(Informed Comment) – In early 2019, the White House threatened to invade Venezuela, take down the government and replace it with their choice of president and political party. Though no missiles have been fired and no bombs dropped on the country, our government is waging a war by other means, namely criminal economic sanctions, to […]
We are here because you were there: Refugees at the US-Mexican Border
(Informed Comment) – Why would so many Guatemalans make the arduous journey to the US-Mexican border seeking refuge, knowing the hatred heaped on them by the Trump Administration? A short list of our long history of corporate exploitation and military aggression in that country might explain. In 1928 the American United Fruit Company (present-day Chiquita […]
The Measure of our Happiness: Our Miserable Plutocracy
For the past seven years ago, the United Nations has issued a report titled the World Happiness Report. While this report may sound somewhat lightweight, it actually ranks countries by serious measures including income, freedom, trust in government, social support, life expectancy and how happy citizens perceive themselves to be. The highest-ranking countries are those, […]
The Trojan Horse of US “Aid” to Venezuela
(Informed Comment) – Hope and US Aid at the Border: the title of a recent New York Times video deodorizes the US attempt to overthrow President Maduro of socialist Venezuela and replace him with a hand-picked member of the Venezuelan elite, capitalist class. As the major media presents it, the US is altruistically rushing to […]
The Climate Crisis: “There is no Time to Continue down this Road of Madness”
<p>A week into the 2018 UN climate change conference that convened in Poland, The New York Times’ quote of the day read: “The biggest threats to the planet are the lack of U.S. climate leadership at home and the unwillingness of the U.S. to engage with China.” <i>The biggest threats to the planet</i>! Yet not […]
Moving toward a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
(Informed Comment) – Seventy-three years ago, on August 6 and August 9, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This tragic act launched an arms race in nuclear weapons, now spread to nine countries. After the first atomic blast, which killed 100,000 residents of Hiroshima immediately, the grievous […]
The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
Review of “The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire” by Stephen Kinzer By the final decade of the 19th century, the American project sanctified as Manifest Destiny was complete. The western boundary of the United States now stretched to the Pacific Ocean, leaving in its wake the genocide of […]
JFK Made a Forgotten Turn toward Peace before He Was Killed; We’ve Abandoned it Entirely
Co-author: Frances Crowe. Greenfield, MA (Informed Comment) – Fifty-five years ago on June 10, President John F. Kennedy delivered a commencement address at American University that, in fewer than 30 minutes, turned traditional national security policy on its head. Kennedy proclaimed that world peace is “the most important topic on earth….not merely peace for Americans […]
Why has the GOP grown the Military-Industrial Complex but slashed Human Security?
“8 Candidates, 8 Visions for 1st Franklin Seat,” announced the April 17th lead story of my county newspaper in western Massachusetts. Most, if not all, of the basic needs for human security and well being are there in the platforms of four women and four men who are Democratic candidates running for this seat in […]
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