When it comes to foreign policy, the 2020s might be about to go retro. And nothing could be so perfectly targeted to hit that pre-Trump nostalgia spot for the administrative class quite like “Responsible American Leadership.” In this post-Cold War era, this term always seems to mean a rhetorical...
The 20th century muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair once opined that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” With this in mind, it is easy to understand why a small but powerful class of war profiteers might not...
On his newborn daughter’s first July 4th holiday, an anti-imperialist writer ponders what he hopes for her to come to understand about her nation of birth. Gabriela, you are part of the four percent of the world’s population that celebrates today, July 4th, as Independence Day. We are in the...
Memorial Day
In the past few years, liberal activists have initiated a campaign to remove monuments and other symbols of the Southern Confederacy that fought the U.S. Civil War to uphold slavery. Yet, this Memorial Day, many of these same liberals will actively celebrate those members of the United States military who fought and died for causes no less deplorable than the Confederacy’s...
While war corporations, or so-called "defense contractors," make billions in profits, Wall Street is the ultimate beneficiary of today’s nonstop wars. The prosaic nature of war profiteering—far from the work of a shadowy cabal—is precisely why the collusion is so destructive and should be outlawed. The U.S. ruling class deploys...
The Sad Story of How a Once Progressive Nation Became an Outpost of the American Empire “We perceive it as natural that once again we are on the way to war, part of our every day,” explained Vibeke Schou Tjalve, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.“People believe...
Huge Military Budgets, Covert Operations, Drones and Assassinations—but hey, at least he didn’t start another major war By any objective measure, Donald Trump has been one of the worst presidents in American history. His administration exacerbated inequalities, fomented social divisions, encouraged nativist and white supremacist groups, gutted environmental protections, mishandled the...
Pay no attention to all those nasty left-wing allegations about how military contractors collude and conspire with the Pentagon to warp our economy, impoverish our citizens, pervert our national goals, and foment needless bloody wars that slaughter millions in order to fatten corporate profits. The truth is actually much...
In the USA of 2019, truth itself has become a radical act, and to be motivated by belief, instead of profit and corporate power, is to say the least, rare. Chelsea Elizabeth Manning is indeed one of those rare examples of a 21st century truth teller who has been...
On March 17, William H. Blum, the feisty investigative journalist who (literally) wrote the book on CIA crimes and coverups – and who passed away on December 9 at age 85 – was remembered and celebrated at a public memorial in Washington, D.C. The event, which took place at...