A blog about a criminal enterprise
As Americans and people of other former colonies recognize, there’s a great deal to be said for national independence.
But, at times, we might also wonder: is it sufficient?
Until recently in human history, imperialism was widespread. In 1939, Britain’s Empire and Commonwealth alone had direct or de facto political and economic control of 25 percent of the world’s population and 30 percent of its land mass.
Although Donald Trump has never been modest about his abilities or reluctant to exercise personal power, during his second term in office he has shown clear signs of megalomania.
One sign, of course, is his blatant demand for the territory of other nations. Since January 2025 alone, he has suggested annexing or seizing control of Greenland, Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, Gaza, Venezuela, and Cuba. In addition,
Amid widespread revulsion at the behavior of the second Trump administration and its Republican loyalists, there is a curious tendency to blame Democrats for the slide of the United States toward fascism. As one enraged commentator put it recently, “the Democrats” have “let us down day by day by day.”
But, in fact, “the Democrats”―at the grassroots and at the federal government level―have repeatedly displayed overwhelming opposition to the rightwing Republican onslaught. By
Although the statement that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” was made by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong, it’s an idea that, in one form or another, has motivated a great many people, from the members of teenage street gangs to the statesmen of major nations.
The rising spiral of world military spending provides a striking example of how highly national governments value armed forces. In 2024, the
By Dave Lindorff
A joint publication project of ThisCantBeHappening! and Tarbell.org
As of January 1 of this year, under the UN Charter, nuclear weapons have been declared illegal — both their possession and their use — putting them in the same status as chemical and biological weapons, but because none of
It is often said that government budgets are “an expression of values.” Those values are clear in the Trump administration’s $4.8 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2021, unveiled early this February.
The budget calls for deep cuts in major U.S. government programs, especially those protecting public health. The Department of Health and Human Services would be slashed by 10
In recent years, internationalism―cooperation among nations for promotion of the common good―has acquired a bad reputation.
Of course, internationalism has long been anathema to the political Right, where a primitive tribalism and its successor, nationalism, have flourished for many years. Focusing on their nation’s supposed superiority to others, a long line of rightwing demagogues, including Adolf Hitler (“Deutschland
As president, Donald Trump has leaned heavily upon what he has called an “America First” policy. This nationalist approach involves walking away from cooperative agreements with other nations and relying, instead, upon a dominant role for the United States, undergirded by military might, in world affairs.
Nevertheless, as numerous recent opinion polls reveal, most Americans don’t support this policy.
The reaction of the American public to Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from key
By Dave Lindorff
Probably the most important single legacy of what happened in the period of the Great Depression and the New Deal was the establishment of the Social Security, the federal program that today pays benefits to 63 million US elderly, disabled adults and dependent children left by a deceased bread-winner. That’s one-in-six of all people in this country.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Democratic