World

The Major Questions Doctrine: The US Supreme Court Blunts the EPA

The US Supreme Court has been frantically busy of late, striking down law and legislation with an almost crazed, ideological enthusiasm.  Gun laws have been invalidated; Roe v Wade and constitutional abortion rights, confined to history.  And now, the Environmental Protection Agency has been clipped of its powers in a 6-3 decision. The June 30 decision of West Virginia v[Read More...]

Biden Middle East Visit Already Spells Disaster

US President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Riyadh, Tel Aviv and Ramallah, in mid-July. The visit is expected to be centered around talks to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, through first discussing the development of a regional anti-Iran coalition. However, the agenda set by the United States is doomed to failure, and Read More...

Paradigm for peace applied to Russia, Ukraine, and the US: Proposal for a peaceful pathway forward – Part 4E

Part 4. Mental escalators of violence in US policy and media makers Part 4E. Psychological patterns of US policymakers  obstruct the creation of genuine democracy False Bias #5: The US Represents Democracy and the Free World, while Putin’s Russia Seeks to Destroy Democracy. We’ve been discussing how Mental Escalators, specifically US policy and media makers’ dysfunctional, skewed psychological patterns, falsehood,[Read More...]

Paradigm for peace applied to Russia, Ukraine, and the US: Proposal for a peaceful pathway forward – Part 4D

 Part 4. Mental escalators of violence in US policy and media makers- Part 4D. Who truly stands against corruption? Black-and-white thinking causes US experts to believe falsehood False Bias #4. The US Is Fighting Against Corruption. The previous essay about authoritarianism referred to the 2019 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee for the Senate Hearing of the National Defense[Read More...]

Japan: Trials and Tribulations of a Land of “Honorary Whites”

Of the many descriptions of the Japanese people readers are familiar with, e.g. industrious, polite, clean, etc., the description of Japanese as “honorary whites” may well be a first for many. Yet, it was not long ago that this term had official standing, albeit in apartheid South Africa. In the 1960s Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd determined it would be to[Read More...]

The United States Contests the Chinese Belt and Road with a Private Corporation

At the G7 Summit in Germany, on June 26, 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden made a pledge to raise $200 billion within the United States for global infrastructure spending. It was made clear that this new G7 project—the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII)—was intended to counter the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Given Biden’s failure to pass the Build[Read More...]

Colombia: You Can’t Elect an End to Exploitation   

Many progressives are excited about the electoral victory of  so-called leftist, Gustavo Petro, who defeated both the centrist candidate representing the status quo and the right wing Rodolfo Hernández. “So-called” leftist is the key word here, because, to quote Petro,  he is fighting for “democracy and peace, not socialism.” 1 He wants to raise taxes on the rich, combat hunger,[Read More...]

NATO prepares for “warfighting against nuclear-armed peer-competitors”

At the conclusion of this week’s NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, the members of NATO, including most European states as well as the United States and Canada, adopted a strategy document outlining plans to militarize the European continent, massively escalate the war with Russia, and prepare for war with China. The document pledges to “deliver the full range of forces” needed “for[Read More...]

Paradigm for peace applied to Russia, Ukraine, and the US: Proposal for a peaceful pathway forward – Part 4C

 Mental escalators of violence in US policy and media makers – Part 4C. Who truly stands against authoritarianism? Black-and-white thinking causes US experts to believe falsehood False Bias #3. The US Is Fighting against Authoritarianism. In his 2019 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee for the Senate Hearing of the National Defense Strategy, Damon Wilson, President of the National[Read More...]

Exorbitant military spending sacrifices public well-being

President Dwight Eisenhower gave his first major presidential speech, The Cross of Iron, on April 16, 1953. He laid out several important precepts guiding US conduct in world affairs as well pointing out the cost of military spending in very concrete terms. Eisenhower stated: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense,[Read More...]