By the Zero Hour, May 21, 2024
Why does NATO even exist? Activist and broadcaster David Swanson (https://davidswanson.org/) lays out its history and its real goals.
Tomgram: Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes, Don’t Grind the Faces of the Poor
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
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
NATO “Youth Summit” Tells Viewers to Get Ready for War
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 20, 2024
The recent NATO “Youth Summit,” even on double speed, is over an hour and a half on Youtube. I couldn’t watch it all, as it just made me feel old — so old that I can remember when people could feel shame about profiteering from mass killing or promoting world wars likely to end in nuclear apocalypse.
The summit’s “youth” participants appear to have met some requirement of being roughly younger than either Biden OR Trump — and there
Donald Trump’s Assault on the Wages of American Workers
Although Donald Trump, as president, proclaimed in his 2020 State of the Union address that he had produced a “blue-collar boom” in workers’ wages, the reality was quite different. Using his control of the executive branch of the U.S. government, Trump repeatedly undermined the wages of American workers by blocking raises and imposing wage reductions.
Only the preceding year, Trump derailed vital wage legislation. In July 2019―with the pathetically low federal minimum wage stuck at
Tomgram: Clarence Lusane, Is the Racial Storm Coming?
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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
Nuclear War Will Only Kill People Already Impacted By Nuclear Weapons. That’s Everyone.
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 18, 2024
In the photo above, World BEYOND War Board Member and Treasurer John Reuwer, a physician, at right, supports downwinders impacted by nuclear weapons testing, demanding restitution from the U.S. government that has experimented on and lied to people for decades. John commented:
“I often think the two reasons most otherwise good people support war is they don’t count all the costs, and they don’t know the alternatives to protecting
How to Avoid Reporting That a University Is Lying About Police Violence
I’m old enough to remember a video of a New York Times reporter who let slip that she’d been instructed never to say the president of the United States had lied, even if he (George W. Bush) was just blatantly lying. Not that she objected to the policy. It made perfect sense to her. Now I can’t find that video because the internet is so weighted down with accounts of Trump and Biden lying.
But I was quite pleasantly surprised when the only local daily here in Charlottesville, the
Tomgram: Andrea Mazzarino, Anger and the MAGA Movement
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
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
NATO Spreads Nuclear Weapons, Energy, and Risk
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 15, 2024
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty declares that NATO members will assist another member if attacked by “taking action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.” But the UN Charter does not say anywhere that warmaking is authorized for whoever jumps in on the appropriate side.
The North Atlantic Treaty’s authors may have been aware that they were on dubious legal ground because they went on twice to claim otherwise, first
Tomgram: William Hartung, Democracy Versus Autocracy on America’s Campuses
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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