exploration. These measures of our current situation--this "People's State of the Nation" as it were--point to where American efforts must be. Even a few minutes with your head bowed over this material--which shows the U.S. woefully behind our peer countries--should convince you that we have let our national situation deteriorate for far too long. The following statistics show the United States is at the very bottom in treatment of women, treatment of children, environmental performance, and many key measures of social and economic well-being, including poverty, inequality, and longevity. No wonder Americans are frustrated and angry.

    We now face a daunting, festering array of challenges that were decades in the making. These are issues that deeply afflict our lives and living, and will require the most determined and sustained policy response if we are to save ourselves and help others abroad facing even more dire prospects.

    Many aspects of our national condition cannot be adequately captured in international comparisons, for example the special burdens across almost all issues faced by blacks and other minorities in America. The same is true for many international issues, like troops of some variety on the ground today in an estimated 149 of the world's 195 countries.

    If we fail to come together to address these challenges, we will remain mired in desperate needs, split by deep divisions, and endlessly burdened and diverted by the cumulative consequences of global warming.

    Surely it is time to think clearly about how we arrived at this place, and what it means when huge problems arise and persist across almost the whole spectrum of national life. Now it is time to decide "what to do and how to do it."

    We know what is at stake on individual issues explored below, like the treatment of children. But, on a larger canvas, what is also at stake is the success of our experiment in nationhood. If we fail to come together to address these challenges, we will remain mired in desperate needs, split by deep divisions, and endlessly burdened and diverted by the cumulative consequences of global warming.

    Keep ReadingShow Less
    Opinion
    After 40 Years of Government Inaction on Climate, Have We Finally Turned a Corner?

    After 40 Years of Government Inaction on Climate, Have We Finally Turned a Corner?

     Policy expert Gus Speth talks about Our Children’s Trust’s lawsuit, explaining the U.S.’s longtime knowledge of climate change even as it pushed fossil fuels. But now we've got a fighting chance.

    Fran Korten
    Feb 22, 2019

    In 2015, 21 young people sued the U.S. government for promoting the fossil fuel industry even when it was aware of the dangers of climate change. In Juliana v. United States, the youths accused the government of endangering their future well-being thereby violating the government's public trust responsibility and their constitutional rights.

    The U.S. government has repeatedly tried to stop this case from moving to trial. Courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have denied or refused to rule on government challenges. The case is currently before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on yet another motion to dismiss.

    Keep ReadingShow Less
    Opinion

    SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

    Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

    subscribe
    below
    * indicates required
    True
    True
    Follow Us
    Most Popular

    New Trump Order Among 'Scariest Things I've Seen in US Politics,' Civil Rights Attorney Says

    Trump Is Breaking the Promise Our Nation Made to Military Veterans

    Trump's DC Occupation Costs 4 Times More Than It Would Take to House City's Entire Homeless Population

    More Countries Condemn Trump's 'Imperialist' Saber-Rattling Against Venezuela

    Here's a Map of What Trump-GOP Destruction of US Hospitals Looks Like

    Grocery Chains Are Passing Trump Tariff Costs on to US Consumers With Higher Prices: Report

    Why Are Conservatives So Destructive? It’s Everyone Else’s Fault

    Trump Says Chicago 'Probably Next' for National Guard Invasion

    Dems Accuse Trump of 'Another Bullsh*t Manufactured Crisis' to Justify Chicago Invasion

    Trump's Gestapo-Style Raids Mimic Nazi Dictatorship Playbook

    Together, we can defend the truth when it’s under siege.
    Your support powers the fearless, independent reporting that democracy depends on.