From Scranton to Ukraine, All Is Not As It Seems

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 22, 2023

Remarks in Scranton, Pennsylvania, July 22, 2023

There is something that we need to tell a great many of our friends and neighbors. It is that we have been misled. All is not as it seems.

Here we are outside what appears to be a factory where U.S. government dollars create jobs, boost the economy, and fund activities that support the important needs of the U.S. public and the people of the world. Not a bit of those appearances is real.

When government read more

Tomgram: Andrea Mazzarino, Whose War Was That Anyway?

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino was a co-founder of the remarkable Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute. There can be no question that it’s proven an all-too-sadly one-of-a-kind resource in these years. Since 2011, it’s followed this country’s disastrous war on terror in a way no place else has even imagined doing.

It doesn’t matter whether read more

Tomgram: Joshua Frank, Nuking Us All

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

On August 6, 1945, when the mushroom cloud from the first atomic bomb rose over the devastated Japanese city of Hiroshima, who could have imagined the “peaceful atom”? And in the decades that followed who could have imagined just how unpeaceful that second version of atomic power might prove to be? I’m thinking, of course, about, among other disasters, the 1979 almost-meltdown read more

When in Rome, Do as the Americans Do?

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 12, 2023

There may be more U.S. tourists in Rome than Romans. It’s hard to get away from them — impossible if you are yourself one. But it’s a bit of a shame how they’ve taken over. Every square and street is wall-to-wall people. They’re not all American people. Some of them are Italian. Some of them are even Roman. But they all speak English. They all dress like Americans. Every bar and osteria caters to English-speaking tourists and their tastes. read more

Tomgram: Michael Klare, The Military Dangers of AI Are Not Hallucinations

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

I give myself credit for being significantly ahead of my time. I first came across artificial intelligence (AI) in 1968 when I was just 24 years old and, from the beginning, I sensed its deep dangers. Imagine that.

Much as I’d like to brag about it, though, I was anything but alone. I was, in fact, undoubtedly one of millions of people who saw the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, read more