Author: Norman Solomon

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”

If Joe Biden fully meant what he said after meeting with George Floyd’s family in the Oval Office on Tuesday, he won’t nominate Rahm Emanuel to be the U.S. ambassador to Japan. But recent news reports tell us that’s exactly what the president intends to do.

After the meeting, Biden declared that the murder of Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer "launched a summer of protest we hadn’t seen since the Civil Rights era in the ’60s – protests that peacefully unified people of every race and generation to collectively say enough of the senseless killings." The words were valuable, and so was the symbolism of the president hosting loved ones of Floyd on the first anniversary of his death.

But the value of the White House event will be weakened if Biden names Emanuel to one of this country’s top diplomatic posts – despite his well-earned notoriety for the cover-up of a video showing the police murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Continue reading “Biden’s Eloquence About George Floyd Will Ring Hollow if Rahm Emanuel Gets Ambassador Nomination”

By RootsAction.org

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams made public statements Friday in opposition to the potential nomination of Michèle Flournoy to be Secretary of Defense. Their statements were released by the activist organization RootsAction.org.

Ellsberg said: "Michèle Flournoy was wrong about Iraq, as Biden has acknowledged he was. But she was then also wrong about Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Libya. She is wrong right now in opposing the congressional ban on all arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and in planning to maintain Minuteman-type land-based ICBMs, the hair-trigger to the Doomsday Machine. Her unquestioned intelligence and competence have long been in service to her serious interventionist misjudgments and to her own involvement in a revolving-door military-industrial complex. This is ‘experience’ that President Biden should not be seeking to duplicate in his own term."

Williams said: "If President-elect Biden really has a progressive agenda in mind for his administration, he should appoint members of his cabinet and other high-level positions who demonstrate progressive thinking and do not move this fractured country backwards. Nominating Michèle Flournoy for Defense Secretary would not be forward thinking. We do not need a hawk with relationships with the weapons industry."

Continue reading “Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams Go Public With Strong Opposition to Michèle Flournoy as Secretary of Defense”

The huge crisis with Iran is more dangerous because so many Democrats have been talking out of both sides of their congressional mouths.

An example is the recent rhetoric from Sen. Chris Murphy. “The attack on our embassy in Baghdad is horrifying but predictable,” he tweeted on the last day of 2019. “Trump has rendered America impotent in the Middle East. No one fears us, no one listens to us. America has been reduced to huddling in safe rooms, hoping the bad guys will go away. What a disgrace.”

Fast forward one week: Murphy was on the Senate floor declaring “we can choose to get off of this path of escalation and make decisions that correct this president’s recklessness and keep Americans safe.”

On the same day, in Murphy’s home state, the Connecticut Mirror reported that he “has emerged as a leading critic of Trump administration hostility to Iran” and called him “the most vocal” Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee “in criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to kill Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike.”

Continue reading “War With Iran Is at Stake – and Democrats Aren’t Helping”