Wendy McElroy: A supremely political animal, Hoover occupied high office for nearly 50 years, during which he was instrumental in laying the foundation for a national security state.
Feed a Silent Guest and Build World Peace
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The Spirit of 1947: This Thanksgiving Feed a Silent Guest and Build World Peace The holiday season is upon us. It’s a time to give thanks and, thanks to Black Friday, to shop. But it could also be a season when Americans take the reins of their country’s foreign policy . . . and build [...]
The Crime of Making Americans Aware of Their Own History
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William Blum: The biggest lie of the “war on terrorism”, although weakening, is that the targets of America’s attacks have an irrational hatred of the United States and its way of life, based on religious and cultural misunderstandings and envy.
War: Fiscal Stimulus of Last Resort
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Ellen Brown: Diverting a portion of our massive war spending to peaceful use could add jobs, improve living standards, and add infrastructure, while reducing the national debt and balancing the government’s budget by increasing the tax base and government revenues.
Is Walmart the Cure for Homesickness?
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Susan J. Matt: While chain stores, the internet, and cell phones may be the next best thing to being there, they are not the same as being there.
The Right to a Job
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Herb Engstrom: At this time of TEA Party hysteria, Fox News mendacity, and GOP hypocrisy a government guarantee of universal employment might seem like a radical idea, although it seemed not to be so to Franklin Roosevelt.
Do We Care About Civilian Casualties in Our Wars?
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John Tirman: The initial enthusiasm of engaging in savage wars often turns sour as the war goes badly, and then the hard reality of innocent suffering is all the more difficult to acknowledge.
Banana Republicans
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Brent Budowsky: The extreme hard-line attitude of many Republicans has significantly raised the prospects for a national default and rating agency downgrades that would sweep across the nation and many states, causing an economic cataclysm and public outrage unlike anything ever seen in the history of the republic.
“Hostilities” and War Powers: Let’s Choose the Constitution
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John C. Pinheiro: Despite dozens of wars, invasions, occupations, air raids, and various other international “hostilities” over more than a century and a half, the U.S. Congress has rarely “declared war.” With the current Libyan intervention in mind, let’s explore this long history of Congress’s abdication of its Constitutional war powers.
Dahlia Wasfi and the Tragedy of Iraq
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Mac McKinney: These two wars were also interspersed by severe sanctions against Iraq by Bill Clinton in the latter 1990s that led to hardship, impoverishment, even death for countless Iraqis, and through all these destructive events, Dahlia’s and Ross’s lives crossed, and here I was, interviewing them both.
Geneva Conventions Redefined: The New U.S. Department of War
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Gary Corseri and Eric Shine: Today, the most disturbing sign of this take-over of all of the civilian commons by the military, at least in the U.S., comes in the form of a new, or reinvigorated, Department of War.
Washington’s Endless Wars
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William Astore: Our wars and their impact are kept in remarkable isolation from what passes for public affairs in this country, leaving most Americans with little knowledge and even less say about whether they should be, and how they are, waged.
Let’s Call It ‘VO Day’ and Get Out
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Ivan Eland: Although the Obama administration has said that the killing of Osama bin Laden is not a VE or VJ day—which brought a return to normal times after World War II ended—perhaps it should be.
Call Me a Socialist and I Won’t Get Mad
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Berry Craig: Genuine socialists are proud of the socialist handle. They call their parties — you guessed it – “socialist,” or sometimes “social democratic” or “labor.”
Heroism, Cowardice, and the National Tragedy of Hidden Guilt
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Charles Hayes: It’s crystal clear that real warriors—men and women who have been in the thick of prolonged battle—seldom afterwards view war as a viable way to settle differences, any kind of differences.
The Pentagon and the King Legacy
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William Lorenz Katz: Was not Martin Luther King, Jr. reaching beyond Vietnam when he warned of “approaching spiritual death” and called for “a significant and profound change in American life and policy” and insisted “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” Was he only speaking of Vietnam when he said, “War is not the answer?”
Be the Peace You Want to See on Earth
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David Swanson: I’ve never found any opponent of war who didn’t believe there was evil in the world. After all, we oppose war because it is evil. Did Martin Luther King, Jr., stand idle in the face of threats? Are you serious?
WikiLeaks Exposes More Than Documents
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Joseph Palermo: The State Department documents that WikiLeaks is making public expose the desire of many mainstream journalists and commentators to stand up and be counted as the dutiful water-carriers for the prerogatives of United States foreign policy.
Greece: Epicenter of the Debt Earthquake?
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Steven Hill: One of the qualities holding Greece back from enjoying the benefits of a more modern economy is its reliance on an informal economy of family and social networks which too often translates into nepotism, back room deals and tax dodging. But during an economic crisis like this, those networks become valuable
The New War Congress: An Obama-Republican War Alliance?
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David Swanson: The most silvery of possible silver linings here may lie in the possibility of a reborn peace movement. George W. Bush’s new memoir actually reveals the surprising strength the peace movement had achieved by 2006.
Fixing the World Not Our Responsibility
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Steve Hochstadt: The main problem has been the the policy of intervention. We can’t create a safe world by sending more arms overseas.
Michael Kinsley’s Dumb Idea: The “Greatest Generation” & What Boomers Should Do!
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Gary Corseri: The real challenge has always been to be informed, to be aware, to be decent guardians and protectors of the commonweal. The real challenge is to know ourselves… and to become our best selves.
End Illegal War: Support Bradley Manning
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Ann Wright: Just as Daniel Ellsberg blew the whistle on the lies of the US leaders of the Vietnam War, Manning is accused of blowing the whistle on the illegality of today’s wars. What will our response to the information Manning is charged with releasing be? Can we make today’s Pentagon Papers lead to an end to illegal and wasteful wars abroad and the return of our troops home?
Heroism, Cowardice, and the National Tragedy of Hidden Guilt
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Charles Hayes: Today I feel very differently about the Vietnam War than I did in my youth, but my own feelings of guilt during that time give me a unique kind of insight into the psychology of courage and commitment. America has never had a shortage of courageous citizens willing to take up arms and fight to the death for reasons and causes beyond their own understanding. Arlington Cemetery in Virginia serves as proof. But my sense of the decades since the end of World War II is that America has and is experiencing a courage crisis of shameful origin and of tragic consequence.
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