citizens

Jamar A. Boyd II 12-02-2019

Image via REUTERS/Laurel Chor

The similarities here are not only due to the presence of death and violence, but high tensions between government and people. Here we’ve witnessed images of police exercising excessive force on protestors, extensive arrests of nonviolent demonstrators, and vile displays of militarization in neighborhood streets, much like in Baltimore, Compton, and other cities in the U.S.

Image still from 'Dirty Wars' documentary

Image still from 'Dirty Wars' documentary

Days before President Barack Obama's high-profile speech on drones and U.S. counterterrorism efforts, Sojourners sat down with investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill to take an inside look at U.S.-led covert wars and the drones that have become an integral part of our global “war on terror.”

His thesis?

"After years of traveling in these countries, I really believe that we’re creating more enemies than we’re killing.”

In some respects, drones are simply a new tool of old empire. Scahill, author of Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield and producer of the documentary of the same name, now in theaters, calls this an "unending war ... being legitimized under a popular Democratic president, who is a constitutional lawyer by trade.”

Indeed, within five years, the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq for terrorist attacks the country did not commit has transformed under the Obama administration into pre-emptive assassinations halfway around the world, for crimes citizens have not yet committed. The result, Scahill suggested, is our collective complicity to “unending war.”

Jim Wallis 4-03-2013

(Dragana Gerasimoski / Shutterstock.com)

IN THE PAST 20 years, the world has witnessed the death of social contracts. We have seen a significant breakdown in trust between citizens, their economies, and their governments. In our own country, we can point to years of data painting a bleak picture of the confidence Americans have in any of our traditional institutions.

Former assumptions and shared notions about fairness, agreements, reciprocity, social values, and expected futures have all but disappeared. The collapse of financial structures and the economic crisis that followed not only caused instability, insecurity, and human pain; they have also produced a growing doubt and basic distrust in the way the system functions and how decisions are made.

This year, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, we looked to the future and asked, "what now?" At a key session—"The Moral Economy: From Social Contract to Social Covenant"—a document was announced that kicks off a year-long global conversation about a new "social covenant" between citizens, governments, and businesses.

It is really a call for worldwide discussion about what values are needed to address the many difficult challenges the world is now facing. Inequality, austerity, retrenchment, maldistribution, conflicts over resources, and extreme poverty all raise questions about our values.

the Web Editors 9-22-2011

When President Barack Obama laid out his deficit plan Monday, he wasn't just trying to sell a policy. When he pressed for tax hikes on the rich and announced, "This is not class warfare," he was trying to exorcise a demon that has bedeviled the Democratic Party for decades and in the process deprive the Republicans of one of their trustiest weapons. The reaction from the right was swift and sure: "Class warfare!"

Hannah Lythe 6-23-2011
[Editors' note: As part of Sojourners' campaign to end the war in Afghanistan, we will run a weekly Afghanistan news digest to educate our readers about the latest n
Biblical wisdom teaches: "it has not yet been revealed what we shall be." Such is the case with every child, every grandchild, and great grandchild -- those we know and those we will never meet.
Noel Castellanos 3-10-2011
"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the [Lord], is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." (James 1:27)

Eric Stoner 3-04-2011

In December, as the United States entered the 10th year of what President Obama called the "good war" in Afghanistan, I traveled to Kabul to take stock of the human toll of the increasingly bloody occupation.

Brian McLaren 2-28-2011
The "What Would Jesus Cut?" campaign, launched by Jim Wallis and the good people of Sojourners, assumes that
Elizabeth Palmberg 2-21-2011
If corporate fronts designed to look like grassroots efforts are known as http://blog.sojo.net/2009/08/10/who-lit-the-fire-under-the-right-wing-po..." target
Jim Wallis 2-10-2011

House Republicans announced a plan yesterday to cut $43 billion in domestic spend

Recently, I read an article featuring a pastor with whom I had strong disagreements. The more I read, the less I liked -- and it was a long article.
I am greatly saddened and angered by Congress' failure to pass the DREAM Act before Christmas last year.
Chuck Collins 12-14-2010

In 2010, the moral measure of tax policy choice is: Does it further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few?

Andrew Simpson 12-13-2010
As members of Congress debate the DREAM Act once again, opponents of the act are again attacking the legislation as "http://seeingredaz.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/backdoor-amnesty-dream-act-
He has been working since he was a teenager. He graduated from high school, went to college, graduated, got a good job with a good company, married, had children, and bought a house.
Vincent G. Harding 8-23-2010
[Editor's Note: In anticipation of the anniversary of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, God's Politics will feature a series of posts on the

When I first heard the announcement to rise for "the presentation of the colors," I didn't understand what that was.

Eugene Cho 5-20-2010

I know that there are many of you that are engaging, debating, learning, and wrestling with the issue known to most as immigration reform or known to others as, "What the Arizona?" And these debates and discussion will continue with more and more incidents like

Hayley Hathaway 5-19-2010
Do secondary debt markets, hedge funds, and offshore banking make you want to dance? Probably not.