Let's Try Democracy

I wish I were joking, even a little. Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Bomber Mafia, maintains that Haywood Hansell was essentially Jesus tempted by the Devil when he refused to burn Japanese cities to the ground. Hansell was replaced, and Curtis LeMay put in charge of U.S. bombings of Japan during WWII. LeMay, Gladwell tells us, was none other than Satan. But what was very much needed, Gladwell claims, was Satanic immorality — the willingness to intentionally incinerate perhaps read more

There’s nothing new about this, which is why I know it’s there before having seen the new budget proposal. The United States funds most of the world’s most oppressive militaries, sells them weapons, and trains them. It has done so for many years. But if you’re going to propose an enormous budget that relies on deficit spending, and you’re going to claim that a gargantuan military budget (bigger than the Vietnam War budget that derailed LBJ’s domestic priorities) read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 26, 2021

Here’s a video from one of the facilitators lined up for World BEYOND War’s online course on War and the Environment which begins on June 7th, 2021:

This course could not be more important. A culture of extraction and destruction is closely tied to a culture of war. Questioning that ethos of destruction and consumption is challenging, but it has belatedly begun. Challenging a culture of militarism is even harder.

In the United States, for read more

LISTEN HERE.

LISTEN HERE.

Have you noticed that a lot of science writers have lately been saying that they were perfectly right a year ago to mock and condemn even considering a lab leak origin for Coronavirus but that now it’s perfectly proper to admit that Coronavirus may very well have come from a lab? It seems to be largely a question of fashion. One doesn’t wear the wrong outfit too early in the season, or explore the wrong epidemiological idea when the White House is claimed by one Party or the other.

In read more

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Of course there are 60,000 Pentagon super (duper!) spies prancing around the globe with tracking devices in their shoes, goofy wigs on their heads, collections of comical sunglasses, and — for the employee of the month! — silicon handsleeves and silicon faces to fool the airport cops, or maybe it’s the Vaccine Nazis, or perhaps it’s the Marxist conspiracy and election stealers read more