( Tomdispatch.com ) – Images of homes that collapsed under mudslides or falling trees, waterlogged farms, and debris-filled roads drove home (yes, home!) to me recently the impact of Hurricane Helene on rural areas in the southeastern United States. That hurricane and the no-less-devastating Hurricane Milton that followed it only exacerbated already existing underlying problems […]
War Forever, Everywhere: Unexploded Ordnance and the Weaponry We Leave Behind
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Count on one thing: armed conflict lasts for decades after battles end and its effects ripple thousands of miles beyond actual battlefields. This has been true of America’s post-9/11 forever wars that, in some minimalist fashion, continue in all too many countries around the world. Yet those wars, which we ignited […]
America the Unwell: The Corporate Greed Threatening our Stability
( Tomdispatch.com ) – One thing our government doesn’t like doing is challenging the greed of health insurance companies. I can speak with some authority about holes in the ever-fraying safety net of our healthcare system, including Tricare, the military health insurance plan used by most troops, veterans, and their families, other employer-sponsored health insurance, […]
War and Famine: America’s War on Terror and the Wasting of our Democracy
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Many war stories end with hunger wreaking havoc on significant portions of a population. In Christian theology, the Biblical “four horses of the apocalypse,” believed by many in early modern Europe to presage the end of the world, symbolized invasion, armed conflict, and famine followed by death. They suggest the degree […]
The Forever Wars, MAGA and the Loneliness of Anger
( Tomdispatch.com) – An acquaintance who hails from the same New Jersey town as I do spends his free weekends crawling through the woods on his stomach as part of a firearms training course, green camouflage paint on his face and a revolver in his hand. He considers this both a way to have fun […]
If America were a Trumpian Autocracy: The Lies we’d be Told about War (and so much Else)
( Tomdispatch.com ) – We should already be talking about what it would be like, if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, to live under a developing autocracy. Beyond the publicized plans of those around him to gut the federal civil service system and consolidate power in the hands of You Know Who, under Trump […]
The October 7th America has Forgotten: and the War Deaths we no Longer Protest (or Even Think About)
(Tomdispatch.com ) – We Americans have been at war now since October 7th, 2001. That was when our military first launched air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to al-Qaeda’s September 11th terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. That’s 22 years and counting. The “war on terror” that began then would […]
Trump 2.0: Re-Breaking America in his Image
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Count on one thing: Donald Trump, who seems to gain Republican support with every new indictment, is not going away. He’s managed to capitalize on his 2020 election loss, using his failed insurrection, a stream of violent threats and verbal attacks against political opponents and journalists, and the disinformation machine of […]
Trump 2.0 and the Real Deep State
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Recently, on a commuter train, I ran into an acquaintance who works for a government agency here in Washington, D.C. Soon after we started chatting, he indicated a desire to switch jobs in case Donald Trump was reelected president in 2024. “I’d like to be somewhere that Trump wouldn’t be able […]
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