Project Save the World invites activists all around the world to join a Zoom conference, a "Global Town Hall" on the last Sunday of every month. This time they talk with Metta Spencer about (among other things) the creation of an Australian commission on the human future, the risks of surveillance technology, how to connect old and young activists, and the effects of Covid on international solidarity.

Tim Wright, an Australian organizer with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) joins his Canadian friend Erin Hunt to recount their triumph in bringing to near-reality (it will probably enter into force soon) an international treaty banning nuclear weapons. Metta shares their optimism, as well as their alarm over the regressive moves by the US toward modernizing the bombs instead of dismantling them.

Ignat Kalinin works for Yabloko, a liberal democratic party in Russia founded by Grigory Yavlinsky. He and his old friend Metta Spencer get caught up here, comparing Russia's situation to the rest of the world during this pandemic, only days after the Russian constitution had been changed to let Putin rule 36 years. They decide to work together against the totalitarian application of face recognition and AI technology.

Arthur Kanegis is a filmmaker with a brilliant idea: you promote peace best by showing the stories of people DOING peace work. So he and Melanie Bennett produced an inspiring film about Garry Davis, veteran of World War II who felt guilty about bombing Brandenburg, Germany, and tried to prevent future wars by prompting others to join him in becoming citizens of the world, not just one or another country. He was an actor, so his adventures caught the public's attention. Arthur and Melanie worked with him, lucky folks!

Protests against police brutality and racism have lately prompted many people to demand "Defund the Police." Peace activists, outraged by the $1.9 trillion spent annually on the military, add this demand: “Defund the Military." In this month's global town hall, 30 activists join Metta in discussing this as a realistic possibility, and consider various alternative ways of handling the problems that troops are so frequently used (ineffectively) to solve.

Nadezhda Kutepova was born and raised in a secret Russian city where plutonium was created for the Soviet (and now Russian) nuclear weapons. The inhabitants were (and still are) exposed to radiation without their knowledge, and in each family, some members died of it. Only when she was grown did Nadezhda learn why her father and grandmother died. She organized an NGO to defend victims' rights, but had to flee to France five years ago with her four children. Gordon Edwards and Robert Del Tredici discuss these risks with her, comparing them to the lies told about radioactivity in western countries.

David Moscrop's book is titled, “Too Dumb for Democracy?" raises a question that liberal political thinkers normally avoid. Our complaints are usually against "deficits" in democracy. But suppose the problem instead is that normal citizens cannot cognitively process the information that is necessary to make wise political judgments? In a friendly conversation, Metta suggests that Moscrop has raised a question that he does not pursue long, for soon he turns to a search for the institutional changes to which many liberals would turn as ways of reforming and saving democracy.

The subtitle of Marc Pilisuk's book was "Who Benefits from Global Violence and War?" and Peter Phillips's book answered it: “Giants: The Global Power Elite." These are about 200 people who control over 40 trillion dollars — a large fraction of the world's cash. So what are the alternatives and is it possible to persuade, say, ten percent of the population to demand that they be adopted? Metta takes a more pessimistic view than Pilisuk and Phillips.

In this month's Global Town Hall, ten Canadians chat with experts in Croatia, Russia, India, and Wales about the pandemic and the demonstrations against policy brutality now sweeping the US. Should we pick one issue at a time (e.g. nuclear weapons) or work on six or seven as a package? Is the priority to find great leaders or to engage large numbers of citizens as activists? Can Trump be prevented from re-starting nuclear weapons tests?

Mubarak Awad was a Palestinian Christian psychotherapist who found that his clients did not need therapy; they needed freedom. So he founded a center for nonviolence, which the Israeli government did not appreciate -- since it created an effective nonviolent intifada. But the work continues, and Metta speaks with Awad and three other leaders in nonviolent resistance: Michael Beer, Andre Kamenshikov (working now from Kiev), and Yeshua Moser Puangsuwan (working from both Thailand and Canada). At least three of the people are optimistic about being able to continue their work, even in the hard post-covid economy.