Veterans? Who are they? And how in the world did they get a “day”? After all, here’s a curious fact: since World War II ended in victory, the United States, often seen as the greatest power on planet Earth, has indeed fought a seemingly endless series of wars from...
Originally appeared at TomDispatch. Leon Golub once related a story to a mutual friend. A Chicago artist famous for large canvases depicting crimson torture rooms in Central America, Golub had been asked what it meant to him to be a “Jewish political artist.” The...
I remember the phrase from my boyhood, listening to baseball games on the old wooden radio by my bed. A major hitter would be up and – bang! – he’d connect with the ball in a big-time fashion. The announcer in a rising voice would then say dramatically: “It’s going,...
Originally appeared at TomDispatch. Once upon a time, in another era, maybe even another universe, the head of a university refused to call on the police, the National Guard, or even federal troops in the face of student and other protests. Instead, he opened the...
I grew up in the least-Jewish Jewish family around in the 1950s. We celebrated Christmas every year in a big-time fashion: tree, decorations, and all. And despite the desires of my dear grandmother, there would be no temple, no Sunday Hebrew school, no religion of any...
Originally posted at TomDispatch.Here’s my question of the week: When it comes to America’s twenty-first-century wars, does the word “end” have any meaning at all? Almost 20 years after George W. Bush and crew invaded Afghanistan, the war there...
Originally posted at TomDispatch.General Lloyd Austin, the outgoing head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), recently testified before Congress, suggesting that Washington needed to up its troop levels in Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, in his own congressional testimony,...
Originally posted at TomDispatch.The money should stagger you. Journalist James Risen, author of Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, a revelatory new book about the scammers, counterterrorism grifters, careerist bureaucrats, torture con artists, and...
From the beginning, it was to be “Russia’s Vietnam.” First the administration of President Jimmy Carter, then that of President Ronald Reagan was determined to give the Soviet Union a taste of what the U.S. had gone through in its disastrous 14-year...
Originally posted at TomDispatch.Ignorance can be dangerous, as shown in a recent poll asking Americans what to do about the Ukraine crisis. It turned out that the less those polled were capable of identifying where in the world Ukraine is, the more likely they...
