Informed Comment daily updates (03/31/2024)

 

MICHIGAN REPUBLICAN TIM WALBERG WANTS TO USE NUCLEAR 
WEAPONS IN GAZA!

GOP Congressman calls for Gaza genocide: “It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima: Get it over Quick” Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – US Representative Tim Walberg (R-MI), a former pastor, called this week for a genocide, the Final Solution of the Palestinian Problem.. Michigan’s 5th congressional district stretches across the far bottom of the state, encompassing cities such as Albion and Jackson and abutting Ohio and Indiana. I don’t have any reason […]

It’s Time to stop playing Politics with Immigrants’ Lives By Juan Carlos Gomez | ( Otherwords.com ) – When President Biden was campaigning in 2020, he pledged to strengthen our country by supporting and welcoming immigrants. Early in his presidency, he began taking steps in that direction. On his first day in office, Biden proclaimed an end to his predecessor’s “Muslim ban,” which summarily […]

The Most Dangerous Wars: When Local Conflicts become Geopolitics By Walden Bello ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The three major wars or conflicts that are ongoing today demonstrate the volatility of the intersection between the local and the global. In the Hamas-Israeli conflict, we see how the maintenance of the Israeli settler-colonial state is intertwined with the preservation of the global hegemony […]

Old posts you may have missed

Could the Israeli Supreme Court’s decree that ultra-Orthodox be Conscripted bring Down Netanyahu? The US Administration’s Hypocrisy and Israel’s Cockiness Lithium Batteries for EVs need to be produced in Socially Responsible Ways “It is Criminal..Show some Humanity!” Ireland will Join ICJ case against Israel on Gaza Starvation, Genocide Europe’s Jewish Scholars of Islam Israel’s ‘Iron Wall:’ A Brief History of the Ideology Guiding Benjamin Netanyahu State Department finding Israel not in Violation of Int’l Law Contradicted by Resigning Official

Top News: When US Oligarchs Pour $1.2 Billion Into an Election, 'It's Time for Citizens United to Go'

 

January 21, 2022

Top News

House Calls Big Oil Board Members to Testify on 'Phony' Net-Zero Pledges "It's critical that Congress holds these companies accountable and exposes the industry's fake climate pledges for the fraud that they are," said one supporter of Democrats' probe. by Jessica Corbett Saudi Bombings Kill Scores of Civilians—Including Children—in Yemen "America is complicit in this," said one critic of "this horrific war that Biden and his senior officials once promised to end." by Andrea Germanos To 'Hold Her Accountable for What She Did,' Primary Sinema Project Gets Into Gear "Kyrsten Sinema is unfit to be a United States senator," the project asserts. "Just like the filibuster itself, we need to get rid of her if we want to save our democracy before it's too late." by Brett Wilkins 'Time for Citizens United to Go': US Oligarchs Poured $1.2 Billion Into 2020 Elections The figure represents a 39-fold increase compared to spending in 2010, the first election held after the widely decried ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. by Jake Johnson

MORE NEWS

Opinion

Doomsday and Hope We must recognize that our global problems and shared threats will be solved not by war but through diplomacy, cooperation and collaboration and finally by appropriate foreign aid providing infrastructure, medical and educational aid, not weapons. by Robert Dodge The Supreme Court Deals Another Body Blow to Women in Texas "This case is a disaster for the rule of law and a grave disservice to women in Texas." by Aron Solomon

MORE OPINION

Common Dreams PO Box 443 Portland, ME 04112 United States

Let’s stop the biggest expansions of nuclear weapons in years

 

The time to turn away from nuclear weapons is NOW.

But as I write, powerful members of Congress are working to pour even MORE money into the already-massive U.S. nuclear arsenal — heightening the possibility of a nightmare scenario: nuclear war.

With geopolitical tensions running high, it won’t be easy to push back, and that’s why we need you with us.

Can you donate $15 now to help us make sure Congress doesn’t greenlight one of the biggest expansions of nuclear weapons in years and pour fuel on the fire of a global arms race?

Together, we’ll stop this latest attempt to fund a new nuclear arms spree — because we can’t do it without you. Thanks for all you do to push for peace.

— Annika

_________________________

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), two powerful members of the congressional Armed Services committees, are working overtime to spend BILLIONS of dollars to expand the already-massive U.S. nuclear arsenal with more subs, bombers, and land-based missiles — unnecessary, apocalyptically dangerous weapons.

It’s this backward thinking that will do little to make us safe, and with the Doomsday Clock ticking closer toward midnight[1] and the risk of conflict between the United States and Russia increasing day by day, adding fuel to this fire only heightens the possibility of a nightmare scenario: nuclear war.

But thankfully, it’s not a done deal. 

Right now, a fight is brewing in Congress over how and where BILLIONS of funds authorized for the Pentagon should be spent, and we’ve got just a few precious weeks to push back. We’re gearing up to double down during an incredibly urgent moment — raising the alarm in the media, and mobilizing our champions in Congress along with grassroots activists like you to stop this latest attempt to fund a new nuclear arms spree. And we need you with us.

As we step up, we need to ask if you can too. Can you make an urgent $15 donation to fuel our work to stop one of the biggest expansions of nuclear weapons in YEARS? Not everyone reading will donate, and if you are, we need you with us.

The reality is that building more nuclear weapons only entrenches a global arms race that could have devastating impacts on all of us. 

The exorbitant amount of money nuclear weapons cost — well over a TRILLION dollars in the coming years — could, and SHOULD, be invested in the needs of our communities instead. Given this cost, as well as the dire threat they pose to millions of people around the globe, abandoning the development of new nuclear weapons should be an easy choice. 

Instead, we’re seeing the acceleration of a new nuclear arms race. That looks like the Pentagon and their hawkish friends in Congress pitching hard to spend the additional BILLIONS Congress authorized late last year on a new generation of weapons.

That includes Trump's pet projects like the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) — a nuke that multiple presidents from George H.W. Bush to Obama chose to keep in storage or retire, and that experts say are a colossal waste of money.

Now, with tensions rising in Ukraine, hawkish members of Congress are seizing crises and conflicts as opportunities to expand the U.S. war machine, and getting set to fill the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons wishlist. But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

We’ve got just a few critical weeks to pull out all the stops to keep the pressure on Congress to push them away from ANY nuclear weapons spending increases. But it won’t be easy, and that’s why we need you with us.

Can you donate $15 now to help us make sure Congress doesn’t greenlight one of the biggest expansions of nuclear weapons in years and pour fuel on the fire of a global arms race?

For the last three years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set the Doomsday Clock at just 100 seconds to midnight. 

It reflects the terrifying reality that we’re all too close to global catastrophe, and it’s fueled in no small part by our reliance on nuclear weapons. But doomsday is not a foregone conclusion, and second by second, we’re committed to turning it back.

Thank you for working for peace,

Faith, Shayna, Yint, and the Win Without War team

---

[1] Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "At doom’s doorstep: It is 100 seconds to midnight"

A U.S. foreign policy rooted in human rights and justice won’t happen overnight. If you’re with us for the long haul, consider a monthly donation.

(202) 656-4999 | info@winwithoutwar.org © Win Without War 2021
1 Thomas Circle NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005

RSN: Norman Solomon | Ominous History in Real Time: Where We Are Now in the USA

 

Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News

YOU CAN'T HAVE AN EMPIRE WITHOUT EFFECTIVE PROPAGANDA — When you look at the massive inequities burdening our society and you ask, How can this be? look no further than the propagandists. They are the legitimizers, the rationalizers, the explainers. The straight story may not sell as well but it will ease the burdens. Preserve and restore the fourth estate, contribute to RSN! Thank you.
Marc Ash • Founder, Reader Supported News

Sure, I'll make a donation!

 

RSN: Norman Solomon | Ominous History in Real Time: Where We Are Now in the USA
Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
Solomon writes: "The final big legislative achievement of 2021 was a bill authorizing $768 billion in military spending for the next fiscal year. President Biden signed it two days after the Christmas holiday glorifying the Prince of Peace."

This article is adapted from the new edition of Norman Solomon’s book “Made Love, Got War,” just published as a free e-book.

The final big legislative achievement of 2021 was a bill authorizing $768 billion in military spending for the next fiscal year. President Biden signed it two days after the Christmas holiday glorifying the Prince of Peace.

Dollar figures can look abstract on a screen, but they indicate the extent of the mania. Biden had asked for “only” $12 billion more than President Trump’s bloated military budget of the previous year -- but that wasn’t enough for the bipartisan hawkery in the House and Senate, which provided a boost of $37 billion instead.

Overall, military spending accounts for about half of the federal government’s total discretionary spending -- while programs for helping instead of killing are on short rations at many local, state, and national government agencies. It’s a nonstop trend of reinforcing the warfare state in sync with warped neoliberal priorities. While outsized profits keep benefiting the upper class and enriching the already obscenely rich, the cascading effects of extreme income inequality are drowning the hopes of the many.

Corporate power constrains just about everything, whether healthcare or education or housing or jobs or measures for responding to the climate emergency. What prevails is the political structure of the economy.

Class war in the United States has established what amounts to oligarchy. A zero-sum economic system, aka corporate capitalism, is constantly exercising its power to reward and deprive. The dominant forces of class warfare -- disproportionately afflicting people of color while also steadily harming many millions of whites -- continue to undermine basic human rights including equal justice and economic security. In the real world, financial power is political power. A system that runs on money is adept at running over people without it.

The words “I can’t breathe,” repeated nearly a dozen times by Eric Garner in a deadly police chokehold, resonated for countless people whose names we’ll never know. The intersections of racial injustice and predatory capitalism are especially virulent zones, where many lives gradually or suddenly lose what is essential for life. Discussions of terms like “racism” and “poverty” too easily become facile, abstracted from human consequences, while unknown lives suffocate at the hands of routine injustice, systematic cruelties, the way things predictably are.

An all-out war on democracy is now underway in the United States. More than ever, the Republican Party is the electoral arm of unabashed white supremacy as well as such toxicities as xenophobia, nativism, anti-gay bigotry, patriarchy, and misogyny. The party’s rigid climate denial is nothing short of deranged. Its approach to the Covid pandemic has amounted to an embrace of death in the name of rancid individualism. With its Supreme Court justices in place, the “Grand Old Party” has methodically slashed voting rights and abortion rights. Overall, on domestic matters, the partisan matchup is between neoliberalism and neofascism. While the abhorrent roles of the Democratic leadership are extensive, to put it mildly, the two parties now represent hugely different constituencies and agendas at home. Not so on matters of war and peace.

Both parties continue to champion what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” When King described the profligate spending for a distant war as “some demonic, destructive suction tube,” he was condemning dynamics that endure with a vengeance. Today, the madness and the denial are no less entrenched. A militaristic core serves as a sacred touchstone for faith in America as the world’s one and only indispensable nation. Gargantuan Pentagon budgets are taken for granted, as is the assumed prerogative to bomb other countries at will.

Every budget has continued to include massive outlays for nuclear weapons, including gigantic expenditures for so-called “modernization” of the nuclear arsenal. A fact that this book cited when it was first published -- that the United States had ten thousand nuclear warheads and Russia had a comparable number -- is no longer true; most estimates say those stockpiles are now about half as large. But the current situation is actually much more dangerous. In 2007, the Doomsday Clock maintained by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists pegged the world’s proximity to annihilation at five minutes to apocalyptic Midnight. As 2022 began, the symbolic hands were at one hundred seconds to Midnight. Such is the momentum of the nuclear arms race, fueled by profit-driven military contractors. Lofty rhetoric about seeking peace is never a real brake on the nationalistic thrust of militarism.

With the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the third decade of this century is shaping up to unfold new wrinkles in American hegemonic conceits. Along the way, Joe Biden has echoed a central precept of doublethink in George Orwell’s most famous novel, 1984: “War is Peace.” Speaking at the United Nations as the autumn of 2021 began, Biden proclaimed: “I stand here today, for the first time in twenty years, with the United States not at war. We’ve turned the page.” But the turned page was bound into a volume of killing with no foreseeable end. The United States remained at war, bombing in the Middle East and elsewhere, with much information withheld from the public. And increases in U.S. belligerence toward both Russia and China escalated the risks of a military confrontation that could lead to nuclear war.

A rosy view of the USA’s future is only possible when ignoring history in real time. After four years of the poisonous Trump presidency, the Biden strain of corporate liberalism offers a mix of antidotes and ongoing toxins. The Republican Party, now neofascist, is in a strong position to gain control of the U.S. government by mid-decade. Preventing such a cataclysm seems beyond the grasp of the same Democratic Party elites that paved the way for Donald Trump to become president in the first place. Realism about the current situation -- clarity about how we got here and where we are now -- is necessary to mitigate impending disasters and help create a better future. Vital truths must be told. And acted upon.

---

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

READ MORE

 

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PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611

RSN: Norman Solomon | Ominous History in Real Time: Where We Are Now in the USA

 

 

16 January 22

Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News

YOU CAN'T HAVE AN EMPIRE WITHOUT EFFECTIVE PROPAGANDA — When you look at the massive inequities burdening our society and you ask, How can this be? look no further than the propagandists. They are the legitimizers, the rationalizers, the explainers. The straight story may not sell as well but it will ease the burdens. Preserve and restore the fourth estate, contribute to RSN! Thank you.
Marc Ash • Founder, Reader Supported News

Sure, I'll make a donation!

 

RSN: Norman Solomon | Ominous History in Real Time: Where We Are Now in the USA
Norman Solomon, Reader Supported News
Solomon writes: "The final big legislative achievement of 2021 was a bill authorizing $768 billion in military spending for the next fiscal year. President Biden signed it two days after the Christmas holiday glorifying the Prince of Peace."

This article is adapted from the new edition of Norman Solomon’s book “Made Love, Got War,” just published as a free e-book.

The final big legislative achievement of 2021 was a bill authorizing $768 billion in military spending for the next fiscal year. President Biden signed it two days after the Christmas holiday glorifying the Prince of Peace.

Dollar figures can look abstract on a screen, but they indicate the extent of the mania. Biden had asked for “only” $12 billion more than President Trump’s bloated military budget of the previous year -- but that wasn’t enough for the bipartisan hawkery in the House and Senate, which provided a boost of $37 billion instead.

Overall, military spending accounts for about half of the federal government’s total discretionary spending -- while programs for helping instead of killing are on short rations at many local, state, and national government agencies. It’s a nonstop trend of reinforcing the warfare state in sync with warped neoliberal priorities. While outsized profits keep benefiting the upper class and enriching the already obscenely rich, the cascading effects of extreme income inequality are drowning the hopes of the many.

Corporate power constrains just about everything, whether healthcare or education or housing or jobs or measures for responding to the climate emergency. What prevails is the political structure of the economy.

Class war in the United States has established what amounts to oligarchy. A zero-sum economic system, aka corporate capitalism, is constantly exercising its power to reward and deprive. The dominant forces of class warfare -- disproportionately afflicting people of color while also steadily harming many millions of whites -- continue to undermine basic human rights including equal justice and economic security. In the real world, financial power is political power. A system that runs on money is adept at running over people without it.

The words “I can’t breathe,” repeated nearly a dozen times by Eric Garner in a deadly police chokehold, resonated for countless people whose names we’ll never know. The intersections of racial injustice and predatory capitalism are especially virulent zones, where many lives gradually or suddenly lose what is essential for life. Discussions of terms like “racism” and “poverty” too easily become facile, abstracted from human consequences, while unknown lives suffocate at the hands of routine injustice, systematic cruelties, the way things predictably are.

An all-out war on democracy is now underway in the United States. More than ever, the Republican Party is the electoral arm of unabashed white supremacy as well as such toxicities as xenophobia, nativism, anti-gay bigotry, patriarchy, and misogyny. The party’s rigid climate denial is nothing short of deranged. Its approach to the Covid pandemic has amounted to an embrace of death in the name of rancid individualism. With its Supreme Court justices in place, the “Grand Old Party” has methodically slashed voting rights and abortion rights. Overall, on domestic matters, the partisan matchup is between neoliberalism and neofascism. While the abhorrent roles of the Democratic leadership are extensive, to put it mildly, the two parties now represent hugely different constituencies and agendas at home. Not so on matters of war and peace.

Both parties continue to champion what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” When King described the profligate spending for a distant war as “some demonic, destructive suction tube,” he was condemning dynamics that endure with a vengeance. Today, the madness and the denial are no less entrenched. A militaristic core serves as a sacred touchstone for faith in America as the world’s one and only indispensable nation. Gargantuan Pentagon budgets are taken for granted, as is the assumed prerogative to bomb other countries at will.

Every budget has continued to include massive outlays for nuclear weapons, including gigantic expenditures for so-called “modernization” of the nuclear arsenal. A fact that this book cited when it was first published -- that the United States had ten thousand nuclear warheads and Russia had a comparable number -- is no longer true; most estimates say those stockpiles are now about half as large. But the current situation is actually much more dangerous. In 2007, the Doomsday Clock maintained by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists pegged the world’s proximity to annihilation at five minutes to apocalyptic Midnight. As 2022 began, the symbolic hands were at one hundred seconds to Midnight. Such is the momentum of the nuclear arms race, fueled by profit-driven military contractors. Lofty rhetoric about seeking peace is never a real brake on the nationalistic thrust of militarism.

With the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the third decade of this century is shaping up to unfold new wrinkles in American hegemonic conceits. Along the way, Joe Biden has echoed a central precept of doublethink in George Orwell’s most famous novel, 1984: “War is Peace.” Speaking at the United Nations as the autumn of 2021 began, Biden proclaimed: “I stand here today, for the first time in twenty years, with the United States not at war. We’ve turned the page.” But the turned page was bound into a volume of killing with no foreseeable end. The United States remained at war, bombing in the Middle East and elsewhere, with much information withheld from the public. And increases in U.S. belligerence toward both Russia and China escalated the risks of a military confrontation that could lead to nuclear war.

A rosy view of the USA’s future is only possible when ignoring history in real time. After four years of the poisonous Trump presidency, the Biden strain of corporate liberalism offers a mix of antidotes and ongoing toxins. The Republican Party, now neofascist, is in a strong position to gain control of the U.S. government by mid-decade. Preventing such a cataclysm seems beyond the grasp of the same Democratic Party elites that paved the way for Donald Trump to become president in the first place. Realism about the current situation -- clarity about how we got here and where we are now -- is necessary to mitigate impending disasters and help create a better future. Vital truths must be told. And acted upon.

---

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

READ MORE

 

Contribute to RSN

Follow us on facebook and twitter!

Update My Monthly Donation

PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611