- — Making America White Again
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at 3/27/25 7:36amDuring the 2024 election campaign, candidate Donald Trump’s most controversial rally occurred at New York’s Madison Square Garden. A comedian on the program referred to the island of Puerto Rico and by implication Puerto Ricans as garbage. He and the Trump campaign were rightfully pilloried and called out for his disgusting bigotry. Little notice was given, however, to another noxious racist moment at the same event. On Trump’s playlist for the rally was the Confederate and White nationalist anthem “Dixie.” Notably, that song was played as Trump loyalist and harsh defender Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL) was coming on stage. Donalds is African American and perhaps Trump’s most visible Black sycophant. While Black social media and journalists crucified Trump... Read more Source: Making America White Again appeared first on TomDispatch.com.- — The First 50 Days
- at 3/25/25 7:33amFour years ago, I published Subtle Tools, a book on the erosion of American democratic norms in the face of what came to be known as the Global War on Terror. Both what had been done in the name of national security in response to the 9/11 attacks and how it had been done through the willing neglect of procedural integrity, the exploitation of all-too-flexible norms, a remarkable disregard for transparency, and a failure to call for accountability of any sort left the country wide open to even more damaging future abuses of the rule of law. And lo and behold! now, that future is all too distinctly here. What happened in the first quarter of... Read more Source: The First 50 Days appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — Trump Rages to Snuff Out Democracy’s Candle
- at 3/23/25 3:32pmAllow me to stipulate that I do not wish to die. In fact, had anyone consulted me about the construction of the universe, I would have made my views on the subject quite clear: mortality is a terrible idea. I’m opposed to it in general. (In wiser moments, I know that this is silly and that all life feeds on life. There is no life without the death of other beings, indeed, no planets without the death of stars.) Nonetheless, I’m also opposed to mortality on a personal level. I get too much pleasure out of being alive to want to give it up. And I’m curious enough that I don’t want to die before I learn how it all... Read more Source: Trump Rages to Snuff Out Democracy’s Candle appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — Shock and Awe
- at 3/20/25 7:31amYes, shock and awe is back in the second age of Donald Trump. His border czar, Tom Homan, used that very phrase to describe border policy from day one of the new administration and, whether the president has actually said it or not, its now regularly in headlines, op-eds, and so much else. If you remember, it was the phrase used, in all its glory, to describe Americas massive bombing and invasion of Iraq in 2003. (You remember! The country that supposedly threatened us with nuclear weapons but, in fact, didnt have any!) We Americans were, of course, going to shock and awe them. But from that moment on (if not from the moment, in the wake of the 9/11... Read more Source: Shock and Awe appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — The New Age Militarists
- at 3/18/25 7:28amAlex Karp, the CEO of the controversial military tech firm Palantir, is the coauthor of a new book, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. In it, he calls for a renewed sense of national purpose and even greater cooperation between government and the tech sector. His book is, in fact, not just an account of how to spur technological innovation, but a distinctly ideological tract. As a start, Karp roundly criticizes Silicon Valley’s focus on consumer-oriented products and events like video-sharing apps, online shopping, and social media platforms, which he dismisses as “the narrow and the trivial.” His focus instead is on what he likes to think of as innovative big-tech projects of... Read more Source: The New Age Militarists appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — American Democracy Down for the Count
- at 3/16/25 3:31pmSome years ago, I faced up to the futility ofreportingtrue things about America’s disastrous wars and so I left Afghanistan for another remote mountainous country far away. It was the polar opposite of Afghanistan: a peaceful, prosperous land where nearly everybody seemed to enjoy a good life, on the job and in the family. It’s true that they didn’t work much, not by American standards anyway. In the U.S., full-time salaried workers supposedlylaboring40 hours a week actually average 49, with almost 20% clocking more than 60. These people, on the other hand,workedonly about 37 hours a week, when they weren’t away on long paid vacations. At the end of the work day, about four in the afternoon (perhaps three in... Read more Source: American Democracy Down for the Count appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — How to Resist This Fresh Hell
- at 3/13/25 7:29amNot even two months since Inauguration Day and it’s already been quite a trip. Ping-ponging between vindictive pettiness and unconstitutional overreach while using everything in his power (and much that isnt), Donald Trump has served up a goulash of dubious orders with a slathering of venom on top. Hes been abetted in the upheaval he promised on the campaign trail by the richest man on Earth, a cabal of lickspittles, and a cabinet filled with people who appear to have answered job ads stipulating, “Only the unqualified may apply.” As it became clearer what the battles to come would be, a friend wrote me: “I feel now like were watching it all happen. It being that thing that cant happen... Read more Source: How to Resist This Fresh Hell appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — An All-American Nightmare
- at 3/11/25 7:34am“Flights to Guantánamo Bay have begun. The worst of the worst have no place in our homeland.” With those words the U.S. government announced the fate awaiting “criminal aliens” in its custody. On a military base in El Paso, Texas, masked men in combat fatigues paraded a group of young Venezuelan immigrants, their hands cuffed and their ankles shackled, in front of the cameras, before loading them onto a waiting Air Force C-17, which was to deliver its human cargo to Naval Station Guantánamo Bay overnight. Once there, they were to be incarcerated in the infamous Camp 6, held incommunicado in the same cells where al-Qaeda suspects were once held in indefinite detention, and guarded by the 1st Battalion, 6th... Read more Source: An All-American Nightmare appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — Courage Is Contagious
- at 3/9/25 4:06pm“It is pretty wild how you can make someone mad by just holding a sign,” my 18-year-old Ro told me, as an irate driver peeled out of the intersection, shaking both his middle fingers at us but managing not to hit us. Phew! Ro was right. It didn’t take much to turn a perpetually busy intersection in New London, Connecticut, into a discussion forum on presidential overreach, cruelty, and immigration politics with all the excesses, including those fingers, of the Age of Trump. In fact, all it took was four of us, four signs, and a little midday coordination. Oh, and some noise makers! Our signs said: “New London cares about our neighbors” and “ICE Not Welcome” and two... Read more Source: Courage Is Contagious appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — Cyberpunk Nation
- at 3/6/25 7:32amThe opening weeks of the second Trump administration have produced daily headlines that read no, this is not hyperbole! like science fiction. The spectacle of a South African tech billionaire and his cronies staging a twenty-first-century cybercoup with the acquiescence of an aging lunatic of a president beggars belief. Elon Musk has given vast powers to young, even teenaged plenipotentiaries like Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, 19, who had earlier been employed by Musk’s brain-chip project Neuralink and has now been made a special adviser to the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology and the Department of Homeland Security. The Trumpian lists of forbidden words and concepts have reminded some observers of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. High Technology... Read more Source: Cyberpunk Nation appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — Will the Forever Wars Ever End?
- at 10/1/24 8:12amSeptember marked the 23rd anniversary of al-Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on the United States, which left nearly 3,000 people dead. For the two decades since then, Ive been writing, often for TomDispatch, about the ways the American response to 9/11, which quickly came to be known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT, changed this country. As Ive explored in several books, in the name of that war, we transformed our institutions, privileged secrecy over transparency and accountability, side-stepped and even violated longstanding laws and constitutional principles, and basically tossed aside many of the norms that had guided us as a nation for two centuries-plus, opening the way for a country now in Trumpian-style difficulty at home. Even today, more... Read more Source: Will the Forever Wars Ever End? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — The Pentagon Goes to School
- at 9/29/24 3:31pmThe divestment campaigns launched last spring by students protesting Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza brought the issue of the militarization of American higher education back into the spotlight. Of course, financial ties between the Pentagon and American universities are nothing new. As Stuart Leslie has pointed out in his seminal book on the topic, The Cold War and American Science, “In the decade following World War II, the Department of Defense (DOD) became the biggest patron of American science.” Admittedly, as civilian institutions like the National Institutes of Health grew larger, the Pentagon’s share of federal research and development did decline, but it still remained a source of billions of dollars in funding for university research. And now, Pentagon-funded research... Read more Source: The Pentagon Goes to School appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — In a Lost Universe (With You Know Who)
- at 9/26/24 7:32amImagine yourself in space, looking down on our world and yet unable to return any time soon. Consider it our bad luck, in fact, that Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams were the two Americans sent to the International Space Station, 250 miles above this planet, for a few days in June and now find themselves stuck there until perhaps next February. If only it had been Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. If only indeed. Of course, in some sense, both of them are already in deep space, far beyond where Wilmore and Williams find themselves. And if you dont believe me, just ask any dog or cat from Springfield, Ohio. Heres the truly sad thing, though: if Donald Trump... Read more Source: In a Lost Universe (With You Know Who) appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — Militarism Abuse Disorder
- at 9/24/24 7:31amMy name is Frida and my community is military dependent. (I feel, by the way, like I’m introducing myself at a very strange AA-like meeting with lousy coffee.)As with people who have substance abuse disorders, Im part of a very large club. After all, there are weapons manufacturers and subcontractors in just about every congressional district in the country, so that members of Congress will never forget whom they are really working for: the military-industrial complex. Using the vernacular of the day, perhaps its particularly on target to say that our whole country suffers from Militarism Abuse Disorder or (all too appropriately) MAD. I must confess that I don’t like to admit to my military dependency. Who does? In my... Read more Source: Militarism Abuse Disorder appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — War Forever, Everywhere
- at 9/22/24 3:34pmCount on one thing: armed conflict lasts for decades after battles end and its effects ripple thousands of miles beyond actual battlefields. This has been true of America’s post-9/11 forever wars that, in some minimalist fashion, continue in all too many countries around the world. Yet those wars, which we ignited in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, are hardly the first to offer such lessons. Prior wars left us plenty to learn from that could have led this country to respond differently after that September day when terrorists crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Instead, we ignored history and, as a result, among... Read more Source: War Forever, Everywhere appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — What Does It Take to Destroy a World Order?
- at 9/19/24 7:32amOnce upon a time in America, we could all argue about whether or not U.S. global power was declining. Now, most observers have little doubt that the end is just a matter of timing and circumstance. Ten years ago, I predicted that, by 2025, it would be all over for American power, a then-controversial comment that’s commonplace today. Under President Donald Trump, the once “indispensable nation” that won World War II and built a new world order has become dispensable indeed. The decline and fall of American global power is, of course, nothing special in the great sweep of history. After all, in the 4,000 years since humanity’s first empire formed in the Fertile Crescent, at least 200 empires have... Read more Source: What Does It Take to Destroy a World Order? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — The Sphinx and the Sultan
- at 9/17/24 7:34amAt least one thing is now obvious in the Middle East: the Biden administration has failed abjectly in its objectives there, leaving the region in dangerous disarray. Its primary stated foreign policy goal has been to rally its partners in the region to cooperate with the extremist Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu while upholding a rules-based international order and blocking Iran and its allies in their policies. Clearly, such goals have had all the coherence of a chimera and have failed for one obvious reason. President Biden’s Achilles heel has been his “bear hug” of Netanyahu, who allied himself with the Israeli equivalent of neo-Nazis, while launching a ruinous total war on the people of Gaza in the wake of... Read more Source: The Sphinx and the Sultan appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — We’re Getting Sick of Noise Pollution
- at 9/15/24 3:49pmThe most pressing environmental crisis of these times, our heating of the Earth through carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollution, is closely connected to our excessive energy consumption. And with many of the ways we use that energy, we’re also producing another less widely discussed pollutant: industrial noise. Like greenhouse-gas pollution, noise pollution is degrading our world and its not just affecting our bodily and mental health but also the health of ecosystems on which we depend utterly. Noise pollution, a longstanding menace, is often ignored. It has, however, been making headlines in recent years, thanks to the booming development of massive, boxy, windowless buildings filled with computer servers that process data and handle internet traffic. Those servers... Read more Source: We’re Getting Sick of Noise Pollution appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — The Armageddon Agenda
- at 9/12/24 7:36amThe next president of the United States, whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, will face many contentious domestic issues that have long divided this country, including abortion rights, immigration, racial discord, and economic inequality. In the foreign policy realm, she or he will face vexing decisions over Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, and China/Taiwan. But one issue that few of us are even thinking about could pose a far greater quandary for the next president and even deeper peril for the rest of us: nuclear weapons policy. Consider this: For the past three decades, weve been living through a period in which the risk of nuclear war has been far lower than at any time since the Nuclear Age began so low,... Read more Source: The Armageddon Agenda appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — A Personal Meditation on Growing Old
- at 9/10/24 7:32amThe Washington Post headline reads: “A big problem for young workers: 70- and 80-year-olds who won’t retire.” For the first time in history, reports Aden Barton, five generations are competing in the same workforce. His article laments a “demographic traffic jam” at the apexes of various employment pyramids, making it ever harder for young people “to launch their careers and get promoted” in their chosen professions. In fact, actual professors (full-time and tenure-track ones, presumably, rather than part-timers like me) are Exhibit A in his analysis. “In academia, for instance, as he puts it, young professionals now spend years in fellowships and postdoctoral programs waiting for professor jobs to open.” I’ve written before about how this works in the academic... Read more Source: A Personal Meditation on Growing Old appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
- — Where Can We Live?
- at 9/8/24 3:32pmIn 2019, a group of homeless folks were living on a deserted piece of land along the Chehalis River, a drainage basin that empties into Grays Harbor, an estuary of the Pacific Ocean, on the coast of the state of Washington. When the city of Aberdeen ordered the homeless encampment cleared out, some of those unhoused residents took the city to court, because they had nowhere else to go. Aberdeen finally settled the case by agreeing to provide alternative shelter for the residents since, the year before, a U.S. court of appeals had ruled in the case of Martin v. Boise that a city without sufficient shelter beds to accommodate homeless people encamped in their area couldnt close the encampment.... Read more Source: Where Can We Live? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.
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