Here are some good quotes from an essay by Stephen M. Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University. He is by no means a progressive but belongs to the so-called ‘realist’ school of politics that says that the US should adopt policies that are in its own long-term interests and based on a rational weighing of evidence and not be driven by ideological motivations such as neo-conservatism or neoliberal interventionism that has got the US involved in so many unwinnable wars and locked into reflexive support for any and all of Israel’s awful polices.
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I linked to the press release earlier. This is a project for social change activists to find and work together more effectively on common interests. It can be roughly described as follows:

1. Pursuance is an encrypted toolbox for activists, by activists.
2. Pursuance is a new way to organize online: more secure, more structured, and more fun.
3. A pursuance is a sort of organization or group with a name and a mission that guides all the activity within that pursuance.
4. So what’s it like to use Pursuance? You log in, click on one of the pursuances you’re a member of, and then you see a hierarchy of tasks as well as a simple list of what’s assigned to you. You can then create new tasks, assign them to others, assign tasks to other pursuances(!) to leverage their unique expertise, plan and prioritize with others via text chat or video chat, and more.
5. The ultimate goal of Pursuance? Accountability. How? By building software and a network of people around it, thus unleashing a vast and formidable ecosystem of opposition to institutionalized injustice.
6. Feature set: each pursuance includes task management, chat rooms, and integrates with other tools for providing video conference functionality and crowdsourced journalism and research tools. You can invite other people to your pursuance by skill set.
7. Pursuance is an encrypted toolbox for activists, by activists. Populated by invitation and running on an integrated suite of digital tools, all designed to allow activists, researchers, journalists, artists, coders anyone with talent and a little time to collaborate on projects large and small, working within customizeable project groups called pursuances, aimed at achieving results with impact.
8. We are building a global federation of activism projects.

If you think it is worthwhile, then any contribution is welcomed. You can donate here. That link also contains short videos that explain more how the system works.

In 2016, Maine voters in a referendum chose to institute preferential (also called ranked choice) voting in their state for all elections, something that I have long advocated as the most democratic way of voting. Naturally the two main party establishments dislike the idea because it lessens their control over who should be the party nominee for general elections and also because it enables third party candidates to show their true strength since their supporters need no longer fear that their vote will be ‘wasted’ by going to a candidate who was unlikely to win.
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I have been reading the reactions to the Singapore summit meetings and have been bemused by the hostile reactions to it almost across the board. What struck me was that many of them were extremely irate about one particular aspect, that Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un were shown as equals, in that they had equal numbers of flags of the two nations, stood and sat side by side, and in every other way the two leaders were treated as if they were of equal standing.
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The full text of the agreement signed by Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump in Singapore. It is not long.

Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit.

President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a first, historic summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018.

President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth, and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new U.S.-DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
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