Author: Common Dreams

“When we ban books in schools before we ban guns, we admit we are more afraid of our children learning than we are of them dying.” – Baratunde Thurston The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on January 26 countered a Tennessee school board’s decision to ban the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, directing educators to its resources for teaching about the Holocaust and warning that it was more important than ever for students to learn this history. The McMinn County school board’s decision to remove Maus from its eighth grade classrooms over its depiction of the atrocities committed by...

As the U.S. and South Korea continue to discuss an end-of-war declaration, they have a real opportunity to close this last chapter of the Cold War. However, the Biden administration is squandering this opportunity by continuing the same playbook that has failed for decades and resulted in a nuclear-armed North Korea: ramping up military deployments, adding more crippling sanctions, and continuing hostile rhetoric. To lower the chance of renewed military conflict and work toward lasting peace in Korea, the Biden administration must not only sign an end-of-war declaration but also reorient policy toward diplomacy and peace. While an armistice...

As people nationwide marked the first anniversary of the U.S. Capitol attack amid rising concerns about American democracy, District of Columbia residents and advocates for full representation renewed calls for congressional action on DC statehood. January 6, 2021 “began with Black joy and ended with white hate, and the 700,000 of us who call D.C. home were forced to bear the brunt of that hatred,” declared Jamal Holtz, lead organizer of 51 for 51, a coalition of pro-statehood groups. “A year after that violent day, DC’s residents — the majority of whom are Black and Brown—are still denied voting...

One year since then-President Donald Trump and his Republican accomplices’ lies about voter fraud led to a failed coup on January 6, 2021, progressives are warning that the GOP’s ongoing, nationwide assault on the franchise will continue as long as Senate Democrats fail to pass pro-democracy legislation. “In America, voters decide the outcome of elections,” Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. “Yet 365 days after the attacks on the 2020 election culminated in the Capitol calamity, we still haven’t enacted meaningful reforms to prevent another January 6. If the Senate doesn’t act now,...

Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election had absurd elements, and it culminated in the deadly chaos of the Capitol insurrection. Now, the more we learn, the more we realize there was a concerted plan to steal the election and upend the results. Next time it will not be so amateurish. In fact, Trump’s allies are systematically removing obstacles to stealing elections in states across the country. The Brennan Center published a report recently documenting the campaign, The Election Sabotage Scheme and How Congress Can Stop It by Will Wilder, Derek Tisler, and Wendy Weiser. Two state legislatures have bestowed...