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Tom Engelhardt

Russia
My Grandfather Fled Ukraine 140 Years Ago, Now it is an Icon of Our long History of War

My Grandfather Fled Ukraine 140 Years Ago, Now it is an Icon of Our long History of War

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – Excuse me if I wander a little today — and if it bothers you, don’t blame me, blame Vladimir Putin. After all, I didn’t decide to invade Ukraine, the place my grandfather fled almost 140 years ago. I suspect, in fact, that I was an adult before I even knew such a […]

Climate Crisis
Plutocrats Fiddling as the World Burns with Global Heating and Nuclear Tensions

Plutocrats Fiddling as the World Burns with Global Heating and Nuclear Tensions

Tom Engelhardt

He’s our very own emperor from hell, an updated version of Nero who, in legend, burned down Rome on a whim, though ours prefers drowning Washington. Why, just the other day, Donald Trump — and you knew perfectly well who I meant — bent the ears of 250 top Republican donors for 84 minutes. Among […]

Antisemitism
My Life with Maus:  Or How I Was Banned (Even If in a Second-Hand Way) by a Trumpian World

My Life with Maus: Or How I Was Banned (Even If in a Second-Hand Way) by a Trumpian World

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Sometimes life has a way of making you realize things about yourself. Recently, I discovered that an urge of mine, almost four decades old, had been the very opposite of that of a rural Tennessee school board this January. In another life, I played a role in what could be thought […]

Donald Trump
America’s Two Pandemics:  And How They Mixed and Matched

America’s Two Pandemics: And How They Mixed and Matched

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Imagine that you were experiencing all of this (and by this, I mean our lives right now) as if it were a novel, à la Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year. The famed author of Robinson Crusoe — Defoe claimed it had been written by the fictional Crusoe himself […]

Epidemics
Is America a Nation Coming Apart?

Is America a Nation Coming Apart?

Tom Engelhardt

By Tom Engelhardt | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Let me start 2022 by heading back — way, way back — for a moment. It’s easy to forget just how long this world has been a dangerous place for human beings. I thought about this recently when I stumbled upon a little memoir my Aunt Hilda […]

Conspiracy Theories
Why our Democracy is Ailing: Another Grim winter for our Unmasked, Unvaccinated, Disputatious, Confrontational, Conspiratorial, and disturbed Country

Why our Democracy is Ailing: Another Grim winter for our Unmasked, Unvaccinated, Disputatious, Confrontational, Conspiratorial, and disturbed Country

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – Whether the pandemic that’s swept the world started from a bat or not, as 2021 ends, I think it’s safe to say that we’re all far battier than we were when it began. In my neighborhood at least, as this year draws to a close, that old Lone Ranger line, “Who was […]

Climate Crisis
Mars Attacks Earth!   And we’re the Martians in this Picture

Mars Attacks Earth! And we’re the Martians in this Picture

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – Who knew that Martians, inside monstrous tripodal machines taller than many buildings, actually ululated, that they made eerily haunting “ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla” sounds? Well, let me tell you that they do — or rather did when they were devastating London. I know that because I recently reread H.G. Wells’s 1898 novel […]

National Security State
The World the “American Century” Made: Quagmires, Wars and Serial Demonization

The World the “American Century” Made: Quagmires, Wars and Serial Demonization

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – On February 17, 1941, less than 10 months before the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor and the U.S. found itself in a global war, Henry Luce, in an editorial in Life magazine (which he founded along with Time and Fortune), declared the years to come “the American Century.” He then urged this […]

Afghanistan
Droning On: Assassins-in-Chief and Their Brood

Droning On: Assassins-in-Chief and Their Brood

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – What a way to end a war! Apologies all around! We’re so damn sorry — or actually, maybe not! I’m thinking, of course, about CENTCOM commander General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.’s belated apology for the drone assassination of seven children as the last act, or perhaps final war crime, in this […]

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