Tomgram: Mattea Kramer, All Empire Is Local

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The request arrived by email, but read as if it were from another age. Would I be open, an executive assistant asked, to having tea with the president of an Ivy League university? A longtime éminence grise, the president, still new to the job, was interested in discussing with a select group of young scholars how to guide this renowned educational institution into read more

500 Organizations Propose Mysteriously Unknowable Climate Solution

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 27, 2021

In a remarkable feat of epistemic magic, 500 environmental and peace organizations and nearly 25,000 individuals have endorsed a petition that will be delivered to the COP26 climate conference — a petition proposing a solution that could add dramatically to efforts to protect the Earth’s climate, but a solution that it is impossible for most members of the homo sapiens species to become aware of.

This seems a bizarre claim, but it read more

Learning from Prince Tokugawa


Grant Pine at Zojoji Temple, planted by then-U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant at the Tokugawa family shrine.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 25, 2021

Japan’s Prince Iyesato Tokugawa ought perhaps to be of more interest to us right now than a Japanese princess currently marrying a “commoner,” or Hollywood movies so focused on the violent moments in history that they’ve now got actors shooting cinematographers.

I was sent a book called “The Art of Diplomacy: Fifty Years of Secret read more

Why Is U.S. Military Spending Increasing to New, Outlandish Levels?

Although critics of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan to increase funding for U.S. education, healthcare, and action against climate catastrophe say the United States can’t afford it, there are no such qualms about ramping up funding for the U.S. military.

This May, the Pentagon asked Congress to fund a $715 billion budget for Fiscal 2022—an increase of $10 billion over read more

Talk World Radio: Daniel Ellsberg on the Most Dangerous Missiles

Talk World Radio is recorded as audio and video on Riverside.fm. Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.

Daniel Ellsberg is a former U.S. military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national uproar in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, the U.S. military’s account of activities during the Vietnam War, to The New York Times. Ellsberg has continued as a political activist, giving lecture tours and speaking out about current events, and as an read more

Speaking Truth to Empire with Joan Roelofs

Speaking Truth to Empire on KFCF 88.1 FM independently owned and locally operated in Fresno since 1975, Dan Yaseen interviews Joan Roelofs. She is Professor Emerita of Political Science, Keene State College, New Hampshire. She is the author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism and Greening Cities. A community education short course on the military industrial complex is on her website, and may be used for similar purposes. The read more

King George Was More Democratic Than American Revolutionaries

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 22, 2021

According to the Smithsonian Magazine — brought to you by the folks with museums up and down the National Mall in Washington D.C. — King George III was the democrat and humanitarian in 1776.

I’d hate for this to really feel like a bite in the ass, coming right on the heels of the dying of Colin Powell, who did so much for the idea that a war can be based on solid facts. It’s fortunate, perhaps, that World War II has largely replaced the read more