Close Military Bases, Not Embassies

The Trump clowns are planning to close U.S. embassies in Africa.

Good riddance, right?

Wrong.

They still plan to work on “coordinated counterterrorism operations” and “strategic extraction and trade of critical natural resources.”

They also still plan to maintain U.S. military bases across the continent. They’re shutting down all kinds of offices, but not Africom.

In U.S. culture and media, where it’s one’s duty to pretend that the military budget and everything that goes with it does read more

The Terrorists Are Running the U.S. Government

The Alien and Sedition Acts were laws created in 1798 to carve out exceptions to the 1791 Bill of Rights, by banning statements against the government, making it harder to become a citizen, allowing the imprisonment and deportation of non-citizens, and — the bit that is still on the books (albeit, I think, pretty clearly unconstitutionally) — allowing the imprisonment of non-citizens during wars or “invasions” or “predatory incursions.” Be prepared for the rest of it to be brought read more

Unthinking, Apathy, and Genocide

Late last century I figured out that I needed to work on a job dedicated to making the world a better place. I know not everyone can find such a job if they try. I appreciate all the other useful jobs that millions of people do — if not the useless and destructive ones that millions of other people do. But I do want people to use some of their spare time to help out with the cratering world. In every moment of the past quarter century there have been people diligently creating catastrophes — read more

Vietnam, Truth, and Reconciliation 50 Years Later

Approaching 50 years since the end of the American War, as the Vietnamese call it, and something over 70 years since the start of it, depending when you start the clock, truth and reconciliation remain incomplete. I don’t mean for the people of Vietnam, who seem, from what little I know, in general to have a better grasp of both truth and reconciliation than the U.S. government or corporate media. I also don’t mean truth and reconciliation between governments, which really don’t traffic read more

Fukushima World

Thomas A. Bass’s new book, Return to Fukushima, makes an overwhelming case for the absolute idiocy of pursuing nuclear energy, reveals the disaster at Fukushima to be worse than you’ve probably heard, and disturbingly establishes the likelihood that many of us will eventually be living in Fukushimas if humanity doesn’t get rid of the nukes.

The case against nuclear energy that is made here can be roughly divided into six points.

One, “What today are called civilian reactors began — like read more

Where Busboys And Poets Came From

Some cities and towns have a venue where activists organizing for peace and justice can, on short notice, and at little or no expense, hold an event with one or more speakers or performers. Some have nothing of the sort, but many have a church basement or an old warehouse. Some of these spaces have microphones and sound systems. Very few have food.

Washington D.C. is, for obvious reasons, one of the most important places in the United States and world in which to build activist movements, and yet read more