Author: Tom Engelhardt

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In today’s piece, TomDispatch regulars William Hartung and Mandy Smithberger consider ways in which the Pentagon is essentially a family business (if, that is, you think of the weapons makers of the military-industrial complex read more

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It was the first moment of Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency. He memorably rode a Trump Tower escalator into the race to the tune of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” and, as everyone still remembers, promptly read more

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I’ve never forgotten something that Amr Musa, then head of the Arab League, said in 2004: “The gates of hell are open in Iraq.” That was just a year and a half after the American invasion and occupation of that country. How horrifyingly right he was, though no one paid the slightest read more

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Just in case you hadn’t heard the good news, the last man from the president’s foreign policy “team” still standing, Trump whisperer Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently left National Security Advisor John Bolton in the dust. Bolton, who was axed or resigned, depending on who’s read more

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On the Precipice
The Collective Asteroid of Human History
By Tom Engelhardt

Worlds end. Every day. We all die sooner or later. When you get to my age, it’s a subject that can’t help but be on your mind.

What’s unusual is this: it’s not just increasingly ancient folks like me who should be thinking such thoughts anymore. After all, worlds of a far larger sort end, too. read more

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Late in his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump suggested that his future administration would put at least a trillion dollars into America’s worn-out infrastructure. Such funding was obviously much needed. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers read more

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It’s a record-breaking moment. As Dahr Jamail, author of The End of Ice, pointed out recently at Truthout, amid the planet’s warmest July on record, Alaska’s read more

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Years ago, a man drove me around Vietnam, day after day, taking me to villages where I interviewed people about their experiences during what they called the American War. They told me about how they had lost eyes or legs or siblings or parents. They told me about being shot or raped, about surviving artillery shelling, helicopter gunships, or even a massacre.

Most knew very read more

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There may be nothing more human than the urge to tell stories. All societies, however ancient, have told themselves tales about how the world and humanity began — and might end. And when it comes to endings, storytelling in just about every imaginable form has never ended. In our time, from the novel to the comic, read more

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

Invasion!
Who Are the Real Invaders on Planet Earth?
By Tom Engelhardt

He crossed the border without permission or, as far as I could tell, documentation of any sort. I’m speaking about Donald Trump’s uninvited, unasked-for invasion of my personal space. He’s there daily, often hourly, whether I like it or not, and I don’t have a Department of Homeland Security to read more