Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Trumping the Empire

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

I was 12. It was 1956. I lived in New York City and was a youthful history buff. (I should have kept my collection of American Heritage magazines!) Undoubtedly, I was also some kind of classic nerd. In any case, at some point during the Suez crisis of that year, I can remember going to the U.N. by myself and sitting in the gallery of the General Assembly, where read more

How Much is a Boss Worth?

An awful lot of Americans are skeptical about the value of their nation’s corporate executives.

As a 2016 nationwide survey reveals, 74 percent of Americans believe that top corporate executives are overpaid.   This public dismay with CEO compensation exists despite the fact that Americans drastically underestimate what top corporate executives are paid every read more

Pentagon Recruiting Playbook Revealed

Ominous developments in three states this summer – Oregon, Texas, New Jersey, and one city – Chicago, provide a glimpse into the Pentagon’s new playbook to recruit soldiers from high schools across the country. In brief, the military has been engaged in a robust lobbying campaign to lower academic standards to make it easier to recruit youth.

New recruits have long been required to hold a high school diploma or a GED certificate. This requirement is a major impediment to finding enough read more

Tomgram: Frida Berrigan, Resistance is Fertile (Not Futile)

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

Dystopian, yes. Unimaginable, no. In fact, a version of our present moment was imagined more than eight decades ago by novelist Sinclair Lewis who wrote a still readable (if now fictionally clunky) novel, It Can’t Happen Here. Its focus: the election as president of a man we might read more

Glorifying Drones And Recruiting New Operators Propaganda Effort Has Many Helpers

One of thousands of squares commemorating war victims in the Drone Quilt Project.   Art by Leeza Vinogradov

I’ll admit here that I gave up on National “Public” Radio some years ago, around the time they began running promos for their agribusiness and other corporate sponsors. NPR’s coverage of the Iraq war was so carefully tailored to show the view through approved windows that I began to lose respect for their journalistic integrity. More like the New York Times and The New Yorker magazine, really, puffing Obama while panning Republicans, signalling their fealty read more

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Aiding and Abetting the Tweeter-in-Chief

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

The Insult Wars in Washington 
How They Blind Us to Our Troubles 
By Tom Engelhardt

I don’t tweet, but I do have a brief message for our president: Will you please get the hell out of the way for a few minutes? You and your antics are blocking our view of the damn world and it’s a world we should be focusing on!

Maybe it was the moment, more than a week ago, when read more

Why We’re Kayaking to the Pentagon, and Why You Should Join Us

One week before the #NoWar2017: War and the Environment conference, to be held September 22-24 at American Univeristy, World Beyond War will work with the Backbone Campaign and other allies to organize a flotilla for the environment and peace, bringing kayaktivism to Washington, D.C., on September 16th.

Why? What’s the relevance? Who’s drilling for oil on the Potomac?

Actually the Potomac is central headquarters for oil consumption, as the top way in which we consume oil is through preparing read more