Tomgram: Hartung and Smithberger, The Pentagon’s Yearly Blank Check

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

Today, TomDispatch regulars and Pentagon experts William Hartung and Mandy Smithberger consider the way the funding of the U.S. military and the industrial complex that goes with it has headed for what used to be called “the wild blue yonder.” After all, it’s just about the only thing a Congress that can’t otherwise seem to reach an accord agrees about.

In a strange read more

Talk World Radio Debate: Reform War or Abolish It?

Talk World Radio is recorded as audio and video on Riverside.fm (except when it doesn’t work, and then Zoom is used). Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.

This week on Talk World Radio, we’re going to hold a bit of a respectful and civil debate. I’m going to take the position that we should be focused on preventing wars and defunding militaries even at the expense of working to reform wars. My guest, Leonard Rubenstein’s position includes support read more

Tomgram: Liz Theoharis, The Politics of the Poor in an America on Edge

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

Consider it strange indeed that Congress won’t even blink when asked to fund the military — anything military whatsoever. In fact, when the Biden administration suggested a Pentagon budget of a staggering $715 billion for fiscal year 2022, both parties in the House of Representatives responded by insisting on read more

Video: Militaries As Global Health Threat

By Rotary Club of Fort Collins, November 4, 2021

David Swanson spoke on November 3, 2021, with the Rotary Club of Fort Collins. The views he expressed were his, obviously, and not those of the Rotary Club of Fort Collins. But they could be yours. That’s up to you.

Tomgram: Nick Turse, Thanks for Nothing

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

In 2006, Newsweek dubbed him “a rising star” and one of the “Jedi knights who are fighting in what [Vice President] Cheney calls ‘the shadows.’” The particular Jedi knight being touted to the skies was Army General Stanley McChrystal, then running the Pentagon’s super-secret Joint Special Operations Command. And such language only multiplied, when, read more

It’s the Weapons Sales, Stupid

Image from Mapping Militarism.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 2, 2021

U.S. presidential election campaigns have been known to focus on the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Efforts to explain the behavior of the U.S. government ought to put a little more focus on a different slogan, found in the headline above.

Andrew Cockburn’s fantastic new book, The Spoils of War: Power, Profit, and the American War Machine, builds a case that U.S. foreign policy read more

The Climate Crisis Presents a Stark Choice Between Capitalism and Survival

By Sputnik, November 2, 2021

Climate and Capitalism’s Death Drive, Biden Sells Out Working and Poor People, Military Drives Climate Crisis

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Don Debar host of the Weekday World show on Radio Justice LA to discuss the gutting of the budget reconciliation bill and the selling out of working and poor people, Joe Biden and the Democrats’ capitulation to Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and read more

Video: Building Peace, Security and Justice through the Rule of Law and Global Governance

By World Federalist Movement, Institute for Global Policy, November 2, 2021

Speakers:
Mr. Keith Best, Executive Chair, WFM/IGP
Mr. Vijay Mehta, Chair, Uniting for Peace
Mr. David Swanson, Executive Director, World BEYOND War
Mr. Stephen Hockman QC, Barrister at Six Pump Court Chambers
Ms. Jennifer Trahan, Professor, New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and Director of Concentration in International Law and Human Rights
Ms. Marjolijn Snippe, Executive read more

Save Tom Friedman’s Mind: Restore Armistice Day

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 1, 2021

When the New York Times is paying Thomas Friedman many thousands of dollars to wonder whether Russia or China would help the United States if space aliens attack it, a few conclusions can be drawn.

The ludicrousness of the UFO propaganda coming out of a U.S. military establishment unable to gin up a credible enemy on Earth to justify weapons production is invisible to its own proponents.

The eagerness of Russia and China to ban weapons from space read more