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“Blood and Oil” is a very, very well made film that will show you something new even if you already know that – as Dubya admits – the United States is addicted to oil, even if you know the deal that FDR cut with the king of Saudi Arabia on February 14, 1945 (and have already seen the film footage of them meeting on a US ship accompanied by the king’s slaves and astrologers), even if you know the openly oily basis of the Truman Doctrine, the Eisenhower Doctrine, the read more

By David Swanson

In the forthcoming “Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War,” Dennis Perrin argues that the Democratic Party (at least its elected officials, if not its loyal voters) is a party of war. I have some significant disagreements with Perrin, which I’ll come to below, but here is roughly the way this story goes:

Democratic presidents took us into two world wars, Korea, and Vietnam. A Democratic Senate authorized the war on Iraq. Jackson and Van Buren were ethnic read more

By David Swanson

Tom Engelhardt’s website TomDispatch.com is a wonderful source of news and analysis (and would be if I’d never written for it!), but there’s something to be said for books. Nobody has yet invented a blog that the reader can underline, circle, scribble in the margins of, turn down the corner of the page on, or give to someone as a present wrapped in colored paper. And there’s a lot more than that to be said for “The World According to TomDispatch: read more

By David Swanson

I would support a GI Bill if Congress were to pass one and send it to the President.

I oppose from the bottom of my soul and with every fiber of my being the near universal pretense (OK, universal except for me) that Congress is about to do just that.

Congress is NOT. What Congress is considering sending to the President is a GI AMENDMENT. It says the same things about providing education for veterans as what everybody tells you is in the “GI Bill” but it comes read more