- “Don’t Destroy What you Want to Inherit”: Peacebuilding Holds the Key to Building a Strong United States of America -- A guest post from a MSc student at Ulster University in Northern Ireland, charting a way forward in the United States after the election -- suggesting three critical steps the U.S. might take to avoid "destroying the country we want our children to inherit." -- Nov 04
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of November 3, 2024 -- Reader-suggested links, along with Guy Burgess's suggested links to colleague activities and news and opinion stories from the last few weeks. -- Nov 02
- Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 5 -- This final installment of the Burgess's Toda Policy Brief on Massively Parallel Democracy Building describes 53 different roles which all need to be filled simultaneously for democracy strengthening efforts to succeed. And everyone fits somewhere! -- Oct 31
- Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 4 -- This 4th (of 5) installments of the Burgess's Toda Policy Brief on Massively Parallel Democracy Building lays out seven essential goals, all of which contribute to developing a "power-with democracy" to replace "power-over" approaches. -- Oct 28
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of October 27, 2024 -- Recommended readings and videos from our readers, plus Guy Burgess's suggestions of useful readings for this week. -- Oct 26
- Comments on Our Post Comparing Responses to October 7 to Those of September 11 -- Comments from two readers about the Burgess's comparison of responses to October 7 and 9-11, one from an American, the other from an Israeli peacebuilder who also serves as an active reservist in the IDF. -- Oct 23
- Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 3 -- The resilience of American democracy is based on three factors: an abundant array of tools for resisting those who threaten democratic institutions, a willingness to use those tools, and the creativity needed to develop new responses to new challenges. -- Oct 20
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of October 13, 2024 -- More recommended readings and videos for this week. -- Oct 17
- Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 2 -- In this 2nd (of 5) installments of the Burgess's Toda Policy Brief on Massively Parallel Democracy Building, we look at some of the threats facing democracy in the United States, and where they could lead if they aren't addressed soon. -- Oct 11
- September 11, October 7, and Our Changing Responses to Terrorism -- A comparison of the differing reactions to the terrorism of September 11 and October 7 plus an exchange of views on the role that dehumanization is playing in the ongoing Middle East wars. -- Oct 06
- Massively Parallel Problem Solving and Democracy Building: An Ongoing Response to the Threats to Democracy in the U.S. - Part 1 -- The first of a five part series on massively parallel democracy building. This installment briefly introduces the core argument about what the threats to democracy are, and what is needed to meet them. -- Oct 02
- Caleb Christen and Vinay Orekondy Talk about the Better Together America Project -- Caleb Christen and Vinay Orekondy talk about the democracy and civic hubs they are helping form around the country to bring "democracy back to the people" where it can actually work. -- Sep 30
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of September 29, 2024 -- Our weekly set of recommended readings from colleagues and news and opinion writers. -- Sep 29
- The Threat of Political Violence in the United States -- The number of people supporting political violence is not nearly the 30% that has been often reported, but it is still much higher than it should be. We all need to try to calm down our rhetoric so things don't get out of hand. -- Sep 25
- Revisiting BI's Constructive Conflict Initiative - Part 1 -- Looking back on the 5-year old Constructive Conflict Initiative, a lot has happened to bring it to fruition. But a lot of challenges remain. -- Sep 19
- Reprise: The Power Strategy Mix — Empowering the Pursuit of the Common Good -- Power takes three forms that can be mixed and matched: coercion, exchange, and integration. The "recipe" for the optimal "power strategy mix" changes depending on whom you are trying to influence. -- Sep 17
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of September 15, 2024 -- We've been on vacation, so, to cover what we've missed, this is a long set of news, opinion, colleague, and recommended readings from our followers. -- Sep 15
- Reprise: Planning a Constructive Confrontation Strategy: Understanding the Relationship between Negotiation and Power -- Constructive confrontation calls for resolving most disputes through interest-based negotiation; only if that fails should one try a contest of rights, reserving nonviolent power contests as a very last resort. -- Sep 11
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of September 8, 2024 -- Readings on Israel, the U.S. political scene, and other intractable conflicts of note. -- Sep 09
- Reprise: Constructive Confrontation: Applying Conflict Insights from a 1st Party (Not 3rd Party) Perspective -- A reprise of an old newsletter on constructive ways of engaging in conflict that is less likely to create backlash and more likely to achieve one's goals than typical adversarial approaches are likely to do. -- Sep 07
- Guy and Heidi Burgess Talk with David Eisner about Threats to Democracy and How to Address Them -- The Burgesses talked with David Eisner about what he thinks the threats to democracy are, and how (and when) we might respond to them. We agreed, citizen involvement in governance is key. -- Sep 04
- Updating Our Impartiality Discussions - Part 1 -- The Burgesses update their 2-year old discussion of impartiality, adding to it Martin Carcasson's notion of "principled impartiality" which adds in quality information and "small-d" democracy. -- Sep 02
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of September 1, 2024 -- More in our regular set of links from readers, about colleague's activities, and from outside news and opinion sources. -- Sep 02
- Updating Our Impartiality Discussions - Part 2 -- In part 2 of this 2-part series, we apply Martin Carcasson's notion of "principled impartiality" to the Israel/Gaza/Hezbollah/Iran war, and to the political conflict in the United States. -- Aug 28
- Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of August 18, 2024 -- Reader suggested links, and the Burgesses selections of articles about colleague's activities and other news and opinion articles of interest. -- Aug 21