Human rights are one of the great tasks of our civilisation. This article discusses the importance of this task along with our personal responsibility to be involved.
When I was writing the introduction to Human Rights, there were a number of things I wanted to discuss which would have made it too long to be an introduction. Some of these thoughts are fleshed out here, such as the idea of speciesism, states and other structural issues.
The massacres in Rwanda were an event that touched me deeply, and taught me much about the world. Here are a couple of good summary articles about why the west should also learn from them.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed....I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity
Having been a bomber in World War Two, Howard Zinn is well placed to give a unique perspective on issues of pacifism, violence, dissent and just war in his short interview-based book Terrorism and War. Zinn in this book reminded me somewhat of Chomsky (who deeply admires and has been...