Lawrence Wittner: Although many Americans believe their universities are places where administrators and faculty members coexist on a fairly equal basis, the reality is that this is far from the case.
About Lawrence S. Wittner
Dr. Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university life, "What’s Going On at UAardvark?” (Solidarity Press). He is a contributor to many sites, including Huntington News Network. His website: http://www.lawrenceswittner.com/
That’s Where the Money Goes
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Lawrence Wittner: Although studies have found that the United States ranks 17th among nations in education, 26th in infant mortality, and 37th in life expectancy and overall health, there is no doubt that it ranks first when it comes to war.
Lockheed Martin at the Trough
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Lawrence Wittner: At the very time when (thanks to sequestration) state governments are cutting back aid to low-income women and their children, the government of the State of Maryland seems en route to providing the Lockheed Martin Corporation with a handout worth millions of dollars.
A Modest Proposal to House Republicans: Cut the Nuclear Weapons Budget
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Lawrence Wittner: How many nuclear weapons are needed to “deter” another nation from attack? In short, the vast and enormously expensive U.S. nuclear weapons production complex is a Cold War dinosaur.
How Corporate Welfare Works in Maryland
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Lawrence Wittner: At this time of severe cutbacks in government funding for food stamps, early childhood education, and meals on wheels, some Maryland legislators are hard at work looking out for the welfare of one of the world’s wealthiest corporations.
Is the Obama Administration Abandoning Its Commitment to a Nuclear-Free World?
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Lasrence Wittner: People interested in removing the dangers posed by over 17,000 nuclear weapons around the globe might want to press the administration to honor its commitment to seek a nuclear-free world.
How Is Gun Control Like Arms Control?
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Lawrence Wittner: Even if one leaves aside the difficulty of distinguishing between “good” and “bad” people, there is copious evidence indicating that, all other things being equal, the more access people have to weapons, the more likely they are to use them.
The Midnight Swimmer
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Lawrence Wittner: In his latest novel, Edward Wilson — a U.S. Special Forces officer in the Vietnam War who subsequently became an expatriate, a British citizen, and a teacher in the UK — does help to illuminate the Cold War crisis of the early 1960s.
America’s Real Religion
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Lawrence Wittner: The recently-concluded Black Friday provided the occasion not only for an orgy of consumer spending, but for ferocious action by screaming mobs of shoppers who engaged in mass riots in their desperate attempts to obtain a variety of products.
Local Governments and National Security Policy
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Lawrence Wittner: Dozens of local jurisdictions have passed resolutions that call for ending the U.S. military role in Iraq and Afghanistan, reducing the Pentagon budget, and funding domestic programs.
Albany County Issues a Peace Dividend Proclamation
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Lawrence Wittner: The legislature of Albany County, New York has approved a proclamation calling upon Congress to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, cut the U.S. military budget, and use the savings to fund vital public programs at home.
How Hawkish Are Americans?
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Lawrence Wittner: Many signs point to the fact that most Americans want to avoid new wars, reduce military spending, and support international cooperation.
“The Path to Zero: Dialogues on Nuclear Dangers” Review
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Lawrence Wittner: The contradiction between the potential of nuclear weapons to destroy the world and the determination of nations to possess them is a central dilemma of modern times.
The Republican “Small Government” Fraud
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Lawrence Wittner: The GOP platform will have plenty of rhetoric about freedom and limited government. But the party’s actual policies will reflect a very different agenda.
Unlike Mitt Romney, Most Americans Want to Cut Military Spending
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Lawrence Wittner: In the context of severe budget cutting by Congress, popular domestic social programs are being sacrificed to support the U.S. military budget — so much so that it currently consumes more than half of the U.S. government’s discretionary spending.
Do Nuclear Weapons Really Deter Aggression?
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Lawrence Wittner: There is no safety from war to be found in nuclear weaponry, any more than there was safety in the past produced by fighter planes, battleships, bombers, poison gas, and other devastating weapons.
Should NATO Be Handling World Security?
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Lawrence Wittner: If the leaders of NATO nations were really serious about providing children with a world in which they could play in peace among the birds and flowers, they would work to strengthen the United Nations and stop devoting vast resources to dubious wars.
May Day: From the Haymarket Massacre to the Occupy Movement
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Lawrence Wittner: It seems likely that the struggle for economic justice will heighten in coming years, with May Day continuing to serve as a potent symbol of worker discontent.
The Shame of Nations: New War Spending Record Set
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Lawrence Wittner: World military spending reached a record $1,738 billion in 2011 — an increase of $138 billion over the previous year. The United States accounted for 41 percent of that, or $711 billion.
What Will the Democratic Left Do in 2012?
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Lawrence Wittner: Contrasting the administration’s all-out effort to save Wall Street with its indifference to Main Street, many progressives wonder if they have gained anything worthwhile with Obama’s election.
Is Mitt Romney Ready for the World?
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Lawrence Wittner: Mitt Romney seems likely to become the Republican candidate and the next president, so we should carefully examine his first major foreign and military policy address
Kansas City, Here It Comes: A New Nuclear Weapons Plant!
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Should the U.S. government be building more nuclear weapons? Residents of Kansas City, Missouri, don’t appear to think so, for they are engaged in a bitter fight against the construction of a new nuclear weapons plant in their community. The massive plant, 1.5 million square feet in size, is designed to replace an earlier version, [...]
How to Save $250 Billion: Axe “Missile Defense”
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Lawrence Wittner: By scrapping plans for nuclear weapons “modernization” and for national missile defense—programs that are both useless and provocative—the United States would save $271 billion (well over a quarter of a trillion dollars) in the next ten years.
Militarist Madness
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Lawrence Wittner: Despite the vast rivers of blood and treasure poured into wars over the centuries, the nations of the world continue to enhance their military might.
The Peace Movement Today
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Lawrence Wittner: Despite the President’s rhetorical support for nuclear abolition, it looks like the United States and other nations are on a very slow track to ridding the world of the nuclear menace.
It’s Still the Same Old Story—from Guns to Nukes
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Lawrence Wittner: Are we safer with more firepower or less? Despite the propaganda of the gunslingers, the arms manufacturers, and the military enthusiasts, it does seem that the world would be a lot safer with fewer guns and fewer nuclear weapons.
The “Golden Rule” Will Sail Again
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Lawrence Wittner: And so it appears that the “Golden Rule” will resume the long journey it began more than half a century ago. Rebuilt by U.S. military veterans, it will “renew Bigelow’s and Veterans for Peace’s mission — to abolish war and promote peaceful diplomacy.”
Will Senate Republicans Produce Another International Disaster?
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Lawrence Wittner: As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote this December on ratification of the New START Treaty, Republican legislators appear on the verge of producing an international disaster.
Public Mobilization for a Nuclear-Free World
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Lawrence S. Wittner: One of the ironies of the current international situation is that, although some government leaders now talk of building a nuclear weapons-free world, there has been limited public mobilization around that goal—at least compared to the action-packed 1980s.
America’s Runaway Military Spending
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Lawrence Wittner: When it comes to military appropriations, the U.S. government already spends about seven times as much as China, thirteen times as much as Russia, and seventy-three times as much as Iran.
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