GRAHAM E. FULLER – After some eight years of civil conflict, the situation in Syria is basically reverting to the pre-conflict norm.
Category: Analysis
What Really Happened to American Socialism?
HARVEY WASSERMAN – Both Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy are American made. Accept no substitutes.
We’re More at Risk of Nuclear War With Russia Than We Think
GEORGE BEEBE – Today, that old dread of disaster has all but disappeared, as have the systems that helped preclude it. But the actual threat of nuclear catastrophe is much greater than we realize. U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle need to start addressing the danger.
Unasked Questions about US-Ukrainian Relations
STEPHEN F. COHEN – Is U.S. national security being trumped by loathing for Trump? We need to know fully the origins of Russiagate, arguably the worst presidential scandal in American history, and if Ukrainian authorities can contribute to that understanding, they should be encouraged to do so. As I’ve argued repeatedly, fervent anti-Trumpers must decide whether they loathe him more than they care about American and international security.
Why are Americans so Confused about the Meaning of “Democratic Socialism?”
LAWRENCE WITTNER – The meaning of democratic socialism―a mixture of political and economic democracy―should be no mystery to Americans. After all, socialist programs have been adopted in most other democratic nations. Even so, large numbers of Americans seem remarkably confused about democratic socialism.
Saving the Planet Means Overthrowing the Ruling Elites
CHRIS HEDGES – We must organize to replace existing structures of power with ones capable of coping with the crisis before us.
Accepting “Partial Scores” from New Media Leads to Poor Understanding of Issues
JEFF COHEN – In the old George Carlin joke, the TV sportscaster announces: “Here’s a partial score from the West Coast – Los Angeles 6.†For a brilliant comedian like Carlin – who skewered corporate power, class structure and political/media propaganda – that’s one of his more innocuous jokes. But it’s sharply relevant today as corporate TV news outlets serve up a series of partial scores. Call it “propaganda by omission.â€
We Are Not All Equal When It Comes to the Consequences of Climate Change
LESLIE GREGORY and TOM H. HASTINGS – Not only are we already well into the worst mass extinctions of other species since the Cretaceous Debacle, but it is also evident that climate chaos will indeed impact health and well-being of people of color more than anyone. Consider the evidence.
Economic Sanctions on Venezuela: War by Another Name
H . PATRICIA HYNES – Recall the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 from grade school history? President James Monroe proclaimed that European nations could not colonize nor otherwise interfere in North and South American countries. Ironically, since 1890, the U.S. has intervened in Latin American elections, civil wars and revolutions at least 56 times, according to historian and author Mark Becker, to bolster US corporate interests and to eliminate democratically elected governments and leftist movements.
The Logic of the Nuclear Age and the Insanity of Our Nuclear Weapons Policy
E. MARTIN SCHOTZ, MD – Once the US and Russia see each other as partners in survival, they would be in a position to work together to help other nations join in the process. This is the way an international ban on nuclear weapons can eventually be achieved.
We Need Civility, but We Also Need Open Exploration of our Differences
WINSLOW MYERS – The times are too momentous for us to bite our tongues in the name of a veneer of civility that inhibits the constructive exchange of views. Civility, while necessary, is not sufficient.
The Primary Contradiction: Corporate Power vs. Progressive Populism
NORMAN SOLOMON – For plutocrats, this summer has gotten a bit scary. Two feared candidates are rising. Trusted candidates are underperforming. The 2020 presidential election could turn out to be a real-life horror movie: A Nightmare on Wall Street.
Trump Broke US Law when He Withdrew from the INF Treaty
DR. TIMMON WALLIS – President Trump violated the US Constitution when he unilaterally pulled the United States out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on August 2, 2019.
Trump Has Blocked Wage Gains for American Workers
LAWRENCE WITTNER – On June 19, 2019, President Donald Trump bragged at his re-election kickoff rally in Orlando that, thanks to his leadership, the wages of American workers “are rising at the fastest rate in many decades.†The reality, however, is that they are not. Indeed, wages rose at a faster rate only a few years before, under his predecessor. And a key reason for the very limited wage increases since Trump entered the White House is his administration’s success in blocking any wage increases for some workers and in reducing wage increases for others.
There Once Was a President Who Hated War
STEPHEN M. WALT – American elites used to see war as a tragic necessity. Now they’re completely addicted to it.
The Trump Administration’s Approach to the Climate Crisis is a Crime Against Humanity
MEL GURTOV – The President of the United States is a criminal. I’m not referring to the twenty-odd investigations of him currently underway for violations of the Constitution, obstruction of justice, and collaboration with the Russian election attack, among other misdeeds. No, I’m referring to his and his administration’s intentional and reckless pursuit of national policies that condemn American and the world’s citizens to environmental destruction and the end of life as we know it.
Why the West Has Historically Feared Russia
NATYLIE BALDWIN – Russia’s vast size – the largest country geographically in the world – and its prodigious resources are present for all to see. But now, having overcome its historical issues with poor agricultural policies, it also has the ability to feed itself, a highly educated citizenry, and the industrial infrastructure to support a space program as well as a sophisticated nuclear and defense system. It has the ability to build cars, trucks, and airplanes completely within its own borders. Unlike many countries in the world, it has very little external debt and major gold reserves. It is weathering the sanctions against it better than Iran or Venezuela.
Hiroshima Unlearned: Time to Tell the Truth About US Relations with Russia and Finally Ban the Bomb
ALICE SLATER – August 6th and 9th mark 74 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where only one nuclear bomb dropped on each city caused the deaths of up to 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 people in Nagasaki. Now, with the US decision to walk away from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) negotiated with the Soviet Union, we are once again staring into the abyss of one of the most perilous nuclear challenges since the height of the Cold War.
Earthquakes Repeatedly Striking Proposed US Nuclear Waste Site
EMMA SNAITH – Officials fear deadly radioactivity could seep into earth if another high-magnitude quake strikes Nevada desert.
To Tackle Climate Change We Need to Rethink Our Food System
KATHLEEN ROBERTS and DR. SHENGGEN FAN – Our food system is broken, but not irrevocably so. The challenges are enormous, but by understanding the problem and potential solutions, we can effect critical changes in the ways we produce, consume and dispose of food.
Trump is Trying to Revive the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site
DERRICK BROZE – “The United States is brokering land deals to enrich corporations and deprive the Shoshone of our lawful property rights and interests,†Ian Zabarte, a member of the Western Shoshone nation, says while sitting at his home in the Las Vegas area. Zabarte recently celebrated his 54th birthday and also marked 30 years of defending his community against the controversial Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste site.
U.S. Asylum Policy Should Treat Asylum Seekers as Human Beings
ANDREW MOSS – Considering the magnitude and urgency of human suffering involved in the situation of asylum seekers, the larger task ahead will be to foster a rights awareness that will lead to genuine, substantive change in the foreseeable future.
Fighting Climate Change Means Ending War
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – A serious part of a new consciousness concerning climate change must be addressing what it means to live as part of one global community that is in peril from the consequences of exploitative human behavior. This is not a mere moral abstraction, something to do because it’s right and good. We will disappear as a species if we don’t — no matter how much money we have.
Dear Moderators of the Presidential Debates: How about Raising the Issue of How to Avert Nuclear War?
LAWRENCE WITTNER – Moderators of the presidential debates, don’t you—as stand-ins for the American people—think it might be worthwhile to ask the candidates some questions about U.S. preparations for nuclear war and how best to avert a global catastrophe of unprecedented magnitude?
Using Language to Make the World of Fossil Fuels Strange and Ugly
MATTHEW HOFFMANN – Our words reflect a view that fossil fuels are the default norm — even benign. We need to change that.
How Corporate Media Are Fueling a New Iran Nuclear Crisis
GARETH PORTER – The U.S. news media’s coverage of the Iran nuclear issue has been woefully off-kilter for many years. Now, however, those same outlets are contributing to the serious crisis building between Washington and Tehran.
We’ve All Heard of a Green New Deal. But This is What it Will Actually Look Like
MATHEW LAWRENCE – Driven by a step-change and expansion in public policy, investment, and democratic ownership, a UK green new deal can rescue our collective futures from climate catastrophe and create the conditions for universal human flourishing. It can start in our town of 2030.
An Honorable Course in Iran: End Sanctions, Resume Dialogue
KATHY KELLY – Rather than punish Iran, the United States should immediately return to the Iran nuclear agreement and support proposals regularly advanced at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty conferences for a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in the Middle East.
Here’s One Way Democrats Can Defeat Trump: Be Radically Anti-War
MARK HANNAH and STEPHEN WERTHEIM – Democrats have a unique opportunity to close the traditional national-security gap with Republicans, but only if they choose a clear direction for foreign policy and not just against Trump. They should listen to the American people and offer them a genuinely pro-peace message — standing firmly against Trump’s bellicosity as well as decades of bipartisan military intervention.
Rethinking Reparations for Slavery
TOM h. HASTINGS – We need to radically reduce racism going forward and make reparations thus more than simple legal settlement that ignores ongoing harm.
Behind Oregon’s GOP Walkout Is a Sordid Story of Corporate Cash
ZOE CARPENTER – Industry and belligerence won out over climate legislation.
How to Avert the Impending War on Iran
ERIC STONER – The military is currently putting the breaks on the drive to war in Iran, says a former colonel and diplomat, but concerned citizens need to step up.
War Begets War . . . and Nothing Else
ROBERT C. KOEHLER – “War-making must be renounced. It is past time for the paradigm shift. We have one planet and we must see ourselves as one and we must take a stand.†Dud Hendrick of Veterans for Peace
Listening for Immigration at the Democratic Presidential Debates
ANDREW MOSS – If you’ve been repelled by the family separations and other immigration-related cruelties perpetrated by the Trump administration, and if you plan to watch either or both of the upcoming Democratic presidential debates, please listen carefully – not just to what the candidates are saying, but how they’re saying it: how they frame the issues. Will they present immigration as a discrete set of concerns (“fixing our broken immigration system”), or will they describe it in relation to broader historical struggles, distinctly American struggles, for human rights?
Iran—Who and Where is the Threat?
MEL GURTOV – Donald Trump and his minions are the chief threats to America’s—and for that matter, the world’s—real security.
Snub of Russia on D-Day a Worrisome Omission
DOUG MALLOUK – Has the current tide of hysteria against all things Russian risen to the point that European and American policymakers are now attempting an Orwellian rewrite of the history of World War II? This is no mere academic matter of misrepresenting the past but has life-and-death importance for the here and now.
When Countries Increase Their Military Budgets, They Decrease Public Health Spending
PEACE SCIENCE DIGEST – One key argument against military spending is that it “crowds out†government spending in public health. The evidence is mixed. Some argue that increased military spending has indirect but positive effects on public health — whether through the diversity of military expenditures or other “growth-stimulating†effects. Others suggest that there is a trade-off between military and public health priorities because government spending is constrained by limited resources. Using sophisticated statistical techniques, this article examines whether a causal relationship exists between military spending and public health spending.
Why the Trade War with China is So Dangerous
MEL GURTOV – The trade war with China that Trump so confidently predicted would result in a great new deal now threatens to become a permanent feature of US-China relations. Why that is likely may have less to do with the specific trade issues in dispute than with the vastly different negotiating styles and operating principles of the two countries’ leaderships.
Seeking True Diversity; Leaving Shame Behind
JOHN HEID – “Don’t Label Me, An Incredible Conversation for Divided Times†(by Irshad Manji, St. Martin’s Press, 2019), opens with an invitation to expand our moral imagination and concludes with an 11-step “moral courage regimen.†The pages in-between read like a manifesto as radical, i.e. deeply rooted, as any I have come across in years. This is a book acutely for our times. Irshad Manji offers critical analysis, alongside a crash course in nonviolent engagement techniques. Theory and practice all in one. The content is as at once a life-size mirror and flashing red lights for the progressive left.
If Democrats Want to Beat Trump, They Better Not Nominate a ‘Free Trade’ Candidate
THOM HARTMANN – If the Democrats promote pro-corporate trade policies in 2020, get ready for four more years of Donald Trump gloating at us all from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Memorial Day: a Day of Bad Memory
WIM LAVEN – The frustration I experience with dishonest politics reached a peak with Memorial Day this year. I saw protest signs and memes to the effect of: “Some gave all. All gave something. Trump gave nothing.†While it perfectly captured my frustration, it was oversimplified and failed to articulate the real failures.
“Emergency” Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia Lack an Emergency
MEL GURTOV – Trump has authorized the dispatch of 1500 additional troops to the Middle East and the sale of several billion dollars in “precision-guided†weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The arms sale is being made without Congressional authorization or consultation, on the argument (made by Pompeo) that an “extreme emergency†eliminates the legal requirement to make the case to Congress. But there is no emergency.
As Reactors Shut in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Nuke War Rages in Ohio and New York
HARVEY WASSERMAN – The shutdowns of Pilgrim and Three Mile Island mark huge victories for jobs, the economy, and the climate. If green advocates can now win in Ohio and Pennsylvania and roll back the insanity in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois, the march of the shutdowns just might outrun the next meltdown. Stay tuned!
Trump’s Policy of Baiting Iran is Immoral and Does Not Serve US Interests
MEL GURTOV – This US policy of regime change in Iran is absolutely inexcusable: It is aggressive and baseless, oblivious to diplomacy, and guaranteed to cause untold hardship and chaos for the people of the region.
A Green New Deal Needs to Fight US Militarism
PHYLLIS BENNIS – The Green New Deal must have anti-militarism at its core. Wars and the military render impossible the aspirations contained in the Green New Deal. And slashing the out-of-control military budget is crucial to provide the billions of dollars we need to create a sustainable and egalitarian economy.
How to Dismantle the Absurd Profitability of Nuclear Weapons
JON SCHWARZ – The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists currently has its Doomsday Clock set to two minutes to midnight — the closest we’ve been to self-obliteration in nuclear history.
Why So Many Journalists Are Clueless About the Bernie 2020 Campaign
NORMAN SOLOMON – Mainstream journalists routinely ignore the essential core of the Bernie 2020 campaign. As far as they’re concerned, when Bernie Sanders talks about the crucial importance of grassroots organizing, he might as well be speaking in tongues. Mainstream journalists routinely ignore the essential core of the Bernie 2020 campaign. As far as they’re concerned, when Bernie Sanders talks about the crucial importance of grassroots organizing, he might as well be speaking in tongues.
It’s Time to Try Fossil-Fuel Executives for Crimes Against Humanity
KATE ARONOFF – It isn’t hyperbole to say that fossil-fuel executives are mass murderers. We should put them on trial for crimes against humanity.
Biden’s Support of the Status Quo Undermines Progressive Hopes
NORMAN SOLOMON – Let’s be blunt: As a supposed friend of American workers, Joe Biden is a phony. And now that he’s running for president, Biden’s huge task is to hide his phoniness.
Now is the Time to Confront Two World-Threatening Crises
ROBERT F. DODGE, M.D. – On April 22, we marked the 49th anniversary of the first Earth Day. This comes 50 years after the Santa Barbara oil spills which were instrumental in the declaration of the first Earth Day. The fate of our planet remains threatened by two inextricably connected threats, that of climate change and nuclear war. We cannot pretend to be concerned about our environment if we are not simultaneously concerned about the destruction of the planet by nuclear war.