Thoughts on History and Politics --

I've been kicking around the movement for social justice since the mid-60s, and have some thoughts on what's involved. Some of these thoughts are on this site, and some are on other sites.

here are some comments I have written:

• No More Hog Heaven, or Only 3 Reasons Left To Be An American
• Envisioning the World After Bush
• A Comment on the Power of Peacemaking In a New Time of War
• Thoughts on the 20th Anniversary of the Virginia Housing Coalition  (I served as its first staffperson 1981-1983.)
• deconstructing the Sixties for today's activists
• An Ancient Fear Still Defines Whiteness (An excerpt from Whitefare, a book written for whites moving away from racism)
• a 1980 letter to the editor -- with a glimpse of the Taliban looming in the future
• my address to my graduating class at Eastern Mennonite University in 2004 (I'm an aging boomer guy, but my college degree is brand new.)
• Practice real anti-terrorism -- from the grassroots, from a moral and practical position
• Katrina -- a disaster, but mostly not natural, and not the last of its kind
• Ten Years of Letters on Race to the Washington Post

Haven't Had Enough?

Some of my writing on related topics is available elsewhere on the Web.

• A paper on the history of housing organizing from the 1930s through the 1990s
• An article on a local community struggle in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, USA
• My 1996 thoughts on the Internet and what it could and couldn't do for activists.
• It's Time for a "Justice" Movement for Affordable Housing, Led by Low-Income People, People of Color and Women published in Shelterforce, March/April 1994
• It's Lonely At the Top -- a look at our illusions about our place in history, published in the online magazine, Inthefray.com
• The Washington Post Elevates Insider Wisdom - Makes Popular Outrage Invisible
• Why the Mainstream Media Got It Wrong on Iraq, and Why the ‘Why’ Is Invisible in the Media
• Reparations and Whiteness

Between book covers ....

I've recently been a contributor to two books:

The Debtors: Whites Respond to the Call for Black Reparations; my chapter is a response to anti-reparations writer David Horowitz. This book is published by Caucasians United for Reparations and Emancipation, a great network of folks.

A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda; my chapter is a history of housing organizing from the New Deal through today, and is a version of the paper noted above.