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The Munich “Security” Conference (MSC) Has Become a €20‑Million Militarist Echo Chamber
The MSC’s closed groupthink militarism offers only one prescription — more weapons — even as record military expenditures, squeezed from taxpayers in economic crisis, destroy diplomacy and drive escalation and the highest war risks in decades. From Dialogue Forum to Militarised Ritual For decades, the Munich Security Conference (MSC) – which opened today and runs […]
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Everyone Is Allowed To Protest
Columbia University professor Bruce Robbins exposed his students to possible criticism of the Israeli military, and was, for that reason, declared by his employer guilty of discrimination and harassment. Robbins could have written a book on the absurdities involved in defining criticism of genocide as discrimination, and defining criticism of any military on Earth other […]
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The Antidote to Despair
We are living at a time of historical significance. We feel it in our bones, and it relentlessly gnaws at our consciousness. The familiar is rapidly unraveling. The transition to whatever is to come is disquieting and disorienting, and we don’t know how to respond. We cannot grasp these events because the ethical codes of […]
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Objective Fallacy: Eulogies on the Passing of the Law Based International Order
The eulogies are starting to wear thin. The lamented passing of the rules and law-based order only makes sense to those who believed that such rules and laws existed in the first place. How easy it is to forget that the spanning hegemon of each age always presumes that its laws and norms are objective […]
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Frame-Checking “Insurgency” in Minnesota
Trump administration officials, joined by a chorus of Republican politicians and right-wing media pundits, have been referring to public demonstrations against ICE in Minneapolis as an “insurgency,” a term typically used to refer to violent, armed rebellion, especially when it involves irregular forces opposing a larger, well-equipped military or state power. On the surface, the […]
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Citizens and Government Actions in Economics, Trade, and Financial
Read Part 1 and 2. A. Trade Measures & Market Signaling Economic pressure can be applied instantly and scaled without violence. Immediate Measures (within a week) Government boycott US goods and services A very powerful signal which over time will be felt. Targeted tariffs on selected U.S. goods Symbolic but high-visibility sectors send a clear […]
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Are Republicans and Democrats the Same?
Early in my progressive activist/organizer life, begun in 1968, I was a big believer in the need for a “third party.” A primary reason was the prosecution of the Vietnam War by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. As I studied in college in 1967 about the history of that war, I learned that the USA had […]
