War Is A Crime

By Dave Lindorff

            The wailing you hear from public sector unions and from trade unions in general in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Wednesday Janus decision banning the mandatory payment of fees to unions by workers who choose not to join them in the public sector is overwrought. In many states with strong public sector unions, this has been the case long before this ruling came down.

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             It’s read more

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On the campaign trail in 2016, Donald Trump wasn’t shy when it came to the issue of debt.  As he told Norah O’Donnell of CBS This Morning at the time, “I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me. I’ve made a fortune by using debt and read more

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In the days before Donad Trump “caved” and issued an executive order (which he previously read more

By Dave Lindorff

            Over a generation ago, engineer Bill Smith, working at Motorola, developed a management system called Six-Sigma, designed to help companies avoid quality problems in their products and business processes. His system caught on and became a catch=word in business schools and in large corporations.

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            In 1995, Jack Welsh, CEO of GE, made it central to the read more

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Two decades ago, when I was working as an editor at a publishing house, Chalmers Johnson, then an eminent scholar of Asia and a former CIA consultant, sent in a proposal for a book he was already calling Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. I still remember the passage from his prologue that convinced me it was indeed one that simply had to be done:

“One read more

Remarks at Peace Resource Center of San Diego, June 23, 2018.

There are three things that are almost always underestimated: the U.S. military budget, altruism, and sadism.

First, the military budget.

The U.S. military budget, including all things military in various departments, is roughly 60% of federal discretionary spending, meaning the spending that Congress members decide on each year. It is also, by my very rough estimate, the topic of well under 1% of the discussions of government spending read more

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In the rush of Trumped-up events, history — of the last month, week, hour — repeatedly gets plowed (or tweeted) under. Who can remember what happened so long ago? Perhaps it’s not surprising then that, in the wave of abuse from the president and his men (including economic adviser Larry read more

Although many people have criticized the bizarre nature of Donald Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea, his recent lovefest with Kim Jong Un does have the potential to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

Even so, buried far below the mass media coverage of the summit spectacle, the reality is that Trump―assisted by his military and civilian advisers―is busy getting the United States ready for nuclear war.

This deeper and more ominous situation is reflected in read more

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

There’s no other imperial tradition like it.  For two millennia, dynasty after dynasty rose and fell, spread and shrank, reaching into Southeast Asia and far out into the steppes of Eurasia, its commercial fleets — 3,500 read more