A New Armistice Day

Exactly at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 99 years ago, people across Europe suddenly stopped shooting guns at each other. Up until that moment, they were killing and taking bullets, falling and screaming, moaning and dying. Then they stopped, on schedule. It wasn’t that they’d gotten tired or come to their senses. Both before and after 11 o’clock they were simply following orders. The Armistice agreement that ended World War I had set 11 o’clock as quitting time.

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Tomgram: Nomi Prins, You, Sir, Are No Alexander Hamilton

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

Who can keep up with the madness of our never-ending Trumpian media moment? Each day is a lesson in the bizarre, in ever-wilder comments, accusations, charges, and claims of every sort from or against The Donald and crew. Each day spotlights subjects you hardly knew were subjects until they burst onto cable news and individual screens nationwide. Did an American president read more

Talk Nation Radio: Nick Buxton on Climate Chaos and Militarism

This week on Talk Nation Radio: Climate chaos and militarism. We’re joined by Nick Buxton, who is the co-editor of an important book called The Secure and the Dispossessed – How the military and corporations are seeking to shape a climate-changed world. Nick Buxton is a communications consultant, working as a publications editor and supporting online learning and support of activist scholar communities for Transnational Institute. He works read more

Focus: The GOP Tax Bill – Nov 6, 2017

Tomgram: Danny Sjursen, War Making in the Age of the Imperial Presidency

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

Seventeen days after the Twin Towers fell in an apocalyptic mushroom cloud of smoke and ash, Congress passed with a single dissenting vote an “Authorization for Use of Military Force,” or AUMF, stating:

“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, read more

From Salon.com magazine: The Attack on ‘Fake News’ is Really an Attack on Alternative Media

By Dave Lindorff

These are tough days to be a serious journalist. Report a story now, with your facts all lined up nicely, and you’re still likely to have it labeled “fake news” by anyone whose ox you’ve gored — and even by friends who don’t share your political perspective. For good measure, they’ll say you’ve based it on “alternative facts.”

Historians say the term “fake news” dates from the late 19th-century era of “yellow journalism,” but read more

Whose crime killed more soldiers: Dubya’s or Bergdahl’s?: ‘I Made a Horrible Mistake’

By John Grant

I’m admitting I made a horrible mistake.
– Bo Bergdahl’s testimony in his court martial

Charging a man with murder in Vietnam is like charging someone for speeding at the Indianapolis 500.
– From Apocalypse Now

Obviously, to ask who endangered soldiers more, President Bush or Bo Bergdahl, is a rhetorical question. The real issue is whether a Dishonorable Discharge, a demotion and a fine is enough punishment for Bo Bergdahl. read more

A simple human story in tumultuous times: Hollywood, War Trauma and the Rule of Money

By John Grant

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Jason Hall, the screenwriter who wrote the script for the Clint Eastwood blockbuster American Sniper, a well-made piece of hagiographic cinema based on a memoir by Chris Kyle, has made what feels like a corrective on the subject. This time, he’s both writer and director of a film that reportedly was initially slated to be directed by Hollywood giant Stephen Spielberg, with Hall read more