A blog about a criminal enterprise
By Dave Lindorff
America’s last days in Afghanistan offered a sickening display of all that was wrong with the $2.3-trillion, 20-year failed attempt by a blundering, self-congratulatory but decaying empire to have its way in a place it neither really cared about at all, nor understood in the least.
First there was a catastrophic but predictable attack on US and Taliban troops as well as desperate civilians trying to escape the ruins and chaos of the country the US
Talk World Radio is recorded as audio and video on Riverside.fm. Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.
This week on Talk World Radio: Better late and diastrously than never. It’s never too soon to end a war, even if you don’t really end it, tell lots of lies about it, and increase military spending to prepare for more wars.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
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Malika Ahmadi, two, died in a U.S. drone strike on Kabul today, her family says. Has the war of 20 years cost us the ability to care?
The war on Afghanistan and the war on Iraq that it was a means of helping start, and all the other spin-off wars leave (if you count only bombing from above as leaving) millions dead, millions injured, millions traumatized, millions homeless, the rule of law eroded, the natural environment devastated, government secrecy and surveillance and authoritarianism increased
The Washington Post has been a leading promoter of the Rules Based Order, which some have confused with a pro-democracy initiative. The Post has, however, assembled a powerful case against democracy, that we all need to take seriously if we want to be, you know, serious.
I want to highlight just the most recent two additions to the anti-democracy argument that by now is quite overwhelmingly established.
On August 29th, a column
Is it possible to build social solidarity beyond the state?
It’s easy to conclude that it’s not. In 1915, as national governments produced the shocking carnage of World War I, Ralph Chaplin, an activist in the Industrial Workers of the World, wrote his stirring song, “Solidarity Forever.” Taken up by unions around the globe, it proclaimed that there was “no power greater anywhere beneath the sun” than international
In some future lovely little war, perhaps with China or some other demonized target, some percentage of the U.S. public may suddenly exclaim: “Hey, since when does a draft include young women as well as men?!” Old tunes will be revised and sung in protest with lyrics about being the first one on your block to have your daughter come home in a box. The tragedies will be played out in tears and screams and flag-covered propaganda-regurgitating rationalizations.
“Speaking Truth to Empire” on KFCF 88.1 independently owned and locally operated since 1975 in Fresno, Dan Yaseen interviews John LaForge, co-director of Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog group in Wisconsin, and edits its Quarterly newsletter. They discuss his recent article, “Rejection of US Hiroshima Myths Long Overdue”, and the effect of those myths on U.S. nuclear policy, the current expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and rejection of the United Nations’
Presented Friday, August 27, 2021, to the Northern Colorado Alliance for a Livable Future
I want to begin with five success stories.
The Peace Movement.
The people who spent 20 years largely excluded from the corporate media, lobbying Congress Members well paid not to listen to them, marching and protesting and holding teach-ins, making art, traveling across the globe or staying put on the same street corner for decades to build alliances and awareness, writing books and teaching courses, interrupting
Afghan villagers stand over bodies of civilians during a protest in the city of Ghazni, west of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 29, 2019. An airstrike by U.S.-led forces in eastern Afghanistan killed at least five civilians. (AP Photo/Rahmatullah Nikzad)
By Kathy Kelly, Nick Mottern, David Swanson, Brian Terrell, August 27, 2021
On the evening of Thursday, August 26, hours after two suicide bombs were detonated at the gates of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport killing and wounding scores of
The communications system we live in is highly complex, mostly driven by greed and profit, in part semi-public, full of filth I know we’d be better off without, and increasingly openly censored and monitored by defenders of accepted good thinking.
Fascist nutcases are spreading dangerous nonsense, while billionaire monopolists are virtually disappearing critics and protesters. It’s easy to get confused about what ought to be done. It’s difficult to find any recommendation that isn’t confused.