Submitted by Andrea Perrault

The summer of 2014 has been anything but uneventful – in many ways, it seems the clock is turning back to difficult times.  The world is exploding in crises.  The Middle East, Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq are in the throes of political upheaval and violence. Africa is exploding in a different crisis, but a dire one – the Ebola virus. While at the beginning of the summer, the United States was focused on its internal struggles over immigration policy and urban violence, attention shifted to the international scene in August.
In the Middle East, Gaza is exploding – the Arab-Israeli cease fire efforts have only recently seemed to have staying power.  But hundreds have been killed. Netanyahu is not holding back on his attacks, nor is Hamas withholding its rocket fire or the building of tunnels into Israeli territory.  Will the U.S. be able to help to negotiate a lasting cease fire?
ISIS in Iraq is clearly a devastatingly dangerous movement.  Obama’s sending U.S. troops seems warranted as the ISIS threat gets even more horrific – genocide is a word that experts shudder to apply, but what else could this development be labeled? The people of the U.S. seem to want us to have an isolationist stance in the world after the lack of “success” in the wars in Pakistan and Iraq.  Will ISIS necessarily move us back into the world arena with popular support?

If not ISIS, then maybe Ebola: the Ebola outbreak in Africa is literally exploding in three countries and there seems to be no possibility of stemming its devastation. American scientists might be able to contribute to medical intervention if the U.S. government and the medical establishment will take this crisis to be ours as well as theirs. So far, the World Health Organization is promoting its seriousness for the entire world to heed, but it is not calling the “outbreak” an “epidemic” just yet. Medical professionals are needed desperately, and experimental drugs may be a hope. For the United States to use such drugs only with its citizens raises an ethical dilemma – is it ethical to withhold such treatment, or are there extenuating circumstances beyond the lack of FDA approval of the drugs? Such circumstances might be limited supply of the medication or limited expertise for its administration.  Political ramifications have been cited as well – Is it the place of the U.S. to intervene or be an arbiter of all the world’s crises?  However, if the “outbreak” is deemed an “epidemic”, can we stay removed if we have a likely remedy?
Last summer, Edward Snowden captured our attention and NSA spying was at the top of our priority concerns. Indeed, we featured the topic at our opening program with Cade Crawford of the MA ACLU. This year, Snowden is back in the news with his stay in Russia extended, but the implications of being harbored by Russia seem to loom much larger as Putin expands his reach across the world to potentially devastating effects. Russian troops are amassing at the Ukraine border, and Putin’s ability to play the U.S. against European nations becomes more and more overt.

The Supreme Court cannot be left out of this unpleasant accounting – as it is turning back the clock as well. June represents the time of year when decisions are announced – good timing for getting the news buried, with many people set to go off on vacation. But women’s rights groups will not allow the devastating attacks that counter past progress on women’s health issues to be forgotten. Easing the ban on demonstrations at clinics as women seek health services, or allowing corporate entities to narrow women’s health insurance options are only bringing back memories of past struggles that were successful in assuring safety for women in their cause for reproductive freedom.  Now a younger generation will be mobilized.
The Ethical Society of Boston surely has much to discuss and hopefully, become engaged in, as we reconvene after the summer.  Electoral politics is on the horizon, and the crises of this summer will weigh heavily on us as we try to identify leaders who can best navigate these dilemmas to bring us into more peaceful times.  The message is clear: ACTIVISM must be our cause this year!