Sun Tzu: The Ass of War

Sun Tzu, whose book, The Art of War, was written some 2,500 years ago during a period of constant war, and popularized in the West some 100 years ago (just in time for industrialized warfare), is the leading example of what’s wrong with digging up ancient platitudes as guides for action today in the areas of war and peace.

“That the impact of your army may be like a grindstone dashed against an egg — this is effected by the science of weak points and strong.”

This “wisdom” provides nothing read more

Focus: Update on the FBI and Justice Department

Tomgram: John Feffer, Drowning Liberalism in the Bathtub

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.

By the time you read this, the latest brouhaha will undoubtedly be history — or do I mean “fake history”? — and largely forgotten. It will have been replaced by an explosion of media coverage about some other nightmarish set of presidential tweets or comments. After all, it’s a pattern. I’m referring to President Trump’s recent retweeting read more

76 Years of Pearl Harbor Lies

Donald Trump is tweeting about a particular spot in Hawaii. He visited it recently on his way to threaten war in Asia. It’s a big feature this week in lots of U.S. magazines and newspapers. It has a lovely name that sounds like murder and blood because Japanese airplanes engaged in large-scale murder there in 1941: Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor Day today is like Columbus Day 50 years ago. That is to say: most people still believe the hype. The myths are still maintained in their blissful unquestioned read more

Charlottesville Beyond the Lee Statue

If you haven’t seen Charlottesville on the news lately, you should know that the Lee Statue and the Jackson Statue still stand, covered with enormous black garbage bags so that nobody can see them, but everybody can know there’s something ugly there. The state of Virginia forbids localities from removing any war memorials whatsoever, at least if you apply laws retroactively and have no courage. Nobody has made any move to repeal that state restriction, principally because nobody wants to make read more

Focus: The FBI and Justice Department

Talk Nation Radio: Shireen Al-Adeimi: Stop the U.S. War on Yemen

Shireen Al-Adeimi is a former middle school teacher and is currently finishing her doctoral studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She was born in Yemen and has lived in the United States for 10 years. She recently wrote an article published by Common Dreams titled “Only Americans Can Stop America’s War on Yemen.”

Shireen Al-Adeimi on Twitter.

Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.

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