Newsletter #230 — April 19, 2024
Reader Suggested Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
- Violence
Joint Campus-Law Enforcement Preparation for Campus Demonstrations and Hate Incidents amid Violence in the Middle East — An extensively annotated checklist based on input from current and former campus security. city police chiefs and mediators who have worked large-scale crowd events and hate incidents. - Constructive Communication
LEADING A DIVIDED CAMPUS: Ideas and Illustrations — From the Ohio State Divided Community Project, a guidebook to help college and university leaders effectively support students and promote respectful engagement as students react to the ongoing violence in the Middle East. - Effective Problem-Solving
Conflict Engagement and Peacemaking — A Peace Talks Radio podcast with colleague Jay Rothman exploring "conflict engagement" and explaining how this differs from more familiar "conflict resolution." - Israel / Hamas War
Iranians Don't Want a War With Israel — A timely reminder of the limited support that Iran's aggressive military campaigns enjoy with the Iranian people themselves. - Israel / Hamas War
How Many Dead in Gaza? — For a time when casualty statistics coming out of Gaza are driving so much of global politics, an article asking hard questions about the reliability of those statistics. - Israel / Hamas War
How Did the War Begin? With Iran’s Appeasers in Washington — A well-grounded and sharply critical essay highlighting things that the United States did to help make the ongoing Mideast conflagration possible. - US Election
The Three Point Plan to Fix the Democrats and Their Coalition — Concrete steps the Democrats could take to broaden their appeal and reduce the chances of a second Trump Presidency. - Israel / Hamas War
With Iran’s Strikes, Arab Countries Fear an Expanding Conflict — In light of recent events, more thoughts on the way in which ongoing Mideast hostilities could escalate into a much bigger conflagration (and what might be done to avoid this). - Israel / Hamas War
A Fight Between Hamas and Other Palestinians for Power in Gaza Emerges — The fight between those vying for Palestinian leadership in Gaza is, in many ways, as consequential as the fight between Israel and Hamas.
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Saving Democracy
The Legitimacy of the Supreme Court — An examination from the Narrative Project, examining both the right and the left's view of the current Supreme Court. - Developing a Unifying Vision
America's Divided Mind: Video Intervention — This is a 4-minute video which was named one of the most effective interventions to reduce support for political violence, anti-democratic attitudes, and animosity across partisan lines. - Race / Anti-Racism
Horizons' Race and Democracy Resources — An essay on why racial justice and democracy must be pursued hand-in-hand and resources discussing how to do that. - Violence
Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence: Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association — This division encourages psychological and multidisciplinary research, education and training on peace, nonviolent conflict resolution, reconciliation, and the causes, consequences and prevention of violence and destructive conflict. - Peacebuilding
Global Fragility Act Coalition — A coalition of 100 peacebuilding, development, humanitarian, and faith organizations, led by the Alliance for Peacebuilding and Mercy Corp to help the U.S. administration to successfully implement the GFA. - De-Escalation Strategies
What's the best strategy for reducing toxic divides? Cultural change or systemic change? — Zach Elwood talks with David Foster of Know the System.org about ways we can change the media environment to improve political discourse and decrease toxic polarization. - Left / Right Conflict
Can Texas Create Its Own Immigration Policy? — Texas' Senate Bill 4 would make unlawful entry into Texas a state crime, empowering state troopers and cops to arrest individuals suspected of crossing the border illegally and giving state judges the power to issue deportations. AllSides.com explains the reactions.
Beyond Intractability in Context
From around the web, more insight into the nature of our conflict problems, limits of business-as-usual thinking, and things people are doing to try to make things better.
- US Election
Why Can’t Biden Triangulate Like Trump? — A description of the "triangulation" process through which political leaders try to adjust their campaigns and rhetoric to target political voting blocks. - Social Complexity
The Prophets: Eric Hoffer — Given the prominent role that "true believers" are playing in contemporary politics, a timely reflection on the work of Eric Hoffer -- the man who coined the term. - US Election
Blue Morning — An eye-opening report on the demographic changes that are transforming US politics and cultural relationships. - Superpower Conflict
Why so many of us were wrong about missile defense — In the wake of the stunning success of the antimissile systems that protected Israel, reflections from a previous critic of such systems. - Culture and Religion
The Myth of White Christian Nationalism — For a time when many on the left tend to dismiss their political opponents as nothing more than "White Christian Nationalists," an honest effort to try to understand what this actually means. - Superpower Conflict
The U.S. Has Received a Rare Invitation From China. There Is Only One Right Answer. — Encouraging news that the Chinese are starting to realize the dangers posed by the emerging nuclear arms race. We should join them in their efforts to negotiate a new series of arms control treaties. - US Election
Trump’s Backers Are Determined Not to Blow It This Time Around — A window into what opponents of the left's administrative state are planning to do to take advantage of what they hope will be a second Trump Presidency - US Election
No Labels, No Alternatives, No Escape — A postmortem on No Labels' failed effort to put a "national unity" candidate on the November Presidential ballot. - US Election
How No Labels was thwarted — and a disaster for democracy was avoided — From someone opposed to No Labels' efforts to give voters a choice between political extremes, an account of how and why the opposition was successful. - US Election
No Labels Should Pick a Team, Biden or Trump — From potential No Labels nominee, Mitt Romney, advice on how they might better be able to pursue their objectives through the two-party system. - Climate Change
The U.S. Urgently Needs a Bigger Grid. Here’s a Fast Solution. — An example of the kind of unexpected and seemingly insignificant technology that could emerge from the shadows and play a big role in making the energy transition successful. - Authoritarians (and Wannabes)
What Worries Me Most About a Trump Presidency — One nightmare vision of a Trump Presidency -- corrupt machine politics at the national level. - Superpower Conflict
Can Ukraine Find New Soldiers Without Decimating a Whole Generation? — A startling look at the demographic impact impact of the war on the Ukrainian population -- the disappearing cohort of young men. - Superpower Conflict
What We Lose if We Let Putin Win — A reminder of the the enormity of the geopolitical ramifications surrounding the war in Ukraine and the danger of thinking that isolationism will insulate us from those ramifications.
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