How John Hersey Blew the Whistle on the Reality of Nuclear War

Review of  Fallout:  The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World

In this crisply-written, well-researched book, Lesley Blume, a journalist and biographer, tells the fascinating story of the background to John Hersey’s pathbreaking article, “Hiroshima,” and of its extraordinary impact upon the world.

In 1945, although only 30 years of age, Hersey was a very prominent war correspondent for Time magazine—a key part of publisher Henry Luce’s magazine empire—and read more

Talk World Radio: Scott Horton on Ending the War on Terrorism

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

This Week on Talk World Radio, it’s time to end the terrorism-generating war on terrorism. Our guest is Scott Horton. Scott Horton is the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, and author of Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and of the new book we’ll read more

Tomgram: Belle Chesler, Living in Pandemic Purgatory, Up Close and Personal

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

I’ve thought about my situation more than once (who hasn’t?) in these pandemic months. As it happens, I was in the equivalent of a work lockdown for years before Covid-19 hit our shores. I deserted an office setting early in this century and I’ve been running TomDispatch, while editing books from the small office in my apartment in New York City, ever since.

Nonetheless, read more

Malcolm Gladwell Claims Satan Won WWII But Jesus Does Drone Strikes

I wish I were joking, even a little. Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Bomber Mafia, maintains that Haywood Hansell was essentially Jesus tempted by the Devil when he refused to burn Japanese cities to the ground. Hansell was replaced, and Curtis LeMay put in charge of U.S. bombings of Japan during WWII. LeMay, Gladwell tells us, was none other than Satan. But what was very much needed, Gladwell claims, was Satanic immorality — the willingness to intentionally incinerate perhaps a million read more

Speaking Truth to Empire

“Speaking Truth to Empire” on KFCF 88.1 independently owned and locally operated since 1975 in Fresno, Dan Yaseen interviews Ray McGovern. Ray was a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. Ray’s duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’s Daily Brief. In January 2003, Ray co-

created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) to expose how intelligence was being falsified to “justify” read more

Tomgram: Robert Lipsyte, The Athlete of the Century?

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

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with tennis and here’s why. In the late 1950s, when I was in my early teens, my father insisted that I get a pass to the New York City public tennis courts and learn how to play. Let’s just say that it was not my game. I’m no speed demon and serving into the sun… well, I thought it was hell. I just wasn’t (and it was clear read more

An Online Course on War and The Environment: Spreading Knowledge Builds Power

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 26, 2021

Here’s a video from one of the facilitators lined up for World BEYOND War’s online course on War and the Environment which begins on June 7th, 2021:

This course could not be more important. A culture of extraction and destruction is closely tied to a culture of war. Questioning that ethos of destruction and consumption is challenging, but it has belatedly begun. Challenging a culture of militarism is even harder.

In the United States, for read more

Tomgram: William Hartung, Selling Death

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

Think about this: on Saturday, May 12th, with barely an hour’s notice, Israel took out the al-Jalaa Tower, a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed the Associated Press, al-Jazeera, and other media outlets. That act of destruction, among so many others, caused shock globally and protests not just by read more

Talk World Radio: Nora Barrows-Friedman on Palestine and Activism

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

This week on Talk World Radio we’re talking about activism on behalf of the basic human rights of Palestinians. Our guest is Nora Barrows-Friedman. Nora Barrows-Friedman is an associate editor at The Electronic Intifada and the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine. She is also the co-host of The Electronic Intifada Podcast, read more