Public Policy

In Fantasyland Your Neighbors Live in, More War Is a Smart Idea

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People in the United States want tighter gun laws within the United States. They probably can’t be, and certainly aren’t being, polled on the U.S. role as top weapons supplier to the world. You can’t poll people on something they’ve never heard of.

People in the United States want more done to protect the environment. They have no clue that their government is politely destroying all hope for future human life at a nice conference read more

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Limits of Liberal War Opposition

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Robert Reich’s website is full of proposals for how to oppose plutocracy, raise the minimum wage, reverse the trend toward greater inequality of wealth, etc. His focus on domestic economic policy is done in the traditional bizarre manner of U.S. liberals in which virtually no mention is ever made of the 54% of the federal discretionary budget that gets dumped into militarism.

When such a commentator notices the problem of war, it’s worth paying attention to exactly how far they’re read more

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Veto Corleone Already in White House

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President Barack Obama has vetoed a military authorization bill. Why would he do such a thing?

Was it because dumping $612 billion into a criminal enterprise just finally struck him as too grotesque?

Nope.

Was it because he grew ashamed of holding the record for highest average annual military spending since World War II, not even counting Der Homeland Security Department or military spending by the State Department, the Energy Department, the Veterans Administration, interest on debt, etc.?

Nope. read more

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Living With Racism in the USA

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I thought Deepa Iyer’s new book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future, would be about positive and jarring cultural contributions from immigrants, how their literature, music, myths, cooking, clothing, and cultural practices are merging with and influencing wider U.S. culture. I think that would be a good book. Maybe someone’s written it.

This, too, is a good book, and I recommend it. But it is mostly about the all-too-familiar read more

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U.S. Government Decides Voting Is Less Important Than a Military Draft

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I know what you’re thinking. There is no draft. There hasn’t been a draft in decades. They’d let entire Central American nations immigrate, pay recruits six-figure salaries, and let robots fly the drones before they’d create a draft. Crackpot Congress members only bring up a draft as a supposed bank-shot maneuver for ending all the damn wars. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Your government has nonetheless decided that registering men for a possible draft (whether they like it or read more

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The 16 Core Progressive Policies, Really?

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Salvatore Babones’ proposals in Sixteen for ’16: A Progressive Agenda for a Better America are not bad, assuming a progressive agenda can limit itself to one nation.

But these sorts of proposals tend to be — and this one is no exception — smart, compassionate takes on the topics that are in the corporate media. The topics that aren’t already on your television also aren’t in this book or others like it.

What should the U.S. public budget be? Is nearly double the read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Rania Khalek on U.S. Police Training in Israel and Israelis Advocating Genocide

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https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-rania-khalek-on-us-police-training-in-israel-and-israelis-advocating-genocide

Rania Khalek discusses her reports on Baltimore police training in Israel, Israel targeting children with drone strikes, and Israeli read more

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