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
  • RootsAction
  • 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
    commondreams-mobile-logo
    globe-icon
    LATEST NEWSOPINIONCLIMATEECONOMY POLITICS RIGHTS & JUSTICEWAR & PEACE
    LATEST NEWS
    OPINION
    globe-iconlogo-icon
    commondreams-logo
    commondreams-tagline

    robert shetterly

    Whistleblower Daniel Hale

    On the Sentencing--and Courage--of Daniel Hale

    The U.S. government's intense determination to prosecute Daniel Hale is precisely because his principled moral courage asks the profound questions its leaders and defenders do not want asked.

    Robert Shetterly
    Jul 15, 2021

    My next portrait for the Americans Who Tell the Truth project will be Daniel Hale, the former Air Force analyst and drone whistleblower who released classified documents showing that nearly 90% of the casualties of U.S. drone assassination missions are civilians--children, women, workers, farmers, and other people who show up as shadows on drone pilot computer screens and are subsequently rendered permanent shadows. Hale will be sentenced on July 27 in Alexandria, Virginia for the crime of truth telling. In all likelihood he will receive 10 years in prison--surely sufficient time to reflect on the error of his ways, which is, primarily, having an overactive conscience, believing that killing innocent civilians, no matter what the national security excuse, is murder.

    Daniel Hale, who is now 33 years old, the same age, interestingly enough, as a well known religious figure was when he was crucified for defying the state, joins a special club of courageous whistleblowers--including Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Daniel Ellsberg--all of whom naively believed the notion that the government of a democratic society derives its just power from the consent of the governed, and that for the people to grant that consent, they need to know what is being done in their name, and with their money. By keeping secret the most important issues of life and death, such a government teaches how it derives unjust power.

    Keep ReadingShow Less
    Opinion
    White Men in Suits, Original Sin, and  Rumplestiltskin

    White Men in Suits, Original Sin, and Rumplestiltskin

    Robert Shetterly
    Jul 05, 2020

    As a kid growing up in Ohio in the 1950s and '60's I was taught to admire and respect--frankly, be intimidated by--white men in suits. They were the priests of the High Holy Church of How the World Works, constantly chanting the liturgy of economic expansion, war, consumption, entitlement, white supremacy, American superiority, extraction of profit from nature. This teaching wasn't direct, as in, See that man in the charcoal gray Brooks Brothers suit with the red and blue striped tie -- listen to, obey him! But everywhere I looked voices of authority and power emanated from these white men in suits. Kids assumed they were our wise elders, our role models. Some were politicians, some teachers, some generals, some TV broadcasters, businessmen and bankers.

    The suits weren't pretending. They believed their authority was authentic. They believed in the sanctity of their superior whiteness. They believed America was both good and great and white--it seemed the melting pot's most important ingredient was bleach. They believed capitalism was the only right and righteous economic system. They believed they embodied the pinnacle of the great chain of being. They believed nature's bounty was endless and endlessly forgiving. They believed God was rewarding them for their beliefs. They still saluted the flag of Manifest Destiny. They believed the US was right to dominate the people and resources of other countries; imperialism rhymed with duty rhymed with White Man's Burden rhymed with profit. They observed men of their tribe in all the positions of power, and they knew the tribe's costume (the expensive suit) advertised and accentuated their authority. Initiation into this tribe was the fitting of the first suit on the teenage (white male) acolyte. Often the men in suits were corrupt and yet they went on believing anyway; such is the nature of smug entitlement. Corruptness was at one end of the necessity scale. The exception proved the rule.

    Keep ReadingShow Less
    Opinion
    The Alchemy of Turning Protest to Affirmation

    The Alchemy of Turning Protest to Affirmation

    In order for this country and people in this country to perform reprehensible acts, it has to deny its own professed values and laws while pretending to uphold them. Coming to grips with this is not easy, but it must be done.

    Robert Shetterly
    Jun 17, 2020

    When I try to describe how it feels to be alienated--from a country, a group, a partner, an idea, the past, a culture, an identity--lots of emotions surface. Alienation generates anger and sorrow, confusion and loneliness. Yearning and weariness. Despair. Often that which one feels alienated from and the feelings generated are multiple. If my experience and beliefs estrange me from the unrealized values of my country, I feel alienated from the abstract notion of the country, its facade, its citizens, friends who disagree with me, and from the self who felt morally grounded being identified with those values. Each estrangement, like a planet, accumulates a cluster of painful emotions in orbit around it.

    What surprises me is how long alienation may persist without resolution. Two people may remain in a marriage for decades while both are alienated from the love, respect, and companionship which brought them together. Or, far more dramatically, think of the many generations of indigenous people and people of color who persist in the United States in spite of brutal personal and systemic racism, genocide. It's one thing to be loyal to a country which seems to support you, far different to be loyal to one that is actively hostile to you, generation after generation, callously exploiting and diminishing, making you the target of white supremacy.

    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

    Big Brother Trump Is Watching You

    Mike Lee Tries to Sneak Public Land Sale Back Into 'Big, Ugly Bill' Ahead of Senate Vote

    'All Are Now Vulnerable': Legal Scholars Alarmed as DOJ Begins Push to Denaturalize Citizens

    'Heinrich Should Be Ashamed': Lone Senate Dem Helps GOP Deliver Big Pharma Win

    'Just Killed, for Nothing': Israeli Troops Say They Were Ordered to Shoot Aid-Seeking Gaza Civilians

    Senate GOP and Fetterman Block Effort to Stop Trump's War on Iran

    The Kids Are Alright and They’re Taking Over

    'Vicious Islamophobia': GOP Calls for Deportation of US Citizen Mamdani

    Watch: After Key Senate Vote Dems Force Reading of 940-Page GOP Megabill

    Critics Shred JD Vance as He Shrugs Off Millions of Americans Losing Medicaid as 'Minutiae'

    We cover the issues the corporate media never will.
    Please support our journalism.