World

During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the central issue was how short America’s available reaction-time to a Soviet blitz nuclear attack would be and whether it would be too short for America to respond before America’s leader, JFK, would be able to press the nuclear button and retaliate against such a Soviet nuclear first-strike (from so near a location as[Read More...]

 State lawmakers introduced nearly 2,900 bills based on ALEC templates from 2010 through 2018. More than 600 of them became law. In June 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a bill banning the state from contracting with or investing in businesses that divest from coal, oil or natural gas companies. For Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian—one of the state’s top[Read More...]

The vagabond who’s rapping at your door Is standing in the clothes that you once wore Strike another match, go start anew And it’s all over now, Baby Blue Those are lyrics from the great Bob Dylan song It’s All Over Now Baby Blue ( 1965). How appropriate they are now in Amerika 2022. We have finally become a damaged[Read More...]

Dealing with Trump’s Occupation of All Too Many American Hearts and Minds Increasingly, it seems, Americans have an anger problem. All too many of us now have the urge to use name-calling, violent social-media posts, threats, baseball bats, and guns to do what we once did with persuasion and voting. For example, during the year after Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, threats[Read More...]

On the eve of the NATO summit focusing on war against Russia in Ukraine as well as confronting China, top officials from Turkey, Sweden and Finland agreed on Tuesday in Madrid to a trilateral memorandum of understanding allowing Stockholm’s and Helsinki’s entry into the military alliance. After a meeting attended by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Turkish President Recep Tayyip[Read More...]

In remarks at the NATO Summit in Madrid, Spain, US President Joe Biden announced a sweeping increase in US troop deployments to Europe as part of a plan by NATO to militarize the continent for its ongoing war with Russia and escalating conflict with China. The NATO summit formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the alliance, effectively doubling NATO’s[Read More...]

Part 4. Mental escalators of violence in US policy and media makers. Part 4B. A competitive, threat-orientation towards international relations: Psychological patterns described by Lakoff, Spranger, and Allport False Bias #2. Life Is Competition; the Goal Is to Beat Adversaries and Stay on Top. Let’s take a look at actual, representative lines from Damon Wilson’s 2019 testimony, two years before[Read More...]

Instances of sympathy are rarely excuses to throw out the rule book.  In the case of the European Union, throwing out the rule book about admission has tended to be a feature of enlargement.  Credentials of candidate states have been, when needed, boosted or cooked for the occasion.  Others, whatever the progress, have been ignored.  For a collective that really[Read More...]

(Dedicated to the memory of Ghassan Kanafani, an iconic Palestinian leader and engaged intellectual who was assassinated by the Israeli Mossad on July 8, 1972) Years before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, US media introduced many new characters, promoting them as ‘experts’ who helped ratchet up US propaganda, ultimately allowing the US government to secure enough popular support[Read More...]

On April 26, 2022, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) announced that they had set up an office in the U.S. Embassy in Lusaka, Zambia. According to AFRICOM Brigadier General Peter Bailey, Deputy Director for Strategy, Engagement and Programs, the Office of Security Cooperation would be based in the U.S. Embassy building. Social media in Zambia buzzed with rumors about the creation[Read More...]