Author: Norman Solomon

Have you heard the one about the U.S. government wanting a “rules-based international order”?

It’s grimly laughable, but the nation’s media outlets routinely take such claims seriously and credulously. Overall, the default assumption is that top officials in Washington are reluctant to go to war, and do so only as a last resort.

The framing was typical when the New York Times just printed this sentence at the top of the front page: “The United States and a handful of its allies on Thursday carried out military strikes against more than a dozen targets in Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, U.S. officials said, in an expansion of the war in the Middle East that the Biden administration had sought to avoid for three months.”

Continue reading “With Attack on Yemen, the US Is Shameless: ‘We Make the Rules, We Break the Rules’”

The vast majority of Congress members have refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza during three months of slaughter by Israel’s military. Capitol Hill remains a friendly place for the Israeli government as it keeps receiving massive arms shipments courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

“Israel would not be able to conduct this war without the U.S., which over time has provided Israel with about 80 percent of the country’s weapons imports,” Vox reports. The distance between the Capitol and Gaza can be measured by the vast disconnect between the standard discourse of U.S. politics and the terroristic carnage destroying Palestinian people.

Continue reading “On Gaza, Most Congress Members Have Been Moral Failures. Don’t Grade Them on a Curve.”

To: President Joe Biden

You’ve often spoken of how much you care about children and how terrible it is when they’re murdered. “Too many schools, too many everyday places have become killing fields,” you said at the White House last spring on the one-year anniversary of the school shooting in Uvalde. At the time of that tragedy in Texas, you had quickly gone on live television, speaking gravely.

“There are parents who will never see their child again,” you said, adding: “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. . . . It’s a feeling shared by the siblings, and the grandparents, and their family members, and the community that’s left behind.”

Continue reading “President Biden: Learn the Names of Children You’ve Helped Israel to Murder”

One of the rare times that Noam Chomsky’s name has been mentioned on a big national NPR program came two months ago. On “Weekend Edition” in mid-October, a week into Israel’s murderous assault on civilians in Gaza, a correspondent reported while visiting a bookstore owned by a Palestinian in Jerusalem: “I’m seeing a lot of books by Noam Chomsky.”

Across the globe, people suffering from illegitimate power and violence have a lot of books by Noam Chomsky. A recent interviewer aptly introduced him this way: “One of the world’s most-cited scholars and a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, Chomsky has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S foreign policy and world affairs.”

Continue reading “Conformist Media Outlets Hide Realities of Power. Noam Chomsky Has Exposed Them”

Two centuries ago, Percy Shelley wrote that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Yet elite power has routinely vetoed their best measures. Still, the ability of poetry to inspire and nurture is precious, including when governments are on protracted killing sprees.

In Gaza, more than 11,000 civilians have been killed since early October. Children are perishing at an average rate of 10 deaths per hour. The ongoing slaughter by Israeli forces  – supported by huge military aid from the United States – follows Hamas’s atrocities on Oct. 7 in Israel, where the latest estimate of the death toll is 1,200 including at least 846 civilians in addition to some 200 hostages.

Continue reading “The Carnage in Gaza Cries Out for Repudiation and Opposition. Maybe Poetry Can Help.”

From RootsAction

Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg helped to end the Vietnam War when he bravely provided the Pentagon Papers to media outlets in 1971. Ever since then, he has been a tireless and inspiring advocate for peace and prevention of nuclear war.

During the last few weeks, widespread heartfelt tributes followed Dan’s public letter disclosing that he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, with a prognosis that he has only three to six months to live.

Continue reading “Announcing ‘Daniel Ellsberg Week’ – for Education and Action To Honor Peacemaking and Whistleblowing”