As a direct result of the thinking in my book and other developments in my life, I have undertaken training to become a licensed psychotherapist in Washington State. Very likely, this blog will soon begin to reflect my specific interest in that aspect of social change work more than it has in the past.  I take myself to be in good company: Freud, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, and Slavoj Žižek--to name a few--all combined a deep interest in human psychology with social commentary. I tak... Read Full Story

So much has been written about this, I'm not sure I have much to add. But still, I can hardly let an event of this magnitude pass without comment. It has been said ad nauseum, and correctly, that Obama hasn't done anything yet that could be regarded as especially--noteworthily--peaceful, except to emphatically NOT be George Bush. And even here, he has been a lot more like Bush than we had reason to believe based on the tone and content of his campaign. A review of past laureates reveals, I th... Read Full Story

This wonderful video lays out the hard news about climate change and suggests that the solution must be a radical one. This video beautifully demonstrates many of the points in Chapters 1 and 2 of Our Tragic Flaw. The rest of my book answers in detail what this video does not: exactly how we must go about addressing this calamitous issue. Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo. Read Full Story

An excerpt from Chapter 12 of Our Tragic Flaw, A Case for Nonviolence. Any theory of nonviolence ultimately rests not only on the conviction that violence isn’t necessary but also that the universe is fundamentally— logically — nonviolent. Accordingly, violence causes misery precisely because it conflicts with the deep structure of a nonviolent universe; and, conversely, nonviolence optimizes our experience in the world because it functions in harmony with that structure. O... Read Full Story

How refreshing to see in print, in The New York Times no less, the unvarnished truth--even better, from the wizened lips of Paul Krugman. So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement. BUT ...212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases. ... Read Full Story

I was encouraged to see Bernard Kouchner's eloquent and passionate plea to free the "Gandhi of Burma" in today's New York Times:   PARIS — “Freedom from fear.” These words, uttered by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in 1990, resound more than ever as a call for help at a time when the Burmese junta has initiated proceedings against her that are as absurd as they are unjustified. We are not fooled: This is a poor pretext to prevent her from participating in the u... Read Full Story

Judging by the media kerfuffle that has surrounded the normination of Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court, you might think that there is something at stake here. And there is, but it's not what is important--not by a long shot. You see, the conservatives want to arrange the deck chairs over on the starboard side of the Titanic and the progressives want to arrange them more on the port side. The kerfuffle is not about whether Sotomayor is a capable jurist, which I think everyone is ... Read Full Story

In my book, Our Tragic Flaw: A Case for Nonviolence, I specifically cite Monsanto's horrifying record of disdain toward democratic processes and public safety in its relentless pursuit of power and profits. A new chapter in this record has recently opened, and it may be the most terrifying of them all. The U.S. House and Senate are currently considering a bill, the "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009" (H.R. 875), strongly supported by Monsanto, that ostensibly aims to secure ... Read Full Story

I have kept my mouth shut for too long. I must unburden myself. I have kept my mouth shut in part because I felt that what I had to say was so utterly obvious that there really shouldn't be any need to say it. But, alas, I was wrong. I am tired of hearing lawyers of various stripes defending the special tribunals that are being set up to deal with the Guantanamo detainees. Have these people forgotten what they learned in 7th grade civics class?? Have we all?? Here's a quick refresher:... Read Full Story

Last week, Nicholas Kristof published a great column on animal rights. He writes: I’m referring to the stunning passage in California, by nearly a 2-to-1 majority, of an animal rights ballot initiative that will ban factory farms from keeping calves, pregnant hogs or egg-laying hens in tiny pens or cages in which they can’t stretch out or turn around. It was an element of a broad push in Europe and America alike to grant increasing legal protections to animals. Spain is moving to... Read Full Story