FINIAN CUNNINGHAM – The monstrous US military budget is a classic illustration of the proverb about not seeing the woods for the trees. It is such an overwhelming outgrowth, all too often it is misperceived.
Nuclear Ground Zero Is Everywhere Now
WINSLOW MYERS – Torture and rape are unbearable enough, but a nuclear war anywhere could throw billions of people into the misery of worldwide starvation. It is a dangerous illusion to assume that our political leaders and foreign policy experts will magically prevent apocalypse—that the generals on the front lines in Pakistan or anywhere else are sufficiently trained and disciplined never to fall into fatal error. With each further deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons, weapons that the United States and other nuclear powers are also developing, the temptation grows to cross the nuclear threshold. As Lao Tzu said, “if you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.†All nations share an interest in stepping back from a catastrophe where any “victory†is a mirage that briefly disguises defeat for all.
The Blue Revolution – How Kuwaiti Women Used Nonviolence to Gain Suffrage
RIVERA SUN – This week in nonviolent history commemorates the successful conclusion of Kuwait’s Blue Revolution. On May 17th, 2005, Kuwaiti women gained suffrage after more than 40 years of struggle. The women used a wide variety of approaches to achieve their goals, including lobbying, introducing repeated legislation, protests and demonstration, marches, rallies, and mock elections.
Panama Papers Reveal How the 1% Operate
MEL GURTOV – One of the many tools at the disposal of multinational corporations (MNCs) for maximizing profits and undermining state sovereignty is moving operations to low-tax countries. Global companies do not simply “go abroadâ€; they shift capital, as well as labor and technology, to wherever the advantages are greatest. This reality of globalization is well known, and it is matched by the similar behavior of powerful, wealthy individuals, including present and former top government officials. Like the MNCs, wealthy individuals are not content to make tons of money at home if they can make even more by finding tax shelters abroad, where their money is completely hidden from public view. It’s what the One Percent do.
NATO’s Dangerous Game: Bear-Baiting Russia
CONN HALLINAN – “Aggressive,†“revanchist,†“swaggeringâ€: These are just some of the adjectives the mainstream press and leading U.S. and European political figures are routinely inserting before the words “Russia,†or “Vladimir Putin.†It is a vocabulary most Americans have not seen or heard since the height of the Cold War. The question is, why?
Here’s What a U.S. Military “Mistake†Looks Like
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – “The people are being reduced to blood and dust. They are in pieces.†The doctor who uttered these words still thought the hospital itself was a safe zone. He was with Doctors Without Borders, working in Kunduz, Afghanistan, where the Taliban and government forces were engaged in hellish fighting and civilians, as always, were caught in the middle.