Author: Tom Engelhardt

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

It was truly another world.

I’m thinking of my childhood years when to “duck and cover” under our school desks, imagining that those modest structures might somehow protect us from an atomic blast, was a normal read more

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The Enemy Is Us (And I’m Not Just Thinking About Donald Trump) By Tom Engelhardt

Honestly, doesn’t it befuddle you?

I mean, don’t you think we humans are kinda mad? And worse yet, at some deep level, we simply can’t seem to stop. All too often, we just can’t curb our urge to destroy.

Looking back, the desire to make war and obliterate our “enemies” is a deeply ingrained and repetitive pattern in our history. Each individual example can, of course, read more

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War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Or so the song lyrics go anyway.

But in the case of this country, war, it turns out, has been good for plenty of high-class Americans, especially our weapons makers. As TomDispatch regular David Vine and Theresa Arriola report today, read more

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Forget the dead for a moment and think about the living. We’re talking about a miniscule, 25-mile strip of land on which, before recent events began, an estimated 2.4 million people lived, went to school, worshipped, farmed, did whatever. When Israel responded to Hamas’s nightmarish October 7th attack by bombing northern Gaza into rubble and sending in its military, Defense read more

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Sometimes it seems as if we just can’t learn, even when we’re talking about America’s centers of higher learning, its colleges and universities. In mid-April — the day after being grilled and intimidated by House Republicans — Columbia University’s president Nemat “Minouche” Shafik read more

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Yes, the number of deaths in Gaza in the last seven months is staggering. At least, 35,000 Gazans have reportedly perished, including read more

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Be shocked, very shocked. As TomDispatch regular Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes, both of whom play key roles in the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights read more

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When it comes to demonstrations and the former president of the United States, it matters greatly just who is doing them. Recently, Donald Trump attacked campus demonstrations against genocide read more

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When some government program fails utterly, you’d think top officials would consider transferring at least part of the taxpayer funds they’re spending on it to programs that might actually do some good. When it comes to the U.S. military, however, as TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino makes all too clear today, no such luck. And really, it just couldn’t be stranger.

At read more

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

I was by nature the mildest and least courageous of young men. And yet, in April 1968, I well remember standing with two friends on the Boston Common, amid a large demonstration of young people, and turning in my draft card to protest America’s brutal read more