OMNI

ANTICIPATING ISRAELI BDS DAY (BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS) AND PALESTINIAN LAND DAY, MARCH 30, 2025, Today January 30, 2025.

COMPILED BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY.

https://omnicenter.org/DONATE/

Also see:   International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Nov. 29.   https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/11/un-international-day-in-solidarity-with.html

Local Actions

Tonight JANUARY 30, 2025 6:30 AT OMNI

Boycott Documentary Screening and Discussion

 Here is a reminder to come join us to watch Boycott and explore the intersection of civil rights, activism, and the legal system tonight.

 Date: January 30th

 Time: 6:30pm

 Location: OMNI Center, 3274 N Lee Ave, Fayetteville, AR 72703

Did you know that Arkansas became a battleground over the right to boycott? "Boycott" delves into the stories of individuals, including a newspaper editor from Arkansas, who took a stand against anti-boycott laws that target free speech and activism, including support for the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement.

The film follows three Americans who take on anti-boycott laws in a fight for free speech in "Boycott". Attorney Mikkel Jordahl, speech therapist Bahia Amawi, and Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt each face personal and professional challenges after refusing to sign pledges against boycotting Israel. From Arizona to Texas to Arkansas, their legal battles reveal the far-reaching implications of these laws on democracy and individual rights.  

See you there!    Friends of Palestine NWA

Emergency Protest for Rafah/Gaza  2-13-24

(It's late in the day but can you please post this? )

Hands off Rafah!

Emergency Protest

Washington County Courthouse, Fayetteville

5:00 PM Today Feb 13

Sponsored by: NWA for Palestine, Friends of Palestine NWA, Christian Voice for Peace

Happening in Rafah now

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hspart=sz&hsimp=yhs-001&type=type7015493-spa-89901-89902&param1=89901&param2=89902&p=rafah+gaza+right+now&grd=1

TEXTS National and International
A Brief selection mainly of divestments during 2024, ending with a meditation on Picasso’s Guernica.

 “Downward spiral of a genocidal Israel”

Jan 2, 2025, Truthdig, Arun Gupta, https://www.truthdig.com/articles/israels-downward-spiral/

Israel’s Downward SpiralL  The nation's success on the battlefield masks the beating it is taking as an international pariah.

Israel is riding high after carrying out the most audacious campaign of military conquest of any nation since the 1940s. Following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Israel has begun an open-ended occupation in Lebanon, seized Syrian territory twice the size of Gaza, wiped 50 Palestinian villages “off the map” in the West Bank, bombed Iran and Yemen, and weathered more than a year of resistance, global revulsion and protest, while carrying out a horrific genocide in Gaza that has no end in sight. 

From the beginning, Israel has enjoyed the full support of the Biden administration — militarily, financially, politically, diplomatically and morally. Israel’s extermination of children, families, aid workers, doctors, teachers and artists has earned it only a few occasional peeps of official protest from Washington, while regional powers such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia are trying to have it both ways. They have reduced economic and political ties with Israel to pacify domestic anger, while quietly aiding it because their governments are aligned with U.S. interests. 

But this moment doesn’t represent the triumph of Zionism so much as the beginning of the end. Israel has become an international pariah, led by an incompetent and corrupt government, and it is experiencing a debilitating brain drain. Its society is riven by multiple fractures, with deep political divisions and intractable conflicts, not just between Jews and Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, or those for or against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, but between secular Jews and a growing ultra-Orthodox population. 

Meanwhile, the gulf between Israel and the rest of the world has never been deeper. In January, a Tel Aviv University poll showed almost universal backing among Israeli Jews for its war on Palestinians with 95% either believing the military was using the right amount of force in Gaza or too little. Nearly 60% support killing all 2.3 million residents of Gaza through starvation. Outside of the West, opposition to Israeli savagery is nearly universal and has reinvigorated the 2005 call by Palestinian civil society for “boycott, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights,” as well as the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel initiated the previous year. 

This moment doesn’t represent the triumph of Zionism, so much as the beginning of the end.

On top of this political and economic isolation, Israel’s embrace of endless war and Jewish supremacy is creating self-inflicted wounds. While the country depends on Washington for its power and impunity, no amount of weapons and dollars can prop up a regime festering with rot. Higher taxes, government expenses, inflation, reduced social services, shocking levels of poverty intensified by the war and mounting international pressure — all are exacerbating a brain drain that threatens to enervate the Israeli economy. 

Young, well-educated Israelis are fleeing abroad to escape a government power grab in the guise of a proposed judicial “reform” that critics argue would “codify the subjugation of women” and the LGBTQ community. The planned overhaul of the legal system, experts warn, would “pave the way for unbridled corruption, infringement of individual rights and harm to the public interest.” In 2023, prior to the start of the genocide, one study found Israeli emigration had leaped by 42% compared to previous years. The study author warned that losing tens of thousands of high-tech workers, physicians and senior academic faculty “could generate catastrophic consequences for the entire country.” Close to 1 million Jewish Israelis have dual citizenship, and a high portion of them are bilingual, meaning they can easily emigrate. 

Numbers for 2024 are murky, but emigration appears to have turned into a flood. In the first nine months of 2024, Canada approved 7,800 work permits for Israelis. That’s five times the rate for all of 2023. During the same period, more than 18,400 Israelis applied for German citizenship, which is more than three times the 5,700 Israelis who did so in 2022. The brain drain extends to Israeli Arabs as well. 

For many secular Israeli Jews, the war is “the last straw” that has exposed an onerous double burden: They pay taxes and serve in the military, while the far-right government, which relies on religious parties to stay in power, protects ultra-Orthodox men from the draft. Ending the war will only revive long-broiling secular-religious strife over suffocating religious laws and policies that provide “a vast system of government subsidies, stipends and other benefits” that allows half of Orthodox men to avoid work as full-time yeshiva students.

There are also external pressures. Many Israelis are asking why they would want to live in a pariah state, “a symbol of oppression, immorality and illiberalism,” as New York Times columnist Ezra Klein put it in an interview with Haaretz.

One little-reported phenomenon is how campus protests in solidarity with Gaza — which spread to more than 140 U.S. universities and 25 countries by May — supercharged the movement to boycott, divest from and impose sanctions on Israel. In their wake, the rector of Hebrew University in Jerusalem noted a “tsunami” of boycotts, saying, “I can’t count the number of academic relations that have been suspended or even broken off.” This led to a “barrage” of conference invitations withdrawn, papers pulled from review and funding halted, according to Bloomberg. Some 20 universities in Europe and Canada have cut ties with Israeli universities and academics since last spring.

Haaretz admits that the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement is “working vigorously and effectively in the cultural realm,” which has made life more difficult for those working in international fields, particularly science and the arts. In October, hundreds of prominent authors signed a letter vowing not to “work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.” Meanwhile, refusals to work with Israel’s film and TV industry are limiting its reach, and boycotts by musicians are deepening its isolation. 

The hardest blows to Israel are directly economic. Turkey, a major economic partner with Israel with $8 billion in bilateral trade, has reduced its business with and is under popular pressure to crack down on third-party shipments to Israel. Colombia, Israel’s top supplier of coal, has stopped exports of the fuel that accounts for 20% of Israel’s electricity supply. Nor is Israel’s military immune from international opprobrium. Belgium, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Britain have banned or restricted weapons sales. Israeli weapons makers have been nixed from or skipped military trade shows. . . .  MORE  https://www.truthdig.com/articles/israels-downward-spiral/

For many secular Israeli Jews, the war is “the last straw.”

Under pressure “from activists and governments,” many financial firms, including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and companies in France, Italy, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and the United Kingdom, have divested from Israel or companies connected to the war and occupation. 

In June, Israel was dealt an especially painful blow when Intel announced it was suspending work on a $25-billion chip plant that would have employed 12,000 people, although there is no evidence it was connected to the war. Intel Israel has also laid off hundreds of employees, and Samsung Next, which funded 70 Israeli companies and startups over a decade, shut down operations in Tel Aviv in 2024. Pret A Manger dropped plans to open 40 stores. Starbucks and McDonald’s admitted pro-Palestine boycotts have contributed to declining profits.

Israel’s tech industry accounts for 20% of gross domestic product and 53% of exports. It prides itself as the “startup nation,” but that’s more myth than reality. Over the past decade, Israeli startups have dwindled 45% to fewer than 800 in 2023, and only 5% of those raise more than $50 million. Israel’s high-tech sector, meanwhile, has slipped to 2018 levels, and venture capital fundraising has sunk by 70%. One entrepreneur said the loss of funding is “directly tied to the Gaza War.”

All of this points to Israel edging toward a vicious cycle. As its workforce shrinks in medicine, technology and academia, Israel’s tax base declines, its capacity for innovation and ability to attract talent diminishes, and staying becomes less and less desirable for those remaining. 

These problems are compounded by hits to other sectors. Tourism has been virtually wiped out, with an estimated $5.2-billion loss from pre-pandemic levels. Agriculture has seen a 30% drop in output that has pushed up the price of meat by 7% and produce by 9%. Local businesses are on track to record 50% more closures in 2024 than in a normal year. And a staggering 29% of Israelis now live in poverty, and one in four are food insecure.

Israel’s cost of insuring debt has tripled since the genocide began. Foreign direct investment plunged 29% in 2023 and probably fell further in 2024, and foreign investors have dumped nearly $13 billion in Israeli stocks and bonds. True to form, Wall Street banks are benefiting from Israel’s pain by notching higher profits from volatility in its bonds and currencies caused by the war. That is costing Israel money, as currency gyrations increase the cost of importing and exporting goods.

Meanwhile, international agencies such as Moody’s have lowered Israel’s credit to a few notches above junk bond rating, citing politics as an economic threat — namely the “high social tensions” resulting from changes to the judiciary and allowing the ultra-Orthodox to avoid military service.

Here, again, the divide between religious and secular Israelis poses perhaps the greatest long-term threat to Israel and the Zionist project. The Haredim have a far higher birth rate than secular Jews, and because community patriarchs keep them poorly educated to control them, it’s estimated that in a decade or so Israel’s high-tech economy will be unsustainable, as its skilled workforce will have evaporated.

A competent government might be able to help the country weather these crises. But Netanyahu’s ruling coalition is singularly focused on “looting” government coffers to reward religious fanatics and violent settlers.

All of this points to Israel edging toward a vicious cycle.

The crisis has come to a head in the government’s proposed budget for 2025, which “includes some of the biggest spending cuts and tax increases Israelis have ever known, in order to finance the war.” The budget slashes spending on health, welfare and aid to the elderly, disabled and Holocaust survivors. At the same time Netanyahu, has been pushing a bill to “subsidize day care for children of full-time yeshiva students who dodge the draft.”

The far right that effectively controls Israel is banking on being able to soak secular Jews for taxes as they do all the fighting and keep the economy humming while trying to subject them to a prejudiced religious judicial system. Arabs and ultra-Orthodox make up 35% of Israel’s population, but less than 5% of tech workers.

Israel has wounded itself deeply through external brutality and internal bigotry. Add to that the small but regular cuts that the BDS movement is inflicting on it, and the state has become far more fragile, far more quickly, than many had imagined possible.

January 2, 2025

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Please send these articles to our senators and representatives with any comments you want to add.  They need to know this information.  They are so mis-informed.  Constituents writing through their contact page gets more attention and consideration.  Get your friends, families, and email lists to join you.

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Website to look up your senator: https://www.senate.gov/

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Go to your congress persons contact page to send them your message.

 “Doing Time For Palestine” By Corinna G. Barnard, Consortium News.  Popular Resistance.org (11-1-24).   Almost a year ago a photograph of two figures standing on a rooftop of a building in Merrimack, New Hampshire, attracted interest in the social-media sphere attentive to the Palestine-Israel conflict. The people in the photograph were wearing masks and holding greenish smoky flares over their heads. Beneath them was a sign, “Elbit Systems of America.” That’s a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of the Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems. The parent, Haifa-based company is a leading supplier of weaponry — military drones, artillery, munitions and electronic warfare systems — that the Israeli military... -more-

“The ICJ finds that BDS is not merely a right, but an obligation.”  Editor.  mronline.org (8-17-24). 

The ICJ’s authoritative ruling on the Israeli occupation makes clear that boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid are not only a moral imperative but also a legal obligation.
Originally published: Mondoweiss  on August 13, 2024 by Craig Mokhiber (more by Mondoweiss)  |  (Posted Aug 16, 2024)

Human Rights, Inequality, State Repression, WarAmericas, United StatesNewswireBDS, International Court of Justice (ICJ), Israeli Occupation, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)

Israel and its lobby have, for years now, been engaged in a frenzy of activity to further insulate Israel from accountability by using their influence in the West to effectively outlaw organized opposition to Israel. Foremost among these efforts has been the Israeli campaign to penalize calls to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel for its gross violations of human rights. As a result, countless laws and policies are now on the books across the U.S. and the broader West, trampling on core constitutional principles and internationally guaranteed human rights in defense of Israeli impunity. But an advisory opinion issued last month by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should help to turn that around.

In its historic ruling, the ICJ found that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is entirely unlawful, that Israel practices apartheid and racial segregation, and that all states are under a duty to help bring this to an end, including by cutting off all economic, trade and investment relations with Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In other words, as a matter of international law, all countries are obliged to participate in an economic boycott of Israel’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territory and to divest from any existing economic relations there. . . .

7.11.24 Veterans for Peace talk Boycott, Divest, and Sanction, the time is NOW

Dr. Javeria Farooqi joins us to talk BDS: its importance, its successes, its impact, and how YOU can take part in ending apartheid, occupation, and genocide. Dr. Farooqi shows us specifically the tools we can use to Boycott. From Apps to Websites, you can view products and stores to support or avoid. She also talks about how your investments can be powerful in changing the world for the better, for the humane, for the compassionate.

From: Friends of Sabeel North America <friends@fosna.org> A Christian Voice for Palestine
Date: Fri, May 24, 2024 at 5:09 PM
Subject: Some Observations and Reflections from Palestine
To: Mack Paul <mpaul49@gmail.com>

Dear Mack,
Since returning to Palestine last week, I have been speaking with trusted individuals and extensively monitoring Hebrew broadcasts on TV and radio. I developed a number of observations about Palestinians and Israelis that are often missing in the Western Press:

1.     Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel have a deep sense of fear and foreboding. They were shocked at the intensity and brutality of the Israeli response to Hamas’ attack and the inability of the world community to respond adequately to what they clearly perceive as an ongoing genocide.

2.     Many are also surprised at how long the crisis is taking. They strongly fear that the end is nowhere in sight, and that if hostilities in Gaza were to cease or become significantly reduced then the West Bank would be next. The heightened level of Israeli settler and army violence as well as impunity is only the first step towards a more massive attack, with the possible aim of another large-scale population transfer–this time in the West Bank and towards Jordan.

3.     Israelis also are reacting as if in the midst of an existential battle, sensing the need (and perhaps the opportunity) to reach a final resolution of their dispute with the Palestinians, by means of a crushing and lasting victory and the implementation of an unclear plan to resolve matters in their favor once and for all. The sense one gets is that Israelis are living in a bubble, with no appreciation for the suffering of the Palestinians (which is rarely depicted in their media) or the opinions of the rest of the world (which they dismiss as antisemitism). There is only a determination to use massive power, out of a sense of superiority combined paradoxically with a feeling of vulnerability. There exists also a sense of entitlement and impunity clearly demanding that Israel be exempt from normal standards of behavior and that the world see things their way, and complaining of victimhood if the world (or anyone) fails to support their version of reality.

4.     There is very little interest in Israel any more to maintain the façade of democracy, liberality, freedom of speech, right of dissent, or judicial restraint. There exists a vengeful spirit and a feeling that the outrages of October 7 gives them the right to do anything they want. The anger at Netanyahu personally hides the fact that Gallant and Lapid do not really disagree with him at all on the overall handling of the Gaza issue or the Palestinians.

5.     In the West Bank there is real economic suffering, since tourism has virtually stopped as well as work permits for Israel. Last month, there was also a 50% reduction in salaries from the Palestinian Authority. At the same time, there is increased settler violence and an overall sense of foreboding as people are waiting for worse things to develop. Ultimately, there is a tremendous disappointment with the reactions of the Arab countries and of the Palestinian Authority, which is losing all credibility.

6.     Generally, there is a feeling that major things may happen soon, none of them at all good, yet there is a fierce determination for sumud and resilience.

These are merely some of my observations. While I am here, I will continue to listen and absorb what I see and hear.  

Sincerely, Jonathan Kuttab, Executive Director

Support FOSNA

Fwd: Aipac/Billionaires funneling money to defeat progressives+Universities & War industry

 https://www.lifehackguru.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgv3SmMenhgMVAq3RBB17twB4EAEYASAAEgIPqfD_BwE&campaignid=20786396384&adgroupid=154477300494&loc_physicall_ms=9003197&loc_interest_ms=&matchtype=&network=d&creative=696533636334&keyword=&placement=pulsetv.com&targetid=&cpid=d635c938-4e2d-4486-b08a-c2e958548638&lpid=b26a0cb9-ff4c-40a8-9803-808f0609662f&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgv3SmMenhgMVAq3RBB17twB4EAEYASAAEgIPqfD_BwE

Tell Universities: Divest from the War Industry Now

https://actionnetwork.org/forms/tell-universities-divest?source=group-democracy-for-america-advocacy-fund&referrer=group-democracy-for-america-advocacy-fund&redirect=https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dfa_university_divest&link_id=4&can_id=ad24e547d395c0b0b86d877e0ff73f99&email_referrer=email_2331028&email_subject=why-are-universities-engaged-in-war-profiteering&refcodeEmailReferrer=email_2331028

 Demand University Divestment From Weapons Manufacturers And Defense Contractors Now.

Billions of dollars from university endowments are invested in the stocks of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.  These corporations are directly responsible for untold human suffering around the globe with their bombs and missiles raining down on civilians from Gaza to Yemen.

Year after year weapons manufacturers successfully lobby Washington to greenlight more war and bloodshed. This is the industry that our universities are supporting with their investment dollars – an industry that profits from unthinkable violence against human beings.

And for what? For returns on an endowment portfolio? To add a few more dollars to an already massive university fund? No matter how they try to rationalize it, universities that invest in weapons companies have blood on their hands.

Divestment is only a first step toward building a world beyond war, but it's a powerful one because institutions of learning must lead in the pursuit of justice and human flourishing.

The American Association of University Professors says the efforts have become so widespread and heavy-handed that it amounts to a “new McCarthyism.”

But in the absence of any official, central database on the firings and suspensions of academic workers, hard data was hard to come by. So The Intercept went to work to uncover the facts.

What we’ve found so far are academics in fields as diverse as politics, sociology, Japanese literature, public health, Latin American and Caribbean studies, Middle East and African studies, mathematics, and education who were fired, suspended, or removed from the classroom for criticizing Israel — and this may be just the tip of the iceberg.

As Norway’s largest private pension fund, we are divesting from Caterpillar

There is no excuse to be silent over the role of companies linked to Israel’s illegal actions in the occupied Palestinian territory and its war in Gaza.

Kiran Aziz

Head of Responsible Investments, KLP

Published On 26 Jun 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/6/26/as-norways-largest-private-pension-fund-we-are-divesting-from-caterpillar

At Norway’s largest private pension fund, KLP, we have decided to divest from United States industrial group Caterpillar over concerns about its role in human rights abuses in occupied Palestine.

KLP has previously divested from companies linked to the illegal Israeli settlements and the separation wall in the West Bank following the important United Nations report on businesses linked to settlements.

Caterpillar’s D9 series bulldozers are imported to Israel by Israeli Tractors and Equipment (ITE), part of Zoko Enterprises. In partnership with the Israeli military’s Technology and Maintenance Corps, Zoko Enterprises has rebuilt these machines with vehicle-mounted weapons and armoured drivers’ cabins for use in the occupied Palestinian territory. The widely used Caterpillar D9R bulldozers weigh around 62 tonnes, are four metres tall and wide, and eight metres long.

The constant use of these weaponised bulldozers in the occupied Palestinian territory has led to a series of human rights warnings from United Nations agencies, and nongovernmental organisations over the last two decades about the company’s involvement in the demolition of Palestinian homes and infrastructure.

On June 20, UN human rights experts called on Caterpillar and weapons companies like BAE Systems to immediately stop the transfer of weapons and other military equipment to Israel as they may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws, risking complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide. This demand is in line with recent calls from the Human Rights Council and the independent UN experts to states to cease sending military equipment to Israel even if executed under existing export licences.

Around 100 Caterpillar D9R bulldozers were reported to be used in Gaza at the beginning of the latest war, after October 7. In December 2023, the Israeli forces were accused of using bulldozers to bury alive civilians outside the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in Gaza following a nine-day siege. The NGO Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has demanded an investigation into the allegations.

Throughout 2022 and 2023, there have been reports of Caterpillar bulldozers being used in the attacks on homes, refugee camps and infrastructure in the West Bank.

KLP considers that such use of bulldozers both paves the way for and worsens the human rights abuses taking place, since such use may be both effective and injurious to people. Even though Caterpillar does not sell equipment directly to the Israeli military, the company has been made aware of how its equipment is being used. This has also gone on for a long time and in a steadily worsening situation, without the company being able to demonstrate that it has performed enhanced due diligence assessments or made any real changes. The time aspect indicates that the company is unwilling to do very much.

On the basis of the information available, it is therefore impossible to assert that the company has implemented adequate measures to avoid becoming involved in future norm violations.

These extensive reports of violations come against the backdrop of a broad international consensus that West Bank settlements violate international law including the UN Charter on using force to acquire territory. An occupying power transferring its own civilian population into territory it occupies is a war crime under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The International Criminal Court also deems this a war crime.

When KLP has previously divested from Motorola, Israeli banks, construction and engineering, energy and communication companies linked to the illegal Israeli settlements and the illegal separation wall in the West Bank, we were vocal.

When we blacklisted companies producing controversial weapons globally such as Elbit, Rolls-Royce and Thales, and when we pulled out of Russian companies, and Adani over its role in Myanmar, we were also vocal. There is no excuse to be silent over the role of companies linked to Israel’s illegal actions in the occupied territory and its war in Gaza. Blacklisting Caterpillar and others linked to illegal settlements should become the norm for pension funds who claim to care about human rights.

Robert C. Koehler.  “A World Under Spiritual Construction.” Common Wonders.  TRANSCEND Media Service.  TMS PEACE JOURNALISM.   15 May 2024. 
Recent announcement by Union Theological Seminary, affiliated with Columbia University, that it is divesting from “companies profiting from war in Palestine/Israel,” fully supporting the student encampments, and condemning arrests and police violence on the peaceful, culturally diverse protests. There’s something happening here . . .    Read more...

“Palestine Action Target Two Companies At Once, Complicit In Israel’s Genocide“  By The Canary.  PopularResistance.org (2-16-24).  Palestine Action targeted two companies complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza on Wednesday 14 February – shutting down one completely and shaming the other by painting it blood-red.  First, and the group “drenched” the Manchester offices of Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon in red paint, to symbolise the bank’s complicity in Palestinian bloodshed. Activists also sprayed a message calling for Elbit to be shut down: BNY Mellon invest over £10m in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems, which provides 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet and land based equipment, as well as missiles... -more-

From Guernica to Gaza

Editor.  mronline.org (

Raouf Halaby: "To say that I was awed is an understatement."

From Guernica to Gaza

Originally published: Janata Weekly  on February 4, 2024 by Raouf Halaby (more by Janata Weekly)  |  (Posted Feb 13, 2024)

Culture, Media, Movements, WarEurope, France, Gaza, Middle East, SpainNewswireGuernica, Pablo Ruiz Picasso

Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, 1937

To say that I was awed is an understatement.

Standing in front of Picasso’s 11.5 ft. x 25.5 ft. celebrated painting Guernica is one of the most sobering encounters I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing. Displeasure because the massive composition’s theme is revoltingly gruesome. Since that dastardly first-of-its-kind-waging-of-wars, nations have not learned to abide by and practice peaceful and harmonious existence.

World War 2 was followed by wars in Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the Near East/Palestine (8 wars), Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Yemen, and Gaza, to name but a few. And in each of these wars massive bombings and aerial bombardment have been the weapon of choice, resulting in the death of millions of human beings.

Aerial bombardment is brutal, heinous, and vicious. Aerial bombardment is the cowardly weapon of arrogant, fascistic, hegemonic, and egotistical maniacs. Aerial bombardment is the screen behind which powerful thugs hide to absolve themselves of crimes against humanity. Aerial wars’ indiscriminate annihilation of mostly innocent civilians, reducing them to paupers and beggars, goes against every decent norm.

For well over 35 years I’d been showing Guernica to my students, expounding on the painting’s blending of a heinously ghoulish theme executed in the cubist style on a-never-seen-before massive scale. One of the world’s most prominent museums, Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofia, is finally home to this one-of-a-kind artistic expression bearing witness to ghastly human depravity.

On my last visit to Spain some 12 years back, I spent well over an hour studying Picasso’s ingenious blending of form and theme in monochromatic colors. Standing in front of the composition, I viewed it from every angle, and I relived years of lecture terms, phrases, descriptions, questions, answers, student responses/opinions, and so much more.

On April 27, 1937, mostly German and Italian warplanes conducted the first large-scale aerial bombardment on the town of Guernica. Nestled in northern Spain and with the complicity of Franscico Franco, Spain’s Fascist dictator, the Germans wanted to test their newly fabricated war machinery—the Nazi Luftwaffe’s planes and their newly designed bombs—produced solely for destruction on a massive scale. Because of its remoteness, Guernica was chosen as the perfect out-of-sight out-of-mind target.

Like today’s Gaza, Guernica was reduced to massive rubble shrouding innocent civilians whose flesh, blood, bones, and sinews cloaked the bleak landscape of rubble, rebar, and crater-size pocked apocalyptic destruction where once high-rise structures, streets, and alleyways existed. And hospitals, ambulances, mosques, churches, and schools are being targeted—deliberately and mercilessly.

In response to this nightmarish bombing, Picasso isolated himself in his studio for a lengthy time and vented his fury by working long hours and in isolation on what is perhaps the world’s foremost artistic political statement.

Here is what I see today in Picassos’ composition: to the far right is a Gaza woman holding her arms to high heaven; she is screaming, pleading, imploring the gods for deliverance. At the top is a light, accompanied by a hand holding a lamp as though to shed light on the unfolding carnage. Call this the 90 plus journalists killed by Israeli snipers and drones so as to draw a curtain on what God’s chosen are doing in Gaza, today’s “graveyard of children.” In addition to its military strength, Israel is adept at conducting its carnage under the cover of dark. And its powerful choking of U.S. media is adept at portraying it as the victim. To the top left Netanyahu and Co., along with Biden and Co., prance bullishly over the devastation as they squash the emaciated mother holding on to her dead infant. How many white shrouds have to be buried to appease the Hebraic God of revenge? And how many corpses have to be pulled out, with bare hands, from under the rubble? And how many tattered remains have to be placed in makeshift bags? Careful scrutiny of the foreground depicts newsprint, Picasso’s manner of telling the world “I am Guernica: Remember Me, Remember What Heinous Crimes You’ve committed.” And the crushed supine figure holding onto a broken weapon represents trampled, crushed justice under the weight of brute force.

It is worth noting that while Peter Paul Rubens, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and scores of mostly European artists have produced a massive volume of compositions under the title Massacre of the Innocents, a theme associated with Herod (the Not so Great), King of Judea, and around the time of Christ’s birth, Picasso’s Guernica stands in a class of its own.

And is it not ironic that right around the time Christendom is about to celebrate the birth of its Savior, the Prince of Peace, the Redeemer, the Israelis are raining down 2000-pound bombs, some of them the awful phosphorus kind that vaporize their victims? To date the equivalent of three Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombs have been dropped on a starved, thirsty, disoriented 2.3 million displaced citizenry.

And could we say that to date, timed with Christmas 2023, Israel has massacred over 8,000 thousand innocent children—and counting. And the West, today’s bastion of Christianity, is abhorrently supportive and silent?

Yes, in the last few years Fascism has slowly sneaked into our halls of justice, our public spaces, our airwaves, and our digital formats. Joe “I am a Zionist to the Core,” Netanyahu’s puppet and apologist, has draped himself in the Israeli flag and has fashioned and emblazoned his tie, his shirt, his suit, and his rhetoric in the same style and rhetoric of Netanyahu, his alter ego and master.

On December 10, 2023, Spain, the only Western nation with the moral fortitude to express its outrage at the Gaza carnage, held a solidarity event in the Basque city of Guernica’s market square, the same square that was bombed by the Nazis and Fascist forces way back in 1937. An aerial view depicts a massive Palestinian flag (the size of the entire square) in mosaic form the tesserae of which were held by citizens, trade unionists, artists, anti-war and anti-fascist groups, along with a large depiction of Picasso’s image depicting the mother, her child in her arms, crying to the high heavens.

And for a whole minute the sirens blazed in solidarity with Gaza’s mothers and children.    Viva Espana. Viva Palestina.

Raouf J. Halaby is a Professor Emeritus of English and Art. He is a writer, photographer, sculptor, an avid gardener, and a peace activist. Courtesy: CounterPunch.

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #214, JANUARY 29, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

Doomsday Clock 89 Seconds to Midnight.
NUKEWATCH QUARTERLY (Winter 2024-25). 
New Corporate-Military-Congressional Warmaking Paradigm.
UN-USA, UN Today (Nov. 2024): what we can expect from Trump II. 

WHO’S WARNING US?    

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has made its annual Doomsday Clock announcement. It's now set at 89 seconds to midnight — the closest its ever been to catastrophe. Read the 2025 statement >    

For those who want to raise awareness around the announcement and help decrease existential threats, the Bulletin has also created a social media toolkit. Access the toolkit >

NUKEWATCH QUARTERLY (Winter 2024-25)

    This number contains 20 articles, eleven on nuclear power, nine on weapons
      Take action against the nuclear danger by subscribing to NQ for $25 by phoning 715-472-4185, and publicizing and distributing NQ.   I am one of the 48  bulk distributors, join with me.

WHO MAKES THE WARS?
While reviewing files of venerable anti-war organizations, I found this insightful passage on war and corporations in a letter from the War Resisters League (April 2005). 

In the course of running the Merchants of Death campaign, WRL’s Anti-Militarism Program Task Force has made an amazing discovery, one that amounts to a profound shift in the ancient paradigm of warmaking.  For centuries…opportunists or all dimensions, from weapons makers to battlefield scavengers, seized on the military adventures of nations for profits large and small.  In the 21^st century, however giant US corporations have reverse that pattern: today, instead of just making profits from opportune war, they have seized the war-making apparatus itself, so that they now make war for profit. . . . “  It’s another way of thinking about the military-industrial-congressional complex Eisenhower warned us about.    Corporations such as Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Halliburton, are conscripted by the U.S. armed forces to achieve corporate domination of the whole process of profiteering for war: promoting wars, manufacturing the weapons, selling the weapons. 

WHO TRIES TO PREVENT AND STOP WARS?
UN-USA, UN TODAY NOVEMBER 2024

          Listen to Global Dispatch's new episode: What the Republican Election Sweep Means for the United Nations:    Tune in and hear Peter Yeo, Executive Vice President of the United Nations Foundation, explain the nuances of how Republicans have traditionally approached the United States' relationship to the United Nations, what we can expect from the second Trump Administration.

Listen Now

NUKEWATCH QUARTERLY (Winter 2024-25)

      Take action against the nuclear danger by subscribing to NQ for $25 by phoning 715-472-4185, and publicizing and distributing NQ.   

OMNI

WORLD WAR III anthology #3

February 3, 2025

COMPILED BY dICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY.

httpS://omnicenter.org/donate

What’s at Stake:  On January 24, 2023, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock was moved to 90 seconds (1 minute, 30  seconds) before midnight, the closest it has ever been set to midnight since its inception in 1947. This adjustment was largely attributed to the risk of nuclear escalation that arose from the US/NATO/Ukraine vs. Russia War.  Only the threatening chaos of the climate emergency poses an equal or greater danger to our evolution.    Now “. . .The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has officially reset the Clock to 89 seconds to midnight.[1] In the face of the climate crisis, nuclear war, and the potential misuse of biological science and artificial intelligence, humanity is the closest we’ve EVER been to the apocalypse.”  “Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight”

Contents

Win Without War.  “The Doomsday Clock….”

Solomon Hughes.  “…Meet the U.S.’s Real Dr. Strangelove.”
A Sample of 3 from Google: 
   “Everything You Wanted to Know about World War III.”
   “Is the US Really Preparing for WWIII?”
   “The War of 2026.”
Long-Range NATO Missiles Threaten Global War.

Annie Jacobsen.  Nuclear War: A Scenario.
Paul Gilk.  “Picking Fights with the Gods.”
John B. Foster.  “Imperialism in the Indo-Pacific.”

Kathy Kelly.  “Afghanistan’s Rehabilitation Museum and Dr. Seuss’ The Butter Battle Book.”
Barnes and Sanger. US Nuclear Arsenal Expanding.

Eugene Doyle.  The Armavir Incident and WWIII.

John Zavales.  Congress Should Question Biden.

Ted Snider.  Rogue US v. World.

Yougov Poll.  Most US Public Expects War.

Tom Engelhardt.  “A Slow-Motion WWIII” (is scarcely reported).

David Bromwich Urges Peace Treaty.

Jeremy Kuzmarov.  “We’re at a 1914 Moment.”

Rev. Robert Moore. Diplomacy and De-Escalation Urgently Needed.

David Shearman.  World Preparing for WWIII while Climate Threatens All Life.

Contents WWIII #2 (14 essays)

TEXTS

 “The Doomsday Clock is ticking, Dick.”     The Win Without War Team.   Feb 2, 2025.

. . .The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has officially reset the Clock to 89 seconds to midnight.[1] In the face of the climate crisis, nuclear war, and the potential misuse of biological science and artificial intelligence, humanity is the closest we’ve EVER been to the apocalypse.

The threats we face are coming from all directions. Trump has already left the Paris Agreement and World Health Organization, hamstringing our ability to respond to global threats like climate change and pandemics. There’s Russia’s continued military aggression in Ukraine, China’s rapid expansion of its armed forces and growing stockpile of nuclear weapons, and amidst fragile ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, violence continues to simmer in the Middle East.

Last year, Congress did its part to push us closer toward midnight by continuing to expand the already massive U.S. arsenal with unnecessary nuclear-armed submarines, more missiles, and new warheads.

It’s a huge reason why, leading scientists have declared our entire planet has inched even closer to nuclear armageddon than at any other time.

Closer than during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. 
Closer than the height of the Cold War in the 1980s.
Closer than at the start of the nuclear arms race in 1953.

Building more nuclear weapons has only deepened a global arms race that makes us all less safe. But if we join together, we can still turn back the clock.   Because it’s happened before: In 1991, after the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and committed to scaling down their nuclear stockpiles, the Bulletin moved a full seven minutes backward.   Every second counts, and with the war lobby once again jumping to monetize crises and conflicts, working against peace to expand the U.S. war machine, Win Without War’s work at pausing the clock is more crucial than ever.   We’re pulling out all the stops to keep the pressure on Congress and push them away from reckless nuclear weapons spending increases that bring us closer to doomsday in 2025.   It won’t be easy, and that’s why we need you with us, Dick. As Trump unveils his ‘shock and awe’ plans to gut our government, there is no shortage of things to worry about, and avoiding apocalypse can’t be put on the back burner. Please donate $27 now and power our massive push to turn back the clock.

“89 seconds to midnight” is a stark reminder that governments pouring TRILLIONS of dollars into nuclear weapons over the years has done little to make the world safer.

Unfortunately — and despite every signal imaginable reminding us that this is one more moment where reducing nuclear stockpiles would’ve created pathways to peace, and with massive public support for disarmament — Congress could allow Trump to push us even closer toward doomsday. But not if we have anything to say about it.

Every second counts. Let's turn back the clock together.  Thank you for working for peace, The Win Without War team.  1. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight”

Solomon Hughes.  “Sixty years after Kubrick’s film, meet the U.S.’s real Dr. Strangelove.”    Editor.  mronline.org (10-8-24).     

SOLOMON HUGHES looks at the sorry career of Brett McGurk.

Originally published: Morning Star Online  on October 4, 2024 by Solomon Hughes (more by Morning Star Online)  |  (Posted Oct 07, 2024).   Culture, Empire, Imperialism, StrategyAmericas, United StatesNewswireBrett McGurk, Dr. Strangelove, Henry Kissinger, Herman Kahn, Stanley Kubrick

STANLEY KUBRICK made Dr Strangelove sixty years ago.  This black comedy is old enough to be filmed in black and white, but remains a compelling film because the characters seem to recur in real life: like Strangelove himself, the sinister adviser who pushes a horrible, heartless plan of war and death on a hapless president. Or General Ripper, the macho military man who goes a bit “funny in the head.” And, of course, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, representing the British, who flap about in a vague, posh way while being dragged along by U.S. military adventures.

It’s fairly common for U.S. presidents to have a “Strangelove” figure: many thought he was based on Henry Kissinger, who “Strangeloved” for successive presidents, although he was actually drawn from earlier characters including Cold War “intellectual” Herman Kahn.   President George “Dubya” Bush was so hapless that he had several “Strangelove” type figures to dream up the Iraq War, including Dick “shot his own best friend in the face” Cheney and Don “known unknowns” Rumsfeld.

Joe Biden has a kind of low-wattage Dr Strangelove figure, Brett McGurk, who helped persuade the president to back Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.  McGurk was just a lawyer who got into U.S. politics by being a judicial clerk. He has no direct military experience, but he became a military adviser to George “Dubya” Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and now Biden, showing that the Strangelove-y military bureaucracy transcends supposed political divisions. Bombing foreigners is bipartisan in the States.   McGurk grew his career as a military bureaucrat via the Iraq war–that is to say he climbed a ladder of disasters, although it was Iraqis who suffered while he raised himself higher.  McGurk was a legal adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from 2004 on. The Coalition Provisional Authority was the colonial-style administration the U.S. imposed on Iraqis after “liberating” them from Saddam.   The “laws” McGurk advised on were frankly disgusting, like “Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17” which exempted all the U.S. and British mercenaries from any Iraqi laws, so they could kill without consequence.   Other laws gave the Authority a huge sum of Iraqi cash, known as the Development Fund for Iraq, or pushed privatisation so Western contractors could come and take over Iraqi services. These laws helped U.S. firms squeeze vast sums out of Iraq, while leaving the “liberated” population powerless.  McGurk then drafted Iraq’s “interim constitution” which used a “divide and rule” tactic of institutionalising sectarian Shia-Sunni splits into Iraqi politics. This exacerbated a violent civil war, leading to many deaths, but the U.S. thought this a price worth paying: As long as Iraqis didn’t unite against the U.S. occupier, they were happy.   McGurk was then one of the advisers behind [Obama’s] 2007 “Surge,” one last attempt to flood Iraq with more U.S. troops to try control the multiple insurgencies faced by the occupation-backed government.  Many U.S. politicians patted themselves on the back claiming the Surge “stabilised” Iraq, but the continued attempt to shape Iraq with U.S. firepower rather than handing over actual power to Iraq’s own people just led to new, and more nihilistic reactions in the region, like Isis.

[SUMMARY] McGurk’s career was formed by the failures in Iraq, as the U.S. tried to impose its will on Iraq’s people. He was part of repeated attempts to shape the country by U.S. firepower in favour of U.S. corporations, leading to years of chaos and bloodshed.

So it is no surprise that as Biden’s “ National Security Council co-ordinator for the Middle East and North Africa,” he is backing Israel’s attempts to impose its will on the Palestinian, and now Lebanese, people using U.S.-supplied firepower.  I think understanding McGurk’s role will also help clear up a fairly common misunderstanding about the U.S. relationship with Israel.  McGurk’s general advice is that Biden should rely on “partnerships” in the Middle East, both with Israel and with authoritarian regimes including Saudi Arabia and Egypt: the U.S. is not always strong enough to permanently “project power” into the region–as the Iraq war ultimately showed.   So instead it must rely on local strong powers and “regional strong men.” Broadly speaking, the United States wants to press down their main regional challenger, Iran, and make sure the people of the “Arab Street” don’t give them a load of trouble.

So the U.S. does deals with, sells (or gives) arms to, and occasionally sends U.S. fighter planes to support, their “partners” in the region–which could be Saudi, or Egypt or Israel.   It is for this reason McGurk reportedly privately told Israel that the U.S. would support Israel’s missile attacks and invasion of Lebanon against Hezbollah targets: the U.S. is enthusiastic about Israel going to war with a group they see as a proxy for the U.S. regional enemy, Iran.

At the same time, McGurk has been promoting a “peace deal” for Gaza, where Israel joins up with the Saudis to impose a peace on the Palestinians, one where the war ends and the Palestinians get a sort of well-funded “reconstruction” but settle for a subordinate territory under heavy Saudi-Israeli influence.   The former, the war in Lebanon, is happening. The latter might be a bit of a U.S. pipe dream.   But what this does show is the U.S. is genuinely enthusiastic about Israel fighting their joint enemies–“Iran and Iranian proxies”–but is not super happy about Israel killing loads of Palestinians; although they can definitely put up with it, or might even cynically hope the IDF “gets it done sooner rather than later.”

Many on the left think Israel has lobbied and pushed the U.S. political system to the point where Israel has “captured” the U.S. And while this lobbying is real, the bigger truth is that the U.S. political establishment really sees Israel as a kind of “regional strongman,” a cat’s paw they can rely on to fight their perceived enemies.

[SUMMARY US PRIMARY POWER]  The deal is that the U.S. arms Israel to do the US’s bidding, rather than because the U.S. is doing Israel’s bidding.   https://mronline.org/2024/10/07/sixty-years-after-kubricks-film-meet-the-u-s-s-real-dr-strangelove/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sixty-years-after-kubricks-film-meet-the-u-s-s-real-dr-strangelove&mc_cid=66ba87c57b&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e

Everything You Wanted to Know About World War III but ...

The American Prospect     Https://prospect.org › world › 2024-09-18-everything-y...   

Sep 18, 2024 — America is going to spend a trillion dollars over the next 20 years building new missile silos and new nuclear weapons. The DOD is in the ...
Is the US really preparing for World War III?

Youtube · Sandboxx   Let's address a question we get asked just about every week: Is the U.S. fielding all these new aircraft, weapon systems, and other Defense ...
The War of 2026: Phase III Scenario | Proceedings

U.S. Naval Institute  Https://www.usni.org › proceedings › december › war-2...

The War of 2026 scenario outlined here provides a point of departure for broadened thinking about the naval aspects of a future great power war. 

[For sober reading, google World War III (3).  –D]

“Plan to use long-range NATO missiles against Russia threatens uncontrolled escalation of global war.”

Editor.  Mronline.org (9-29-24).

After high-ranking NATO officials publicly called for Ukraine to use NATO weapons to attack deep inside Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally presented a proposed update to Russia’s nuclear policy that would expand the conditions under which Moscow would use nuclear weapons.

Originally published: World Socialist Web Site (WSWS)  on September 26, 2024 by Statement of the WSWS Editorial Board (more by World Socialist Web Site (WSWS))  |  (Posted Sep 28, 2024).  Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United StatesNewswire

Speaking before a meeting of the Russian Security Council on Wednesday, Putin declared: aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear-weapon state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear-weapon state, should be considered as a joint attack on the Russian Federation.   He added, We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus.

This is the most blunt and concrete threat to date by Putin to use Russia’s nuclear arsenal, one of the two largest in the world, to respond to ongoing and ever- expanding strikes by Ukraine, with the backing of the NATO powers, on Russian cities and infrastructure.

Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kiev, where he heavily implied that the US would move forward with the plan to allow Ukraine to use long-range NATO weapons against Russia. “We have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed,” he said in response to questions about the plan. . . .

Nuclear War: A Scenario Book Club.  Aug 5, 2024.  [This opportunity has passed, but its inspiration continues.–D]

Dialogue and education are critical to preventing nuclear war and shaping policies that will reduce nuclear risks. Do you have civic-minded friends, family members, or co-workers who like to read, learn, and discuss?

This August and September, Back from the Brink (bftb) and Dutton Publishing invite individuals and communities to come together and take part in a national reading and community-based dialogue about Annie Jacobsen’s book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, U.S. nuclear weapons and policies, and ways to make a difference.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Published in March 2024, Nuclear War: A Scenario by investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen, is a harrowing, non-fiction account that examines the origins of U.S. nuclear war fighting strategy and one plausible scenario and timeline for how a catastrophic nuclear war could unfold based on current policies.

Based on interviews with scores of experts and former military and nuclear planning officials, the New York Times bestselling book offers an opportunity for civic-minded, concerned individuals to read and learn more and engage in important, non-partisan dialogue about U.S. nuclear weapons and policies.

Picking Fights with the Gods:  A Spiritual Psychoanalysis of Civilization’s Superegoby Paul Gilk.   Wipf and Stock, 2016.

Description  Contributors   Praise

The common understanding of "apocalypse" suggests End Times, Armageddon, and the end of the world. But the Greek word apokalypsis means none of these things. What it does mean is uncovering, disclosing, and revelatory. That "apocalypse" is so widely misunderstood as predestined disaster isn't due to natural evolution in meaning. To penetrate the misuse of apokalypsis is to discover mythic misrepresentation. That is, "apocalypse" doesn't generate End Times but--just the opposite--End Times compels apokalypsis. The actual threat of End Times--explicitly so with weapons of mass destruction and Anthropocene climate change--forces thoughtful people into a search for fundamental causes: Where do these destructive energies originate? Why are we so reluctant to recognize the obvious consequences and resistant to embrace available remedies? Why do we persist in denial and indifference? In these essays, Paul Gilk explores the underlying cultural and religious conventions (both "conservative" and "liberal") that constitute our resistance and refusal. To disclose and uncover those conventions, to dissolve our oblivion, is to awaken to apokalypsis and to realize the depth of our captivity within prevailing mythology, both religious and civilizational. If End Times is the disease, apokalypsis is the cure.

John Bellamy Foster.  “Imperialism in the Indo-Pacific—An Introduction.”  The Monthly Review (July 1, July-August, 2024).

John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark introduce this summer’s special issue on “Imperialism in the Indo-Pacific,” exploring how the super-region came to be conceptualized among geopolitical strategists and its present-day role in U.S military strategy. “The United States,” they write, “facing the demise of its global hegemonic imperialism, is not only preparing for a Third World War; it is actively provoking it.” | more…

Kathy Kelly.  “Museum of Unnatural History.”  The Catholic Worker (August-September 2012).  A distinctive meditation on Kabul, Afghanistan’s Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation Museum (OMAR) and Dr. Seuss’ The Butter Battle Book.  The Museum contains ordnance and land mines used in Afghanistan over four decades of warfare and photographs of maimed people.  The Butter Battle Book is a parable of the Cold War and its fragile, dangerous nuclear stalemate, with only MAD “holding off attempts by either side to exterminate the other” in WWIII.   “…in many ways World War III is starting, is already under way.”    Kelly’s indefatigable, practical work for peace around the world combined with her thoughtful writings on war and peace like this essay will surely eventuate in her being named a saint by the Catholic Church.  –Dick   https://thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?A=d&d=CW20120801-01.1.4&

[Here’s a sample of this saint’s encompassing mind: ] “And it's a cliché, but in many ways World War III is starting, is already underway. It's happening now. The crises in climate stability and global health that international cooperation might have delayed or prevented - incurable TB appearing as predicted in the slums of India, uncontainable in the absence of anything resembling a healthcare system and destined for worldwide spread; global warming data exceeding our former worst-case scenarios. These were crises we ignored in order to fight our butter battle. And our resource wars brought us the chain of escalating economic detonations that seems far from over.

And what wars, what cycles of violence and despair and with what weapons used, will follow the next economic tragedy, engulfing a world already poverty-maddened past the point of desperation?

It's too late for a children's book to teach us truths we should have learned back when we were children, and the grim lesson of the weapons in the museum, for many, were they to visit, would be the nonsense-lesson of the savagery of all the other nations whose weapons are on exhibit. The walls seem to have gotten so much higher since the last time we were drawn to look over them and decide, with a clear mind and searching conscience, how many children we're actually willing to kill.”

JU­LIAN E. BARNES AND DAVID E. SANGER.   US nuclear arsenal on course to expand.   Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.   Jun 09, 2024.   Read more...    Forwarded by Pat Snyder.

PROVOKING NUCLEAR WAR

“Are you ready for WWIII?”  (The Armavir Incident).

Editor.  Mronline.org (6-9-24)

The Armavir Incident–the destruction on 23 May of a key part of Russia’s nuclear defence–means the Doomsday clock is ticking closer to midnight.

Originally published: Pearls and Irritations  on June 7, 2024 by Eugene Doyle (more by Pearls and Irritations) (Posted Jun 08, 2024).   WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswire.

. . .Most people don’t even know that a long-distance Ukrainian/NATO drone attack on the Armavir radar station north of Georgia knocked out a Voronezh-DM radar which is designed to detect incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles from as far as 6,000 kilometres away. It is one of three similar attacks in recent weeks.

The strike, trumpeted by Newsweek as a great success, may have robbed the Russians of a couple of minutes of warning time, in the event of a strike coming up from the south.

“Map Shows Ukraine’s Record-Breaking Hits on Russian Nuclear Warning Sites” Newsweek reports. The article, triumphalist in tone, fails to address the central issue: how crazy do you have to be to compress Russia’s decision-making window before it must decide whether to launch nuclear weapons at you? And who thought this was a good idea at the very time that nuclear-capable F16s are about to arrive in Ukraine and the U.S., along with a clutch of client states, has announced their missiles will strike mainland Russia in the coming days or weeks? Never in history has a nuclear power been attacked in this way. Even at the height of the Cold War neither side was brainless enough to do what the Western countries are doing now: attack detection facilities and launch missile strikes on a nuclear power.

We actually need the Russians to have really good missile detection systems; it keeps us safe. . . .

John Zavales.  “Congress Needs Answers before sending more aid to Ukraine.”  American Committee for US-Russia Accord.  April 8, 2024.
The Biden administration needs to tell the American people what it really thinks Kiev can actually achieve.     Read in browser »

“At the UN it is a rogue U.S. against the rest of the world.”    ditor.  Mronline.org (3-31-24). 

Ted Snider asks: "Is America a Rogue Superpower?"

Originally published: Moon of Alabama  on March 28. 2024 by B (more by Moon of Alabama) (Posted Mar 30, 2024).   EmpireAmericas, United StatesNewswire
Ted Snider asks:   Is America a Rogue Superpower?   “Unipolar” used to mean that the United States was, at least in theory, alone in leading the world. Now “unipolar” means that the United States is alone and isolated in opposition to the world.   Snider refers to the recent UN Security Council resolution 2728 which “demands” a ceasefire in Gaza and “demands” a release of hostages and “demands” the unhindered supply of food and other items to Gaza.

The U.S. has claimed, falsely, that the resolution is not binding. . . .

Yougov Poll: Most Americans think there will be another world war within the next decade.  American Committee for US-Russia Accord.   April 9, 2024.
A new yougov survey asked Americans about the possibility of another world war, the role that other countries might play, the roles they themselves might play, and how the U.S. should respond to hypothetical nuclear attacks abroad and at home. The majority of Americans believe that another world war is at least somewhat likely to […]
Read in browser »

Most Americans believe U.S. will be in world war within next decade.  “   Editor.  Mronline.org (3-31-24).

A growing divide in the world economy is further adding to global tensions. A rising number of countries, including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Syria, Yemen, and Zimbabwe, face significant U.S. sanctions. Economic warfare has led to a growing number of countries forming blocs outside of Washington’s control.

Originally published: Defend Democracy Press  on March 24, 2024 by Kyle Anzalone (more by Defend Democracy Press)  |  (Posted Mar 30, 2024)

WarAmericas, Asia, China, Europe, Global, Middle East, North Korea, Russia, United StatesNewswireWorld War, World War 3

. . . The majority of Americans believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a world war during the coming decade. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. is preparing for great power wars with Russia and China, engaged in multiple Middle East conflicts, and posturing for a confrontation with Iran and North Korea.

According to a new YouGov poll, 61% of Americans responded that it is very or somewhat likely that a world war would break out in the next five to ten years. About two-thirds of people responding to the poll said they believe the war will turn into a nuclear conflict.

When asked what countries would be aligned against the U.S., a majority of Americans said that North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Russia, and China. Americans identified NATO members such as France and the UK, as well as Israel and Ukraine, as allies in the coming world war.

Americans are not overly optimistic about the potential conflict. A slight majority believe the U.S. and its allies would defeat Russia. While under half of respondents said the U.S. would lose a war with Russia or against an alliance between Moscow and Beijing.

While most Americans believe a global conflict is on the horizon, they are not interested in fighting the war. More than twice as many respondents said they would refuse service even if drafted than stated, they would volunteer if the war broke out. Americans responded that they were more likely to serve in non-combat roles or if the homeland was threatened.    [=widespread ignorance of nuclear war!]

The survey was conducted as President Biden embroiled the U.S. in multiple conflicts. . . . 

CEASELESS WEAPONS WARS AND CLIMATE WAR FOR STARTERS, PLUS ECONOMIC WARS, PANDEMICS, AI,  

“A Slow-Motion World War III?” BY TOM ENGELHARDT. tomdispatch.  MARCH 27, 2024.   Facebooktwitterredditemail

I’ve been describing this world of ours, such as it is, for almost 23 years at tomdispatch. I’ve written my way through three-and-a-half presidencies — god save us, it could be four in November! I’ve viewed from a grave (and I mean that word!) Distance America’s endlessly disastrous wars of this century. I’ve watched the latest military budget hit almost $900 billion, undoubtedly on its way toward a cool trillion in the years to come, while years ago the whole “national security” budget (though “insecurity” would be a better word) soared to well over the trillion-dollar mark.

I’ve lived my whole life in an imperial power. Once, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was even “the lone superpower,” the last great power on planet Earth, or so its leaders believed. I then watched how, in a world without great-power dangers, it continued to invest ever more of our tax dollars in our military. A “peace dividend“? Who needed that? And yet, in the decades that followed, by far the most expensive military on planet Earth couldn’t manage to win a single war, no less its Global War on Terror. In fact, in this century, while fighting vain or losing conflicts across significant parts of the planet, it slowly but all too obviously began to go down the tubes, or perhaps I mean (if you don’t mind a few mixed metaphors) come apart at the seams?

And it never seems to end, does it? Imagine that 32 years after the U.S. became the last superpower on Planet Earth, in a devastating kind of political chaos, this country might indeed reelect a man who imagines himself running a future American “dictatorship” — his very word for it! — even if, publicly at least, just for a single day.

And yes, in 2024, as chaos blooms on the American political scene, the world itself continues to be remarkably at war — think of “war,” in fact, as humanity’s middle name — in both Ukraine and Gaza (with offshoots in Lebanon and Yemen). Meanwhile, this country’s now 22-year-old war on terror straggles on in its own devastating fashion, with threats of worse to come in plain sight.

After all, 88 years after two atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, nukes seem to be making a comeback (not that they were ever truly gone, of course). Thank you, Kim and Vlad! I’m thinking of how North Korean leader Kim Jong-un implicitly threatened to nuke his nonnuclear southern neighbor recently. But also, far more significantly how, in his own version of a State of the Union address to his people, Russian President Vladimir Putin very publicly threatened to employ nukes from his country’s vast arsenal (assumedly “tactical” ones, some of which are more powerful than the atomic bombs that ended World War II), should any European countries — think France — send their troops into Ukraine.

And don’t forget that, amid all of this, my own country’s military, eternally hiking its “defense” budget, continues to prepare in a big-time fashion for a future war with — yes — China! Of course, that country is, in turn, rushing to upgrade its own nuclear arsenal and the rest of its military machine as well. Only recently, for instance, the U.S. and Japan held joint military maneuvers that, as they openly indicated for the first time, were aimed at preparing for just such a future conflict with China and you can’t get much more obvious than that.

Another World War?

Oh, and when it comes to war, I haven’t even mentioned, for instance, the devastating civil war in Sudan that has nothing to do with any of the major powers. Yes, we humans just can’t seem to stop making war while, to the tune of untold trillions of dollars globally, preparing for ever more of it. And the truly strange thing is this: it seems to matter not at all that the very world on which humanity has done so forever and a day is now itself being unsettled in a devastating way that no military of any sort, armed in any fashion, will ever be able to deal with.

Let’s admit it: we humans have always had a deep urge to make war. Of course, logically speaking, we shouldn’t continue to do so, and not just for all the obvious reasons but because we’re on a planet that can’t take it anymore. (Yes, making war or simply preparing for it means putting staggering amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and so, quite literally, making war on the planet itself.) But — as both history and the present moment seem to indicate all too decisively — we just can’t stop ourselves.

In the process, while hardly noticing, it seems as if we’ve become ever more intent on conducting a global war on this planet itself. Our weapons in that war — and in their own long-term fashion, they’re likely to prove no less devastating than nuclear arms — have been fossil fuels. I’m thinking, of course, of coal, oil, and natural gas and the greenhouse gases that drilling for them and the use of them emit in staggering quantities even in what passes for peacetime.

In the previous century, of course, there were two devastating “world” wars, World War I and World War II. They were global events that, in total, killed more than a hundred million of us and devastated parts of the planet. But here’s the truly strange thing: while local and regional wars continue in this century in a striking fashion, few consider the way we’re loading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and methane while, in the process, heating this planet disastrously as a new kind of world war. Think of climate change, in fact, as a kind of slow-motion World War III. After all, it couldn’t be more global or, in the end, more destructive than a world war of the worst sort.

And unlike the present wars in Gaza and Ukraine, which, even thousands of miles away, continue to be headline-making events, the war on this planet normally gets surprisingly little attention in much of the media. In fact, in 2023, a year that set striking global heat records month by month from June to December and was also the hottest year ever recorded, the major TV news programs of ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox actually cut their coverage of global warming significantly, according to Media Matters for America.

“If I Don’t Get Elected, It’s Going to Be a Blood Bath”

I live in New York City which, like much of the rest of the planet, set a heat record for 2023. In addition, the winter we just passed through was a record one for warmth. And I began writing this piece on a set of days in early March when the temperature in my city also hit records in the mid-60s, and when, on March 14th (not April 14th, May 14th, or even June 14th), it clocked 70-plus degrees. I was walking outside that afternoon with my shirtsleeves rolled up, my sweater in my backpack, and my spring jacket tied around my waist, feeling uncomfortably hot in my blue jeans even on the shadier side of the street.

And yes, if, as my wife and I did recently, you were to walk down to the park near where we live, you’d see that the daffodils are already blooming wildly as are other flowers, while the first trees are budding, including a fantastic all-purple one that’s burst out fully, all of this in a fashion that might once have seemed normal sometime in April. And yes, some of what I’m describing is certainly quite beautiful in the short run, but under it lies an increasingly grim reality when it comes to extreme (and extremely hot) weather.

While I was working on this piece, the largest Texas fires ever (yes, ever!), continued to burn, evidently barely contained, with far more than a million acres of that state’s panhandle already fried to a crisp. Oh, and those record-setting Canadian forest fires that scorched tens of millions of acres of that country, while turning distant U.S. cities like New York into smoke hells last June have, it turns out, festered underground all winter as “zombie fires.” And they may burst out again in an even more devastating fashion this spring or summer. In fact, in 2023, from Hawaii to Chile to Europe, there were record wildfires of all sorts on our increasingly over-heated planet. And far worse is yet to come, something you could undoubtedly say as well about more intense flooding, more violent storms, and so on.

We are, in other words, increasingly on a different planet, though you would hardly know it amid the madness of our moment. I mean, imagine this: Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, clearly doesn’t consider climate change a significant issue, is on pace to achieve an oil-drilling record for the second year in a row. China, despite installing far more green power than any other country, has also been using more coal than all other nations combined, and set global records for building new coal-fired power plants.

Meanwhile, the third “great” power on this planet, despite having a president dedicated to doing something about climate change, is still the largest exporter of natural gas around and continues to produce oil at a distinctly record pace.

And don’t forget the five giant fossil-fuel companies, BP, Shell, Chevron, exxonmobil, and totalenergies, which in 2023 produced oil, made profits, and rewarded shareholders at — yes, you guessed it! — a record pace, while the major petrostates of our world are still, according to the Guardian, “planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over.”

In sum, then, this world of ours only grows more dangerous by the year. And I haven’t even mentioned artificial intelligence, have I? As Michael Klare has written in an analysis for the Arms Control Association, the dangers of AI and other emerging military technologies are likely to “expand into the nuclear realm by running up the escalation ladder or by blurring the distinction between a conventional and nuclear attack.”

In other words, human war-making could become both more inhuman and worse at the same time. Now, add just one more factor into the global equation. America’s European and Asian allies see U.S. leadership, dominant since 1945, experiencing a potentially epoch-ending, terminal failure, as the global Pax Americana (that had all too little to do with “peace”) is crumbling — or do I mean overheating?

What they see, in fact, is two elderly men locked in an ever more destructive, inward-looking electoral knife fight, with one of them warning ominously that “if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath… for the country.” And if he isn’t victorious, here’s his further prediction: “I don’t think you’re going to have another election, or certainly not an election that’s meaningful.” Of course, were he to be victorious the same could be true, especially since he’s promised from his first day in office to “drill, drill, drill,” which, at this point in our history, is, by definition, to declare war on this planet!

Unfortunately, Donald Trump isn’t alone. All too sadly, we humans clearly have trouble focusing on the world we actually inhabit. We’d prefer to fight wars instead. Consider that the definition not just of imperial decline, but of decline period in the age of climate change.

And yet, it’s barely news.

This piece first appeared at tomdispatch.

Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs tomdispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

STOP THE WAR

DIPLOMACY, DE-eSCALATION

“Nuclear Saber Rattling & Escalation Increase--Help CFPA ‘Sound the Alarm’ to De-escalate!”  2024.

Coalition for Peace Action <cfpa@peacecoalition.org> 

THE COALITION FOR PEACE ACTION (CFPA).  * 40 Years of Peacemaking *
www.peacecoalition.org  
Dear friend, 

 I'm following up on my April 18 E-alert about the growing danger of nuclear war in Ukraine. Recently, Russia's Foreign Minister said the danger is "serious, and should not be underestimated."

On top of all this, today's NY Times has this article about North Korea rattling the nuclear saber. In fact, the US, Russia, China, India, and Pakistan are all escalating their nuclear arsenals which has the world teetering toward a new nuclear arms race. The saber rattling and the escalation greatly increase the chances of nuclear war, which some are  calling World War III.

CFPA initiated a Diplomacy, Not War Campaign in 2013 in support of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, which kept Iran from getting nuclear weapon capability. We have been partnering this spring with sister groups to intensively lobbying for re-entering that agreement from which President Trump withdrew in 2018.

I believe the only viable way out of this cycle of nuclear saber rattling and escalation is to have a surge of Nuclear De-Escalation Diplomacy. This would include de-escalation initiatives, such as those I advocate in my op-ed on De-Escalate NOW to Prevent Nuclear War in Ukraine that was published on April 9 on NJ.com, and subsequently ran in The Star Ledger, New Jersey's largest newspaper. Click here or below to support CFPA's Nuclear De-escalation Organizing!

 De-escalation initiatives have been effective in the history of the nuclear weapons era. President Kennedy proposed a US-Soviet Atmospheric Nuclear Test Ban in 1963, and within 50 days the Treaty was concluded. In response to massive pressure from the Nuclear Freeze Campaign, President Reagan re-entered negotiations with the USSR in 1983 and that led in 1986 to the first nuclear reduction treaty in history, banning all medium range nuclear weapons.

Former Soviet premiere Gorbachev initiated a Nuclear Testing Moratorium on underground tests in the mid-1980s which led to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Former President George H.W. Bush  reduced US nuclear weapons more than any other US President, and it led to the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). We urgently need to call on our elected officials at all levels to take such bold de-escalation steps again!

We need your help to intensify our organizing in the face of the dire existential threats above! We have begun raising these proposals to our elected officials, and to sister anti-nuclear groups, but need your help to build on our efforts to date and do more! 

I urge you to click here or below to support CFPA's intensified organizing with as generous a contribution as possible. If you haven't yet contributed your 2022 annual CFPA membership, this would be a critical time to do so. This would also make you eligible to attend CFPA's Annual Membership Gathering keynoted by Rep. Tom Malinowski.

If you can upgrade from one time membership to monthly/quarterly pledger, it's a critical time to do so NOW. If you haven't  yet made your annual donation, do so now to help us meet the urgent challenges above!

P.S. Click to see a video and other information on The Ecology of War webinar CFPA co-sponsored on April 24, which many attendees have raved about!

Sincerely, 
The Rev. Robert Moore 
Executive Director,
Coalition for Peace Action &
Peace Action Education Fund
40 Witherspoon Street, Princeton, NJ 08542

“World War III and our failure to defend against climate.”   Editor.  Mronline.org (6-14-24).

In World War III the enemy is not an array of tanks, shells and soldiers, but a collection of beliefs damaging to the earth’s future. The enemies are the minds and actions of those with the cult of neo-liberalism and greed acting through the power of huge industries, the enemy within.

Originally published: Pearls and Irritations  on June 11, 2024 by David Shearman (more by Pearls and Irritations) (Posted Jun 12, 2024)

WarGlobalNewswireWWIII.    

. . .Today conflict around the world is increasing and deprivation caused by flood, fire, drought and extreme heat are contributory. Most climate scientists believe humanity will soon face demise if present climate change and environmental policies continue.

The dire warnings of hundreds of scientists and many economic organisations are largely ignored.

Recently Sir David King, Chair of the Global Climate Crisis Advisory Group wrote:  Global prosperity has historically emerged from fossil fuels. But the stranglehold of fossil fuel giants, generously subsidised by governments and financially backed by banks, places short-term profits over the planet’s survival. This entrenched dependency stymies efforts to transition to a sustainable future, despite the urgent need for change.

David King also stated a “4R planet” is now necessary. The 3 of the 4 R’s being reducing emissions; repairing ecosystems; and strengthening local and global resilience against inevitable climate impacts.

The fourth R is the removal of 10-20bn tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide to the end of the century commencing immediately; expensive and currently not possible to any degree.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance has abandoned the prospect of limiting global warming to 1.5°C and now says that if the world wants to avoid a 2.6°C hotter environment, fossil fuel use needs to peak and start declining from today.

As yet we don’t have the word(s) to collectively embrace our sphere of defence. At the minimum it includes actions to urgently reduce greenhouse emissions, stop environmental degradation and recognise the greatest health issue of our time, climate change.

Let us call them our three survival needs—which are indivisible

The recent Budget speech

The minds of the Treasurer and Government would surely be focussed on the cost of our defences in the recent annual Budget?

Everyone listens to the Treasurer’s budget speech to see what goodies they will get but did the budget suggest needed sacrifice in WWIII? Did the budget deliver education on the greatest security and health threat of our time and its funding needing now? What an opportunity missed.

Let us consider his 4000 word budget speech and determine how our three survival needs and their costs were handled.

Incredibly it fails to mention the billions of dollars spent subsidising new gas developments as a budget item.

The word climate is mentioned once under small business. . . .

CONTENTS WWIII, #2, 2016-2024, From Daniel Ellsberg to Jeffrey Sachs

Daniel Ellsberg.  The Doomsday Machine.

Dawn Stover.  “Facing Nuclear Reality. . . .”
Garrett Graff.  “…US Government’s Secret Plan[s] to Save Itself….”

John Pilger.  “A World War Has Begun” (is being planned).
Tom Dispatch.  Tomgram.  “Michael Klare.  On the Road to World War III?” 
Michael Klare.  “The New Global Tinderbox.”
Rick Wayman.  “Tell Your Senators to Oppose Trump’s War Cabinet.”
John Avery.  Nuclear Weapons: An Absolute Evil.
Tom Engelhardt.  “The Slow-Motion Equivalent of a Nuclear War?”

Jeremy Kuzmarov.   “Talk of War with China Is Total Insanity.”

Judith Ehrlich.  “Daniel Ellsberg: A Profound Voice against the Doomsday Machine.”

Elaine Scarry.  Thermonuclear Monarchy. Choice between Democracy and Doom.

Istvan Mészáros.  “Militarism and the Coming Wars.”
Jeffrey Sachs.  “One War Party v. Jill Stein and Green Party.”

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #215, FEBRUARY 5, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett  

US Imperialism 
Abel Tomlinson 
Leila Sansour. The Racket.

Abel Tomlinson’s latest article on US imperialism has been published by Covert Action Magazine.  The basic fact that the United States is an empire is perhaps the most systematically taboo subject within mainstream American information systems and public discourse. U.S. imperialism is almost never discussed in depth, critically or intelligently, within corporate media or the educational system. It is never mentioned by candidates of the two dominant political parties, or brought up at presidential debates. It is rarely mentioned even within universities, outside of a few select courses or degree programs.   This deafening silence on this key subject is a form of unspoken Propaganda…. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2025/02/05/silent-propaganda-on-u-s-imperialism-breeds-confused-americans/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIQv_xleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHfc3tbX9LS8nSE7CoP9FNm4Xv54ThrNCUe489yuIb4gLXkmRS61njkuDTQ_aem_BtsKlPfOT5ZYVWOIRGZZZw
Jeremy Kuzmarov, Managing Editor   CovertAction Magazine, (918) 264-2490
Order and Review my latest book Warmonger: How Clinton's Malign Foreign Policy Launched the US Trajectory from Bush II to Biden.

Leila Sansour.  The Racket: A Chronicle of Chaos wrought by the U.S. empire around the globe.  Mronline.org (9-21-24).  Originally published: Middle East Eye  on September 18, 2024 by Leila Sansour(more by Middle East Eye)  |  (Posted Sep 20, 2024).   Empire, Globalization, Imperialism, StrategyAmericas, United StatesNewswireMatt Kennard

. . . beyond the theatre of “liberal values” and “development and democracy programmes”, emerges a simple nation with a lucid drive and an uncomplicated diet. You just have to observe it at close range.   Kennard was uniquely positioned to do precisely that through his work as an investigative journalist with the Financial Times covering the Pentagon, the White House, Wall Street and the City of London, among other areas.   Over a four-year period, he travelled with rare access across five continents, reporting from more than a dozen countries, including Bolivia, Mexico, Haiti, Palestine, Tunisia and post-Mubarak Egypt. Kennard speaks eloquently of the cultural “echo-system” that dominates newsrooms and ensures mainstream media’s unshakable deference to the status quo.

The Racket combines unparalleled access with the author’s immense frustrations, comprising a collection of observations and insights that he was unable to publish during his tenure at the Financial Times.

The book’s findings should not come as a surprise. The past few decades have seen the rising power and reach of multinational corporations, whose interests converge with hard military power and the overarching American political doctrine.   But the level of detail Kennard provides offers a desperately needed adjustment to this lens. Speculation about U.S. political meddling and coercive global economic development programmes is one thing; being able to see the mechanics of it all up close is another. . . .   MORE

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #216, February 3, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

John Clarke.   “A Voice from Canada.”

Yale Climate Connections, Climate Crisis and Mental Health

“A VOICE FROM CANADA:  John Clarke, “Truth takes a side.”
“The Climate Charade Continues.”Originally published: Counterfire  on January 12, 2024 (more by Counterfire) and Canadian Dimension  on November 7, 2024 (more by Canadian Dimension) . Understanding and truth are our best weapons against an exploitative society based on lies.  With fossil-fuel interests now openly and repeatedly in charge of Cop summits, their failure of legitimacy must be confronted, argues John Clarke.
“On the Edge of the ‘Climate Abyss’.”   Originally published: Counterfire  on May 15, 2024 (more by Counterfire).  With scientists warning of imminent catastrophe, it is time to stop expecting our rulers to change course by persuasion; only militant anti-capitalism will work, argues John Clarke. 
“Emissions increase as climate disaster intensifies.”   Originally published: Counterfire  on June 29, 2024 (more by Counterfire) .  CEOs state outright that profit must come first, even as this year’s deadly heat waves providing worrying evidence of the rising climate emergency, reports John Clarke.

CLIMATE CRISIS AND MENTAL HEALTH
This week on Yale Climate Connections, January 17 - 23, 2025.

For young people around the world, climate change no longer seems a distant threat, but a present reality.  One recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet PlanetaryHealth surveyed 10,000 young people in 10 countries. A staggering 59% were very or extremely worried about climate change, and the vast majority (84%) were at least moderately worried.  Those who have experienced climate-related disasters suffer even more mental stress: Nearly one-third of disaster-affected people may experience negative mental health outcomes such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, or depression. Children, in particular, are bearing a significant emotional burden.   Given these realities, it is imperative that we equip our children with the mental and emotional tools to navigate this changing world. Young people are suffering from climate anxiety. Here’s how to help.   Keep reading.

More from YCC'  This is a moment in time to name names': Writer Karin Kirk and your editors discuss oil and gas contributions to newly elected leaders. 
Book review: “Glacial” exposes the heroes and villains of U.S. climate policy .
How engineers are working to solve the renewable energy storage problem.
Reads to help you make sense of the climate-changed insurance market. 

END OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #216, February 3, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #217, February 10, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

Trump’s Environmental Record
Inside Climate News Weekly
Fighting Back: Protecting the Commons
A History of the Struggle

A Glimpse of TRUMP’S ENVIRONMENTAL RECORD
“During his first term in office, Donald Trump worked to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.  He fast-tracked the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines.  He rolled back 85% of protected land in the Bears Ears Monument for drilling; and he destroyed Indigenous sacred sites and burial grounds, including Monument Hill in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument to construct his Mexico border wall. “(NOAAF)

 2-10-25

This number of Inside Climate News Weekly is packed with information regarding the Trump administration’s onslaught against the climate and environment.

 PROTECTING AND EXPANDING THE COMMONS 

“Future Natures: On Seeing Commons Through Popular Genres” By David Bollier.  Popular Resistance.org 2-2-25).  In academic research about the commons, few scholars are as venturesome in their creative approaches than the scholars and researchers associated with the Centre for Future Natures, at the University of Sussex in England. Led by anthropologist and research fellow Amber Huff, Future Natures explores “ecologies of crisis, commons, and enclosures," but its chief output isn’t monographs and books. It’s an exuberant array of creative works in popular genres like comic books, zines, social media, videos, and podcasts.  -more-

Chelsea Henderson.  Glacial.    2025.   A History of the Struggle.
Review BY Michael Svoboda .  Glacial exposes the heroes and villains of U.S. climate policy.    Yale Climate Connections.    1-25-25.   Chelsea Henderson investigates 60 years of climate progress and setbacks.     https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/01/book-review-glacial-exposes-the-heroes-and-villains-of-u-s-climate-policy/?utm_source=Weekly+News+from+Yale+Climate+Connections&utm_campaign=5fbbc9681a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_01_23_08_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-5fbbc9681a-59405044

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #216, FEBRUARY 12, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett  

Dick Bennett.  Annie Jacobsen’s new book Nuclear War: A Scenario.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION

    The best introduction to Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024) is probably a book published 39 years ago--Dr. Helen Caldicott’s Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War (rev. 1986).  Here is a key passage from Missile Envy:  “The logical consequence of the preparation for nuclear war is nuclear war.  The behavior that perpetuates this race to oblivion can be changed only when people actually allow themselves to contemplate the true medical and ecological implications of such an event.  Only then will they make a conscious decision to devote their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to save the creation” (7).
     What Caldicott presented almost 4 decades ago in one chapter, “The Terminal Event”—knowledge that enables us “to contemplate the true medical and ecological implications” of nuclear war--, Jacobsen immensely, circumstantially, minutely reinforces.   Witness her chapters:  Part I: The Buildup (Or, How We Got There).  2: The first 24 Minutes.   3:  The next 24 Minutes.  4: The next (and Final) 24 Minutes. 5: The Next 24 Months and Beyond (Or, Where We Are Headed after a Nuclear Exchange).

     She concludes her text with these words that all of us should repeat to all we know:

“With time, after a nuclear war, all present-day knowledge will be gone.  Including the knowledge that the enemy was not North Korea, Russia, America, China, Iran, or anyone else vilified as a nation or a group.  It was the nuclear weapons that were the enemy of us all.  All along.” (297).   (--Dick).

Come to Nuclear Ban Treaty Week

nukewatch1 nukewatch1@lakeland.ws
Dear Nukewatch supporters, This year, Nukewatch will again attend the nuclear ban treaty meetings at the United Nations, known as the 3^rd Meeting of States Parties (3MSP) to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty is the first able to coordinate global, verifiable nuclear disarmament, yet no nuclear armed state is interested. The meetings will be held March 3-7 in New York.  Are you coming? There is still time to make your plans. Let’s meet up.  Again, we will be on the streets and inside the United Nations promoting the end of nuclear weapons…. We hope to meet up with any of you that will be there and look forward to continued collaboration for a nuclear-free future!  
Kelly Lundeen, Co-director
Nukewatch, 740A Round Lake Road
Luck, WI 54853 (715) 472-4185, www.nukewatchinfo.org

Robert Keeler.  Sacred Soldier: The Dangers of Worshiping Warriors.  Simon and Schuster, 2024.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and military veteran examines both the realities of the U.S. military and the worshipful attitude of members of the U.S. public toward it. How can the United States stop fighting needless wars, if it keeps worshiping the warriors? Why do presidents so easily fool people by using “support the troops” to justify war? Is “Thank you for your service” merely meaningless, or a meaningful sign of a dangerous modern idolatry? Are today’s soldiers truly defending freedom, or suppressing the freedom of other peoples? If the U.S. military is so powerful, why has it not definitively won a major war since 1945?

These are questions we seldom hear. Instead, what we see is ballplayers wearing military-style camouflage caps, baseball teams handing out a flag to the “veteran of the game,” and the Pentagon paying the National Football League to stage elaborate military displays like fighter-jet flyovers.

Sacred Soldier: The Dangers of Worshiping Warriors offers a more clear-eyed, warts-and-all view of the U.S. military. It argues that we owe warriors more than those five empty words of gratitude. We owe them honesty as they enlist; we owe them protection from rampant sexual abuse by other members of the military; hesitance to shed their blood in multiple deployments to unwinnable wars; and the highest possible quality of care when they return from battle, wounded in mind, body, and spirit.

END OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #216, FEBRUARY 12, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett  

OMNI

SOVIET/RUSSOPHOBIA (and Socialismphobia) ANTHOLOGY #6,

FEBRUARY 13, 2025

COMPILED BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY

HTTPS://omnicenter.org/donate/ 

What’s at Stake:   When Trump and Secretary Hegseth yesterday announced Trump’s decision to accept Putin’s terms for an end of the Ukraine War, I was completing this Anthology.   OMNI had published 6 anthologies offering 75 articles that increase evidence of Soviet/Russophobia as a central pathology dominating US culture and an impetus for many US wars.  In addition, most of the anthologies on US wars describe animosity toward the USSR/Russia, including the 34 anthologies on all aspects of the Ukraine War.   Ukraine War anthologies nos. 32-34 contain 66 articles.  I asked: Why is this major national dysfunction not the subject of a dozen major books and by hundreds of conferences and panels?  These anthologies are the answer.

     Yesterday on PBS Newshour February 12 Secretary Pete Hegseth      announced acceptance of Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian provinces or oblasts ( Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson provinces), and Crimea, and denial of NATO membership to Ukraine.  This is a laudable advance for peace, both in the cessation of mass killing and physical destruction, and in the decrease of threat of nuclear war. I expect the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to turn back its Doomsday Clock.  But the pathology will continue and all the conflicts of imperial competition.

CONTENTS: US RUSSOPHOBIC FOREIGN POLICY

Reuters.  “Trump says he discussed ending Ukraine war with Russia’s Putin.”
Andrew Day.  “Pete Hegseth Says No NATO Membership for Ukraine.”

Dick Bennett.  Soviet/Russophobia and Jesus’ Teachings about Enemies.

Steve Batterson.  The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis: McCarthyism, Communism, and the Myth of Academic Freedom. 

James W. Carden.   “The Real Meaning of the Fight Over Tulsi Gabbard.”   
Christopher Caldwell.   “Everyone Wants to Seize Russia’s Money.”
Katrina vanden Heuvel.   “How Neocons, Neolibs, and their Media Collude for War.”  
James W. Carden.   “Legendary US Diplomat Pans Latest NATO Money Grab.” 
Dee Knight.   A Realistic Path to Peace.
Jeremy Kuzmarov.  Tamara Cofman Wittes , “Coordinator For Sanctions From Hell. . . .’”  
Doug Bandow. “U.S. Officials Believe That ‘We’ Are at War With Russia.”
Branko Marcetic.  “How the War in Ukraine Has Been a Major Contributor to Global Inflation. “

William Astore. “The Trillion-Dollar Blob.” 

George Paulson.  Pathological Hatred of Communism and Russia by the Democratic Party.

“The Simone Weil Center’s Symposium on ‘Containment 2.0’.”  Gordon Hahn.
Caitlin A. Johnstone.   “Imagine if Russia or China did the things Israel is doing in Gaza.” 

Pavan Kulkarni.  “Why Niger declared U.S. Military presence in its territory illegal.” 
EL PAIS English.   “NATO Personnel Already in Ukraine. . . . ”
John Mearsheimer.  “ Ukraine’s Dangerous Last Gasp.” 
Andrew Cockburn.   “Our Real National Security Budget (With Winslow Wheeler).”
Davis Winkle.  Expanding NATO
John Westmoreland.   “Lenin’s ‘Last Testament’: The pro phetic last words of a Marxist for our times.”

TEXTS

UKRAINE WAR ENDING

Reuters.  “Trump says he discussed ending Ukraine war with Russia’s Putin.” ACURA (Feb 12, 2025). 
 U.S. President Donald Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday about starting negotiations immediately to end the war in Ukraine. “We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelenskiy, of Ukraine, to inform him of […]    Read in browser »

Andrew Day.  “Pete Hegseth Says No NATO Membership for Ukraine.”  ACURA (Feb 12, 2025).
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the Trump administration does not support NATO membership for Ukraine. Hegseth’s comments came during a meeting in Brussels on Ukrainian security.   Read in browser »

TEXTS COMPILED PRIOR TO REVERSAL OF US POLICY TOWARD UKRAINE

Christianity, War, Enemies, Ukraine War, Jesus’s Ethics

Does Christianity give us guidance?   

    In the Bible, Matthew 5:44, Jesus says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."   The full verse reads: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven".   The verse is also found in Luke 6:27-28, which says, "But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you". 

    In regard to the one hundred years of US enmity against the Soviet Union, now Russia, one thing never mentioned by US officials or the corporate media or the military-industrial complex-- is Jesus’ injunction to “love your enemies.”    And US leaders and their corporate media largely skip over the questions of whether Putin is our enemy, or what might Jesus say in response to the long history of US hatred toward the Russkies?   Or is demonizing Russians a US pathology and such allegations are the construction of Russophobes, capitalist anti-communist fanatics, war-mongers, and opportunistic war profiteers?    
Here is a partial record of my Google search.

Jesus loved the people we hate. 

He Gets Us  https://hegetsus.com › articles › love-your-enemies

Who is "we"? It's each of us. It's you. It's me. All of us. What would the world look like if we each followed Jesus' teaching to love our enemies?
15 Bible Verses About Loving Your Enemies 

ABWE https://abwe.org › Blog  Aug 25, 2021 — As Christians, we're called to love our enemies. One way to express that love is by praying for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44).
Jesus loves Putin

Catholic365.com   https://www.catholic365.com › article › jesus-loves-putin

Apr 1, 2022 — As a result, the teachings of Jesus do apply to us and we are told by Jesus to love our enemies. The enemy of Ukraine is our enemy. Putin is, ...
Opinion: Trying to Respond Christ-like to Putin 
  Kyiv Post  https://www.kyivpost.com › World   May 14, 2023 — As a disciple of Jesus Christ, however, my master's marching orders are extremely clear: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you ...
Putin in the hands of an Angry God - Pursuing God's Thoughts

WordPress.com  https://thinkinghisthoughts.wordpress.com › 2022/02/26  

Feb 26, 2022 — However, the command to Christians to “love your enemies” tell us what Christians are to do as God's people. That is, there are certain aspects ...
War comes to the Ukraine: Why not pray for Vladimir Putin?
VirtueOnline  https://virtueonline.org › war-comes-ukraine-why-not-p...    Feb 25, 2022 — So Christ Himself commands us to love and pray for our enemies. Vladimir Putin is certainly an enemy, therefore he needs our heartfelt prayer.  
What Does Loving Your Enemies Look Like in a War?

relevantmagazine.com   https://relevantmagazine.com › current › world › what-...  

Mar 8, 2022 — Love Your Enemies. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. ​Matthew 5:44 is a counterintuitive teaching from Jesus. Instead of ...
A prayer for Russian President Putin

Catholic365.com    https://www.catholic365.com › article › a-prayer-for-russ...

Mar 28, 2022 — Lord Jesus, you urged your disciples to not just love your neighbor or those who love you back, but to love your enemy. You urged and taught ...
How to pray for Vladimir Putin

Baptist News Global    https://baptistnews.com › article › how-to-pray-for-vlad...  

Mar 1, 2022 — The Gospel text states: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Two questions come to mind: What does love ...
Franklin Graham's tweet about praying for Putin isn't ...

Standing for Freedom Center   https://www.standingforfreedom.com › 2022/02 › fran...

Feb 23, 2022 — Jesus said in Matthew 5:44-45, “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father ...

HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDS: MCCARTHYISM, USA 1950S
Steve Batterson.  The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis: McCarthyism, Communism, and the Myth of Academic Freedom.  Monthly Review P, 2024. 

With a Foreword by Ellen Schrecker

Exposes the destruction of academic careers—and the complicity of educational institutions—in McCarthy’s America.

The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis tells the true tale of a mathematician who found himself taking an involuntary break from chalking equations to sit opposite a row of self-righteous anti-Communist congressmen at the height of the McCarthy era. Courageously asserting the First Amendment to confront a system rapidly descending into fascism, Davis testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He became one of a small number of left wingers who served time for contempt of Congress.

In this fascinating and disturbing narrative, author Steve Batterson takes a deep dive into extant archival records generated by the FBI, HUAC, the University of Michigan, and repositories holding the papers of former Supreme Court justices. He looks at the plights of six faculty and graduate students. . . .Batterson exposes the ways that McCarthy’s righteous emissaries relied on all kinds of institutions in 1950s America—from Hollywood studios to universities—to sabotage the careers of anyone with a trace of “Red.”
What people are saying about The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis:

     The challenges Chandler faced in the 1950s have returned with a vengeance in the form of red state governors and legislators seeking to police what is taught and thought in universities and to punish those teachers whose ideas are at variance with a reactionary political agenda. We are now experiencing what many are calling a new McCarthyism. It’s a tribute to Steve Batterson’s book that we can raise these questions about the politics of jurisprudence and the vagaries and contingencies of the law. His detailed inquiry in The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis provides the historical insight that I associate with the best accounts of this kind: motives are complex, power a critical variable, timing an unpredictable factor, and rational argument not necessarily a winning strategy. This is a case study with resonance well beyond the specificities of the case. It is an important and worthwhile read.  —Joan Scott, author of Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom

     Carefully done…and good reading as well.
—Stephen Smale, UC-Berkeley mathematician, Fields Medalist (Nobel Prize for Mathematics)

     Steve Batterson’s compelling biography of Chandler Davis reveals a true American hero. His book, relying on primary sources, including intimate interviews, reveals the other side of the shameful McCarthy period, as a progressive thinker stood for his First Amendment rights, refusing to take the Fifth, and was punished for it. Chandler Davis’ coolness under fire and his exemplary life, unmarred by bitterness and full of hope and grace, is a revelation for us all.  —Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan

     At a moment when conservative forces are once more taking a sledgehammer to academic freedom, Steve Batterson tells the story of the intrepid and far-sighted H. Chandler Davis as it needs to be told. Calmly unpicking the tenacious fallacies used to rationalize the anticommunist purge of the 1950s, he provides a deeply researched and compulsively readable biography that is note-perfect for our time and full of surprising historical details.  —Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, and author of American Night: The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold War

James W. Carden.   “The Real Meaning of the Fight Over Tulsi Gabbard.”  ACURA(American Committee for US-Russia Accord) (Feb 04, 2025). 
Leading the charge against Gabbard on the Senate Intelligence Committee is ranking member Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia who, like his counterpart Adam Schiff (then serving as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence), spent four years lying to the American people about Donald Trump’s alleged connections to the Kremlin.  Read in browser »                                                                               

Anything Goes in Thwarting Demons?
 Christopher Caldwell.    “Everyone Wants to Seize Russia’s Money. It’s a Terrible Idea.”  ACURA (Apr 10, 2024).   
The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, has brought a glimmer of hope to  supporters of the Ukrainian war effort. He suggested to Fox News on March 31 that he would try to rally his divided party behind the so-called REPO Act. That piece of legislation would allow President Biden, working with European allies, to seize Russian […]
Read in browser »

Who Started This War?  Who Sustains It?
VIDEO The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel.   “How Neocons, Neolibs, and their Media Collude for War.”  ACURA (Apr 08, 2024).
This is the first part of a discussion between Katrina vanden Heuvel and Neutrality Studies’ Pascal Lottaz. For a quarter of a century, vanden Heuvel was the editor in chief of the progressive magazine The Nation; she is currently The Nation’s publisher and editorial director, a widely read columnist as well as president of ACURA. […]
Read in browser »

James W. Carden.   “Legendary US Diplomat Pans Latest NATO Money Grab.”  ACURA (April 8, 2024).
Critics, such as the legendary American diplomat Chas Freeman say that the plan is simply a case of throwing good money—in this case, borrowed money—after bad.  Freeman sees this as a case of NATO clutching at straws, after all, as he tells Responsible Statecraft, “NATO has run out of Ukrainians to sacrifice on the battlefield […]
Read in browser »

Dee Knight (editor).   A Realistic Path to Peace: From Genocide to Global War and How We Can Stop It.  
Praise:Radhika Desai Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group; Convenor, International Manifesto Group.  “This book of excellent essays analyses the current U.S. drive to war, against Russia and beyond. Knight exposes its roots and points to the only path to peace: opposition to the U.S. war machine.
”Carlos Martinez, Editor, Invent the Future.  “Essential reading: a passionate plea for peace, and a call for unity and bold action against imperialism.”

About the Author
During the years of the U.S. war against Vietnam, Dee Knight was an editor of Amex-Canada, the newsletter of American exiles and expatriates who went to Canada in resistance to that war. He lived in Toronto, Canada, from 1968 to 1974. Amex-Canada helped organize American war resisters and their allies, including antiwar veterans, to sustain the resistance. In 1973 Knight helped to launch the National Council for Universal Unconditional Amnesty, which waged a campaign to end government repression of war resisters and active-duty U.S. soldiers.   Read More Frequently Ask Questions

New 2024 edition’s theme and new chapters include:
“Shock and Awe: Then and Now.”  Compares U.S. wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya with the official hysterical and self-righteous condemnation of Russian actions.

“The Long Road Ahead: The U.S. Is Snatching War from the Jaws of Peace.”  Explains how the U.S. has prevented peace, accuses Russia of ‘war crimes’ while brushing its own real war crimes under a rug, and calls for reviving an antiwar movement on a new basis.

Does China’s Rise Really Threaten the U.S.? says “fake news” is brainwashing the U.S. public to accept a new Cold War with China – to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative and punish China for “human rights violations.” Details U.S. “pivot to Asia” with military buildup and new aggressive alliances. Cites polls that people don’t want war, more people see the U.S. as a threat to democracy than either China or Russia, and a Harvard study that 90%+ of the Chinese people like their government. Quotes Bernie Sanders on “relentless fearmongering about China.”

“’Yankees Go Home!’ Asians Say” describes a recent surge of protests against U.S. military bases in Okinawa and South Korea. The article includes an explanation that “the U.S. state of permanent war in Asia and the Pacific today is… the inevitable product of a centuries-long project of U.S. hegemony in the Pacific.”

“Joe Biden’s Saber-Rattling.”  U.S. threats against China over Taiwan, and U.S. justifications for war against Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yugoslavia, and Korea.

Also “What America will and will not do in Ukraine,” and Scott Ritter’s defense of Russia’s special military operation, with support from Ellen Taylor.

GET THIS BOOK AND WRITE A REVIEW   $15 for Paperback,  $2.99 for Ebook
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“Coordinator For Sanctions From Hell Appointed to Head Spook Agency that Supports Color Revolutions” By Jeremy Kuzmarov .   Covert Actions Magazine ( March 8, 2024). 

Tamara Cofman Wittes[Source: ned.org]

Since the outbreak of the Ukraine War, the Biden administration has applied sanctions on more than 15,000 Russian entities and individuals, marking Russia as among the most heavily sanctioned countries in history.  One analyst has likened the sanctions to the “economic carpet bombing of Russia,” and another to a “weapon of mass destruction.”   The pretext has repeatedly been fraudulent, with the Russian government accused of things there was no proof it had committed. The explicit goal, outlined in a Hudson Institute report, is to destroy Russia’s economy and “prepare for the dissolution of the Russian state.”  The lead U.S. State Department coordinator for the sanctions, Tamara Cofman Wittes, is highly intelligent, with a Ph.D. in political science from Georgetown University.^[1] However, in her institutional role, she is a monster.    The sanctions have caused grave hardship for ordinary Russians, though have failed to bring down Russia’s economy or inspire civil unrest in the way that was planned.    [Source: sott.net]  Despite the policy failure, Cofman Wittes was recently appointed as the new head of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) effective March 15.  The NDI is largely funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA offshoot founded in the 1980s to support political propaganda and opposition movements in countries targeted by the U.S. for regime change. The NDI is one of the NED’s four core institutes which purports to support democratization efforts and political parties worldwide that correlate roughly with the ideals of the Democratic Party.  Until her death in 2022, Madeleine Albright, a neo-conservative protégé of Zbigniew Brzezinski^[2] who, as U.S. Secretary of State in the late 1990s championed the NATO war in the Balkans and sanctions against Iraq that killed half a million children, served as NDI Board Chair.   The NDI’s Board of Directors includes Michael McFaul, a Ukraine War hawk who, as an NDI consultant in the 1990s, supported Boris Yeltsin, an autocrat who stormed the parliament and sold off Russia’s assets at pennies to the dollar to predatory capitalists while acquiescing to NATO expansion in Eastern Europe.   [Source: youtube.com]Michael McFaul [Source: ndi.org]   The NDI Board also includes luminaries of the corporatist wing of the Democratic Party, like Stacey Abrams, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (AKA Wall Street’s think tank) and former Board member of the hawkish, CIA-linked Center for American Progress^[3], and former DNC Chair Donna Brazile, a key purveyor of the Russia Gate hoax that helped mobilize public opinion in support of the new Cold War. . . .The NDI in fact has a long record of trying to sabotage socialist governments that strive to take control over their countries’ natural resources, equalize wealth and restrict foreign plundering. . . .

Doug Bandow. “U.S. Officials Believe That ‘We’ Are at War With Russia.  ACURA (Mar 29, 2024).
Nothing Putin has said or done since suggests he is interested in European conquest. His military assaults, while lawless, have been limited to Georgia and Ukraine, and do not make him Hitler reincarnated. Even now President George W. Bush is responsible for far more civilian deaths.    Read in browser »
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry. He writes regularly for leading publications such as Fortune magazine, National Interest, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Times..          Read Full Bio 

Branko Marcetic.  “How the War in Ukraine Has Been a Major Contributor to Global Inflation. “ACURA

(Dec 06, 2024).
There is a growing realization that voters’ dissatisfaction with inflation resulted in Donald Trump’s election victory last month. But almost no attention has been placed on one of the major contributors to this inflation: the war in Ukraine, and the decision to repeatedly reject negotiating its end.
Read in browser »

William Astore. “The Trillion-Dollar Blob.”  ACURA

Caitlin A. Johnstone.   “Imagine if Russia or China did the things Israel is doing in Gaza.”  Mronline.org (3-30-24).

It’s almost cliché at this point to say “imagine if Russia or China did this”, but such comparisons are important for retaining a sense of perspective on just how evil the western political-media class is being about Gaza right now.

Originally published: Caitlin A Johnstone Blog  on March 28, 2024 (more by Caitlin A Johnstone Blog).    Human Rights, Inequality, State Repression, WarAmericas, Asia, China, Europe, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Russia, United StatesNewswire

Imagine how the western political-media class would be acting if Russia or China was bombing and starving a walled-in population of two million, half of them children. Seriously, imagine it. Imagine the rage and vitriol. Imagine the nonstop media coverage.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, U.S. media coverage of that war exceeded the media coverage of all U.S. wars in the previous three decades. If Russia were deliberately and systematically exterminating civilians in Ukraine or anywhere else, the western media coverage of those war crimes would be many times more.

It’s almost cliché at this point to say “imagine if Russia or China did this”, but such comparisons are important for retaining a sense of perspective on just how evil the western political-media class is being about Gaza right now. We’re seeing articles come out in the mass media about starvation in Gaza which never once even mention the word “Israel”. Do you think that would be happening if this were being perpetrated by a government which defies the western empire? Of course not. . . .  MORE

Pavan Kulkarni.  “Why Niger declared U.S. Military presence in its territory illegal.”  Editor.  mronline.org (3-23-24).

Niger declared the U.S. military deployment in its territory “illegal” on Saturday, March 16, after a U.S. delegation allegedly threatened “retaliation” against the largest country in West Africa for its ties with Russia and Iran.

Originally published: Internationalist 360°  on March 19, 2024 by Pavan Kulkarni (more by Internationalist 360°) (Posted Mar 22, 2024).   Empire, Imperialism, Inequality, WarAfrica, Americas, Niger, United StatesNewswireU.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)

Only months after forcing its former colonizer France to withdraw its troops, Niger, West Africa’s largest country, has said the presence of U.S. troops is illegal. This could be a major blow to the U.S. military’s power-projection capacity in the region.   Niger declared the U.S. military deployment in its territory “illegal” on Saturday, March 16, after a U.S. delegation allegedly threatened “retaliation” against the largest country in West Africa for its ties with Russia and Iran. . . .  MORE

EL PAIS English.   “NATO personnel already in Ukraine for arms control, intelligence operations and military training.”  ACURA (Mar 22, 2024). 
Emmanuel Macron broke the taboo in February. NATO already assists Ukraine in virtually every possible aspect, from supplying weaponry and intelligence on Russian targets and the positions of enemy bombers to training thousands of Ukrainian troops in Europe. But until the French president suggested it, no one had dared to raise the question of Atlantic Alliance […]    Read in browser »

VIDEO: John Mearsheimer.  “ Ukraine’s Dangerous Last Gasp.”  ACURA (Mar 22, 2024).
Judge Andrew Napolitano and Professor John Mearsheimer take stock of the current situation in Ukraine.   Read in browser »

Andrew Cockburn.   “Our Real National Security Budget (With Winslow Wheeler).”  ACURA (Mar 21, 2024). 
The Biden Administration has just published its proposed budget, generating copious commentary, much of it displaying a commensurate degree of misunderstanding, especially regarding our gargantuan national security spending.  To get at the truth of the matter, I consulted my friend Winslow Wheeler, who has been observing the insalubrious intricacies of the budget process over the past fifty years as a senior aide to Senators from both parties as well as a senior analyst for the General Accounting Office and directing the Center for Defense Information.

The defense budget just posted by the administration is being described as approaching a trillion dollars. Is that accurate?     No. It's actually a lot more than that. In fact it's beginning to inch up on $2 trillion. 
How so?   The problem is that when most people look at the defense budget, they don't count everything that we spend even for the Pentagon. But in addition to that, there are hundreds of billions of dollars outside of the Pentagon's budget that we spend for national security. Things like the nuclear weapons activities in the Department of Energy; that’s $37 billion; $26 billion for retired military pensions and healthcare and $12 billion for the Selective Service, the National Defense Stockpile, and a strange and suspicious looking category for the international activities of the FBI in something called “Defense Related Activities. . . . .  MORE    Read in browser »

EXPANDING NATO IN POLAND AND GERMANY
Davis Winkle.  “US Think Tank Says Station Troops in Poland.”  ACURA (Mar 21, 2024).    
The report’s author also recommended that the Air Force station an additional F-16 squadron in Germany; increase anti-submarine warfare capability and air defense forces; bolster stockpiles of prepositioned equipment and ammunition; and continue modernization, cyber, space and security cooperation efforts.  Davis Winkie covers the Army for Military Times.  Read in browser »

“Lenin’s ‘Last Testament’: The pro phetic last words of a Marxist for our times. “  Editor.  mronline.org (1-31-24).

The myth that Lenin led to Stalin is exposed by Lenin’s Last Testament which argues for more democracy and removing Stalin from power, writes John Westmoreland.

CONTENTS US RUSSOPHOBIA #5

New Cold War 2024

BIGOTRY V. SOVIET UNION/RUSSIA
Victor Grossman.  "Achtung! Die Russen kommen!"
Walter Hixson.  “The Myth of U.S. Exceptionalism.”
Sharon Rudahl.  …A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson.

Reuters.  Germany’s two-year silence.

Diana Johnstone.  Russia not invited to D-Day Remembrance.
William Drew.  New Cold War Russophobic Propaganda.
Katrina vanden Heuvel.  Biden’s old Cold warmaking foreign policies.

George Paulson.  New McCarthyism.  (Art Hobson, American Midnight by Adam Hochschild.) 
George Paulson.  Anti-Russia Victoria Nuland Resigning.
Dave DeCamp.  “Victoria Nuland, Notorious Russia Hawk, Resigning. . . .
Joe Lauria.  “Russian Imperialism?”

END OMNI

SOVIET/RUSSOPHOBIA ANTHOLOGY #6

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #218, February 17, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

Green New Deal. Kate Aronoff.  Overheated.

Greenpeace

Inside Climate News

GREEN NEW DEAL
Kate Aronoff.  Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet—and How We Fight Back.  Bold Type Books, 2021.
[Aronoff reflects the long tradition of Utopian thought and practice.  For utopianism means the ability to imagine a better world, without which we can’t get started,--such as with the New Deal of the 1930s.  –D]

     “Decarbonizing the global economy and adapting to the climate changed century ahead will be the single hardest and most important thing our species has ever done.* It’s impossible without a big, democratic government and massive state investment, as well as the dismantling of the most powerful industry that has ever existed.  That, in turn, seems dangerously far off unless some critical mass of people see the Green New Deal as their path to a better life and manage to overcome the rank [class] and racist divide-and-conquer politics that have been so successful at stopping efforts to turn these United States into a more perfect union, and this planet into a fairer place. . . .
     A Green New Deal isn’t just about subbing out one form or energy for another as all else states equal.  It means rooting out the deep power imbalances that have made the fossil fuel economy possible and will keep toxic and deadly extraction humming along if they remain in place.  It means writing a new social contract in its place that ensures people are as free as money to move around the places where they were born and be welcomed with open arms where they weren’t.  It’s about building a genuinely sustainable United States….Should all that succeed, the resulting society will also be a happier one,” where “people can dream about abundant, joyful futures and have the tools to turn those dreams into reality” (358-59).    [Aronoff discusses the UN World Happiness Report 2019 on p. 350.] [*As you know, I add nuclear weapons and war for the two hardest and most important things for our species to do.  –D]

Inside Climate News (ICN) is increasingly an excellent source of current climate information, as it increasingly foregrounds the climate origin of the increasingly extreme weather.  I count 17 directly or indirectly climate stories reported in the ICN Weekly of 12-15-24.   <newsletters@insideclimatenews.org>    The ICN Weekly of 1-11-25 is similar.   The intro. focuses on the present LA fires:  Trump blaming governor Newsom,  Trump’s  failure to mention the impact of climate change, and “the information ecosystem… expected to be further tested during climate-fueled disasters as social media platforms like Facebook roll back fact-checking programs.”  Then it gives 11 abstracts with five reports of events traceable directly to climate change, ending with “Climate Trauma Is a Thing. Here’s What the Research Reveals.”   Climate is  “its own beast that we now want to study on its own and deserves its own recognition, awareness and characterization.”

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #217, FEBRUARY 19, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett  

Origins of Wars:
Walter Karp.  Indispensable Enemies: leaders’ desire for power.
Herman and Chomsky.   Manufacturing Consent: media support of ruling power.
Monthly Review:  failure to abide by international weapons treaties.

Leaders’ Desire for Power

Walter Karp, Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America.  Saturday Review P, 1973.

“In prosecuting an aggressive foreign policy, the party oligarchs have been driven by no cause or interest external to themselves: by no fundamental economic interest, by no genuine threat to the security of the Republic, by no irresistible poplar demand.  Except in the post-World War I period [v. “Wilson’s war”], American foreign policy has been gratuitously aggressive since 1898, a policy carried out for no compelling reason except the oligarchs’ wish to prosecute an aggressive foreign policy.  Their reason for wanting such a policy, however, is scarcely mysterious and certainly not irrational.  An aggressive foreign policy safeguards the power of the power wielders and strengthens their control over those whom they rule” (248).   

Control of Media by Ruling Oligarchs and Groups

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.  1^st ed. 1988.   Paperback, 2^nd ed. January 15, 2002   by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

Publisher’s description
In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance.

Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

Failure to abide by International weapons treatiesAbout Manufacturing Consent

A “compelling indictment of the news media’s role in covering up errors and deceptions” (The New York Times Book Review) due to the underlying economics of publishing—from famed scholars Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. With a new introduction.

In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance.

Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

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About Manufacturing Consent

A “compelling indictment of the news media’s role in covering up errors and deceptions” (The New York Times Book Review) due to the underlying economics of publishing—from famed scholars Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. With a new introduction.

In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance.

Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

See Less

 U.S. preparations for “prolonged and limited” nuclear war and  repeated refusal to abide by international agreements.

“Notes from the Editors.”   Monthly Review(September 2024 Volume 76, Number 4).   This month’s “Notes from the Editors” recounts the history of U.S. preparations for “prolonged and limited” nuclear war and Washington’s repeated refusal to abide by international agreements regarding nuclear weaponry. With the recent announcement that the United States will be stationing nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles on German soil—within minutes’ striking distance of Moscow—this history is now, troublingly, more relevant than ever. | more…     Source

OMNI

WHITE CHRISTIAN, PLUTOCRATIC, OLIGARCHIC, THEOCRATIC, FUNDAMENTALIST NATIONALISM ANTHOLOGY, #2

 February 20, 2025

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

https://omnicenter.org/donate

What’s at Stake:   “Christian nationalism radically shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there.”  Andrew Whitehead.

CONTENTS

Local Connection:  FFRF Chapter Actions.

History

Whitehead.  Taking America Back for God.

Onishi.  Preparing for W ar: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism.
Seidel.  “The Shadow Network, Project 2025….”
Seidel.   “Church-state separation and. . .Christian Nationalist abuse of power.”  

Taylor.  The Violent Take It by Force.

Du Mez.  Jesus and John Wayne.

History, Analysis, Action

American Christian Nationalism: Neither American nor Christian by Michael W. Austin.

Andrew Whitehead.  American Idolatry.  

Scott Robinson.  The Three Main Enemies of Democracy.  3 books on the Republican Party, Christian Nationalists, and the Oligarchy.

 Plutocracy and CN
Nicholas Powers.  “Wealthy Donors Bankroll Christian Nationalists to    Sustain Unregulated Capitalism.”    
Bruce Gourley.  “Plutocratic Theocracy: How an alliance of extreme market capitalists    and Christian Nationalists is working to remake American society.”

Supreme Court

Gourley.  “Supreme Theocrats.”

TAKING ACTION

Ajoy.  Star-Spangled Jesus.

Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers
How to End Christian Nationalism By Amanda Tyler. 

Bruce Gourley.  “Authentic Dialogue….”

Robert Edwards.  Resisting the Right.

Christian Nationalism Anthology #1

TEXTS

Local Connection

FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION,  A NATIONAL AND LOCAL BULWARK AGAINST Plutocratic, Oligarchic Fascism with an Ozarks Chapter, February 2025 Newsletter.
Ozarks Chapter of Freedom From Religion Foundation <contact@zeffy.com>

Feb 17, 2025         

Hello Dick, and Happy President's Day,

Whew....where to start....Legislators are trying to ramrod religion (chaplains) into classrooms, the US President is allocating resources to root out anti-Christian bias (what!?!?) and politicians are drafting policy to make it near impossible for citizen led ballot initiatives.  In my 43+ years, I've never seen the pillars of Democracy come under such intense pressure, and it feels like the time we're living in now is a tipping point.  I hope that by connecting with reasonable and rational citizens, including those who embrace religion, we can coalesce and stamp down the Christian Nationalism that is being injected into our lives daily.  Secular citizens must be proactive in this effort!

PLEASE TAKE ACTION!!!  BEGINNING THIS WEEK, FEBRUARY 17th: 

Six bills are running through the Arkansas General Assembly that would add even more barriers for citizens to take part in direct democracy. Please leave a message for your Senator at 501-682-2902 and your Representative at 501-682-6211 and ask them to vote against Senate Bills 207 through 212.

·SB207 would scare away people from signing ballot measure petitions by requiring canvassers to talk about criminal penalties for fraud. People already know fraud is illegal.

SB208 would require that canvassers check the ID of voters before allowing them to sign. This is merely an attempt to slow the signature gathering process.

SB209 would throw out legitimate signatures of voters for wrongdoing by canvassers. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

SB210 would require canvassers to watch a voter read the ballot measure or read the ballot measure out loud to a voter before collecting the signature. Canvassers are already required to carry copies of the measure that people can read. The Secretary of State’s office said the reading of the longest recent ballot measure would take eight minutes — another strategy to deter people from signing a ballot measure petition.

SB211 would create red tape that would make it harder for ballot measure campaigns to collect signatures. There is already a dizzying amount of red tape in the signature collection process.

SB212 would create a “Document Validity Division” — a law enforcement agency of the Secretary of State. But the office already reviews the validity of documents and can refer potential lawbreakers to prosecutors. It would just create more bureaucracy and complicated legal questions.

Speak up for the constitutional rights of voters. Call your Senator and Representative now ask them to vote against Senate Bills 207 through 212!

Senate at 501-682-2902

House of Representatives at 501-682-6211

In other news, the Ozarks Chapter continues to put together an exciting lineup of events, activities and speaking engagements.  Last month, our chapter contributed over 16 man hours to help the NWA Women's Shelter Thrift Store sort through incoming donations, rack clothing and assist with light cleaning duties.  The employees were very appreciative of our help, and the GM reached out afterwards to let me know how valuable our work is in protecting the separation between church and state

HISTORY

Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States by Andrew L. Whitehead.   Oxford UP, 2020.

Abstract

Taking America Back for God conclusively reveals that understanding the current cultural and political climate in the United States requires reckoning with Christian nationalism. Christian ideals and symbols have long played an important role in public life in the United States, but Christian nationalism demands far more than a recognition of religious heritage. At heart, Christian nationalism fights to preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone—Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women—recognizes their “proper” place in society. The first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian nationalism in the United States, Taking America Back for God illustrates the scope and tremendous influence of Christian nationalism on debates surrounding the most contentious social issues dominating American public discourse. Drawing on multiple sources of national survey data collected over the past several decades and in-depth interviews, Whitehead and Perry document how Christian nationalism radically shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there. Regardless of Americans’ political or religious characteristics, whether they are Ambassadors, Accommodators, Resisters, or Rejecters of Christian nationalism provides powerful insight into what they think about immigration, Muslims, gun control, police shootings, atheists, gender roles, and many other political issues—even who they want in the White House. Taking America Back for God convincingly shows how Christian nationalists’ desire for political power, rigid social boundaries, and hierarchical order creates significant consequences for all Americans.

Keywords: Christian nationalism, religion, politics, United States, race, gender, Donald Trump, immigration, sexuality

War on Democracy:  Origin of INSURRECTION JANUARY 6, 2021, Civil War?

Bradley Onishi.  Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism.   2023. 
The events of January 6, 2021, shocked the nation and the world. But to those who lived through White Christian nationalism, consumed its media, and practiced its teachings, the Insurrection was the logical outcome of a seventy-five-year war on American democracy.

Despite a growing body of literature that analyzes White Christian nationalism in the United States, there are no works that bring together firsthand accounts of the decades-long culture wars that set the stage for the violent White Christian nationalism plaguing the country with historical analyses of the events, leaders, and communities that prepared the troops and led the charge. PREPARING FOR WAR uses Onishi’s lived experience as an Evangelical insider as a prism for understanding the violence and extremism of the White Christian nationalists at the center of our current political moment. It asks: How did the rise of the Religious Right, from 1964-2015, eventually give birth to violent White Christian nationalism during the Trump presidency and beyond? What are the foundational components of the “alternative” worldview that propelled some of the most conservative religious communities in the country to ignite a cold civil war? How can the history of the Religious Right provide a basis for anticipating how White Christian nationalism will bear on our public square in the years to come?

 In this compelling and scholarly mix of memoir and cultural and political history, Onishi brings to bear his experience as a former Christian nationalist movement insider to expose the radicalism behind the January 6th insurrection. Gripping and essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the threat that This movement poses to American democracy.” – Katherine Stewart, Author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous World of Religious Nationalism

n Preparing for War, Bradley Onishi traces the history of White Christian Nationalism from the John Birch Society to the Big Lie and the January 6 terrorist assault on the U.S. Capitol, a narrative enlivened by the author’s own occasional intersections with the movement. This is an excellent and important book, both chilling and prophetic.” – Randall Balmer Professor of Religion, Dartmouth College and Author of Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right

Onishi takes us on a sweeping yet personal journey through modern American religious and political history to understand the violent, extremist strains of white Christian America that led to the January 6th insurrection. With insight from hundreds of interviews, deep scholarship, and his own escape from white Christian Nationalism, Onishi’s Preparing for War is a clear account of what happened and clarion warning about what is coming. Compelling and timely.” – Andrew Seidel, Constitutional Lawyer at Americans United and author of American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom.
 

The Shadow Network of Christian Nationalism “is spreading into every facet of American life.” 
Andrew Seidel.  “The Shadow Network, Project 2025 and the Humongous Fungus.”  Church and State (Nov. 2024).

Alliance Defending Freedom.
Family Research Council
First Liberty Institute
American Center for Law and Justice

Andrew Seidel.  “Church-state separation and the Big Lebowski: The Christian Nationalist abuse of power.”  Church and State (Nov. 2024).  Reports the work of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, integral to “defending our democracy.”

TRUMP AND CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy By Matthew D. Taylor.  Broadleaf, 2024. 
Publisher’s description:
"Required reading for anyone seeking to understand Christian nationalism."—Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne

A propulsive account of the network of charismatic Christians that consolidated support for Donald Trump and is reshaping religion and politics in the US.

Over the last decade, the Religious Right has evolved. Some of the more extreme beliefs of American evangelicalism have begun to take hold in the mainstream. Scholar Matthew D. Taylor pulls back the curtain on a little-known movement of evangelical Christians who see themselves waging spiritual battles on a massive scale. Known as the New Apostolic Reformation, this network of leaders and believers emerged only three decades ago but now yields colossal influence, galvanizing support for Trump and far-right leaders around the world. In this groundbreaking account, Taylor explores the New Apostolic Reformation from its inception in the work of a Fuller Seminary professor, to its immense networks of apostles and prophets, to its role in the January 6 riot. Charismatic faith provided righteous fuel to the fire that day, where symbols of spiritual warfare blazed: rioters blew shofars, worship music blared, and people knelt in prayer. This vision of charismatic Christianity now animates millions, lured by Spirit-filled revival and visions of Christian supremacy.

Taylor's unprecedented access to the movement's leaders, archives, internal conference calls, and correspondence gives us an insider account of the connection between charismatic evangelicalism and hard-right rhetoric. Taylor delves into prophetic memes like the Seven Mountains Mandate, the Appeal to Heaven flag, and the Cyrus Anointing; Trump's spiritual advisor Paula White's call for "angelic reinforcements"; and Sean Feucht and Bethel Music's titanic command of worship styles across America. Throughout, Taylor maps a movement of magnetic leaders and their uncompromising beliefs--and where it might be headed next. When people long to conquer a nation for God, democracy can be brought to the brink.

Endorsements
"Matthew D. Taylor's work is a gift. He has given us an empathetic, fair-minded, highly intelligent, and eminently readable story that explains one of the most important religious movements in modern America. Most people don't even know what the New Apostolic Reformation is, much less that it has been a driving force of Christian Trumpism. The Violent Take It by Force will change that."  --Jon Ward, author of Testimony and Camelot's End
 For more endorsements go to:     https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9781506497785/The-Violent-Take-It-by-Force

 Kristin Kobes Du Mez.   Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.   Liveright, 2020.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  The “paradigm-influencing” book (Christianity Today) that is fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America.

Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping, revisionist history of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism—or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.”  As acclaimed scholar Kristin Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals might not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done.

Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Trump in fact represented the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values: patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community. A much-needed reexamination of perhaps the most influential subculture in this country, Jesus and John Wayne shows that, far from adhering to biblical principles, modern white evangelicals have remade their faith, with enduring consequences for all Americans.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a professor of history at Calvin University and the author of A New Gospel for Women. Learn More

INTRODUCTION:  HISTORY, ANALYSIS, ACTION

American Christian Nationalism: Neither American nor Christian by Michael W. Austin.  Foreword by Marlena Graves.  Eerdmans, 2024.  130 Pages.     DOWNLOAD BOOK FLYER

Description  Contents  Author  Praise
Publisher’s Description
Michael W. Austin shows how nationalism is contrary to American values and Christian virtues—and offers us a better form of civic engagement.
In this brief, thought-provoking book, Michael W. Austin turns his keen mind for ethics toward the crisis currently facing our democracy: the rise of American Christian nationalism. Austin first accessibly explains the meaning and history behind nationalism. He then systematically shows how the ideology contradicts American values like liberty, equality, and justice as well as Christian virtues like humility, faith, hope, and love. Ultimately, he argues that the Beloved Community, first developed by Martin Luther King Jr. and others, offers a better model for an authentically Christian and American community. Readers frustrated by partisan strife will find a faithful guide in Austin’s thoughtful volume.

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM V. GOSPEL CHRISTIANITY

Andrew Whitehead.  American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church.   Baker Books, 2023.

What the book is about

Explores how Christian nationalism harms American Christianity. 

Identifies three idols of Christian nationalism that Whitehead believes corrupt American Christianity: power, fear, and violence. He argues that these idols threaten the spiritual lives of American Christians and the church. 

What the book's arguments are 

Christian nationalism weakens the church by stirring up fear of others instead of encouraging peacemaking, hope, and love.

Violence is a natural result of constantly stoking fear and threat.

The use of violence signals a distrust of God's work in the world and seeing the image of God in all people.

Review of American Idolatry.  Foreword Reviews   https://www.forewordreviews.com › ... › Religion.   Aug 15, 2023 — Sociologist Andrew L. Whitehead's American Idolatry is a fascinating investigation of politics and racism in American Christian evangelicalism.

ANALYSIS OF 3 ANTI-DEMOCRATIC FORCES
They Long to End Democracy .  3 book series by Scott Robinson.  Paperback Edition 2024.

There are three organizations in the United State that have all, in recent years, signaled and even said outright that Democracy's day is done in the United States - and each is poised to replace it.

These groups include the Grand Old Party - US Republicans, who have declared for almost two decades now their desire to install a "permanent majority"; the Christian Nationalists, Evangelicals who have believed since the mid-Seventies that the United States should be a theocracy, not a democracy, with their own people in charge; and the oligarchy, a network of ultra-wealthy citizens - the top 1% of the top 1% - who have labored for decades to supplant the New Deal framework of the United States with a neoliberal one more favorable to their interests.

This series of short books presents overviews of all three of these groups - who they are, what they're about, and how they intend to go about implementing their own visions of American governance.

Read more

All titles below are free to borrow with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. View the Kindle Edition of this series to see the eligible titles.

Books in this series (3 books)

They Long to End Democracy: The GOPby Scott Robinson.

Read moreBottom of Form

They Long to End Democracy: Christian Nationalists

by Scott Robinson.    Read more

They Long to End Democracy: The Oligarchy

by Scott Robinson.    Read more

PLUTOCRATIC, OLIGARCHIC TAKEOVER OF US
“Wealthy Donors Bankroll Christian Nationalists to Sustain Unregulated Capitalism”   By Nicholas Powers.  Truthout (August 15, 2022).  Funded by a 1 percent of megadonors and corporations, the religious right has grown to a grotesque size.   [This is a wide-ranging report on the Republican Party values and behaviors of the ultra-wealthy.  --D]  “The reality is that some of the richest people and corporations in the world bankroll Christian nationalists who, in turn, attack the already limited freedoms of poor people, people of color, women and LGBTQ people in the name of God. Yet the wealthy and the politicians they pay often break the very biblical codes they make into law. Now the danger has intensified. A Republican White House, Senate, House and Supreme Court can overturn democracy and replace it with a Christian nationalist state, fueled by ultra-wealthy donors who see attacks on fundamental rights as handy tools in securing their power.”

Plutocratic Takeover of US, Project 2025, Versus Jesus, Adam Smith, FDR, via Christian Nationalism

Bruce Gourley.   “Plutocratic Theocracy: How an alliance of extreme market capitalists and Christian Nationalists is working to remake American society.”  Church and State Magazine (December 2, 2024)

Americans United, while not taking a position on economic policies, is actively fighting against the Shadow Network, a “clandestine web of Christian Nationalist organizations, conservative billionaires and powerful political allies at all levels of government” working to “upend democracy and equality by undermining the separation of church and state.” This is the backstory of the economic and Christian currents that ultimately produced the Shadow Network.   In the heart of the Great Depression in 1934, Dr. Eli Ginzberg, a young economics professor, weighed in on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s transformative fiscal agenda.   Overwhelmingly elected to the presidency two years earlier and already beloved by a great majority of Americans, Roosevelt, during a period of 25% unemployment, had steered the federal government into previously uncharted territory: the creation of federally funded social safety nets for financially disadvantaged citizens, including public service works jobs and housing assistance. He had also announced his intention to establish a social safety net for aged citizens. (This would come to pass with the Social Security Act of 1936). Big business interests and many wealthy Americans complained that FDR had abandoned capitalism for socialism or even communism. Ginzberg, though, knew better.

During the 1920s, Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover had essentially turned the federal government over to corporations, dramatically cutting taxes on wealthy Americans and declaring victory, even as some one-half of all Americans remained in poverty. Corporations drove up profits by creating installment plans for middle-class customers, driving consumer debt to unprecedented levels.

The resulting inequality led to the stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression. Confident that inequitable capitalism would correct the economy, Hoover nonetheless bailed out banks and railroads. At the same time, he turned a cold shoulder to ordinary Americans, ignoring pleas to use federal coffers to ease the dire plight of the millions of unemployed, homeless and destitute. Trounced in his 1932 re-election bid, Hoover argued that his failed economic policies adhered to Adam Smith’s classic 1776 tome, Wealth of Nations.  
In 1934, economist Ginzberg in a New York Times article set the record straight. Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Ginzberg admonished, “is not a justification of modern [plutocratic] capitalism.” In addition, the economist continued, “[H]ad Adam Smith been afforded the opportunity to review the problems of corporate enterprise in 1931,” he wrote in his book The House of Adam Smith, “there is little doubt that his general approach would have been the same as in 1776: namely, a preoccupation with the public welfare.”  
In fact, Smith, considered the father of capitalism, approached economics from the perspective of the common good. In Wealth of Nations he identified greed as the greatest impediment to national prosperity. Seeking to banish extreme wealth inequality, Smith advocated for higher tax rates for wealthy persons, government regulations of businesses and banks, and restrictions on how much family wealth could be passed from generation to generation. He also advocated for what we now call living wages. “A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him,” Smith wrote. “They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.”Smith was critical of excessive commercial profits: “[Businessmen] complain much about the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods, [but] they, say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits.” To level the economic playing field, “[t]he rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in proportion.”
In short, Smith opposed unfettered capitalism, instead proposing an empathetic system of capitalism that prevented massive, nation-destroying wealth gaps between the rich and the poor. For his part, Ginzberg in 1934 noted that Smith’s Wealth of Nations “like the New Deal … seeks a general redistribution of wealth.” Smith’s empathetic capitalism was designed to prevent poverty. In his own words, Roosevelt noted his objective in emulating Smithian capitalism was to “save the people and the nation” from the economic failures of the plutocracy-focused [rule by the wealthy] presidencies of Coolidge and Hoover. . . .   MORE  https://www.au.org/about-au/people/bruce-gourley/

In the intertwined world of plutocracy and Christian Nationalism that is today’s United States,  the empathetic capitalism of Adam Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt is no more. Absent, too, from Christian Nationalism is the inclusive, compassionate and empathetic Jesus of the gospels.    In 2025, plutocratic theocracy is poised to assault America’s constitutional foundation of church-state separation as never before through the implementation of their extremist Project 2025 agenda.

AND CONTROL OF THE SUPREME COURT

SIX JUSTICES OF THE US SUPREME COURT
Bruce Gourley.  “Supreme Theocrats: Christian Nationalists on the Nation’s Highest Court.”  Cover story of Church and State (Sept. 2024).   “Supreme theocrats: The anti-freedom, anti-life, biblical worldview of the Christian Nationalist majority on the nation’s highest court.”

The Six: Alito, Coney Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Thomas—and Roberts, who voted to reverse Roe.  [Excellent summary plus analysis of each.  –Dick]   https://www.au.org/the-latest/church-and-state/articles/supreme-theocrats-the-anti-freedom-anti-life-biblical-worldview-of-the-christian-nationalist-majority-on-the-nations-highest-court/

TAKING ACTION

Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding A True FaithBy April Ajoy.  Hatchette, 2024.

Publisher’s Description
A hilarious and eye-opening account of leaving Christian Nationalism behind to follow Jesus better.

April Ajoy wouldn’t have called herself a Christian Nationalist when she performed her original song “America Say Jesus” on the Jim Bakker show, or when she participated in Jesus Marches across America, or when she posted cringe-worthy videos on YouTube to campaign for Mitt Romney. April just considered herself a good Christian: faithful, Republican, and determined to make America a Christian nation once again.
 
But as her view of the world widened, Ajoy began to see cracks in her steadfast beliefs and recognized the ways her conservative politics and religion were intertwined in her mind. Did God really bless America? Is it actually by His red, white, and blue stripes that we are healed?
 
Ajoy, content creator and podcast host, shares funny stories from her time deep within Christian nationalism, exploring how aspects of evangelical culture such as product boycotts, Satanic panic, and end-times theology have all been exploited to advance the Christian Nationalist narrative. She also illuminates the ways nationalist thinking has infiltrated our churches and political arenas, shaping not only modern evangelical culture but also American public policy and international relations.

Part memoir, part guidebook, part call to action, Star-Spangled Jesus explores how the fight to make America a “Christian nation” has damaged us all and shows how one woman left Christian Nationalism and why America should too. 

Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers
Guide to Action Recommended by John Hubbel Weiss
On Sun, Jan 12, 2025, 9:33 PM John Hubbel Weiss <jhw4@cornell.edu> wrote:
For at least the second time since September, the national media have warned about the threat of Christian nationalism.  It’s time to inform ourselves and take action, folks. . . .

 I offer the excellent guide to action published by Faithful America, Christian nationalists’  major adversary, as you will find in the link below.  I recommend especially the book by Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers($13.49 from Thriftbooks).  https://act.faithfulamerica.org/signup/christian-nationalism-resources/

Below that is a CNN story featuring the most recently published work on the movement by Kristin Du Mez. Haven’t read that one yet, but it does bring to mind that Trump’s current candidate for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is an active Christian nationalist. As is Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security advisor in his first term.    

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/12/us/white-christian-nationalism-du-mez-cec/index.html

 Bruce Gourley.  “Authentic Dialogue….”  Church and State (Nov. 2024).

“You probably know someone ensnared in Christian Nationalism.  Real communication is the first step to guiding them out.”

How to End Christian Nationalism By Amanda Tyler.  Broadleaf Books, 2024. 
Publisher’s description: 
The essential guidebook for Christians alarmed by the rising tide of Christian nationalism yet unsure how to counter it.

Christian nationalism is a powerful and pervasive ideology, and it is becoming normalized. From Amanda Tyler, lead organizer of the Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign, comes How to End Christian Nationalism, your vital companion for countering this dangerous ideology. Tyler draws on her experiences, conversations with pastors and laypeople, research, Scripture, her Baptist convictions, and her work as a constitutional law expert to help us confront Christian nationalist fervor.

You'll learn how to distinguish Christian nationalism from the teachings of Jesus and to demonstrate how the former perpetuates white supremacy. This book also unpacks key truths we can share with others: Patriotism is not the same as nationalism. Religious freedom means little if it's not for everyone. Christians follow a gospel of love, not the idol of power.

Here, you'll find stories of what Christians are doing to resist Christian nationalism in their churches and communities, plus ideas for your own work. From strategies for faith-rooted organizing to guidance for holding hard conversations with loved ones, Tyler offers practical ways to protect faith freedom for all. With precision and compassion, Tyler offers cogent arguments for the separation of church and state, a timely call to action, and an urgent case for replacing a twisted, fearful version of faith with one that is good and right and true. We've all seen what Christian nationalism can do. Now is the time for Christians to reckon with its harm. Now is the time to end it.

Endorsements
"White Christian nationalism is the greatest threat to democracy and the witness of the church in the United States today. But we are not powerless, and How to End Christian Nationalism is a potent tool for taking action."  Jemar Tisby, New York Times bestselling author of The Color of Compromise.
"Amanda Tyler gives all Americans--but especially serious Christians like herself--the means of constitutional, theological, political, and psychological self-defense against the toxic ideology of white Christian nationalism. Anyone who has wondered about the relationship between this surging fanaticism and what happened on January 6 should look no further."  Jamie Raskin, US representative for Maryland's 8th cong. District.
"How to End Christian Nationalism is the perfect book for anyone confused about Christian nationalism and wondering what they can do about it. All American Christians who love their country would do well to read this book and take its lessons to heart."  Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne.
"Amanda Tyler is a powerful sister who has led Christians in a movement to counter the religious nationalists who do so much evil in God's name. May this resource help others learn from her experience and wisdom."  William J. Barber II, co-chair of Poor People's Campaign and author of White Poverty and other books.
"An indispensable tool in renewing civic engagement and democracy in America in these polarizing times. With the rise of theocratic and authoritarian organizations, How to End Christian Nationalism is a foundational text for anyone who cares not only about America's past but about its future."  Anthea Butler, author of White Evangelical Racism and chair of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
"To achieve our potential as a country, we must welcome the contributions of people of all faiths and none, and strengthen the bonds between them. To do that, we must defeat the scourge of Christian nationalism. This book will show you how."    Eboo Patel, founder and president of Interfaith America and author of We Need to Build.
"With the precision of an attorney and the practicality of an organizer and advocate, Amanda Tyler helps us see what we can do to defeat the biggest threat to American democracy today: white Christian nationalism. This timely and insightful book does more than just sound the alarm; it passionately lays out a call to action."  Robert P. Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy.

"Essential reading for those of us who seek to follow Jesus in the Way. Amanda Tyler is clear, focused, learned, and passionate in defining Christian nationalism as the threat it is--to democracy and to the faith of Jesus--and providing a map to end the grip it has on too much of our nation. White Christians are a key audience here, but Christians of every ethnicity can learn from this important text."  Jacqui Lewis, senior minister and public theologian at Middle Collegiate Church.

"Amanda Tyler seamlessly weaves history with modern statistics and polling data to illustrate how Christian nationalism perverts Scripture into a tool to build power and justify political violence. The book offers a sound prescription for challenging the extremist ideology that has infected America's politics in a particularly critical time."

Mary B. McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
"Using stories from her own life and insight gained from decades of political activism for a gospel based on justice and equality, Tyler offers a plea to all Christians to do the work of joining diverse coalitions of Americans who will stand together against Christian nationalism. There is no one more equipped to offer strategies for combating one of the gravest threats to our democracy."  Bradley Onishi, author of Preparing for War and president of the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement
Reviews
"[An] energetic debut. . . . Tyler effectively sounds the alarm on the rising threat of Christian nationalism and its harms to both the church and the country."   Publishers Weekly
"Tyler fervently advocates for dialogue in undoing the possibly destructive influence of a fundamentalist ideology. Each chapter provides a tactful approach to rolling back the harm (and potential harm) done by words and actions guided by Christian Nationalism. . . . A significant book for 2024 and beyond."   Booklist

Robert Edwards.  Resisting the Right: How to Survive the Gathering Storm.  OR Books, 2024.  “Edwards gives us an invaluable ‘survey of pro-democracy measures” (Carroll in his Foreword).   19 chapters survey the expansion of right wing politics and what is needed to block each breach of the democratic idea.   Chapter 15, titled “In Gods We Trust,” describes the merging of authoritarian politics with national religious identify and how we might resume and even widen their separation.

OMNI Anthology #1:  https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/02/omni-white-christian-nationalism.html

OMNI

WHITE CHRISTIAN, PLUTOCRATIC, OLIGARCHIC, THEOCRATIC, FUNDAMENTALIST NATIONALISM ANTHOLOGY, #2

 February 20, 2025

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

https://omnicenter.org/donate

What’s at Stake:   “Christian nationalism radically shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there.”  Andrew Whitehead.

CONTENTS

Local Connection:  FFRF Chapter Actions.

History

Whitehead.  Taking America Back for God.

Onishi.  Preparing for W ar: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism.
Seidel.  “The Shadow Network, Project 2025….”
Seidel.   “Church-state separation and. . .Christian Nationalist abuse of power.”  

Taylor.  The Violent Take It by Force.

Du Mez.  Jesus and John Wayne.

History, Analysis, Action

American Christian Nationalism: Neither American nor Christian by Michael W. Austin.

Andrew Whitehead.  American Idolatry.  

Scott Robinson.  The Three Main Enemies of Democracy.  3 books on the Republican Party, Christian Nationalists, and the Oligarchy.

 Plutocracy and CN
Nicholas Powers.  “Wealthy Donors Bankroll Christian Nationalists to    Sustain Unregulated Capitalism.”    
Bruce Gourley.  “Plutocratic Theocracy: How an alliance of extreme market capitalists    and Christian Nationalists is working to remake American society.”

Supreme Court

Gourley.  “Supreme Theocrats.”

TAKING ACTION

Ajoy.  Star-Spangled Jesus.

Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers
How to End Christian Nationalism By Amanda Tyler. 

Bruce Gourley.  “Authentic Dialogue….”

Robert Edwards.  Resisting the Right.

Christian Nationalism Anthology #1

TEXTS

Local Connection

FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION,  A NATIONAL AND LOCAL BULWARK AGAINST Plutocratic, Oligarchic Fascism with an Ozarks Chapter, February 2025 Newsletter.
Ozarks Chapter of Freedom From Religion Foundation <contact@zeffy.com>

Feb 17, 2025         

Hello Dick, and Happy President's Day,

Whew....where to start....Legislators are trying to ramrod religion (chaplains) into classrooms, the US President is allocating resources to root out anti-Christian bias (what!?!?) and politicians are drafting policy to make it near impossible for citizen led ballot initiatives.  In my 43+ years, I've never seen the pillars of Democracy come under such intense pressure, and it feels like the time we're living in now is a tipping point.  I hope that by connecting with reasonable and rational citizens, including those who embrace religion, we can coalesce and stamp down the Christian Nationalism that is being injected into our lives daily.  Secular citizens must be proactive in this effort!

PLEASE TAKE ACTION!!!  BEGINNING THIS WEEK, FEBRUARY 17th: 

Six bills are running through the Arkansas General Assembly that would add even more barriers for citizens to take part in direct democracy. Please leave a message for your Senator at 501-682-2902 and your Representative at 501-682-6211 and ask them to vote against Senate Bills 207 through 212.

·SB207 would scare away people from signing ballot measure petitions by requiring canvassers to talk about criminal penalties for fraud. People already know fraud is illegal.

SB208 would require that canvassers check the ID of voters before allowing them to sign. This is merely an attempt to slow the signature gathering process.

SB209 would throw out legitimate signatures of voters for wrongdoing by canvassers. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

SB210 would require canvassers to watch a voter read the ballot measure or read the ballot measure out loud to a voter before collecting the signature. Canvassers are already required to carry copies of the measure that people can read. The Secretary of State’s office said the reading of the longest recent ballot measure would take eight minutes — another strategy to deter people from signing a ballot measure petition.

SB211 would create red tape that would make it harder for ballot measure campaigns to collect signatures. There is already a dizzying amount of red tape in the signature collection process.

SB212 would create a “Document Validity Division” — a law enforcement agency of the Secretary of State. But the office already reviews the validity of documents and can refer potential lawbreakers to prosecutors. It would just create more bureaucracy and complicated legal questions.

Speak up for the constitutional rights of voters. Call your Senator and Representative now ask them to vote against Senate Bills 207 through 212!

Senate at 501-682-2902

House of Representatives at 501-682-6211

In other news, the Ozarks Chapter continues to put together an exciting lineup of events, activities and speaking engagements.  Last month, our chapter contributed over 16 man hours to help the NWA Women's Shelter Thrift Store sort through incoming donations, rack clothing and assist with light cleaning duties.  The employees were very appreciative of our help, and the GM reached out afterwards to let me know how valuable our work is in protecting the separation between church and state

HISTORY

Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States by Andrew L. Whitehead.   Oxford UP, 2020.

Abstract

Taking America Back for God conclusively reveals that understanding the current cultural and political climate in the United States requires reckoning with Christian nationalism. Christian ideals and symbols have long played an important role in public life in the United States, but Christian nationalism demands far more than a recognition of religious heritage. At heart, Christian nationalism fights to preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone—Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women—recognizes their “proper” place in society. The first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian nationalism in the United States, Taking America Back for God illustrates the scope and tremendous influence of Christian nationalism on debates surrounding the most contentious social issues dominating American public discourse. Drawing on multiple sources of national survey data collected over the past several decades and in-depth interviews, Whitehead and Perry document how Christian nationalism radically shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there. Regardless of Americans’ political or religious characteristics, whether they are Ambassadors, Accommodators, Resisters, or Rejecters of Christian nationalism provides powerful insight into what they think about immigration, Muslims, gun control, police shootings, atheists, gender roles, and many other political issues—even who they want in the White House. Taking America Back for God convincingly shows how Christian nationalists’ desire for political power, rigid social boundaries, and hierarchical order creates significant consequences for all Americans.

Keywords: Christian nationalism, religion, politics, United States, race, gender, Donald Trump, immigration, sexuality

War on Democracy:  Origin of INSURRECTION JANUARY 6, 2021, Civil War?

Bradley Onishi.  Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism.   2023. 
The events of January 6, 2021, shocked the nation and the world. But to those who lived through White Christian nationalism, consumed its media, and practiced its teachings, the Insurrection was the logical outcome of a seventy-five-year war on American democracy.

Despite a growing body of literature that analyzes White Christian nationalism in the United States, there are no works that bring together firsthand accounts of the decades-long culture wars that set the stage for the violent White Christian nationalism plaguing the country with historical analyses of the events, leaders, and communities that prepared the troops and led the charge. PREPARING FOR WAR uses Onishi’s lived experience as an Evangelical insider as a prism for understanding the violence and extremism of the White Christian nationalists at the center of our current political moment. It asks: How did the rise of the Religious Right, from 1964-2015, eventually give birth to violent White Christian nationalism during the Trump presidency and beyond? What are the foundational components of the “alternative” worldview that propelled some of the most conservative religious communities in the country to ignite a cold civil war? How can the history of the Religious Right provide a basis for anticipating how White Christian nationalism will bear on our public square in the years to come?

 In this compelling and scholarly mix of memoir and cultural and political history, Onishi brings to bear his experience as a former Christian nationalist movement insider to expose the radicalism behind the January 6th insurrection. Gripping and essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the threat that This movement poses to American democracy.” – Katherine Stewart, Author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous World of Religious Nationalism

n Preparing for War, Bradley Onishi traces the history of White Christian Nationalism from the John Birch Society to the Big Lie and the January 6 terrorist assault on the U.S. Capitol, a narrative enlivened by the author’s own occasional intersections with the movement. This is an excellent and important book, both chilling and prophetic.” – Randall Balmer Professor of Religion, Dartmouth College and Author of Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right

Onishi takes us on a sweeping yet personal journey through modern American religious and political history to understand the violent, extremist strains of white Christian America that led to the January 6th insurrection. With insight from hundreds of interviews, deep scholarship, and his own escape from white Christian Nationalism, Onishi’s Preparing for War is a clear account of what happened and clarion warning about what is coming. Compelling and timely.” – Andrew Seidel, Constitutional Lawyer at Americans United and author of American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom.
 

The Shadow Network of Christian Nationalism “is spreading into every facet of American life.” 
Andrew Seidel.  “The Shadow Network, Project 2025 and the Humongous Fungus.”  Church and State (Nov. 2024).

Alliance Defending Freedom.
Family Research Council
First Liberty Institute
American Center for Law and Justice