Thinking Beyond Exceptionalism

Excepted from Curing Exceptionalism: What’s wrong with how we think about the United States? What can we do about it? (April, 2018).

Try this experiment: Imagine that space aliens really come to earth and really have, as I think is very unlikely, developed the ability to travel to earth while simultaneously remaining so primitive as to violently attack the places they visit. In contrast to the space aliens, could you identify as an earthling to such an extent as to diminish your other senses of identity? “Earthlings — F— Yeah!” “We’re Number 1!” “Greatest Earthlings on Earth!” And can you hold that thought, read more

Talk Nation Radio: Mitchell Plitnick on John Bolton

Mitchell Plitnick is former vice president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is the former director of the U.S. Office of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and was previously the director of education and policy for Jewish Voice for Peace. He’s published an article called “John Bolton: The Essential Profile.” See:

https://lobelog.com/john-bolton-the-essential-profile

Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
read more

U.S. at peace? Some Americans think so

The U.S. Senate voted down, 55 to 44, a bill co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders that would have ended U.S. involvement in the Saudi Arabia-led war against Yemen. However, veteran anti-war activist David Swanson saw the action as a sign of progress, given that the Senate has never conducted such a vote based on the War Powers Act. Swanson, publisher of the influential web site WarIsACrime.org and director of World Beyond War, has found that Americans “around the country think that read more

Speaking Truth to Empire

Speaking Truth to Empire on KFCF 88.1 FM Dan Yaseen interviews Mac MacDevitt from Chicago Veterans for Peace.  He is the artist, creator and project leader for the My Lai Memorial Exhibit.  They will discuss Veterans For Peace, the My Lai massacre, the Vietnam War, current wars and the upcoming exhibit in Fresno on March 24th.

Speaking Truth to Empire

Speaking Truth to Empire on KFCF 88.1 independently owned and locally operated since 1975 in Fresno,. Dan Yaseen interviews Ann Garrison. Ann is an independent journalist and a columnist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her articles appear in Counterpunch, San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, the Black Agenda Report and the Black Star News. She produces radio for KPFA-Berkeley and WBAI-New York City. In 2014, the Womens International Network for Democracy read more

Trump’s truly awful pick for national security advisor: War Monger and War Criminal John Bolton to Head Trump’s National Security Council

By Dave Lindorff

John Bolton, the man named this past week by President Trump to be his new national security advisor, is like that rotting corpse of the torturing rapist local yokel that erupts from the water at the very end of the movie “Deliverance,” returning to remind its former victims of the horrors they had endured earlier and thought they’d finally rid themselves of.

One of the most bloodthirsty members of a gang of war-mongering read more

Trumparade of 2018 Stupidest Idea Since Philadelphia Liberty Loan Parade of 1918

It’s hard not to focus on the fact that Trump has picked the 100th anniversary of the first Armistice Day celebration for his weaponry parade (more on that below). But there was another parade a month and a half before the armistice that cries out for comparison because of its remarkable stupidity. I’m thinking of the Liberty Loan Parade in Philadelphia:

This was a parade to squeeze more money out of people to pay for war, to celebrate patrioti-nationali-militarism, and to reject fake news. read more

Tomgram: Nate Terani, Being Demonized in Your Own Country

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

Who could possibly keep up with the discordant version of musical chairs now being played out in Washington? When it comes to Donald Trump’s White House, the old sports phrase about needing a scorecard to keep track of the players pops to mind (though you would need a new one every day or maybe every few hours). The turnover rate of top White House staffers was already at read more