Tomgram: Allegra Harpootlian and Emily Manna, The AI Wars

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More than a decade ago, I saw the future — and it sure looked bleak.

I was in Orlando, Florida (like I said, bleak!), for the 26th Army Science Conference, a showcase for emerging military technologies that was nothing if not underwhelming.

All these years later, only a few memories leap to mind. Watching the Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot, or “BEAR” — a would-be read more

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Collusion, Hell, Yeah!

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Suicide Watch on Planet Earth
As the Flames Began to Rise, the Arsonists Appeared
By Tom Engelhardt

As Notre Dame burned, as the flames leapt from its roof of ancient timbers, many of us watched in grim horror. Hour after hour, on screen after screen, channel after channel, you could see that 850-year-old read more

Tomgram: Nick Turse, No Need to Whisper, AFRICOM Isn’t Listening In

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What is it about the U.S. military and TomDispatch? Last August, I discovered (thanks to a correspondent in that military) that the Pentagon’s computer networks had blocked this website. (The message you received if you tried to get to it: “You have attempted to access a blocked website. Access to this website has been blocked for operational reasons by the DOD read more

Tomgram: Belle Chesler, Defunding Children, A National Crisis of the Soul

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Who even remembers? After all, it happened in ancient times. November 9, 2016, to be exact, at newly elected president Donald Trump’s victory rally, when he so memorably said, “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports. We’re read more

Tomgram: Engelhardt, A “Ridiculous” War

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American War Is Off the Charts
How the U.S. Military Feeds at the Terror Trough
By Tom Engelhardt

Here’s a statement it might be hard to disagree with: American war is off the charts.

Still, I’d like to explain — but I’m nervous about doing so. I know perfectly well that the next word I plan to write will send most of you tumbling elsewhere in a universe in which “news” read more

Tomgram: Ann Jones, Our Veblen Moment

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Here was a tweet from October 2014 about a president who liked to golf: “Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf. Worse than Carter.” And that was just one of 27 times between 2011 and 2016 read more

Tomgram: Alfred W. McCoy, America’s Self-Inflicted Wound

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He was a graduate student when, in the midst of the Vietnam War, he started to explore the history behind the heroin epidemic then infecting the U.S. Army in Vietnam. He soon found himself, almost inadvertently, on the heroin trail across Southeast Asia and deep into the CIA’s involvement in an earlier version of America’s drug wars. In a shadow world of black ops, mercenaries, read more