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OMNI SUPPORTING THE NEVADA DESERT EXPERIENCE AND ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS RESISTANCE ORGANIZATIONS

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Compiled by Dick Bennett

https://omnicenter.org/donate/

Nevada Desert Experience  "The Fierce Urgency of Now!" - Sacred Peace Walk in Nevada April 12-18, 2025.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sacred Peace Walk. April 12-18

 

Why We Walk

 

TO USE A MOUNTAIN - yucca mountain documentary

 

"The Only Sane Solution" Resisting Nuclear Weapons in Europe

 

 

Sacred Peace Walk. April 12-18

When Martin Luther King Jr. referenced "The fierce urgency of now" in his speech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, he was speaking to times like the present. NDE recognizes the urgency of the moment as we prepare our annual pilgrimage in the desert from Las Vegas to the nuclear test site.

 

Why We Walk

A tree in the desert

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If you cannot walk with us next week-

Starting this Sunday, Alan Winson and Rebecca McKean of BCR Podcast supported by the Nevada Desert Experience will produce a series of 20 minute videos telling the stories of the participants in the 2025 Sacred Peace Walk [SPW] -- protesting nuclear armament. Episodes will be posted at 7pm Pacific Standard time - Sunday to Friday -- during Passover / Holy Week. The SPW is an interfaith journey of 60 miles from Las Vegas to the Nevada [Nuclear] Test Site -- land taken from the Western Shoshone Paiute peoples. Nearly 1,000 Atomic Bombs have been detonated above and below this desert from 1951 to 1992. And today subcritical testing of America's nuclear stockpile and development of new, more powerful nuclear bombs continues in the desert. See our 3 minute promotion video.

 

TO USE A MOUNTAIN - yucca mountain documentary

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The documentary film “To Use A Mountain” exploring the ongoing struggle to license and store the nation’s nuclear waste at Yucca mountain and other sites, premiered on April 7, 2025 at Visions du Réel (International Competition) in Switzerland. 

Director, Cinematographer, Editor Casey Carter accompanied the Nevada Desert Experience Sacred Peace Walk in 2023, and credits the activists he joined on the Peace Walk in assisting him in furthering his understanding and inspiration going into this important film. In a letter written to those he joined on the Peace Walk, Mr. Carter wrote. “As this year's Peace Walk approaches, I am reminded how inspired I was by the time spent walking those many miles with all of you in 2023 - through the sun, rain, and even snow! And continue to be inspired by your commitments to this activism year after year.

“Remarkably, this film now feels even more relevant in 2025 than it did when I first began to imagine the project in 2017 - especially at home in the US. On that note, I am also excited to share that the US premiere will be held in Texas, on April 28, in competition at the Dallas International Film Festival.”

We wish to congratulate Mr. Casey Carter for this significant achievement! Vitally important to Las Vegas and Nevada, this film underscores the importance of activism and the Nevada Desert Experience Sacred Peace Walk in preventing the federal government’s effort to turn Nevada into a nuclear storage wasteland. Join with us to continue this important work.

We will keep you informed of opportunities to see this film.

 

 

"The Only Sane Solution" Resisting Nuclear Weapons in Europe

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NDE's Brian Terrell wrote in his post-prison reflection, “The Only Sane Solution… Resisting Nuclear Weapons in Europe”: "Considering the enormity of the danger that the world is facing, do our small efforts, our protests and jailings make any difference? In our movements there is a false dichotomy, I think, between being faithful and being effective. 'I'm convinced that if the world survives these dangerous times, it will be tens of millions of small things that do it,' said the folk singer, Pete Seeger. Perhaps the best, the most effective contribution we can make to save the planet will be for each of us to accomplish one or two of the tens of millions of small things that need to be done."

photo- Christiane Danowski and Bernd Büscher meet Brian (center) upon his release from the prison at Wittlich, Germany, on March 12

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1420 West Bartlett Avenue Las Vegas, NV 89106 (702) 646-4814 info@NevadaDesertExperience.org NevadaDesertExperience.org

 

GLOBAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS RESISTANCE ORGANIZATIONS       International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) (Nobel Peace Prize), International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (DATE ESTABLISHED)

·       Arms Control Association (1971)

·        ATOM Project (2012)

·       Back from the Brink (2017)

·       Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (1957)

·       Council for a Livable World (1962)

·       Code Pink (2002)

·       Economists for Peace and Security

·       FCNL (1943)

·       Global Security Institute

·       Global Zero (2008)

·       Ground Zero Center (1977)

·       International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Nobel Peace Prize (2007)

·       International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility  (1991)

·       International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, (1980)

·       Nuclear Free World Policy (1998)

·       Nevada Desert Experience (1984)

·       Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (1982)

·       The Nuclear Resister (1980)

·       H.R.2850 - Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2021,117th Congress (2021-2022)

·       Nukewatch (1978)

·       OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology (2001) .

·       OPANAL (1967)

·       Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, (2012)

·       Pax Christi International,  (1945)

·       Peace Action (1957)

·       Performers and Artists for Nuclear Disarmament

·       Physicians for Social Responsibility (1961)

·       Plowshares Movement (1980)

·       Scientists against Nuclear Arms (1981)

·       Ploughshares Fund (1981)

·       Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (1957)

·       The Ribbon International, (1983)

·       United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (1998)

·       WAND Women’s Action for a New Direction (1982)

·       Win Without War (2002)

·       World Beyond War

·       World Disarmament Campaign (1967)

·        

Compiled by Dick Bennett, 5-7-24


OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #226, April 14, 2025.

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OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #226, April 14, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

Save PBS.
AUTOs V. CLIMATE: 3 Articles.
John J. Mearsheimer.  Why Leaders Lie.

 

 

Demand Progress:  Save PBS
A top Trump ally in Congress just introduced legislation to strip all federal funding from PBS and public radio, following a slanderous congressional hearing attacking public broadcasting as "anti-American."1,2   Trump himself piled on by attacking PBS as "horrible and completely biased" and demanded that Republicans "rid our Country of this giant SCAM."3   It's all part of a coordinated attack on PBS and public radio.    Demand Progress has mobilized tens of thousands of people to contact Congress and defend PBS, and with the threats only escalating, we need to do even more to fight back.     Will you make a donation to support our work, including our efforts to save PBS and public radio?[And or join ARPBS monthly or annually.  –D]

 

AUTOs V. CLIMATE: 3 Articles

Patrick Davis.  “Toyota’s Unholy Alliance with Climate Deniers Threatens Climate Progress.”    Public Citizen News (March/April 2025).   “…Toyota has emerged as the top auto industry financier of climate deniers, financing 207 of their congressional campaigns.”  [Good example of PC’s important research in the public interest.  –D]

“How SUVs came to be a massive climate problem.”  Editor.  Mronline.org (2-5-22).  The harmful political economy of auto manufacturing.
KENDRA PIERRE-LOUIS, ERIC ROS­TON AND ZAHRA HIRJI.  Report warns on climate change.”  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.   Nov 15, 2023.  U.S. needs to swiftly cut emis­sions to pre­vent more dan­ger. Read more...

 

John J. Mearsheimer.  Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics.   

For more than two decades, John J. Mearsheimer has been regarded as one of the foremost realist thinkers on foreign policy. Clear and incisive, a fearlessly honest analyst, his coauthored 2007 New York Times bestseller, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, aroused a firestorm with its unflinching look at the making of America's Middle East policy. Now he takes a look at another controversial but understudied aspect of international relations: lying. 
In Why Leaders Lie, Mearsheimer provides the first systematic analysis of lying as a tool of statecraft, identifying the varieties, the reasons, and the potential costs and benefits. Drawing on a trove of examples, he argues that leaders often lie for good strategic reasons, so a blanket condemnation is unrealistic and unwise. Yet there are other kinds of deception besides lying, including concealment and spinning. Perhaps no distinction is more important than that between lying to another state and lying to one's own people. Mearsheimer was amazed to discover how unusual interstate lying has been; given the atmosphere of distrust among the great powers, he found that outright deceit is difficult to pull off and thus rarely worth the effort. Plus it sometimes backfires when it does occur. Khrushchev lied about the size of the Soviet missile force, sparking an American build-up. Eisenhower got caught lying about U-2 spy flights in 1960, which scuttled an upcoming summit with Krushchev. Leaders more often mislead their own publics, sometimes with damaging consequences. Though the reasons may be noble--Franklin Roosevelt, for example, lied to the American people about German U-boats attacking the destroyer Greer in 1940, to build a case for war against Hitler--they can easily lead to disaster, as with the Bush administration's falsehoods about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.  
There has never been a sharp analysis of international lying. Now a leading expert fills the gap with a richly informed and powerfully argued book.   R
ead More by Eric Alterman, When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences.:  https://sites.nd.edu/truth-and-politics/why-leaders-lie-the-truth-about-lying-in-international-politics/

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #226, APRIL 23, 2025.

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OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #226, APRIL 23, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett

 

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

US Peace Organizations.

Herman and Chomsky.  Manufacturing Consent.

 

International Peace Organizations, ex. WILPF.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Geneva).

Women's International League ...  
About us  Founded in 1915, the Women's International League for Peace ...
History  Together, they decided to create the International Women's ...
Our Offices    Events ...

Take cheer that OMNI Is Part of an International Struggle FOR Peace, Justice, Ecology.

 

Give more cheers for PEACEMAKERS, PEACE ORGANIZATIONS USA 2024

Entries with an asterisk are focused entirely or primarily on nuclear war.

About Face, ACLU, AI, AFSC, AMEU, APN, AROC,  *Back from the Brink, Beit Tikkun, BAS, *Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, CAM, Catholic Worker, Code Pink, FFRF, *Global Network, *Ground Zero, GreenPeace, Green Party,  GAP, IRC, ITT, JVP, Monthly Review, Muslim Legal Fund, *Muste Fund, *NIRS, NVNonviolent Peacemakers, *NAPF Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, The Nation, *Nevada Desert Experience, *Nuclear Resister, NCTE, *Nukewatch, OMNI, *Peace Action, PJSA, The Progressive, Roots Action, Resist, Scott Ritter, Jill Stein, Shalom Center, Syracuse Cultural Workers, UCS, UFP, UUA, UUFF, UUSC, UNUSA, VFP, WBW, WILPF, WRL.  (These orgs. I have direct contact with today.  See:  James Richard Bennett, Peace Movement Directory, 2001, annotating 1,200 peace groups.   –D) 

 

Propaganda Analysis for Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.
  1st ed. 1988.   2nd ed. January 15, 2002
by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

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 publishingfrom 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.

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.

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OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

Stephen Vittoria.  The Gulf War:  Christina and the Whitefish.

Roy J. Eidelson.  Doing Harm:How the World’s Largest Psychological Association Lost Its Way in the War on Terror.  

Dick Bennett.  “What does a War Watch Weekly have to do with voting?” 

 

 

Human Consequences of the Gulf War

Stephen Vittoria.   Christina and The Whitefish.

From Stephen Vittoria (co-author with Mumia Abu-Jamal on the "Murder Incorporated" series).   Please purchase the book from the publisher-- here’s the link:   https://alternativebookpress.com/product/christina-and-the-whitefish/

“…tackles the toxic reality of the American Empire: its racism, homophobia, misogyny, and in this story, its warmongering trail of death and destruction.

 It’s 1994. Christina, a young Gulf War veteran wrecked by war and tragedy, seeks redemption in Asbury Park, the seaside mecca of her childhood. It’s a place well past its prime... and now reigned over by the self-proclaimed King of Asbury Park: The Whitefish—a disabled Vietnam-era vet, tavern owner, and all around oddball philosopher. It’s here, on the Jersey shore, that a chance meeting leads to a profound and life-altering connection.

The Nation’s Dave Zirin writes:

“Christina and the Whitefish is a joy to read. If Bruce Springsteen wrote fiction, it would read a great deal like this.”

Nobel Peace Prize nominee, David Swanson writes:

“The characters in this stunning novel stay with you… a high-spirited, humorous voyage… it will give you chills.”

Award-winning journalist Sonali Kolhatkar writes:

“A gifted filmmaker brings his storytelling prowess to the pages of this book… what a dramatic and beautiful journey. . . .”

 

 

Internal, Institutional Conflict Over US Wars 
Doing Harm:
How the World’s Largest Psychological Association Lost Its Way in the War on Terror By Roy J. Eidelson.  McGill Queens UP, 2023.
Publisher’s description:      PsychologyMilitary, Security, & Conflict Studies      

Top of Form

A thought-provoking, unflinching, scrupulously documented account of one of the darkest chapters in the recent history of psychology.

Doing Harm pries open the black box on a critical chapter in the recent history of psychology: the field’s enmeshment in the so-called [war on terror] and the ensuing reckoning over do-no-harm ethics during times of threat. Focusing on developments within the American Psychological Association (APA) over two tumultuous decades, Roy Eidelson exposes the challenges that professional organizations face whenever powerful government agencies turn to them for contributions to ethically fraught endeavours [a pleasant euphemism for war].

In the months after 9/11 it became clear that the White House, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency were prepared to ignore well-established international law and human rights standards in prosecuting the war on terror. It was less clear, however, that some of Eidelson’s fellow psychologists would become part of the abusive and torturous operations at overseas CIA black sites and Guantanamo Bay. Nor was it initially clear that this ruthless enterprise would garner acquiescence and support from the APA’s leadership.

Doing Harm examines how and why the APA failed to join human rights groups in efforts to constrain the US government’s unbridled pursuit of security and retribution. It recounts an ongoing struggle - one that has pitted APA leaders set on preserving strong ties to the military-intelligence establishment against dissident voices committed to prioritizing do-no-harm principles.

 

War, US Electoral “Democracy,” James Madison

Dick Bennett.  “What does a War Watch Weekly have to do with voting?”  Unfortunately, ever since Dec. 7, 1941, both Parties have constituted one War Party.  LBJ in starting and sustaining the Viet Nam War was as culpable as Bush, Cheney, and Rice in starting and sustaining the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.     The idea of democracy is the choice of having a ruler take us to war, like Johnson and Bush, or having the People vote for war.    (Jill Stein and the Green Party gave us a choice in the latest presidential election.) The democratic way to war will not always be wise, but we trust it will be less prone and quick to war than a powerful single person and his profiteering cronies.  Of course, Trump with the help of his profiteering cronies, elected, explodes such neat generalization.   Nonetheless,  that’s part of the struggle for checks and balances of the democratic hope.      James Madison believed that while war could strengthen the Union and demonstrate the nation's capacity, it also posed a threat to the liberties that the Founding Fathers sought to establish. He argued that war could lead to increased executive power, potentially subverting the balance of power within the government.  Madison’s argument seems to be demonstrated by successive bi-partisan war-making presidents, culminating in Donald Trump’s expanding autocracy.  But while democracy and diplomacy as the basis for politics seem to have been defeated on the international level, for the moment at least, at the grassroots the Democrats still promote the ideals and practices of its New Deal of the 1930s to this day, as I discover at the monthly meetings of AR Senior Democrats.

 

United Nations Good Work: April 10, 1972 more than 50 nations signed Treaty outlawing the stockpiling of biological weapons.  

 

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.

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 OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

US Peace Organizations.

Herman and Chomsky.  Manufacturing Consent.

 

International Peace Organizations, ex. WILPF.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Geneva).Women's International League ...
About us   Founded in 1915, the Women's International League for Peace ...
History   Together, they decided to create the International Women's ...
Our Offices    Events ...

Take cheer that OMNI Is Part of an International Struggle FOR Peace, Justice, Ecology.

 

Give more cheers for PEACEMAKERS, PEACE ORGANIZATIONS USA 2024

Organizations with an asterisk have been focused entirely or primarily against nuclear war, and successfully, for we now have the Treaty Abolishing Nuclear Weapons.

About Face, ACLU, AI, AFSC, AMEU, APN, AROC,  *Back from the Brink, Beit Tikkun, BAS, *Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, CAM, Catholic Worker, Code Pink, FFRF, *Global Network, *Ground Zero, GreenPeace, Green Party,  GAP, IRC, ITT, JVP, Monthly Review, Muslim Legal Fund, *Muste Fund, *NIRS, NVNonviolent Peacemakers, *NAPF Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, The Nation, *Nevada Desert Experience, *Nuclear Resister, NCTE, *Nukewatch, OMNI, *Peace Action, PJSA, The Progressive, Roots Action, Resist, Scott Ritter, Jill Stein, Shalom Center, Syracuse Cultural Workers, UCS, UFP, UUA, UUFF, UUSC, UNUSA, VFP, WBW, WILPF, WRL.  (Organizations I believe are making a positive effort.   For continuity, see:  James Richard Bennett, Peace Movement Directory, 2001, annotating 1,200 peace groups from Mexico City to Ottawa.   –D) 

 

Propaganda Analysis for Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.
  1st ed. 1988.   2nd ed. January 15, 2002
by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

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 publishingfrom 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.

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.

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 OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

 

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

US Peace Organizations.

Herman and Chomsky.  Manufacturing Consent.

 

International Peace Organizations, ex. WILPF.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Geneva).

Women's International League ...

About us

Founded in 1915, the Women's International League for Peace ...

History

Together, they decided to create the International Women's ...

Our Offices    Events ...
Take cheer that OMNI Is Part of an International Struggle FOR Peace, Justice, Ecology.

 

Give more cheers for PEACEMAKERS, PEACE ORGANIZATIONS USA 2024

Entries with an asterisk are focused entirely or primarily on nuclear war.

About Face, ACLU, AI, AFSC, AMEU, APN, AROC,  *Back from the Brink, Beit Tikkun, BAS, *Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, CAM, Catholic Worker, Code Pink, FFRF, *Global Network, *Ground Zero, GreenPeace, Green Party,  GAP, IRC, ITT, JVP, Monthly Review, Muslim Legal Fund, *Muste Fund, *NIRS, NVNonviolent Peacemakers, *NAPF Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, The Nation, *Nevada Desert Experience, *Nuclear Resister, NCTE, *Nukewatch, OMNI, *Peace Action, PJSA, The Progressive, Roots Action, Resist, Scott Ritter, Jill Stein, Shalom Center, Syracuse Cultural Workers, UCS, UFP, UUA, UUFF, UUSC, UNUSA, VFP, WBW, WILPF, WRL.  (These orgs. I have direct contact with today.  See:  James Richard Bennett, Peace Movement Directory, 2001, annotating 1,200 peace groups.   –D) 

 

Propaganda Analysis for Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.
  1st ed. 1988.   2nd ed. January 15, 2002
by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

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 publishingfrom 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.


OMNI EARTH DAY, APRIL 22, 2025

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OMNI

EARTH DAY, APRIL 22, 2025

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

https://omnicenter.org/donate/

 

What’s at Stake:  This April 22, the 55th Earth Day, reminds us of our struggle to create a livable planet for all, and how much is still at stake. Yet Arkansas’ members of Congress want to turn back the clock.   Futile as it might seem, let them know how you feel, to add to your protests.  

Arkansas Senators, Representatives, and Congressional ...

 

 

CONTENTS EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2025

OR Books

AFSC, American Friends Service Committee

FCNL, Friends Committee for National Legislation

UUSJ, Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice

Move to Amend

Earth Day 2024 (carried over)

“War & Genocide on Earth Day.” 
Jill Stein Green Party:
People, Planet, Peace.

Earth Day 2024 Contents

 

 

TEXTS It's Earth Day 2025

FOR BOOKS
We’re highlighting two new books on how human interference rewires the natural world.

 

THE MANIFESTO OF HERMAN MELVILLE by Barry Sanders. 
Herman Melville’s legendary Moby Dick is not, in fact, a novel, but a powerful environmental manifesto.  "An enraged manifesto against American greed and destruction of the natural world will leave readers utterly convinced and shaken.”  —Deanne Urmy

RETURN TO FUKUSHIMA by Thomas Bass. 
 Captures the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear disaster, chronicling the resilience of people navigating life amid radioactivity.   “Fascinating...a compelling message about a crucial question―one so crucial that it bears on the survival of the earth.”  —Noam Chomsky

 

 

 

 

During Earth Month in April, many of us turn our mind to what we can do to protect our shared home.At AFSC, we see the impacts of climate change and environmental injustice in every community where we work. It worsens violence, forces people from their homes, and widens the divide between the richest and the poorest. 
Confronting climate change is a major challenge—but you’re part of a global AFSC community working year-round to secure a more sustainable and equitable future for all.
Here are just a few of the ways your support of AFSC powers work for environmental justice:

·Working with Indigenous communities, small-scale farmers, and others to safeguard traditional land and natural resources.

·Organizing to protect the basic rights to clean water and enough food for all.

·Pushing for laws and funding that prioritize human needs and care for the earth.

Please help these efforts continue. Make your gift today to support AFSC’s work for climate justice, and all of our work to build a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world.

 

In peace, 

Joyce Ajlouny   General Secretary

 

 

American Friends Service Committee   1501 Cherry Street   Philadelphia, PA 19102

 

Friends Committee on National Legislation   FCNL

 

          On April 22, we mark the 55th Earth Day. It is a reminder of how far we’ve come in the fight for a livable planet, and how much is still at stake. Yet some members of Congress want to turn back the clock. Right now, there are serious attempts underway to repeal the clean energy tax credits passed in the Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117-169). We successfully lobbied for this bill, the strongest climate legislation in U.S. history.

If they succeed, we will lose critical investments in clean energy and well-paying jobs. Our journey toward environmental justice is derailed, and our chance at a climate-safe future will narrow. We cannot let this happen. But here’s the good news: our message is starting to break through. Lawmakers across the aisle are now speaking to defend these investments - but we cannot let up now.

Take two minutes to tell your members of Congress: Protect American clean energy jobs and investments.

These investments are already creating jobs, lowering energy bills, and cutting climate pollution—especially in the communities that need it most. Repealing them would be a disaster for our climate, our economy, and our future.

This Earth Day, join us in calling on Congress to protect, not cut, these important investments.
Sincerely,  Daren Caughron, Legislative Manager, Sustainable Energy and Environment


Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice

 

 In these troubling times for our nation, for our faith, our funds, our families and our futures, this Earth Day:

As we await another slew of Executive Orders aimed at advocates and activists for the environment, climate and justice we wish you courage and resilience.

As you wonder how to feed your soul despite the indifference being shown to our interconnected web of life, we wish you spiritual sustenance.

As you contemplate the work ahead of us, we invite you into accountable relationship with Mother Earth as the cornerstone of your witness, advocacy and agitation.

We counsel a posture of peaceful yet Faithful Defiance--active engagement! Yes, make some Good Trouble, show your Soul Force. Let us live into our religious values.

 

 

We will not obey oligarchy, plutocracy and autocracy in advance. Will commit to lift our voices in defense of this good green earth, this beautiful and wonderful creation.

We affirm belief in freedom and democracy and a United States in which we can all thrive.

 

MOVE TO AMEND
Dick --

This Earth Day, while the world pauses to honor our planet, we invite you to go deeper—to the root.

Because what’s killing the Earth isn’t just climate change. It’s not just pollution, deforestation, or rising seas.

It’s power.
The power of corporations to act as if they are people.
The power of money to speak louder than the will of millions.
The power of a legal system that puts profits over people—and the planet.

At Move to Amend, we’re growing a movement that goes beyond temporary fixes. Like a thriving ecosystem, lasting change starts from the ground up. While corporate interests continue to pollute and profit with impunity, people across the country are coming together to cultivate a future rooted in justice and sustainability. Momentum is blooming: the movement for systemic change is growing

The We the People Amendment (H.J. Res. 54) would end corporate constitutional rights and the doctrine that money equals speech—foundations of a system that allows polluters to operate above the law. . . .This Earth Day let’s go deeper—tackle the root, not just the symptoms.

 

OMNI EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2024

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/04/omni-earth-day-april-22-2024.html

HTTPS://omnicenter.org/donate

I  copied several of the excellent messages arriving last year for my Earth Day 2024 Anthology

“War & Genocide on Earth Day.”  Consortium News (4-22-24).

U.S. military aggression and imperial ambitions leave a trail of natural destruction — all under the guise of national security, writes Melissa Garriga. Read here...

Jill Stein for PresidentPeople, Planet, Peace

 

Today, as we commemorate Earth Day, we are confronted with the harsh reality of a climate emergency that imperils the very survival of the human species.
In 2023, we witnessed the hottest year on record, with the past decade marking the 10 hottest years since we began keeping records. For decades climate scientists warned us that we could not allow global average temperatures to reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels without catastrophic, likely irreversible damage to our planet.

We sailed past 1.5 in the first quarter of 2024, and we are now on a collision course with +2°C.  
The result has been a predictable and preventable wave of catastrophic fires, floods, megastorms, and droughts. We are watching ocean ecosystems collapse and a stark rise in climate refugees.  
The brunt of this environmental devastation falls disproportionately on Black, brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities – both here in the United States and across the globe.  
Yet, in the face of this existential emergency, what do we see? Continuous expansion of fossil fuel extraction under both Republican and Democratic leadership.


We must rally behind a real Green New Deal . . . .

In solidarity and gratitude,

Jill

OMNI

EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2024

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

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/04/omni-earth-day-april-22-2024.html

HTTPS://omnicenter.org/donate

 

Contents April 22, 2024
TAKE ACTION FOR THE EARTH: Featured Organizations

Jane Fonda for Greenpeace

Rabbi Waskow for The Shalom Report

Union of Concerned Scientists

Google Search

Additional Articles’ Way to a Better

 

END OMNI EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2025

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #227, April 21,2025.

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OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #227, April 21,2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

Warheads to Windmills
Green Eco-Socialist Network 


A green and blue sign with blue text

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

–> See more ways you can take action to pressure the industries driving these damages to the planet here.     Read in browser »

 

A new Climate organization:  Green Eco-Socialist Network  https://eco-socialism.org/
We are an informal, ad hoc network of Green Party members who self-identify as revolutionaries. We want to build the Green Party into a functional, revolutionary eco-socialist political party that is serious about taking and exercising state power, and using it to help facilitate the end of capitalism and creation of an eco-socialist society.  By “eco-socialism,” we refer to a new economic and social system that
we are working to build, based on:
social ownership (not state ownership) of the instruments of
production and exchange, 
production geared to meet human needs, . . . .

 
After the April 5 Hands Off Rallies...What's Next?”  David K. Cobb.  Apr 16, 2025.

 

On April 5 between 3-5 million people took to the street to voice opposition to the Trump Administration. There were 14000 demonstrations across all 50 states.  That is impressive. And leads me to ask….. What’s Next?   
I invite you to join me this Saturday, April 19, 2025 at 11:00 am PST / 2 pm EST to grapple with that question.  
This conversation is being hosted by the
 Green Eco-Socialist Network
Here is the link: 
ZOOM Link                                             

Join a participatory webinar with Ashley Brown, Gabe Medina, Gloria Mattera, and Sean Dougherty for a participatory session that will introduce the Green Eco-Socialist Network and discuss key topics surrounding the Hands Off Rally and its broader implications.

END OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #227, April 21,2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

 

PBS: "Water for Life"Monday, April 21, at 9 p.m.

Meet three Latin American community leaders who risked their lives to resist government and corporate plans to divert critical local water resources to mining and hydroelectric projects. Narrated by Diego Luna.

 

 

 

 

Top 6 U.S. Banks Financed Fossil Fuels with $1.8 trillion ...
Sierra Club

https://www.sierraclub.org › press-releases › 2024/05 › t...

May 13, 2024 — Since the Paris Agreement, from 2016 - 2023, the world's 60 largest private banks financed fossil fuels with USD $6.9 trillion, with U.S. banks ...

 


OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #226, APRIL 23, 2025.

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OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #226, APRIL 23, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett  

 

Today Begins YOM HASHOAH, Holocaust Remembrance, Judaism.

Friendsofpalestinenwa Gathering April 26.
Zeteo Newsletter about Trump.

Cullen Murphy.  Are We Rome?

 

 

 

YOM HASHOAH.
PBS presented Simon Schama: The Holocaust, 8 Years On, April 22.
The
Jewish Holocaustwas not only Nazi sociopathic mass murder but “a European-wide crime” that began in Lithuania and included the Netherlands.

.

Friendsofpalestinenwa  
Dear Friends,   We're excited to invite you to Come Together: A Community Gathering for and by the People, hosted by Friends of Palestine NWA on Saturday, April 26 at 6:00 PM at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fayetteville.   We'll be sharing our 2025 strategy, inviting your questions and feedback, and creating space for powerful community dialogue. Come hear about our vision, share your ideas, and learn how we can all work together to support justice and liberation for Palestine and beyond.   Website: friendsofpalestinenwa.com       Insta: @friendsofpalestinenwa

Trump Satirical Newsletter Zeteo.

Zeteo seems to offer a helpful weekly report on Trump.   Is it familiar to you?  --  Zeteo https://zeteo.com/

Home   Mehdi Unfiltered  We’re Not Kidding  Shows   Columns   Documentaries   Book Club   About
Forwarded by Greg Elliott.

Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (2007) by  Cullen Murphy.     HarperCollins, 2007.
Are We Rome?   HarperCollins Publishers

What went wrong in imperial Rome, and how we can avoid it: ‘If you want to understand where America stands in the world today, read this. ‘“    Draws parallels between the United States in the early 21st century and the Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries when it suffered its decline and eventual fall.
[On
9-13 and 9-14-24 PBS presented a 2-act drama on the rise and fall of Caesar and the Roman Republic.  “Julius  Caesar: The Making of a Dictator, ‘Veni Vidi Vici.’” And “Julius Caesar: The Making of a Dictator, ‘Ides of March’.”  As I watched I felt increasingly the applicability of its main story to our own times.   Did you see it?   --D]

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #228, April 28, 2025.

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OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #228, April 28, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

EcoWatch.com offers a cornucopia of significant reports on the climate calamity.  –D
ECOWATCH.COM

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

·         Climate    Animals    Health + Wellness    Insights + Opinion    Oceans   Solar

Examples on Climate from EcoWatch.com 4-25-25.

“$28 Trillion in Climate Warming Damage Caused by 111 of the World’s Biggest Companies” Cristen Hemingway Jaynes  (4-25-25).   

“Unleashing the 89% of People Who Want Climate Action Could Lead to ‘Social Tipping Point’ and More Government Action, Experts Say”By Cristen Hemingway Jaynes (April 22, 2025)

“‘Into the Thaw’: Jon Waterman on a Changing Alaska.”

 

LITHIUM RUSH IN ARKANSAS: 

I googled Lithium in Arkansas and found numerous entries introduced by this statement:

Arkansas may hold a significant amount of lithium within the Smackover Formation in southwestern Arkansas. Studies estimate there could be between 5 and 19 million tons of lithium in the region, potentially meeting global demand for lithium in car batteries multiple times over. This discovery has sparked interest from companies like ExxonMobil and Standard Lithium, who are exploring ways to extract lithium from the brine deposits. 

 

HAZARDS? And here are two of numerous items turned up by googling Lithium in Chile or Lithium Mining in Chile:
    
“Lithium Mining Is Leaving Chile’s Indigenous Communities High and Dry (Literally).”   April 26, 2022.    NRDC  https://www.nrdc.org › stories › lithium-mining-leaving...   

Chile community blessed and blighted with lithium deposits

   NPR  https://www.npr.org › 2025/02/23 › nx-s1-5266009 › c...   

How the extraction of lithium in Chile is tearing communities apart.  May 28, 20244:20 AM ET  Heard on Morning Edition By John Bartlett.   Chile is the worlds second largest lithium producer. Its discovery has been a welcome boon to the economy, but a disaster for many in the local communities.

 

April 21, 2004:  Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu released from prison.  April 25, 1954: first solar battery.  April 26, 1986:  Chernobyl nuclear power plant melted down in Kiev with contamination widespread.     [Info thanks to Syracuse Cultural Workers’ annual Peace Calendar  SCW is a significant peace, justice, and ecology organization.]

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #227, APRIL 30, 2025.

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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 publishingfrom 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

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 publishingfrom 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

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #227, APRIL 30, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

Opposing Wars, Supporting Peace:

VFP’s Peace and Planet News.
Klein and Taylor.  “…Fight End Times Fascism.”

Syracuse Cultural Workers.
PBS Documentaries.

 

New Print Edition of Peace & Planet News Available!
Featuring articles by Chris Hedges, Alice Slater, Jack Gilroy, Ann Wright, Doug Rawlings, and more! Order a bundle today to distribute at your next demonstration, leave a stack at your local bookstore, or hand out on campuses. It's a great tool to keep the resistance alive and informed. Order now.


Building a Movement to Fight End Times Fascism

By Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor.   Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor on Building a Movement to Fight 'End Times Fascism' - Peace & Planet News
"We are up against an ideology that has given up not only on the premise and promise of liberal democracy but on the livability of our shared world—on its beauty, on its people, on our children, on other species."

SYRACUSE CULTURAL WORKERS
For decades SCW has provided the peace and justice—and now climate—movement a cornucopia of calendars, signs, cards, pins, shirts, etc.  It’s a significant support for our peace, justice, and ecology values, take a look at their catalog.  

Syracuse Cultural Workers

 

PBS.   On May 1 and 2, join people around the country as we celebrate Public Media Giving Days, and help keep public media strong and thriving with your gift.  Don’t want to wait? Make your gift today.   GIVE EARLY!
The Vietnam War: “This Is What We Do.”  Brutal, racist, imperial US war.  April 27, 2025.

 

WAR/PEACE HISTORY:  April 28, 1953 CIA assists overthrow of elected Iranian president Mossadegh.  April 29, 1915  Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) founded.  April 30, 1975 Vietnam is reunited after 21 years of US domination.  From Syracuse Cultural Workers Peace Calendar.

MAY DAY LABOR DAY INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY MAY 1, 2025

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OMNI

MAY DAY LABOR DAY INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY MAY 1, 2025
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

https://omnicenter.org/donate/

 

What’s at Stake:  Our movement is historic: every year on International Workers Day, millions of people take to the streets around the world, commemorating workers’ struggles of the past and building power for the future.”

 

CONTENTS

Fayetteville, AR MAYDAY 2025

NYC Mobilization
Win Without War WWW
Progressive Change Campaign Committee PCCC
Progressive Caucus Action Fund PCAF 
People Power United
Veterans for Peace Social Media Toolkit - Google Drive

UUSJ Enews

(2024 articles that arrived too late for inclusion in 2024 Anthology.)

 

TEXTS

May Day Workers Day Picnic of UA Education Assoc/Local 965 & NWA Labor Council (AFL-CIO)

May Day Workers Day Picnic of UA Education Assoc/Local 965 & NWA Labor Council (AFL-CIO) organized by May Day Strong

Time   Thursday, May 1    5:30 – 8pm CDT

Veterans Memorial Park large pavilion  4451 N Vantage Dr

Fayetteville, AR 72703

About this event The annual May Day Workers Day picnic of UA-Fayetteville Education Association/Local 965 (https://arkansas965.org) and the Northwest Arkansas Labor Council (AFL-CIO) will be 5:30-8 p.m. Thursday, May 1, 2025, at the large pavilion of Fayetteville's Veterans Memorial Park. This year it's part of the nationwide May Day Strong program, which its organizers describe below. . . .    Volunteer Opportunities, Events, and Petitions Near Me · May Day Strong on Mobilize

 

Stand united this May Day!

 

 

MAY DAY 2025!

 

In NYC, we will join hands with workers around the world as we stand up against the right-wing billionaire agenda of Trump’s White House and in solidarity the people of Palestine.
Our movement is historic: every year on International Workers Day, millions of people take to the streets around the world, commemorating workers’ struggles of the past and building power for the future. Now more then ever, we are stronger together. Join us in building solidarity as we struggle against the attacks on the working class at home and stand with all people in the struggle against U.S. imperialism around the world.

 


Portside Snapshot - May 1, 2025

Workers Defy the Billionaire Takeover on May Day


Luis Feliz Leon
April 30, 2025
In These Times

A guide to May Day 2025 actions.

 

WIN WITHOUT WAR

Dick: Trump and his billionaire profiteers are trying to create a race to the bottom — on wages, on benefits, on dignity itself.

This May Day we’re resisting. Commemorating the sacrifices of workers who fought for union rights and the eight-hour workday, we are fighting for a country that puts our families over billionaires’ fortunes: healthcare and housing over tanks and missiles, peace and prosperity over Pentagon contractors and war profiteers.   We will not be silent as Trump and Musk defund humanitarian aid, target immigrants and students with fear and violence, and plow hundreds of billions more to weapons and war. Last month, hundreds of thousands of people (including our ED Sara Haghdoosti!) across all 50 states rallied to say Hands Off our social services. Hands Off our rights. Hands Off our communities.

Today, across over 1,000 May Day events, Win Without War is supporting a national day of action organized by labor unions and working people who demand a country that is more fair, just, equitable, and free for all — and not just a chosen few.

We need you to join us in speaking out against Trump’s agenda that puts billionaires first, Dick. Click here to find a May Day event in your community that you can attend today, if you’re able.

Why today on May Day, International Worker's Day? Working people built this nation and there’s so much we can learn from the victories and struggles of the labor movement in our ongoing struggles today. The government takeover by oligarchs like Trump and Musk have laid bare: Only we can be counted on to take care of each other.   So whether or not you’re able to attend a May Day event today, your activism won’t end there. Mutual aid is one of the most effective ways we can be there for one another as Trump tries to tear us down.   In this moment, that especially means defending our immigrant neighbors who are increasingly under attack by this rogue administration. Win Without War has assembled a list of just a few of the many organizations across the country providing tangible support:

Informed Immigrant is an all-encompassing, trusted resource for immigrants. They provide written legal resources concerning detentions and deportations, healthcare resources, information about education, and even run a directory for finding legal assistance.
KYR App reads your rights out loud to ICE officers, allows users to send a text message to pre-set contacts in the case of potential detainment, and helps develop a preparedness plan. It takes ten times the resources for ICE to detain someone who knows their rights than someone who does not, which is why the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium created this easily accessible Know Your Rights app.
Immigration Advocates Network is a directory for immigration legal services. You can search for providers by state, county, or detention facility to find organizations that provide free or low-cost immigration legal services.
Migrant Clinicians Network is increasing access to healthcare for immigrants across the country by connecting people with care when they need it and bolstering the clinicians who serve them.
Share these organizations with your friends, family, and community, support them as you’re able, and even bookmark them for your own reference. You can visit our website to find even more resources, including state-specific organizations!

Now and always, our job is to defend communities facing violence and injustice. Together, we will never stop fighting for our families and the rights and freedoms that ensure people can thrive in peace and safety.

Thank you for your activism and commitment to peace,
The Win Without War team
Donate

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

 

 

“TODAY: Take a stand for workers’ rights.”

PCCC 

Donald Trump and Elon Musk just marked 100 days of kicking working people in the teeth so they can make billionaires even richer.   Today—International Workers’ Day—Americans from Anchorage to Miami are rallying, marching, and picketing to say: Enough!   Will you join one of more than 1,100 May Day rallies happening today across the country?

Yes! I’ll find my local May Day rally here and RSVP now.   No, I can’t, but I’ll chip in $3 to help flood the streets with workers today!

We will make it clear: Workers are done footing the bill for Trump, Elon Musk, and the rest of the billionaire class. . . .

See you out there.  -- The PCCC Team (Follow us on BlueSky: @BoldProgressives.org)

 

PCAF Progressive Caucus Action Fund  Progressive Caucus Action Fund

 

 

Dear James,
Across the country, our communities are reeling from the Trump Administration's first 100 days. We’ve faced devastating cuts to essential programs our families count on, the mass firing of dedicated federal workers, chaos from tariffs and funding freezes, and crackdowns on our basic freedoms.

This May Day we are standing united.

We are demanding a country that puts our families over their fortunes—working people over billionaires, public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, and freedom over fear. This is May Day.  
We’re standing on the shoulders of the working people who fought for the eight-hour day and their right to organize.  Together, we are fighting for a country that works for all of us, not just a few billionaires and big corporations.

Check out our new toolkit for tips on how to make your voice heard and join with organizations and everyday people across the country who are standing up this May Day. . . .     
Message paid for by the Progressive Caucus Action Fund (501(c)(4)). The merchant of record is ActBlue Civics, Inc. We receive and process those donations and subsequently give them to the organization or cause indicated on the contribution form within 30 days. Contributions to Progressive Caucus Action Fund  are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.   Progressive Caucus Action Fund
80 F St NW   Washington, DC 20001
80 F St NW

 

 

 

 

 

🪧 Grab Your Sign—It’s May Day and We’re Rising

We Ride at Dawn: When, Where & Why: The May Day Mobilization Guide” BY Laurie Woodward Garcia and People Power United.  Apr 30, 2025.

 

 

Dear Friends and Fighters for Freedom. . . .

This May 1st, our movement rises—not in silence, but in strength, unity, and purpose. Across all 50 states, from small towns to sprawling cities, and in over 1,000 communities, people are stepping into the streets to declare: Enough is enough. Together, we are part of a force of nearly 100,000 workers, immigrants, students, and families joining in 1,300+ May Day actions to fight for dignity, justice, and liberation. Here is how you can plug in:

1.      ✅ Check out this list of MAY DAY events, rallies, and protests happening near you

2.      ✅ Check out these MAY DAY event maps

o   Freedom Over Fascism

o   People Power United

3.      ✅ Click here to check out our Civic Engagement Guide: How to Make an Impact at a Protest or Rally

4.      ✅ Click here for a guide to de-escalation

5.      ✅ Click here for know your rights

6.      ✅ Click here to learn more about protest laws in your state

7.      ✅Click here for the list of 100 ideas for a sign or chants

8.      Share this with like minded friends and family to help us get the word out.

Share


Why We March

We are rising for workers, for immigrants, and for our future.
We are rising against a “Billionaire Agenda” that is bleeding our communities dry while billionaires buy yachts, politicians, and power. In just 100 days of the Trump administration, we’ve already witnessed:

·        Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and education

·        Attacks on immigrants, trans people, and communities of color

·        Move to give Tax breaks to the ultra-rich while working families struggle to survive

But we are not alone, and we are not powerless.

People are rising together—across race, immigration status, gender, and geography—to demand a country that invests in working families, not billionaire profits.

This May Day, we unite for:

·        An end to billionaire control and political corruption

·        Fully funded schools, healthcare, and housing

·        Protection and expansion of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and services for our Veterans, Seniors, and care givers

·        Respect, safety, and rights for Black, Indigenous, immigrant, LGBTQIA+, and our disabled communities

·        Strong unions, fair wages, and dignity for all workers

And we do it nonviolently—with courage, compassion, and clarity. Every May Day host and participant is committed to peace, de-escalation, and collective power.

This is your invitation. Not just to witness history—but to make it.

Join us this May Day. March beside your neighbors, your coworkers, your classmates. Stand up for what is right. Speak out for who is ignored. And never forget—when we rise together, we win together.

With fierce resolve and people power,
Laurie Woodward Garcia   People Power United
www.peoplepowerunited.org

People Power United: America's Voice for Progress & Actions is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

 

© 2025 Laurie Woodward
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104

 

 

Veterans for Peace [VFP-all] “Re: Social Media Toolkit for tomorrow, May Day 2025” by 'Eric & Hoa Herter' via VFP-all vfp-all@googlegroups.com via uark.onmicrosoft.com .   to peaceworks        
Social Media Toolkit - Google Drive
Eric Herter   Pacific Productions   0384256315
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VFP-all" group.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vfp-all/1097778099.3606345.1746027364822%40mail.yahoo.com.

 

eNews by UUSJ   

·        Events

·        News

·        Defending our Democracy

·        Immigration Justice

·        Environment & Climate Justice

·        Economic Justice

Unitarian Universalist Association offers a comprehensive faith in action of j”ustice, equity, democracy, and compassion.”

 

Unpacking Trump’s Attack On Federal Sector UnionsBy Nicholas Handler, Portside.   Popular Resistance.org (5-1-25).     On March 28, President Trump issued an executive order purporting to bar federal workers at dozens of federal agencies and subdivisions from joining labor unions or entering into collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with the federal government. Initial reporting suggests that the order could strip two-thirds of unionized federal workforce, or nearly 700,000 civil servants, of their collective bargaining rights. Following the issuance of the order, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memorandum directing the named agencies to implement the president’s directive, which presumably will... -more-

 

 

 

2024 articles that arrived after publication of May 1, 2024, Anthology

 

 


80 F St NW
Washington, DC 20001
United States

 

 

 

 

 

OMNI

MAY DAY LABOR DAY INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY, MAY 1, 2024

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

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/04/omni-may-day-labor-day-international.html

https://omnicenter.org/donate

 

 

“International Labour Day 2024: Date, history, significance and all that you need to know.”  ByTapatrisha Das, Delhi.  Hindustan Times.  Apr 30, 2024 .

International Labour Day 2024: From date to significance, here's all that you need to know about the special day.

International Labour Day 2024: The workers and the working class are the driving force of a country. They are the ones who do most of the work to initiate development. The nation and the state are built by its infrastructure, development and the economy. The workers get down to the roots of things and start work at the basic level to initiate positive changes to the country and the world. Workers and the working class are extremely important as they are the backbone of a society. We should ensure that we take care of their wellbeing regularly and listen to their issues. Every year, International Labour Day is observed to raise awareness about the struggles and the contributions of the workers and the working class to society. As we gear up to observe the special day, here are a few things that must be kept in mind.

Every year, May 1 is observed as International Labour Day.(Sameer Sehgal/HT Photo)Every year, May 1 is observed as International Labour Day.(Sameer Sehgal/HT Photo)

ALSO READ: International Labour Day 2020: Why we celebrate May Day

Date:

Every year, May 1 is observed as International Labour Day. This year, International Labour Day falls on Wednesday.

History:

In 1886, a large demonstration happened in America where the labourers demanded eight hours of work on a daily basis. However, soon the demonstration went out of hand and lot of people got hurt. This incident came to be known as The Haymarket Affair. This incident marked the start of the International Labour Day. In 1889, a lot of socialist parties in Europe came together and decided to celebrate May 1 as International Labour Day. Since then, the special day has been observed every year on the same day.

Significance:

International Labour Day helps us to recognise the contributions of the labourers and the working class in development of the society and the country. It also urges the labourers to learn about their rights. Labourers are often exploited, and it is important that they know their rights to protect themselves. It also urges people to come together to develop the working and living conditions of the workers.

Tapatrisha is Content Producer with Hindustan Times. She covers stories related to health, relationships, and fashion.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the traditional spring holiday, see May Day. For other labour-related holidays, see Labour Day (disambiguation).

International Workers' Day, also known as Labour Day in some countries[1] and often referred to as May Day,[2][3] is a celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labour movement and occurs every year on 1 May,[4][5] or the first Monday in May.

In 1889, the Marxist International Socialist Congress met in Paris and established the Second International as a successor to the earlier International Workingmen's Association. They adopted a resolution for a "great international demonstration" in support of working-class demands for the eight-hour day. The 1 May date was chosen by the American Federation of Labor to commemorate a general strike in the United States, which had begun on 1 May 1886 and culminated in the Haymarket affair four days later. The demonstration subsequently became a yearly event.[5] The 1904 Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the eight-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace".[6]

The 1st of May, or first Monday in May, is a national public holiday in many countries, in most cases as "International Workers' Day" or a similar name. Some countries celebrate a Labour Day on other dates significant to them, such as the United States and Canada, which celebrate Labor Day on the first Monday of September.[7] In 1955, the Catholic Church dedicated 1 May to "Saint Joseph the Worker". Saint Joseph is the patron saint of workers and craftsmen, among others.[8][9]

Origin[edit]

On 21 April 1856, Australian stonemasons in Victoria undertook a mass stoppage as part of the eight-hour workday movement.[10] It became a yearly commemoration, inspiring American workers to have their first stoppage.[11] 1 May was chosen to be International Workers' Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago.[12] In that year beginning on 1 May, there was a general strike for the eight-hour workday. On 4 May, the police acted to disperse a public assembly in support of the strike when an unidentified person threw a bomb. The police responded by firing on the workers. The event led to the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; sixty police officers were injured, as were one hundred and fifteen civilians.[13][14] Hundreds of labour leaders and sympathizers were later rounded-up and four were executed by hanging, after a trial that was seen as a miscarriage of justice.[15][nb 1] The following day on 5 May, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the state militia fired on a crowd of strikers killing seven, including a schoolboy and a man feeding chickens in his yard.[17]

In 1889, the first meeting of the Second International was held in Paris, following a proposal by Raymond Lavigne [fr] that called for international demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests.[5] On 1 May 1890, the call encouraged May Day demonstrations took place in the United States and most countries in Europe.[18] Demonstrations were also held in Chile and Peru.[18] May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International's second congress in 1891.[19][20] Subsequently, the May Day riots of 1894 occurred. The International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904 called on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace."[6] The congress made it "mandatory upon the proletarian organisations of all countries to stop work on 1 May, wherever it is possible without injury to the workers."[6]

In the United States and Canada, a September holiday, called Labor or Labour Day, was first proposed in the 1880s. In 1882, Matthew Maguire, a machinist, first proposed a Labor Day holiday on the first Monday of September[nb 2] while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union (CLU) of New York.[21] Others argue that it was first proposed by Peter J. McGuire of the American Federation of Labor in May 1882,[22] after witnessing the annual labour festival held in TorontoCanada.[23] In 1887, Oregon was the first state of the United States to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty US states officially celebrated Labor Day.[22] Thus by 1887 in North America, Labour Day was an established, official holiday but in September,[24] not on 1 May.

Today, the majority of countries around the world celebrate a workers' day on 1 May.

 

 


“ALL OUT FOR PALESTINE ON MAY DAY.”  AROC <info@araborganizing.org>    April 29, 2024.    
Wednesday, May 1st, 2024. 

This International Workers Day, as Israel’s genocide of Palestinians unfolds in Gaza, we rise to the call by Palestinian workers and the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions to demand an end to US complicity in Israel’s war against our homelands. We honor and uphold the radical legacy of  labor and an internationalist struggle for human dignity, solidarity, racial justice, social justice, and an end to war and exploitation across the world. 
 


Join us for three actions across the Bay Area this May Day 2024!

 

 

San Francisco for a May Day March and Rally
May 1st, 10am   24th Street BART Plaz
a

Fight for a San Francisco for its working-class residents! Collective power and resources for our working-class communities, not to big businesses, war, or the police! Solidarity with the people of Palestine, end the state-sponsored violence of Israel and the US! Click here to endorse or volunteer.

 

 

 

 

Join Oakland Sin Fronteras for a May Day March and Rally
May 1st, 2pm
Oakland Federal Building


For the first time since 2019 Oakland Sin Fronteras is back! 

 

International Workers’ Day has been a time to uplift the struggles, honor the sacrifices, and celebrate the triumphs of working people across the world. As we stand on Ohlone Indigenous land this May 1st, we march in celebration and in resistance with our families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers in our communities, and in solidarity with working people across all borders, to continue the historic struggle against economic and social inequity.

As the working class in Oakland, we march for a #FreePalestine 🇵🇸✊🏽

 

 

Oakland Port Shutdown
May 1st, 4pm Meet at West Oakland BART
For updates: text “Gaza” to (833) 6330604

Click here to endorse

This May Day, we rise to the call to action by workers of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions. Palestinian workers urge us "to stand in solidarity with our struggle and take decisive action to honour the countless martyrs lost and the families torn apart, and build pressure for a free Palestine." 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2024 Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you have expressed interest in AROC news and events.
Our mailing address is:

Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC)

522 Valencia Street    San Francisco, CA 94110

 

Move to Amend on May Day 2023.  Apr 29, 2023  Happy International Workers Day (AKA May Day)!   We stand in solidarity from the imperial core of the United States with the exploited nations (sometimes referred to as "third world" or "developing nations") and workers around the world. We know that wealth is stolen from workers and given to the elites, as well as from the exploited world to the imperial core. We are working from within this system on minimizing the ability for corporate greed to exploit our system. And how do we do that? With people power, of course!

The #WeThePeopleAmendment is more important than ever to workers and the labor movement. Join Move to Amend with your fellow workers today to pass the #WeThePeopleAmendment to end corporate constitutional rights once and for all!

You can also join our Labor Caucus, where we discuss how the intersections of the labor movement and corporate rule.

We stand in solidarity with those on strike including Coca Cola workersfrontline of COVID workers, including educators and healthcare workers, and congratulate Rutger's University staff for their recent strike!

Together, the workers of the world will win!

Thank you for helping us make the connections that will grow and strengthen the movement against corporate rule!

PS: Did you miss our May Day commemoration video about East Palestine? You can watch it here.  Solidarity forever!
Move to Amend
http://www.movetoamend.org/

 

Amazon shows us the many faces of worker alienation and resistance today.”  Editor.  Mronline.org (4-19-23). 

 Marxist Sociology Blog  on April 5, 2023 by Sarrah Kassem (more by Marxist Sociology Blog).(Posted Apr 18, 2023).

Human Rights, Imperialism, Inequality, LaborUnited StatesNewswire, ReviewAmazon, Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), Google, Meta, Uber

Once again we find ourselves in moments of economic crisis. As we battle through inflation and rounds of devaluation, thousands of workers around the world have lost their livelihoods. Yet amidst this all, we have seen workers across the globe go on strike and protest. A manifestation of these inequalities of our world today can be seen in the platform economy with transnational players like Amazon, Google and Meta. This also includes platforms which have become a contemporary embodiment of precarity: gig platforms like Uber and its Uber Eats or Amazon Mechanical Turk.   In my book, I take a closer look at the workers who power the platform economy behind the interfaces to investigate more closely the different ways by which platforms alienate workers and how workers claim their agency and collectively organize.  MORE click on title.  See: Sarrah Kassem. Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy: Amazon and the Power of Organization. Bristol UP, 2023.   Sarrah Kassem is Lecturer and Research Associate in Political Economy at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Tübingen. Her work focuses on workers in the platform economy and their different forms of labor organization.

 

END MAY DAY 2024 AND 2023

END MAY DAY 2025

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #229, MAY 5, 2025.

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OMNI CLIMATE  MEMO MONDAYS #229, MAY 5, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

Composting.
Preparing for Extreme Weather.
Trump v. Local Climate Laws.
Water Protection v. Mining.

 

Interested in Compost?  What to do with your kitchen waste?  How to have nutritious soil?  Worms?   Contact Ozark Compost and Swap. ozarkcompost.com  

 

“Extreme weather season is almost here. Make sureyou’re ready.”  Yale Climate Connection (4-30-25).

Temperatures are heating up, and hurricane season is around the corner. As the Trump administration cuts staff and budgets at departments like NOAA and FEMA, Americans risk being less able to prepare and respond to weather disasters than they were this time last year.

That makes it more important than ever to make sure you and your loved ones are aware of your risks and have emergency plans ready to go. Our extreme weather hub can help you get ready, and we’ve linked some of our explainers and guides in this email.

 

 

 

 

 Heat waves are the deadliest weather emergencies

·How to spot the symptoms of heat stroke and heat exhaustion

·How to stay cool in hot weather

·Common medications may increase the dangers of heat waves

 

PBS: "Water for Life" Monday, April 21, at 9 p.m.

Meet three Latin American community leaders who risked their lives to resist government and corporate plans to divert critical local water resources to mining and hydroelectric projects. Narrated by Diego Luna.  See CMM #228 on lithium mining.

 

“UN climate meeting sets stage for ocean conference in June:
The Road to Nice.”   Apr 24, 2025. 

A close up of a logo

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

World leaders at the United Nations’ first climate meeting since Trump’s re-election showed no sign of slowing down, despite the US’ recent rampage against climate action.  Secretary-General António Guterres reaffirmed the UN’s commitment to meeting the world’s climate goals yesterday.  “As we heard today, the world is moving forward. Full-speed ahead. No group or government can stop the clean energy revolution”, said Guterres.

 

  ENDOMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #229, MAY 5, 2025.  

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #228, MAY 7, 2025.

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OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #228, MAY 7, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

Three More Arkies against War and Warmakers.

Ann Wright, Bentonville, with the Gaza Flotilla Ship, Malta.

Malcolm Cleveland, Fayetteville, on Costs of War.

Bob Billig, Elkins, You-Tube, It’s a Police State.

 

Three Arkies Speak and ACT UP against War and Warmakers

From Bentonville AR’s International Peacemaker Offshore Malta

[VFP-all] ANN WRIGHT: “I Am In Malta With The Gaza Flotilla Ship ‘Conscience’ Bombed By Israel.”   Forwarded by Gerry Condon via uark.onmicrosoft.com     to gerrycondon@veteransforpeace.org  

https://popularresistance.org/i-am-in-malta-with-the-gaza-flotilla-ship-conscience-bombed-by-israel/

“As best that we can piece together what happened,, our ship “Conscience” which was anchored in international waters 13 nautical miles off Malta, an Israeli C-130 aircraft flying from Israel at 5,000 feet dropped two drones from its cargo bay. The crew of the “Conscience” heard two drones before two explosions blew a hole in the bow of the ship and severely damaged the ship.” 
[VFP-all] Veterans For Peace Condemns Israeli Drone Attack on Gaza Aid Ship.   Gerry Condon via uark.onmicrosoft.com         Sat, May 3, 2:37 PM (19 hours ago)   to gerrycondon@veteransforpeace.org  
Veterans For Peace joins in the international condemnation of Israel's outrageous drone attack on an unarmed ship attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinian men, women - and especially children - who are being deliberately starved by Israel, with active collusion by the U.S.    
We demand accountability for this attack on an aid ship in international waters.  
We demand that food, water, tents, fuel and all necessary aid be allowed to enter Gaza.  
We demand an end to US/Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.  
We will continue to protest and resist US weapons shipments to Israel, and all forms of US support for genocide.  
We will defend the Constitutionally protected right of freedom of speech and assembly.

https://www.laprogressive.com/foreign-policy/flotilla-coalition-ship?

Keep on Waging Peace!

Gerry Condon, Mobilization Committee, Board of Directors,  VETERANS FOR PEACE, 206-499-1220

 

COSTS OF WAR, Excerpt from Letter from Malcolm Cleaveland, 2020

The biggest mistake of this century was George W. Bush's Iraq adventure.  He lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and we are still paying the price for destabilizing the Middle East.  And will be paying in blood and treasure for decades to come.  I believe Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should be tried for treason.  Typical Republicans, Trump Republicans before Trump.   

If you want to get a glimpse of the cost of war aside from the many casualties, read The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict by Stiglitz and Bilmes for a conservative economic estimate of the costs.  Of course, that was published in 2008, so the human and monetary costs have escalated considerably.  Think what this country could have done with that 3 trillion dollars!  Our crumbling infrastructure could have been repaired, we could have high speed rail like Europe and China, and so on.  The cost of caring for those who have "borne the battle" alone is staggering.  Despite what you may hear from Trump (as if he, or any of the Republicans really care), the VA is doing a good job with limited resources. 

Malcolm K. Cleaveland, Ph.D.    LTC USAR (Ret.)
Professor Emeritus of Geosciences
University of Arkansas - Fayetteville


Bob Billig.  “It’s a Police State.”   Me on Youtube.
    May 6, 2025.         
https://youtube.com/shorts/WneU-E48nNo?si=I6ws5-rCAM88CEx-

Please pass it along

 

 

END OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #228, MAY 7, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #230, MAY 12, 2025.

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OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #230, MAY 12, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

Barry Sanders.  KillingMoby Dick: From Whale Oil to Fossil Fuel.
INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS.  “The Environment After Trump’s First 100 Days.”

 

Barry Sanders.  The Manifesto of Herman Melville. OR Books, 2025.
Moby Dick “demands a response beyond mere resistance. It aims for a change in people’s perception and beliefs, and demands that they stop capitulating to a society that in order to maximize profits  and power, must control and destroy. . . .For Melville, that means one thing only: All killing must stop” (p. 42).  [Moby Dick is usually listed among the greatest of US novels.]

INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS.  “The Environment After Trump’s First 100 Days” and other news.   “ICN Sunday Morning” <newsletters@insideclimatenews.org>    

A black text on a white background

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

 

Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Kiley Bense as they discuss the impact of Trump’s first 100 days on the environment.

 

 

A person and person sitting in front of a red button

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

 

 

 

Seven ICN reporters came together to produce a comprehensive analysis of the Trump administration’s orders, pronouncements and actions on climate that, environmentalists fear, may set the country back decades.   Kiley explains what it was like to knit together multiple dispatches from her colleagues who spoke with 16 different sources – including the White House.

 

Watch the video

 

Read the story


OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #229, MAY 14, 2025.

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OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #229, MAY 14, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

May 16. Nakba Remembrance, 5:30 Friday.

Caitlin Johnstone.  Resisting State Propaganda and Control.

MIPPCIMATTC. 

 

May 16th: Join Us for the Nakba Remembrance and Protest
Friendsofpalestinenwa
We invite you to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and join us on Friday, May 16th, from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM at Washington County Courthouse for a protest in remembrance of the Nakba.       On May 15th, 1948, Palestinian communities were violently displaced, marking the beginning of the mass destruction of their land and the ongoing trauma they have endured. This event, known as the Nakba, continues to resonate today as violence and displacement persist.   In solidarity,  Friends of Palestine NWA

 

Knowledge the Foundation for Individual Autonomy

How To Make Your Mind Harder For The Propagandists To Manipulate” by Caitlin Johnstone.   May 13, 2025. 

Here is the conclusion to Johnstone’s article on state control of information:

A person with grey hair

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. . .So one of the most important things you need to do to maintain a truth-based worldview is to take complete control over your own understanding of the importance of the pieces of information which come across your field of vision. You can’t rely on others to tell you how important they are, because all the most amplified and influential voices in our society are working to manipulate your understanding of their importance, and most ordinary people you’ll interact with are being manipulated by those voices to some extent. Public political discourse is overwhelmingly dominated by these distortions.   You’ve got to interpret the urgency and importance of information for yourself. By standing on your own two feet and looking at the raw data with fresh eyes before it gets jumbled around by the imperial spin machine, you make your mind much harder to bend to the will of the empire.  [Click on title for full article].

 

MIPPCIMATTC.  In his Farewell Address, Pres. Eisenhower warned the nation of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC).  (An earlier draft included Congress—the MICC.)   His warning was not heeded, and our militarized nation has widened and deepened.  Now MIPPCIMATT endangers us, the Military-Industrial-Plutocratic-Presidential-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academic Think Tank Complex!    --Dick

 

END  OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #229, MAY 14, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

OMNI TRUMP AUTHORITARIAN, TOTALITARIAN, AUTOCRACY, FASCISM, NAZISM ANTHOLOGY #3, May 16, 2025

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OMNI

TRUMP AUTHORITARIAN, TOTALITARIAN, AUTOCRACY, FASCISM, NAZISM ANTHOLOGY #3, May 16, 2025

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

Https://omnicenter.org/donate/

 

What’s at Stake:  For over a hundred years the people of the United States of America have struggled to realize the idea of democracy initiated by its revolution against the King of England.  It was a bare beginning:  blacks and women were excluded from the vote.  The Constitution has been amended 27 times.   “The Supreme Court typically decides around 80 cases each year, with a significant portion of those cases involving constitutional interpretation“ (google).     People who dislike learning and hate even the idea of democracy, hate the freedom and equality of the Declaration of Independence seek to befuddle the public by labelling lovers of knowledge and large awareness as “woke,” and seek to suppress them.  Diversity, equity (fairness), inclusiveness (DEI) are denigrated.  And some of our greatest institutions are staggering.   But countless people are defying the autocrats, the dictators, by exposing them, by affirming their commitment to the ideas of democracy, and by building resistance to those who would destroy them.

 

 

Books and Films Cited in Nos. 1-3:
Giroux.  The Terror of the Unforeseen.
Hett.  The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar   
    Republic.

Hitler.  Mein Kampf.

Levitsky and Ziblatt.  How Democracies Die.
McChesney and Nichols, People Get Ready.
Merlan.  Republic of Lies.
O’Shaughnessy.  The Führer.

Palast.  How Trump Stole 2020.

PBS. Rise of the Nazis.
Renton.  Fascism.

Ronson.  Elephant in the Room.

Rosenbaum.  Explaining Hitler.

Rosenblum and Muirhead.  A Lot of People Are Saying.

Sanders’ Our Revolution.

Sharp.  Books and articles on nonviolence.

Stanley.  How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.
Stone.  The Fascist Revolution in Italy.
Ulrich.  Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939.

Wolf, The End of America.

 

CONTENTS (37items in chronological order from 2007 to 2020)

Naomi Wolf.  The End of America.  A "fascist shift" accelerated by the Bush
   administration.
Robert W. McChesney, John Nichols.  People Get Ready.  Decay of representative  gov. caused particularly by bankers and billionaires.

Leslie Salzillo.  Ken Burns on Trump.

Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die.

Benz. Journalistic Defiance v. Normalizing Nazism.

PBS Documentary, Rise of the Nazis.  Destruction of the Weimar Republic, 1930-33.

Charles Blow.  Trump: The white racist, sexist, xenophobic patriarchy at the
  beginning of a soft, civil war.

Robert Weissman, Public Citizen.  “Fascism in America.”  Proud Boys, 
  MAGA Faithful.
Linda Farrell.  “Saving our Democracy.”  An informed public.
Ryan Devereaux .  Trump’s Demonizing from immigrants to leftists. 

Elie Mystal.   “Trump Steal the election? We're not prepared.

MSNBC (4 items):.
 False Accusation: “Christian TV Host Warns Rachel Maddow Will Lead Coup ....”
If Biden Wins, Will Trump Leave Office? (See Gessen below).
Mary Trump.  Her uncle must be defeated.
Laurence Tribe.   Trump must leave office

Amy Goodman.  Democracy Now.

Dick.  Trump’s Base—an Example?
Dick.  Trump’s Base Diverse, Grassroots Resistance.
Left Net.  Police State in Portland.
PHR: More on Portland.
Frontline:  Alex Jones, Trump, and Lying
Four Books:
Jon Ronson.  Elephant in the Room.

Ann Merlan.  Republic of Lies.
Nancy Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead.  A Lot of People Are Saying.

Marisa Mormile.  Sanders’ Our Revolution v. Trump.

Bernie Sanders.  “Portland.”

Masha Gessen.  “What Could Happen If Trump Rejects Election Defeat.”
Jonathan Greenberg.  “’Dictator Trump….’”

John Bellamy Foster (interviewed).  “The Storm of Protest in the U.S.”
Bob Brigham (reporting George Conway).  “Trump Is a Soulless Man with a Broken Mind.”
Dick, Letter to Rep. Tlaib Demanding Trump’s Resignation.

Bill McKibben.  Remembering Gene Sharp and Call for Civil Disobedience.

Van Gosse.  Warning: US Becoming an Authoritarian State.

Greg Palast.  How Trump Stole 2020.  [If not right then, he is now.  –D]

 

 

 

TEXTS From Hitler to Trump  2020

 

 

2007 - 2019

Naomi Wolf.  The End of America.  Chelsea Green, 2007. 
Reviews and Praise

Library Journal (starred review)-
This latest offering from best-selling author Wolf, The Beauty Myth, is a harbinger of an age that may finally see the patriarchal realm of political discourse usurped. Here is Wolf's compellingly and cogently argued political argument for civil rights, not women's rights. She contributes this call to action to a canon that from Plato and Aristotle to Hobbes and Locke and forward, with a few exceptions (e.g., Hannah Arendt), has been largely populated by men. Wolf's work is actually closer to the agitated, passionate polemics of Emma Goldman than the ponderous, philosophical musings of Arendt. Readers will appreciate her energy and urgency as she warns we are living through a dangerous "fascist shift" brought about by the Bush administration. Her chapters outline the "Ten Steps to Fascism" citing historical corollaries (as well as the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm), with headings like "Invoke an External and Internal Threat,""Establish Secret Prisons," and "Target Key Individuals." In other words, fascism can exist without dictatorship. Her book's publication through a small press in Vermont that is committed to "the politics and practice of sustainable living" rather than through a large trade house is itself a political act. Highly recommended for all collections.  
More Reviews and Praise

 

Robert W. McChesney, John Nichols.  PEOPLE GET READY.    2013.

Post WWII struggle for equity and democracy defeated by stronger drive for Cold War, corporate profits, inequity, and authoritarianism/autocracy.      https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-w-mcchesney/people-get-ready/ 2013. [My emphases in bold.]

An energetic if grim discussion of inequality and the coming era of underemployment, viewed through the lens of the forgotten American progressive narrative.McChesney (Communications/Univ. of Illinois; Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy, 2013, etc.) and Nation Washington, D.C., correspondent Nichols bring clear urgency to this sprawling polemic, which encompasses politics, the cybereconomy, the decline of critical journalism, and historical movements beginning with America’s founding. They describe the post-2008 recession era as a “maelstrom” of inequity, pointing toward worse times in the labor market: “the debate about where technological change is headed is already settled in the circles of those who intend to profit from that change.” This pessimism is linked to what the authors convincingly portray as the decay of representative governance. Both parties, they argue, have pursued tax and trade policies that have stealthily undermined blue-collar jobs and middle-class stability. “This is the means,” they write, “by which unelected bankers and billionaires most effectively and steadily define the popular discourse.” Such dire chapters contrast with a vividly rendered history of the development of a now-tattered “democratic infrastructure,” beginning with the state constitutional conventions of the late 18th century, more populist than what ultimately became the U.S. Constitution. The authors follow this thread through the Progressive Era and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, portrayed as the precursor to an ambitious “Second Bill of Rights,” forgotten at the dawn of the Cold War. Similarly, a fascinating chapter documents a forgotten progressive coalition poised to achieve great gains during the 1970s, only to be thwarted by the recession and a cunning pro-business lobby:“There was a tenfold increase in corporate federal lobbying by the 1980s.”  [Fighting Back for Economic Justice]   McChesney and Nichols conclude with a lengthy proposition for how the ranks of the underemployed could similarly regroup to protect workers’ interests. “Economic planning needs to be democratized and popularized and made accountable,” they write.  An authoritative account of the challenges facing progressives wishing to fuse better governance with economic justice.   [Despite the advances of anti-democratic forces, Nichols continues his inspiritng advocacy of the Idea of Democracy.  –D]

Leslie Salzillo.  Documentarian Ken Burns warned Trump's rise would be 'Hitler-esque'—here's what else he predicted.”  Sunday February 16, 2020 .· 

“...He (Trump) represents the greatest threat to American democracy since the Second World War. He is so fundamentally un-American...” — Ken Burns on Donald Trump, 2016 Variety Interview

The above quote is by award-winning filmmaker and documentarian Ken Burns. Millions have enjoyed his many acclaimed films on PBS. Some of those documentaries include The Civil War, The Central Park Five, The Roosevelts, The Vietnam War. . . .. To date, Burns, 66, has made over 30 historical films/documentaries. 

In a Variety interview in 2016, Ken Burns discussed a work-in-progress called, “Defying the Nazis.” During the discussion, Burns was asked by Variety writer Brett Lang why he had become so outspoken about Donald Trump, who had not yet been elected president. Here are some excerpts from that interview with foreboding accuracy by Burns as to what would happen if Trump took office. . . .

I refer you to Michiko Kakutani’s review of the Hitler biography two weeks ago in the Times, in which she didn’t mention the contemporary situation, she just put the bullet points of Hitler’s rise and every single one of them was exactly what Trump has done. . . .

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/16/1919687/-Documentarian-Ken-Burns-warned-Trump-s-rise-would-be-Hitler-esque-here-s-what-else-he-predicted?detail=emaildkre

 

2018

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt.  Penguin Random House, 2018.

How Democracies Die is about how elected leaders gradually subvert the democratic process to increase their power.   Here is the publisher’s description:  https://penguinrandomhousesecondaryeducation.com/book/?isbn=9781524762940

 

2019

Dorothee Benz.     “Nazi-normalizing barf journalism: A brief history.”  Mronline.org (11-8-2019).   Originally publishedFAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting)  on November 1, 2019 (more by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting).    Fascism, Imperialism, Media, StrategyUnited StatesCommentaryFeatured

The article was met with howls of protest across Twitter, but among the many apt responses, Bess Kalb’s description (11/25/17) captured my heart and gave me the single most useful phrase of the Trump era: “Nazi-normalizing barf journalism.”   Source  

The historian concludes by recalling the final months of the Munich Post — before it was shut down by Hitler.   “The era of normalization had begun everywhere else, but the Munich Post resisted,” he writes. “Soon their office was closed. Some of the journalists ended up in Dachau, some ‘disappeared.’ But they’d won a victory for truth. A victory over normalization.”

They never stopped fighting the lies, big and small, and left a record of defiance that was heroic and inspirational,” Rosenbaum states. “They discovered the truth about ‘endlösung’ [the Nazi plan for the extermination of the Jews] before most could have even imagined it. The truth is always worth knowing. Support your local journalist.”

 

PBS’ DOC. ON “ RISE OF THE NAZIS.”  A series of four, beginning in 2019. (Members of AR PBS can see this via Passport).   “RISE OF THE NAZIS,” Segment #2, “THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF POWER.”  From Dick’s notes:
The mode is docudrama, actors portraying historical characters by voice-over. 

     Final destruction of the Weimar Republic in 1933 took 6 months, Göring and Himmler doing most of the merciless, vicious work:  With Sovietphobia fanatical and widespread, the takeover of the Reichstag and of the elected Parties moved quickly.  The Reichstag building was burned, and the Communist Party was blamed, 5000 of whom were imprisoned in two weeks mainly at Dachau, and many tortured and murdered.

          Hitler forced President Hindenberg to declare martial law. 

          The courts permitted civil liberties to be abolished for “security.”

          Himmler’s SS paramilitary anti-democratic, anti-Semitic storm troops took control of the provinces and cities.

          As in segment #1, one heroic resister to the smashing of the Republic is highlighted: Bavarian state prosecutor Hartinger, who gathered evidence of murders of Jews at Dachau, which his boss dismissed and filed away, until the file was discovered by US troops at war’s end and used at the Nuremberg trials.

     As with Segment #1 last week, I think parallels with Trump are suggested, but significant differences too.  For example, Hitler and his 2nd and 3rd in power—Göring and Himmler—employed power violently and ruthlessly to destroy Germany’s democracy, whereas almost half of the US electorate in 2020 voted for Trump.  (If you see any errors in my thumbnail notes from the film, please let me know.  Dick)

REPLIES

…the people who should be watching that movie won’t.  This is what is so scary about our country right now.  The ignorance is pervasive and frightening. 

 

 

2020
The white, racist, sexist, xenophobic patriarchy at the beginning of a soft, civil war.
Charles Blow.  “Trump’s Army of Angry White Men.” NY Times, Oct 25 2020 . 
This group will continue to fight for Trump and he knows that.   [Forwarded to me by Bob Billig.]    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/opinion/trump-white-men-election.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

This election will test the country’s core.  Who are we? How did we come to this? How did this country elect Donald Trump and does it have the collective constitution to admit the error and reverse it?
At the moment, Joe Biden is leading in the polls, but the fact that Trump is even close — and still has a chance, however slim, to be re-elected — is for a person like me, a Black man, astounding. I assume that there are many women, Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans and people from Haiti and African nations he disparaged who feel the same way.

Trump is the president of the United States because a majority of white people in this country wanted him to be. Perhaps some supported him despite his obvious flaws, but others undoubtedly saw those flaws as laudable attributes. For the latter, Trump’s racism was welcome in the coven.  Still, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll, more white people support Trump than Biden. This is primarily a function of white men who prefer Trump over Biden 57 percent to 36 percent. Most white women support Biden, which is a reversal from the last election, when a plurality voted for Trump.

The white racist, sexist, xenophobic patriarchy and all those who benefit from or aspire to it are in a battle with the rest of us, for not only the present in this country but also the future of it.

The Republican Party, which is now without question the Party of Trump, has become a structural reflection of him. They see their majorities slipping and the country turning brown with a quickness, and they are becoming more tribal, more rash, more devious, just like him.

Like Trump, the Republican Party sees a future in which the only way they can win is to cheat. That is why they are stacking the courts. That is why they openly embrace tactics that are well known to result in voter suppression. That is why they gerrymander. That is why they staunchly oppose immigration.

Trump’s base of mostly white men, mostly without a college degree, see him as the ambassador of their anger, one who ministers to their fear, consoles their losses and champions their victimhood. Trump is the angry white man leading the battle charge for angry white men. . . .  MORE

 

Robert Weissman, Public Citizen.  “Fascism in America.”  10-11-20[Note the date!].https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gifhttps://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif    

Things are happening in our country that most of us have, at least until now, considered the stuff of foreign dictatorships.   Please take a minute to read through my previous note, copied below in case you missed it. 
And then add your name in support of Governor Whitmer and in condemnation of the domestic terrorists who were plotting to kidnap her.

Thank you. - Robert

On Thursday, 13 “militia” members were arrested for plotting to kidnap and possibly execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.   It would, unquestionably, have been one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in our lifetimes.   But — after four years of Donald Trump and nine months of the coronavirus — even something this monstrous doesn’t quite seem to be generating the outrage it should.   Fascism is gaining ground in America, right before our eyes.  Governor Whitmer has an 
op-ed in The Washington Post that is worth reading.   
Here’s a little bit of what she says:

When I addressed the people of Michigan on Thursday to comment on the unprecedented terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges against 13 men, some of whom were preparing to kidnap and possibly kill me, I said, “Hatred, bigotry and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan.” I meant it. But just moments later, President Trump’s campaign adviser, Jason Miller, appeared on national television accusing me of fostering hatred.

When our leaders encourage domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions. When they stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit. And when a sitting president stands on a national stage refusing to condemn white supremacists and hate groups, as President Trump did when he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during the first presidential debate, he is complicit. Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke, but as a rallying cry. As a call to action.


Things are happening in our country — with outright encouragement from Donald Trump and his MAGA faithful, including many other politicians and government officials — that most of us have, at least until now, considered the stuff of foreign dictatorships. . . .
- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
P.S. Public Citizen — like many nonprofits and small businesses — is feeling the financial strain of the coronavirus emergency. If you can, 
please make an emergency donation to support the critical work we’re doing together or even join our popular Monthly Giving program. Thank you.    Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009

 

2016 to 2020, External to Internal Threats
Ryan Devereaux . 
Trump’s turn from immigration to the enemy within.”  The Intercept (October 13, 2020).     Mronline.org (1-8-20)

 

Trump’s shift from demonizing immigrants to targeting leftists is straight out of the fascist playbook.  | more…

 Originally published: The Intercept  on October 13, 2020 by Ryan Devereaux (more by The Intercept)  |  (Posted Oct 07, 2020).  Fascism, Immigration, Inequality, State RepressionUnited StatesNewswire

LISTENING TO Donald Trump describe the U.S. in 2016 was to hear a story of a nation in peril of losing its identity to waves of brown-skinned invaders. Immigration and the border, particularly the urgent need to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, dominated Trump’s campaign rhetoric. . . .  So it may have come as a surprise to some that immigration hardly came up at all in the first presidential debate of 2020. . . .Without question, the anti-immigrant machinery marches on. In July, the Migration Policy Institute catalogued more than 400 executive actions the administration has taken on immigration since Trump’s inauguration. . . . But with those efforts simultaneously in motion, the Trump administration has increasingly and prominently centered purported threats posed by leftists, anarchists, and anti-fascists in its bid to hold onto power. This widening of the threat aperture is straight out of the authoritarian playbook, said Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University and author ofHow Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. . . . MORE

T v. US Electoral Democracy
“We Still Aren’t Prepared for the Fact That Trump May Steal the Election”
By Elie Mystal, The Nation, Sept. 30, 2020.  As the threat grows, the question becomes, what will we do to resist? Forwarded by Bob Billig Oct. 3.  
. . .People who have been paying attention understand that we’re losing. They get that the elevation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is functionally unstoppable. They understand that Donald Trump has an infrastructure in place to suppress the vote in the upcoming election—or get his handpicked justices to hand him the election, or have Electoral College voters steal the election, or even use military force to keep himself in power after losing the election. They know the document leak that shows that Trump has been avoiding paying taxes, or outright defrauding the American government, will cost him no tangible support among his base.   Everybody honest knows that last night’s debate didn’t matter to most voters. Trump’s ignorance and incompetence have contributed to over 206,000 American deaths; if you’re still willing to vote for Trump, there’s nothing he can say in a two-hour “debate” that’s going to change your mind.

What’s harder for people to wrap their minds around is the fact that we’ve already lost. . . .

 

Democracy Now! Daily Digest

A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González.  democracynow.org Friday, September 25, 2020

"The Election That Could Break America": Inside How Trump & GOP Could Steal the Vote

As President Trump refuses to commit to accepting the results of the upcoming election, we speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman, whose latest ... Read More →

Bernie Sanders on How to Block Trump from Stealing Election & Preserve American Democracy

In an address to the country, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has issued a stark warning about the threat posed by President Trump's refusal to commit to a ... Read More 
[Google Barton Gellman on Trump for his many analyses.  –Dick]

 

Trump’s “base” 10-14-20 in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.

How typical is this example?:

      I was checking out my groceries at Harp’s when the man behind me slapped down a magazine with Trump on the cover, declaring “that’s a MAN.!”

      I turned to him and asked what first came to mind: why did he think that.

      Instead of replying to me he turned around to the couple behind him and asked: did you know Pres. Trump had given XX million dollars to ??? (I didn’t have my note pad in hand).

      The cashier tallied my bill, and I departed. 

       The incident suggested to me that some of his middling base:

1) were drastically ignorant regarding the role of the Pres. and of Donald Trump

2) needed a hero no matter how anti-social, even sociopathic

3) confused individual acts of charity with adequate responses to urgent global problems

4) caved when confronted.

        The incident also reminded me of Hillary’s ridicule of his base in 2016: the deplorable.  She overstated, if my one example can be generalized.  This man at this instant seems now regrettable, maybe wretched, but not “very bad.”  Look up the synonyms for “bad” in your thesaurus.   I anticipate some of my friends will find him more pitiable than execrable, in that one quick behavior.  He was certainly not a Hitlerian Brown Shirt beating up Jews and smashing their windows.  That is, he can be talked with.

    And these reflections lead me to urge us all to be teachers always and speak up to people like the man at the checkout.  That’s a type of grassroots resistance!

      I’d like to read a good book on Trump’s—and Hitler’s (and Mussolini’s, Duterte’s, Gen. Montt’s, the Greek colonels’, Gen. Pinochet’s) -- base.

    Dick

 

 

Rachel Maddow Show.  “Trump’s refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power....”   Asked what he'd do if he loses, Trump hedges, despite earlier ...    www.msnbc.com › rachel-maddow-show › asked-what-...

Jul 20, 2020 - If he refused to honor the election results, it had no practical significance: the peaceful transition of power would continue whether the defeated ...

 

Mary Trump Says 'Crushing Defeat' of Her Uncle Needed to ...

www.commondreams.org › news › Jul 17, 2020 - As Maddow noted, a number of political observers have expressed fears that Trump will refuse to leave the White House even if Biden wins the ...

 

MSNBC - Laurence Tribe on Pres. Trump not leaving office if ...

www.facebook.com › msnbc › videos › laurence-tribe-...

Jul 31, 2020 - Laurence Tribe says there's a “fail safe” built into the U.S. Constitution if Pres. Trump loses the election and refuses to leave office: “On Jan. 20,.

 

PORTLAND REPRESSION AS WATERSHED
Portland” by Bernie Sanders 7-23-20  
Dick -
We are in a very dangerous moment in American history.

Last month, as you’ll recall, Trump had peaceful protestors outside of the White House in Washington, D.C. viciously attacked by federal agents who wore no identification.   As we speak, in Portland, Oregon, federal agents in combat gear and unmarked vehicles are pulling protesters off the streets and jailing them without charges, despite opposition from local and state officials.  What Trump and his allies are now doing is "normalizing" the use of federal troops to patrol and make arrests of American citizens in communities throughout the country. Today it is Portland, Oregon. Tomorrow, Trump is suggesting it could be New York City, Chicago or Philadelphia. Next, your hometown.

This is what a police state is all about.

Make no mistake about it: Donald Trump does not believe in democracy, our Constitution or the rule of law.He is working aggressively to suppress the vote and, in the midst of this terrible pandemic, is vigorously opposing the right of citizens to vote by mail. He has ignored decisions of Congress, which is why he was impeached. He has contempt for a free press and has called the media “an enemy of the people.” He has used his office for blatant personal and political gain, running the most corrupt administration in modern American history. He has ruptured our relationships with long-time democratic allies around the world while he embraces right-wing authoritarian leaders in Russia, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, the Philippines and elsewhere.    Yes. We must all come together to defeat Trump in November, but we must also act right NOW to stop the movement toward authoritarianism and a police state.  That is why I am introducing legislation with Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon which would greatly curtail the activities of federal military forces in our communities. This bill would limit their ability to conduct crowd control to properties immediately surrounding federal buildings without the invitation of the Governor and Mayor, require federal agents to wear visible IDs, and ban them from making arrests or detentions in unmarked vehicles. . . .    In solidarity,   Bernie Sanders

 

“Demand Chad Wolf’s  Resignation.”    [This entry is out of date re our action, but it reminds us of early warnings.] ]LeftNet team@leftnet.org via email.actionnetwork.org 8-1-20Jul 31, 2020, Dick,What happened in Portland is unacceptable. Federal agents without identification in unmarked cars were grabbing protestors off the street for what was effectively interrogation. Make no mistake: That is a fear tactic.  Trump’s claim was that deploying these troops was to protect federal property. But local leaders in Portland have repeatedly reported that these federal agents were operating far outside the bounds of their deployment.   Finally, after a massive national outcry, these federal agents left Portland. But we can’t forget that the head of DHS allowed this to happen – and it could happen again.

That’s why we’re calling for the Acting Director of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, to resign. He’s overseen an operation that borders on authoritarianism. Sign your name to take action:

Sign your name

 

Physicians for Human Rights.  Portland Human Rights Abuses.

From: Donna McKay, Executive Director, Physicians for Human Rights 

I’m on the ground in Portland, Oregon, where I’ve spent the last week working with PHR’s team of experts and local health professionals to document the aggressive tactics and use of dangerous crowd-control weapons against protesters by local police officers and federal agents. 

In short: I’m appalled by what I’ve seen. Demonstrators and medics alike are being subjected to human right abuses with serious health consequences as they exercise their fundamental rights to freedom of assembly and speech. 

What we’re seeing in Portland should alarm you, especially as it doesn’t end here. We are gravely concerned about the likelihood of similar abuses occurring in Chicago and Oakland. 

As a doctor, an American, and Physician for Human Rights’ (PHR) medical director ‒ I’m appalled by what I’m seeing here in Portland, Oregon this week. 

For more than two decades, I’ve traveled the world for PHR to document horrific human rights abuses perpetrated by governments against their own citizens. Today, I write not from a conflict zone thousands of miles away, but from Portland, Oregon, where local police officers and federal agents have been hammering protesters – and medics trying to help the wounded – with sustained and shocking levels of violence. Broken bones. Blunt force trauma to the face. Traumatic brain injuries. 

Government agents bloodying protesters in the streets of our cities is unacceptable, not in the United States, not anywhere. 

We can’t sit by while these human rights abuses are perpetrated against demonstrators exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of assembly and speech. 

As you read this, a team of PHR experts and local health professionals are on the ground in Portland, using the unassailable methods of forensic medicine and scientific investigation to help local medics, volunteers, and advocates document the aggressive tactics of federal officers against protestors, including excessive use of force and the dangerous misuse of crowd-control weapons. 

We will expose the truth about these crimes, and make sure that those who commit them are held accountable 

The militarized federal forces in Portland are wielding batons and pounding protesters and volunteer medics alike with tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and flash-bangs – dangerous weapons that have already caused widespread injuries. 

The past few months have devastated countries all over the world – and the United States has been particularly hard hit. From a complete lack of U.S. federal leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, to record-breaking coronavirus deaths in the United States, to increased and unregulated force rained down on people protesting against racism and police violence, we are living in unprecedented times. 

But even in this time of uncertainty, you can depend on one thing: PHR will be there, documenting crimes, supporting survivors, and advocating for a more just world. 

We cannot do this work without you. Please, make a gift today at 

https://secure.phr.org/secure/support-PHRs-investigation-into-excessive-force?af=7LGCSJWhd%2BNKJ4mkYFoBg1NwH7ycf5RkxMFEB0%2Bwv%2Bw0GDKPGqC0fWtt8ulHFEQLuMB3Zkb9AqLrIJLCF4AOBt7lbe%2Fy3llQ2XlRXkmqArU%3D&gs=jZ1O38xx%2F%2F22m1MdoEyqQ7soga8Ho4Md%2BbGGBRA8ygLG8Sp3FSI5KaZOUXxUsArM&CID=701f4000001EbjfAAC&ms=FY21_RapidResponse_Email5-rs_RestOfFile&utm_medium=email&utm_source=RestOfFile&utm_content=Email_5-rs&utm_term=07302020&utm_campaign=FY21_RapidResponse&dm_i=4GV7,BG70,5BC8WO,16W8D,1 

 From: Daily Kos 

150,000 Americans dead, 30 million unemployed, federal agents terrorizing major cities, and no end in sight. Donald Trump is incapable of meeting the challenges of the day—indeed, he is responsible for creating or making worse many of the crises we face today. But he is not alone in that.

Senate Republicans are as much to blame for the dark days we find ourselves in as Trump is. They knew Trump was a wannabe dictator who abused his power and tried to cover it up—yet they voted to acquit him in their sham impeachment trial anyway. Now, he’s ordering federal stormtroopers onto American streets. 

 

 FRONTLINE.   uNITED sTATES OF CONSPIRACY.”

7-20-20    [I viewed it on arpbs 7-29-20.  –D]

https://www.pbs.org/video/united-states-of-conspiracy-1phat1/exami

Mainly about Alex Jones’ endless conspiracy of lies and subversion of facts and reality to create chaos, and gain power and money (or he was a pathological liar), concluding with his influence on Trump.  

Connecting with Hitler’s lying July 2020: The first two chapters of Benjamin Hett’s book on Hitlersuggest Trump, the Republicans, and the possible downfall of our own republic.  In these opening pages, although he doesn’t allude to the rise of our Republican far right during the past 40 years, culminating in Trump, the many parallels with the Nazis seem clear, including Hitler’s desire to make Germany great again and his endless lies and subversion of reality.  (My letter to Hett asking if he had written on Hitler and Trump was not answered.)   Also, unfortunately,  Hett’s Index fails to include one of his  major topics in Hitler’s quest for totalitarian control--lying; see pp. 38-9 and passim.   Fellow graduates or instructors of UAF:  From its inauguration and its motto, the UAF has taught the importance of truth-telling:  - VERITATE DUCE PROGREDI:TO ADVANCE WITH TRUTH AS OUR LEADER.    --Dick

                                  
Inside the Trump Campaign
The Elephant in the Room
by Jon Ronson.  Kindle Ed. 57pp.  Goodreadswww.goodreads.com ›
In The Elephant in the RoomJon Ronson, the New York Times-Bestselling author ... Books To Explain Trump, European Politics, And The World In Late

In The Elephant in the Room, Jon Ronson, the New York Times-Bestselling author of The Psychopath TestThem, and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, travels to Cleveland at the height of summer to witness the Republican National Convention. Along the way, he reunites with an old acquaintance—the influential provocateur and conspiracy talk-show host Alex Jones—who draws him, unexpectedly, into one of the most bizarre presidential campaigns in American history.
From the private Winnebago where conspiracy theorists and fearmongers discuss key campaign decisions, to a chance encounter with notorious political operative Roger Stone, Ronson’s picaresque journey into Donald Trump’s atmosphere introduces us to the people who orbit the campaign machine, and discovers what makes them tick—and what ticks them off. Whimsical, hilarious and often downright terrifying, The Elephant in the Room captures a defining moment in our time as only Jon Ronson could see it.

 

4 Books on Lies and Conspiracies

Anna Merlan.  Republic of Lies.  Macmillan, 2019.

us.macmillan.com › books   A riveting tour through the landscape and meaning of modern conspiracy theories, exploring the causes and tenacity of this American malady, from Birthers to ...
“Anna Merlan's Republic of Lies Explores Society's Fixation with Conspiracy Theories.”   ...www.npr.org › 2019/04/20 › republic-of-lies-explores-th...
Apr 20, 2019 - Anna Merlan, a journalist at Gizmodo Media Group, explores our contemporary fixation with conspiracy theories of all political stripes in Republic ...


Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum.   A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy.  Princeton UP, 2019.

press.princeton.edu › books › hardcover › a-lot-of-peo...

Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has ...
Book Review: A Lot of People Are Saying: The New ...blogs.lse.ac.uk › lsereviewofbooks › 2019/06/13 › boo...
Jun 13, 2019.

 

Marisa Mormile. “Less than 100 days to Stop the Rise of an American Dictator.”   <info@ourrevolution.com> 7-30-20
President Trump’s racist and fascistic behavior is getting worse every day.
If we don’t stop him in less than 100 days, we could be facing an unthinkable future of sustained economic depression, secret police flooding our streets, and tens of millions more Americans losing health care.  
That’s why Our Revolution groups around the country are going all-out to stop Trump and his Republican enablers up and down the ballot by investing in progressive candidates who will fight to get big money out of politics, guarantee health care as a human right, and more. 
Rush a donation now, before our end-of-month deadline, to help us close our budget gap so that we can invest in beating Donald Trump and uplifting progressive champions to elected office from coast to coast!
Marisa Mormile,  Director of Operations, Our Revolution
[Bernie’s 2016 campaign book of 450pp., entitled Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, sets forth an expansion of the Democrats’ 1930s New Deal.  If Bernie had been nominated and his “Agenda for a New America” had been campaigned for, he would have been elected president and the Republican Project 2025 would have been prevented.  Possibly not, because unfortunately, Our Revolution does not include a chapter on US imperial aggressions nor the Israeli/US genocide against the Palestinians.   –Dick]

 

Masha Gessen.  “What Could Happen If Donald Trump Rejects Electoral Defeat?”   The NewYorker (July 21, 2020).

"...taking the President at his word. “While his defeat is far from certain...what is not uncertain is how Donald Trump would react to electoral defeat, especially a narrow one. He will reject the result.”  

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-could-happen-if-donald-trump-rejects-electoral-defeat#intcid=recommendations_the-new-yorker-homepage_04a16f0a-0461-4262-963e-8738bd7b62c2_popular4-1     Forwarded by Bob Billig July 23, 2020. 

 

Trump’s 12 Fascist Features
Jonathan Greenberg.  "’Dictator Trump’ is no idle fantasy. 

The Washington Post, July 10, 2020.   

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/fascist-dictatorship-trump-second-term/2020/07/10/63fdd938-c166-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html

Jonathan Greenberg is an investigative financial and legal journalist .

People have debated whether Donald Trump is fascist since he announced he was running for president. In 2015, Jamelle Bouie wrote in   that Trump, in his campaign speeches and Twitter utterances, exhibited seven of the 14 characteristics identified by the Italian novelist Umberto Eco in his defining essay “Ur-Fascism.” In 2016, the Georgetown professor John McNeill assessed Trump’s fascist tendencies on a scale of zero to four “Benitos,” after the father of fascism, Benito Mussolini. As an amateur, Trump fell short.

That was then. What about now? And, more important, what about the Trump of a potential second term in the White House?

On June 1, as demonstrators gathered and marched in Washington and around the country to protest the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, President Trump, in a brief speech in the White House Rose Garden, called for states to use the National Guard to “dominate the streets” and promised that if they didn’t, “I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.” Federal forces then used tear gas and stun grenades on peaceful protesters to clear a path for him to walk from the White House to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op with a Bible as prop.

“The fascist speech Donald Trump just delivered verged on a declaration of war against American citizens,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) tweeted. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) — noting in an opinion column three days later that the president’s “attempt to use chaos to shred democratic safeguards and consolidate authoritarian power is deadly serious” — put it this way: “This is our own Reichstag fire and, yes, Trump is playing the role of would-be Fuehrer, proclaiming a ‘God-given signal’ to seize more power.”

I first reported on Trump in 1982, when he conned me into putting him on the Forbes 400 rich list. That Trump was just a younger version of this Trump, and now I worry that what happened in June was a mere prelude; he’s certainly capable of a far worse Reichstag-fire-like event that would allow him to steal the 2020 election. And if he does win a second term, legitimately or not, his words and actions of the past four years provide 12 indicators that he would seek to replace our democracy with a fascist dictatorship.

1. Trump uses military power and federal law enforcement to suppress peaceful political protest. In June, he deployed the National Guard and federal officers to violently evict protesters in Washington, terrorizing them with two military helicopters flying low near the crowd. Trump also had 1,600 members of the 82nd Airborne on standby outside the capital and readied tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. It’s reported that he wanted to deploy 10,000 troops to Washington alone. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took this so seriously that he got into a shouting match with the president over the prospect of deploying active-duty troops on U.S. soil.

2. Trump persistently lies about voter fraud, setting the stage for him to use emergency powers to seize control of the election or challenge the results if he loses. During a recent special election in California, for example, after a Republican mayor requested the opening of an additional polling station, Trump tweeted falsely that the Democrats “have just opened a voting booth in the most Democrat area in the State. They are trying to steal another election. It’s all rigged out there. These votes must not count. SCAM!” Trump has repeatedly tweeted that mail-in voting will lead to fraudulent and rigged elections. After winning the 2016 presidential election while losing the popular vote, he claimed a landslide victory and said that Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote was due to “millions of people who voted illegally.”

3. Trump has repeatedly suggested that he might remain in office after a second term and has offered reason to doubt he’d leave peacefully after this first term. “Under the normal rules, I’ll be out in 2024, so we may have to go for an extra term,” he said at a rally last September. A year earlier, he remarked, “President for life . . . maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” It’s a joke he’s tossed off on several occasions, and the power of suggestion is so strong in Trump and his followers that Joe BidenNancy Pelosi and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen have all expressed serious concern that Trump may try to steal the election or contest the results, and not leave the White House if he loses.

4. Trump appears to believe he has the power to outlaw speech critical of him, and he calls the free press “the enemy of the people.” He tweeted of the New York Times and The Washington Post: “They are both a disgrace to our Country, the Enemy of the People.” Former national security adviser John Bolton, in his new book, claims that Trump said of journalists: “These people should be executed. They are scumbags.”

5. With Fox News promoting Trump’s lies as truth, the president controls one of the most powerful propaganda machines ever created. During the impeachment trial, for example, Fox hosts repeatedly attacked the character and mental faculties of Democratic representatives and sworn witnesses, while focusing almost exclusively on the testimony of pro-Trump Republicans. When it did show footage of Democrats and witnesses, the network frequently used voice-overs to explain or interpret what was being said, rather than broadcasting what was actually being said.

6. Trump believes that he has the power to do what he wants, regardless of Congress or the courts. “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” he has said. He has also claimed to have the “absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department” and, in the event the judiciary branch disagreed, “the absolute right to PARDON myself.” His attorney general, William Barr, and his own lawyers have made clear that this is the administration’s position as they have rejected both congressional and criminal subpoenas for information during the past few years. Their arguments — including an assertion to a federal appellate court last October that the president could shoot someone in the middle of New York’s Fifth Avenue and still be immune from prosecution until he left office — came crashing down with a Supreme Court decision Thursday. “We cannot conclude that absolute immunity is necessary or appropriate under Article II or the Supremacy Clause,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

7. Trump acts as if he owns our government and can fire any official who defends the law. He has dismissed an FBI director and a deputy FBI director, as well as five inspectors general and U.S. attorneys, all of whom were investigating or considering either his abuse of power or the alleged crimes of his cronies. This past week, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as a national security aide at the White House until earlier this year and was up for a promotion, resigned from the military, citing “bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” after he testified under oath to Congress counter to Trump’s interests.

8. Trump uses federal prosecutorial powers to investigate his opponents and anyone who dares scrutinize him or his allies for the many crimes they may have committed. After the Mueller investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 election, Trump’s Justice Department began a criminal probe into the origins of the inquiry — to, in Trump’s words, “investigate the investigators.” He tried to get the Justice Department to prosecute former FBI director James Comey and Hillary Clinton.

9. Trump viciously attacks his critics and has publicly implied that the Ukraine whistleblower should be hanged for treason. During a speech to diplomatic staffers in New York last September, Trump said: “I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

10. Trump has messianic delusions that are supported with religious fervor by millions of his supporters. He has “jokingly” looked up to the sky and said, “I am the chosen one” in relation to negotiations with China. Then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry echoed other evangelicals who’ve said that Trump was sent by God to do great things when he seriously proclaimed that Trump is the “chosen one.” A Guardian report described the evangelical response to Trump’s photo op in front of Lafayette Square’s St. John’s Episcopal Church, which many viewed positively: One evangelical supporter was so moved that she began speaking in tongues when she saw the footage, according to her son.

11. Trump subscribes to a doctrine of genetic superiority and incites racial hatred to scapegoat immigrants and gain power. He has rallied his base with dog-whistle attacks, calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. When he attacked a group of progressive members of Congress from diverse backgrounds, he stated that they should go back to the places they came from. Over the years Trump has frequently praised his “winning” genes, at one point telling an interviewer, “I’m proud to have that German blood — there’s no question about it.”

12. Trump finds common ground with the world’s most ruthless dictators while denigrating America’s democratic allies. The oppressive leaders he has praised include North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (“He gets it. He totally gets it”); the Philippines’s Rodrigo Duterte (“What a great job you are doing”); Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman (“You have done a spectacular job”); and, of course, Russia’s Vladimir Putin (“You know what? Putin’s fine. He’s fine”). Meanwhile, he has attacked traditional U.S. alliances and allies, like NATO and Germany’s Angela Merkel (“Stupid”).       Forwarded by Bob Billig.

 

Neo-Fascist Trump

The Storm of Protest in the United States.”  Mronline.org (7-3-20).    Neofascism has its source in monopoly-finance capital, at the apex of the system, but depends for its existence on the ability to mobilize, with the help of a führer-like figure such as Trump, a very considerable part of the overall population.”   MORE

“The storm of protest in the United States: Interview [of John Bellamy Foster] by Ömür Şahin Keyif for BirGün (Istanbul) conducted on June 23, 2020.”  By John Bellamy Foster (Posted Jul 02, 2020)

Originally published: BirGün (Istanbul)  on July 2, 2020 (more by BirGün (Istanbul))  | 

Media, Movements, Protest, RaceAmericas, Global, United StatesInterviewBirGün, Featured

. . .ÖŞK: U.S. President Donald Trump revived his re-election campaign and one of his main targets is the ‘left’. What does the November election mean for working class people that are facing dire economic and social situations and unemployment with the pandemic? Will Trump answer to the unemployment, economic collapse, the broad crisis of capitalism with neofascist methods? What will Trump do to overcome the crisis? What will his agenda be?

JBF: Trump is a gangster who was able to take advantage of a developing political formation that we can call neofascism, involving an active alliance of monopoly-finance capital with the white lower-middle class and white evangelicals. Meanwhile, the Democrat leadership used their corporate ties and control of the primary process to ensure that Bernie Sanders, who represented a genuine alternative, was pushed out of the race. The consequence is that the U.S. electorate has the “choice” between a right-wing, neoliberal Democrat in Biden and a gangster-neofascist in Trump. This situation, marking the growing crisis of the U.S. state apparatus, is a factor in the widespread uprisings. So far, the loser, as far as the political process goes, appears to be Trump, whose popularity has fallen in the last few months and who has recently been losing some of his support white evangelicals. The combination of a disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic depression, and  an unprecedented revolt against racial capitalism in the country, led by Black Lives Matter, has finally punctured the white supremacist electoral strategy of the Trump administration.

Under the circumstances, it is at least conceivable that Trump’s support from big capital will recede as well, despite the vast handouts he has given to the wealthy and too-big-to-fail corporations. The Biden campaign strategy has thus been to make doubly sure the corporate interests understand that nothing will change for them financially or in any other way if he were to be elected. Hence, Biden went so far as to assure a gathering of wealthy donors at a ritzy New York fundraiser in mid-June (in the midst of the mass protests): “We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is that it is all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished.  No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.” This was a promise to maintain the status quo for the wealthy and the corporations. It may be that Trump will be seen by the billionaire class and their hangers-on as having gone too far and they will shift the bulk of their support to the neoliberal right-wing Democrats represented by Biden as better securing their long-term interests. But it is too soon to arrive at such a conclusion.

Neofascism has its source in monopoly-finance capital, at the apex of the system, but depends for its existence on the ability to mobilize, with the help of a führer-like figure such as Trump, a very considerable part of the overall population, constituting its political base: namely, the lower-middle class, which in the United States constitutes some 25-30 percent of the population and represents a much higher percentage of those who vote. This is coupled with the backing obtained from some of the more privileged sectors of the white working class. With the vast majority of the white electorate of the U.S. South in rock-bottom support of Trump, he is hardly out of the picture. Meanwhile, the U.S. ruling class has seen its share of wealth skyrocket under his administration and thus leans toward Trump and the Republicans. Plus, there is the enormous power of the presidency, the ability to start a war to get people to gather around the flag. Moreover, if Biden were to win the election, it would only mean electing the lesser evil. At this point the evil represented by the leadership of both political parties is vast. . . .   
A
bout John Bellamy Foster   John Bellamy Foster, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, is editor of Monthly Review, an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. … He has published numerous articles and books focusing on the political economy of capitalism and the economic crisis, ecology and the ecological crisis, and Marxist theory: Visit johnbellamyfoster.org for a collection of most of Foster's works currently available online.


Subject: An existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul…better be prepared.

Bob Brigham.  “Trump is ‘a soulless man with a broken mind’.”   Raw Story, June 5, 2020.   Forwarded by Sonny San Juan.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/trump-is-a-soulless-man-with-a-broken-mind-george-conway-calls-out-his-wifes-boss-in-scathing-op-ed/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4724

George Conway, the prominent Republican attorney married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, blasted his wife’s boss in a new Washington Post op-ed published online on Friday evening. . . .

 “So much of Trump’s inaptness and ineptness in these and other matters stems from his exceptional narcissism, and the empathic deficit that attends it,” Conway explained. “But it’s more than just narcissism that drives this failing, flailing president. However difficult they can be, even extreme narcissists can have consciences. They don’t necessarily cast aside behavioral standards or laws, or lie ceaselessly with reckless abandon.”

“Trump’s behavior is conscienceless, showing utter disregard for the safety of others, consistent irresponsibility, callousness, cynicism and disrespect of other human beings. Contempt for truth and honesty, and for norms, rules and laws. A complete inability to feel remorse, or guilt. As a New Yorker profile of Trump put it nearly a quarter-century ago, Trump lives ‘an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.’ That’s Donald Trump’s problem yesterday, today and tomorrow,” he wrote.

“It’s our problem, too, for now: We remain governed by a soulless man with a broken mind. The damage will continue, and it won’t stop until voters end it. Come November, it will be up to the eligible human population of this country to look to their souls, their consciences, their humanity — and to cast their votes for one of their own,” he concluded.

Rashida Tlaib 6-20-20

House of Representatives

Ms Tlaib,

    Thank you for your letter calling for evicting Trump.   Britain faced a similar decision at the beginning of WWII.

   Larson's The Splendid and the Vile, about the first year of WWII in Europe, opens at the moment when the German blitzkrieg was rapidly overwhelming British troops in Norway and was invading the Low Countries.   Opposition to Britain’s PM, Neville Chamberlain, and support for Winston Churchill , first lord of the Admiralty, were intensifying.  Supporters of Churchill demanded Chamberlain’s resignation.   One, Leopold Amery, a member of Parliament, denounced Chamberlain in these words:  “’You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing!  Depart, I say, let us have done with you!  In the name of God, go!’” 

     Now you have demanded the resignation of President Trump.  Trump must resign immediately.  
     The situation is dissimilar, for Britain’s enemy was Nazi Germany, another country,
while the enemy of the United States is internal, the President himself.   But the stakes are equally high—the destruction of democracy by “a soulless man with a broken mind” (George Conway).     As you say:  he’s violated our Constitution numerous times in service of white nationalism. . . .That’s why I led the charge to impeach Trump, which we won. . . .It’s time to end his reign of terror.”

Thank you Ms. Tlaib,  Dick Bennett

 

The Shalom Report

“If Trump Goes Even Lower, We’d Better Be Prepared” [Remembering Gene Sharp and Call to Civil Disobedience] By Bill McKibbenJune 3, 2020.

Events are now moving at high speed in this country—every day, President Trump and his crew gallop past new lines, so that the morning’s flagrant usurpation is legitimized by the evening’s even more outrageous improvisation. (Firing tear gas at a crowd in order to be able to stand menacingly in front of a church holding a Bible is hard to top, but I wouldn’t bet against it.) A danger of this is that we’re always reacting to what came before. So perhaps it’s worth skipping a few steps ahead, to places where we haven’t gone yet but very well may.

What I’d like to talk about is civil disobedience, and its uses in authoritarian states. I’m not talking about what’s going on in this country this week—I have no more interest in telling people currently in the streets that they shouldn’t be destroying property than they have in listening to me. If you live a life, as black Americans clearly do, in which a police officer could kill you for allegedly passing a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, or if you live a life in which the incompetence of the nation’s leaders has helped precipitate an economic crisis that has left you with no job and no prospect of one—well, I’ve been impressed with how peaceful the vast majority of the people in the streets have been. In fact, Tuesday night may turn out to have been significant. Unintimidated by Trump’s heavy-handedness and local curfews, lots of people once again took to the streets, and a frequent chant—“Why you got your riot gear? We don’t see no riot here”—was both a powerful taunt and accurate reporting.

What I’m talking about is what happens if Trump, indeed, goes further still, and manages to make himself a full-on tyrant. It wouldn’t take much. The Justice Department seems to have become his Justice Department. Congressional Republicans seem unwilling to stand up to him about anything; and, at the moment, some of them, such as  Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Matt Gaetz are egging him on. The courts are ever more packed, and the Pentagon seemed willing to funnel troops and materiel to D.C., then participate in Trump’s political stunt on Monday, which is a bad sign. The President’s constant shout-outs to “the Second Amendment people” are not a dog whistle—they’re a clarion call. Even as Trump keeps escalating, one keeps hoping that he’s merely trying to impress his base—but as we near an election in which he trails in the polls, the danger seems to mount. It’s hard to know what, precisely, a coup looks like if the leader is already the President. Try to imagine troops ordered to use live rounds rather than rubber bullets, no social media on which to talk about it, and Fox News as the only sanctioned TV channel. 

It seems a stretch, but such things are commonplace in many parts of the world. (Indeed, if you’re black, facing live ammunition is already an outsize reality here.) If they came to pass, Americans would be in a difficult predicament: whether to submit to that rule or stand up to it. And that’s where civil resistance comes in. I’ve spent much of my adult life organizing a certain kind of nonviolent action—I’ve been in handcuffs more times than I might have imagined—and it’s had some real effect on the paths of pipelines and the flow of money. (As it happens, the first big civil-disobedience actions I helped organize were staged from Lafayette Park, the same place that Trump cleared for his photo-op stroll.)

But the kind of civil disobedience that I know how to practice happens in the relatively open society that we’ve been living in (and is much harder for people of color). Other people in other places have worked with far less freedom, and accomplished far more—and their faithful chronicler was a man named Gene Sharp, who died two winters ago, at the age of ninety. I first wrote about him  thirty-six years ago, when he was already well into his life’s work of cataloging and explaining all the “methods of nonviolent action” that people had used to stand up to authority. 

He eventually came up with a list of a hundred and ninety-eight, and could describe in great detail how they had been used, singly or in combination. Some of them are dated—skywriting as a form of resistance—and his list doesn’t stretch to cover the myriad possibilities that the Internet presents. But most of them suggest things that could be tried now: walkouts, silence, selective boycotts, student strikes, wildcat strikes. Some have been made harder by the pandemic (it’s hard to stay away from sports and cultural events if there aren’t any taking place), and some have been made easier (people are already experimenting with rent strikes in many cities). Sit-ins are on the list (and stand-ins, wade-ins, mill-ins, pray-ins); so are alternative markets and transportation systems, the “overloading of administrative systems,” and fasts. . . .

 Prophecy               https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif

"An 'Illiberal Democracy' If Trump Wins Again"By Van Gosse, Organizing Upgrade, posted May 14.   H-PAD] H-PAD Notes 5/27/20: Jim O'Brien via H-PAD <h-pad@lists.historiansforpeace.org>

Warns that the US is in danger of joining the worldwide trend of formally democratic authoritarian states seen in nations such as India, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, Poland, and Hungary. The author teaches history at Franklin and Marshall College and is co-chair of Historians for Peace and Democracy.

 

Greg Palast.  How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America's Vanished Voters.  Seven Stories P, 2020.
"No one has told our story of our missing voters like Greg Palast" - Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Follow investigative reporter for Rolling StoneThe Guardian and Democracy Now! Greg Palast as he hunts for the vanished voters of Trump's America.   Yes, the election's stolen but Palast shows you how to steal it back!

"Read this book. It might just save us! Greg Palast is the most incisive journalist on elections. Plus he's @##$% hilarious." —Josh Fox, The Young Turks


Palast lets you in on the nasty secrets of Trump-merica's democracy:
    One in five mail-in ballots are never counted.
    The chance of your vote being thrown in the garbage is 900% higher if you're Black than if you're white.
    16.7 million voters were purged from the rolls in the past two years. Guess their color.

In How Trump Stole 2020, you meet the scamps, scoundrels and grifters (or "Governors" as we call them in America) doing the dirty to voters of color. Check out the photo of Palast confronting GOP Governor Kemp of Georgia whom Palast catches under a neon pig at a bar-b-que joint to ask Kemp if he's wiping away Black voter registrations to steal the election. The response: Palast gets busted.
The book includes an exclusive interview with Stacey Abrams on vote thieveryand a 48-page comic book from the piercing pen of Ted Rall.  
You may know Palast as the fedora-wearing gum-shoe old-school investigative reporter who busted the theft of Florida in 2000 for The Guardian and in his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
"Palast is one of our great investigative reporters. If you are not outraged by what Palast has uncovered, you have no heart. A searing indictment of our rigged electoral system." Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.
“Palast, one our great investigative reporters, exposes one of the many mechanisms the corporate state uses to keep us enslaved. If you are not outraged by what Palast has uncovered you have no heart.”– Thom Hartmann.      [I ordered the book from B&N.  –D]

 

CONTENTS TRUMP AUTHORITARIANISM ANTHOLOGY #2

CONTENTS
2007
Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  “Pity the Nation.”
Naomi Wolf.  The End of America.
2008
Myerson and Roberto.  “Fascism and the Crisis of Pax American.”
2016
John Broich.  We Asked Sixteen Historians.
Noam Chomsky
    Heather Saul.  Noam Chomsky’s Assessment of Trump.
    Josh Jones.  Chomsky on Trump and Weimar Republic 1930s.
2017
Awareness in the 1930s.
Michael Roberto.  “The Origins of American Fascism.”
Two Articles by John Bellamy Foster.
    “Neofascism in the White House.”
    “This Is Not Populism.”
David Edwards.  “Trump Uses Mein Kampf.”
John Diaz.  Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook.
Ron Leighton.  Study the Context of US Authoritarianism of Last 50 Years.
2018
Benjamin C. Hett: Interview and Review The Death of Democracy.
Robin Lindley.  The Fate of the Weimar Republic.

Timothy Snyder.  Review of Hett’s book.  “How Did the Nazis Gain Power in Germany?”
Heather Gray.  Intro. to Richard Frankel.   “German History and Trump's Enablers.”  
Juan Cole.  Trump and Erdogan.
Robert Reich.  Trump and the “Deep State”: A Second Civil War?
Arkansas Democrat Gazette.  Trump Orders More Arms.
2019
Christian Fuchs.  On Henry Giroux’s Book The Terror of the Unforeseen.”  See articles above by Frankel, Snyder, Leighton.
 Ref.  Henry Giroux.  “Neoliberal Fascism.” 
2020
David Renton.  Fascism.
2025
Chris Hedges.  Collapse of Universities and Suppression of Speech.
Volker Ulrich.  Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939.  Dick’s Comment.

 

 

 

 

END TRUMP FASCISM ANTHOLOGY #3

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #231, MAY 19, 2025.

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OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #231, MAY 19, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

 

Inside Climate News (ICN)
ICN AND SIERRA CLUB v. FOSSIL FUELS COMPANIES

Diana B. Henriques.   …The Old Guard, the New Deal, and FDR's Fight to Regulate American Capitalism.  [A compendium applicable to the resistance of ff plutocrats.  –D]

 

 

Inside Climate News (ICN)

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FOSSIL FUELS INDUSTRY v. Democracy and Planet
ICN AND SIERRA CLUB v. FF
ICN:  
Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Martha Pskowski as they discuss what the oil and gas industry is doing with billions of gallons of scarce Texas river water.    

 

Watch the video 

   Read the story

SIERRA CLUB

Top 6 U.S. Banks Financed Fossil Fuels with $1.8 trillion ...
Sierra Club   https://www.sierraclub.org › press-releases › 2024/05 › t...   
May 13, 2024 — Since the Paris Agreement, from 2016 - 2023, the world's 60 largest private banks financed fossil fuels with USD $6.9 trillion, with U.S. banks ...

 

 

Diana B. Henriques.   Taming the Street: The Old Guard, the New Deal, and FDR's Fight to Regulate American Capitalism.  Random House, 2023.   464. 

Publisher’s description:
The “extraordinary” (New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice) story of FDR’s fight for the soul of American capitalism—from award-winning journalist Diana B. Henriques, author of The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust.   
“I thought I was well versed in the New Deal, but it turns out I knew next to nothing. Diana Henriques’s chronicle is meticulous, illuminating, and riveting.”—Kurt Andersen, New York Times bestselling author of Evil Geniuses and Fantasyland. . . .

As inequality once again reaches Jazz Age levels, Henriques brings to life a time when the system worked—an idealistic moment when ordinary Americans knew what had to be done and supported leaders who could do it. A vital history and a riveting true-life thriller, Taming the Street raises an urgent and troubling question: What does capitalism owe to the common good?   
About the Author   Diana B. Henriques is the author of five previous books, including the New York Times bestseller The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust, which was adapted as an HBO film starring Robert De Niro and was cited in the widely watched Netflix documentary series Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street. A staff writer for The New York Times from 1989 to 2012, she is a George Polk Award winner and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and she has received Harvard’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, among other honors.

 

END OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #231, MAY 19, 2025. 

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #230, MAY 21 , 2025.

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OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #230, MAY 21 , 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.


Alice Slater.  “8 Steps Most Likely to Lead to [Nuclear] Peace on Earth.”
Jill SteinExpanding the
New Deal.

 


8 “STEPS MOST LIKELY TO LEAD TO PEACE ON EARTH”

Alice Slater.  “Change the Conversation from Doomsday to Peace Day.”  Planet&Peace News (VfP, Spring 2025).  First published by World Beyond War.

  1. Take up repeated Russian and Chinese proposals for treaties to ban weapons in space and cyberwar.
  2.  Reinstate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.
  3.  Remove U.S. missiles from Romania and Poland.
  4. Remove U.S. nuclear weapons from five NATO states in a deal for Russia removing its recently place nuclear weapons in Belarus.
  5.  Take all nuclear weapons off high alert.
  6.  Separate the warheads from their delivery systems as China does.
  7. Dismantle NATO.
  8.  Respect and honor the United Nations.

“There’s little doubt that Russia and China would be willing partners in these initiatives.  They have been proposing them to the United States and voting on them in the U.N. for more than 10 years.”

Because nuclear weapons are utterly immoral and thanks to the Treaty completely illegal under international law, the next step would be complete abolition.      --Dick

 

 

 

JILL STEIN CONTINUES HER CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE, JUSTICE,  ECOLOGY, and DEMOCRACY
“Dump duopoly. Demand democracy.”
With your help, we can come out swinging for Medicare for All, a $25 minimum wage, rent control, social housing, free public higher education, a [FULL] Green New Deal, expanded social security, taxing the rich, restoring Trump’s cuts to critical infrastructure; breaking the stranglehold of big money on politics, ending endless war and genocide in Palestine and beyond, banning nuclear weapons and moving from a foreign policy based on militarism to a new era of international law, human rights and diplomacy.

Watch my video about how we can build the 2024 momentum:

 

OMNI UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY #34 May 25, 2025

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OMNI

UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY  #34

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

May 25, 2025

Https://omnicenter.org/donate

 

What’s at Stake:   A true—a complete and accurate-- martial history of the USA.  Walter Hixson:  “From Columbus to the "forever wars" of the modern Middle East, Americans have sought imperial domination over other peoples, invariably deemed inferior, and have regularly chosen to go to war with them.”   These 34 anthologies (approx. 500 articles and books) provide that history for the US, Russia, and Ukraine, giving citizens the foundation for resistance; indeed, the foundation, available since 2014, had it been taught instead of the false war narrative promoted by both Parties and the corporate media, could have prevented the war.

 

 

CONTENTS  25 articles and books

Trump’s Call to Putin: [VFP-all] Is peace at hand in the long Cold War with Russia?

AGAIN A TIME FOR REFLECTION FOR PEACE

Walter Hixson.  Imperialism and War: The History Americans Need to Own.”
Consortium News.
Benjamin and Davies.  War in Ukraine.  (Dick’s rev. with  Baud’s Operation Z).
Benjamin Abelow.  How the West Brought War to Ukraine. 
Melvin Goodman.   A Personal Discussion of Russian National Security.”


THE WAR
Eva Bartlett.  Maligned in Western Media, Donbass Forces are Defending their Future from Ukrainian Shelling and Fascism.”
Big Serge. “Total Kievan Debellation
:The Russo-Ukrainian War: Year 3.”
John Helmer.“The War Came to Pokrovsk.” 
Lord Robert Skidelsky: “Speech in the House of Lords on Ukraine.”
Scott Ritter.   “Life, preempted.”
Chris Bambery.   NATO’s spiralling commitments to Ukraine risk catastrophe.”

RELATED ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS
Lederer and Peltz. “Russian foreign minister invokes nuclear capacity in UN speech…”
Lee Fang.“New York Times’ . . .War Escalation Journalism.”  
World Socialist Web Site.      “. . .long range NATO missiles against Russia….”

Ted Snider.   “The Damage Victoria Nuland Has Done.”
Anatol Lieven.  “Biden team blows off deadline for Ukraine war strategy.”
Unintended Consequences Interviews Benjamin Abelow.
Donald A. Smith.  “The US Provoked Russia over Ukraine.”
Jonathan McCormick.   An Interview with Professor Nicolai N. Petro: On Ukraine’s prospects.”
James W. Carden.  “Why Does American Folly March on in Ukraine?
 Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: “Ukraine War, The Third Year, featuring Grigory Yavlinsky.”
Saheli Chowdhury. “Ukraine … a private mercenary company of NATO. . . . ” (Interv.)
.
Larry Johnson.  Star CIA Analysts Are Out of Touch With. . . Russia.  
Sonja Van den Ende.   Media [and] Russian Retreat From Kherson….”
Aidan Jonah.   Canadian Professor attacked by mainstream media for opposing NATO narrative on Ukraine.”    

Ukraine War Anthologyy #33

 

 

 

TEXTS

PEACE BEGINS?  May 24, 2025?

[VFP-all] Is peace at hand in the long Cold War with Russia?https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/05/23/trumps-phone-diplomacy-with-putin-shatters-euro-atlantic-cold-war-mental-bloc/  'Eric & Hoa Herter' via VFP-all vfp-all@googlegroups.com via uark.onmicrosoft.com 

Trump’s phone diplomacy with Putin shatters the Euro-Atlantic Cold War mental bloc.”         Sat, May 24, 2025.   

Trump’s phone call with Putin this week has had a major impact, and one that has significant potential for peace.

 

A TIME FOR REFLECTION

FOR PEACE, THE BIG PICTURE: When Did the War Begin, Where, by Whom, and Why, and What and Who Sustained, Sustains  it? (Remember the sheer quantity of well-prepared statements by opponents of US/NATO/Ukraine warmakers.  #34 contains 127 articles and books.)

 

Warrior USA from Jamestown to Ukraine

Walter Hixson, Imperialism and War: The History Americans Need to Own.  Institute for Research, 2021.

Publisher's Synopsis
Transcending the mythology of "American exceptionalism," the acclaimed historian Walter Hixson unveils a long history of war and imperialism, one that is deeply embedded in the American national DNA. From Columbus to the "forever wars" of the modern Middle East, Americans have sought imperial domination over other peoples, invariably deemed inferior, and have regularly chosen to go to war with them.

The consequences of the nation's violent aggression have been severe yet not fully analyzed owing to the powerful boundaries erected by patriotic nationalism. Americans have viewed themselves as a "chosen people" and the United States as a "beacon and liberty," the champion of the "free world," but this self-serving discourse has served to enable continental and overseas imperialism and war.

Americans typically professed to go to war because they "had to" or to make the world "safe for democracy," but only rarely were these scenarios in play. Rather, Americans usually chose to go to war, and US foreign policy rarely produced or even sought to produce democratic outcomes. Instead, the United States often engaged in violent repression of other peoples and bolstered dictatorial regimes, including those engaged in mass murder.

US war and imperialism frequently proved ineffectual, as they were often grounded in dramatic misperceptions. Foreign aggression also often sowed the seeds for "blowback" attacks and the continuation or renewal of conflict and warfare. Moreover--and rarely analyzed--continental and overseas aggression also undermined democracy, civil liberties, and progressive reform on the home front.

Rooted in decades of study and delivered in crystal clear and direct language, this book is must-reading for anyone wishing to go beyond the clichés that typically structure discussions of the history and contemporary prospects of American foreign relations. In a bold conclusion Hixson outlines the desperate need for adoption of a new paradigm of "cooperative internationalism" to transcend the nation's penchant for war and     imperialism fueled by national self-worship.

 

 

“History Is Indispensable to Journalism.”  Consortium News (5-6-24).


It’s missing from corporate journalism for a reason and for the same reason is a big part of Consortium News. Read here...

You cannot understand a conflict without understanding its history. That’s why historical context is routinely suppressed by corporate media, such as in the Palestinian-Israel conflict and the war between Russia and Ukraine. They don’t want you to understand.

For establishment journalists, the violence in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023 and in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.    Understanding the Palestinian conflict from 1948 forward, and the Ukraine war from the 2014 overthrow of the Ukrainian government and the start of the civil war completely changes one’s perception.  So establishment media suppress this history because it’s a perception they don’t want you to have. It goes against its agenda to promote Western foreign policies, rather than reporting on them.  . . . [In contrast, Consortium News] has published numerous articles on the history of the Palestinian conflict and last year we ran a timeline that explained the war in Ukraine in a completely different way from what Western governments and media are telling us.  

History is an invaluable part of Consortium News‘ reporting. Please contribute today to CN‘s Spring Fund Drive to help us to continue providing rare but essential historical context.    


Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies.  War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict.    OR Books, 2022.

     The last book I reported on in WWW about the Ukraine War was Jacques Baud’s Operation Z, a distinguished scholarly book published the same year as Benjamin’s and Davies’.   Baud uses Ukrainian and Western sources to discover the truth about the so-called “Russian invasion” by examining the validity of those sources.  It is both a history of the war from its inception and a criticism of Western mainstream media reporting of that history.  Baud doesn’t refer to George Orwell’s 1984, but the book provides a doublespeak analysis of the contradictions permeating US-Western-Ukraine pronouncements.   It is also organized with diagrammatic order, and every claim is supported, an example of which I cited in my review.

     I was inspired to read again Benjamin’s and Davies’ book, which I admired , to compare their history with Baud’s.  

     They have a similar aim: to stop the war by telling the truth.  They are responding to the “widespread condemnation across the West” that “Russia’s brutal February 2022 invasion of Ukraine” was “a simple dichotomy between an evil empire and an innocent victim.”   They tell a different story.  In B & D’s words: “But the West’s reneging on promises to halt eastward expansion of NATO in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union played a major part in prompting Putin to act.  So did the U.S. involvement in the 2014 Ukraine coup and Ukraine’s failure to implement the Minsk peace agreements.” (From authors’ summary preceding title page.)

       Although neither book offers an Index, making detailed comparisons difficult, my conclusion is that the only major difference between the two books is the fact that Baud takes 410 pages to tell the story for peace (it’s a major scholarly work), while B&D take 185.  Both books are cogently argued; together they offer a formidable refutation of the Ukraine/NATO-USA justification of the war by demonizing Putin and Russia, which constitutes another achievement by the movement to end wars. 

     One important part of War in Ukraine not found in Operation Z is chapter 7, “Flirting with Nuclear War,” where  B&D castigate especially the West for bringing the world “to the brink of a direct conflict that could escalate into nuclear war. . . .the most catastrophic existential threat the world faces.”

From the publisher praise from Counterpunch and Mairead McGuire: War in Ukraine: MAKING SENSE OF A SENSELESS CONFLICT BY  MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS J.S. DAVIES.  Preface by KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL.

  2022.
“The timing of the publication of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless War couldn’t be better. This text, written by antiwar activist Medea Benjamin and journalist Nicolas J.S. Davies, provides the reader with a clear and well-argued understanding of the Ukraine-Russian war that rejects the pro-war narratives of Kyiv, Moscow and Washington. The text tackles the conflict from a viewpoint that acknowledges Moscow’s February 22, 2022 aggression as illegal and wrong while also arguing that the conflict itself represents a greater geopolitical conflict where Washington is the instigator and the more aggressive actor.”  Counterpunch
  “An important antidote to the war propaganda about Ukraine that so many in the West are caught up in.”  —Mairead McGuire, activist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

 

Benjamin Abelow.  How the West Brought War to Ukraine. 

May 8, 2022.
Misguided American and NATO policies created the Ukraine crisis. Now they risk nuclear war.   
https://medium.com/@benjamin.abelow/western-policies-caused-the-ukraine-crisis-and-now-risk-nuclear-war-1e402a67f44e  
This essay is now available, slightly modified and revised, in book form — Paperback, eBook, and Audible. You can purchase these at AmazonBarnes & Noble, and your local independent bookstore. You can also read more about me and my work at my website. A German-language edition is available in all markets, including in Germany, for example, here, and a free German edition — beautifully illustrated with landscape paintings by the artist Archip Kuindschi (1841–1910), for whom a museum is named in Mariupol, Ukraine — is available here. A Slovene translation, which is being published by the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, is in progress, and a Polish edition is being negotiated. Translations into other languages are being explored.
 
Overview
For almost 200 years, starting with the framing of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States has asserted security claims over virtually the whole Western hemisphere. Any foreign power that places military forces near U.S. territory knows it is crossing a red line. U.S. policy thus embodies a conviction that where a potential opponent places its forces is crucially important. In fact, this conviction is the cornerstone of American foreign and military policy, and its violation is considered reason for war.

Yet when it comes to Russia, the United States and its NATO allies have acted for decades in disregard of this same principle. They have progressively advanced the placement of their military forces toward Russia, even to its borders. They have done this with inadequate attention to, and sometimes blithe disregard for, how Russian leaders might perceive this advance. Had Russia taken equivalent actions with respect to U.S. territory — say, placing its military forces in Canada or Mexico — Washington would have gone to war and explained that war as a defensive response to the military encroachment of a foreign power.

When viewed through this lens, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is seen not as the unbridled expansionism of a malevolent Russian leader but as a violent and destructive reaction to misguided Western policies: an attempt to reestablish a zone around Russia’s western border that is free of offensive threats from the United States and its allies. Having misunderstood why Russia invaded Ukraine, the West is now basing existential decisions on false premises. In doing so, it is deepening the crisis and may be sleepwalking toward nuclear war.

This argument, which I now present in detail, is based on the analyses of a number of scholars, government officials, and military observers, all of whom I introduce and quote from in the course of the presentation. These include John Mearsheimer, Stephen F. Cohen, Richard Sakwa, Gilbert Doctorow, George F. Kennan, Chas Freeman, Douglas Macgregor, and Brennan Deveraux.  . . . MORE https://medium.com/@benjamin.abelow/western-policies-caused-the-ukraine-crisis-and-now-risk-nuclear-war-1e402a67f44e     


A Call for Engagement and Negotiation
Melvin Goodman.  A Personal Discussion of Russian National Security.”   Counterpunch (July 29, 2025). 

We are at a serious juncture with two mindless wars in East Europe and the Middle East.  Read in browser »FacebookTwitterRedditBlueskyEmail

I correctly anticipated significant criticism of my last piece for CounterPunch, which argued that President Vladimir Putin’s was not “unproved,” that NATO expansion was a significant factor in the Russian use of force, and that our policymakers and so-called experts failed to understand the central national security aspects of Soviet/Russian policy.  Among the critics of my CounterPunch article were Walter Slocomb who served in Clinton’s national security council and lobbied for NATO expansion, and a former colleague of mine at the National War College, Marvin Ott, who supported expansion and is anticipating a Russian victory in Ukraine to be followed by Putin’s aggression elsewhere.

I am not trying to minimize the Russian challenge to U.S. national interests throughout the Cold War, but there needs to be recognition of U.S. efforts to exaggerate the Soviet threat as well as the acknowledgment of systemic Russian domestic weakness.  A further problem is that there are too few U.S. experts on either Russia or East Europe, and too few institutes devoted to such study.  I benefitted from my graduate work at Indiana University’s Russian and East European Institute.  And I benefitted financially as well thanks to the Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Program and the generosity of Indiana University.

At the same time, the decline in expertise on arms control and disarmament also contributes to the decline in substantive exchanges with both Moscow and Beijing as well as Tehran and Pyongyang.  I was fortunate to have served as the intelligence adviser to the U.S. delegation in Vienna, where the SALT and ABM treaties were hammered out.  We could be facing a nuclear confrontation because of the lack of political discussions with these four key states.  The fact that we don’t even recognize Iran and North Korea shows how our diplomats have failed us and our policymakers have been so short-sighted.  (Arms control not only led to Soviet-American detente, it fostered European detente, which allowed 380,000 Soviet troops to withdraw from East Germany without incident.)

We are at a serious juncture with two mindless wars in East Europe and the Middle East.  Instead of developing a policy toward these two disasters, we are fixed on building so-called alliance relationships in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.  Thomas Friedman of the New York Times even wants to form an alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia to combat Iran.  We should be dealing with Iran directly in an effort to avoid such alliance building, which will have no satisfactory outcome.  The expansion of NATO has weakened NATO politically, and contributed to a major war.  Our efforts to contain China with a series of alliance arrangements has only made it more difficult to deal with China regarding political security.  As a result of our efforts, we have pushed Moscow and Beijing into their closest relationship in their histories, and we are looking for ways to match and exceed their defense spending and nuclear modernization. . . .

In the 1990s, in the wake of the Soviet collapse, the United States sought to change the European theatre balance for no real reason.  The continued effort to expand NATO and to deploy power in East and Central Europe preordained a Russian reaction no matter who was in charge in the Kremlin.  U.S. planners thought the expansion of power in Europe would deter Russia from seeking advantages in the Third World, but this was another miasma in our thinking.  Russia has never developed a sophisticated power projection force that would be needed for a significant expansion of Russian power.  Nor does China appear to be interested in power project.  Only the United States believes that it needs 700 military facilities around the entire world. . . .MORE

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.  A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the CIA. His most recent books are “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus Publishing, 2019) and “Containing the National Security State” (Opus Publishing, 2021). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.



 

THE WAR (understanding how it is ending]

Maligned in Western Media, Donbass Forces are Defending their Future from Ukrainian Shelling and Fascism

By Eva Bartlett.  CovertAction Magazine  (Nov 19, 2022). 

America is widely understood to be a key instigator behind conflict in Ukraine that has pitted brother against brother.  Smeared, stigmatized, and lied about in Western media propaganda, the mostly Russian-speaking people of the Donbass region were being slaughtered by the thousands in a brutal war of “ethnic cleansing” launched against them by the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, which the U.S. installed after the CIA overthrew Ukraine’s legally elected president in a 2014 coup.

Although the Donbass people had been pleading for Russian military aid to defend them against the increasingly murderous military assaults by the Ukraine government forces, which killed more than 14,000 of their people, Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to intervene. Instead, he tried to broker a peace agreement between the warring parties.

But the U.S. and Britain secretly colluded to sabotage peace negotiations, persuading president Zelenksy to ignore the Minsk III peace agreement that the Ukraine government had previously signed, and which had been countersigned by Russia, France and Germany.

Realizing that the U.S. and its NATO allies would never permit peace negotiations to succeed, Putin finally invaded Ukraine on February 24. Russian troops went in to support and reinforce the outnumbered and outgunned Donbass Special Forces who had been defending their land against attacks by the Kyiv government for nearly eight years. […]   Read in browser »

 

What Happened during 2024
Total Kievan Debellation:The Russo-Ukrainian War: Year 3” by Big Serge.   big Serge Thought.  Jan 9, 2024.   [Like the other articles I have read by Big Serge, this one provides an impressive analysis of the condition of each side’s military and economic strengths and weaknesses, with Ukraine weakening and Russia growing stronger.    –D]. 

 

 “My intention here is [to] consider the aggregate of 2024 -- arguing that this year was, in fact, very consequential. Taken as a whole, three very important things happened in 2024 which create a very dismal outlook for Ukraine and the AFU in the new year. More specifically, 2024 brought three important strategic developments. . . .”

My intention here is a radical zoom-out from… demoralizing and fatiguing small scale updates (as valuable as the work of the war mappers is), and consider the aggregate of 2024 -- arguing that this year was, in fact, very consequential. Taken as a whole, three very important things happened in 2024 which create a very dismal outlook for Ukraine and the AFU in the new year. More specifically, 2024 brought three important strategic developments:

1.     Russian victory in southern Donetsk which destroyed the AFU’s position on one of the war’s key strategic axes.

2.     The expenditure of carefully husbanded Ukrainian resources on a failed offensive towards Kursk, which accelerated the attrition of critical Ukrainian maneuver assets and substantially dampened their prospects in the Donbas.

3.     The exhaustion of Ukraine’s ability to escalate vis a vis new strike systems from NATO - more broadly, the west has largely run out of options to upgrade Ukrainian capabilities, and the much vaunted delivery of longer range strike systems failed to alter the trajectory of the war on the ground.

Taken together, 2024 revealed a Ukrainian military that is increasingly stretched to the limits, to the point where the Russians were able to largely scratch off an entire sector of front. People continue to wonder where and when the Ukrainian front might begin to break down - I would argue that it *did* break down in the south over the last few months, and 2025 begins with strong Russian momentum that the AFU will be hard pressed to arrest. . . .MORE click on title [Serge seems to know every weapon, military unit, and movement.  If you like military history, you’ll read through his three-year detailed summary without pause.  -Dick]

Conclusion: Debellation

Trapped in an endless news cycle, with daily footage of FPV strikes and exploding vehicles, and a dutiful cottage industry of war mappers alerting us to every 100 meter advance, it can easily feel like the Russo-Ukrainian War is trapped in an interminable doom loop which will never end - Mad Max meets Groundhog Day.

What I have endeavored to do here, however, is argue that 2024 actually saw several very important developments which make the coming shape of the war relatively clear. To briefly recapitulate:

1.     Russian forces caved in Ukrainian defenses at depth across an entire critical axis of front. After remaining static for years, Ukraine’s position in Southern Donetsk has been obliterated, with Russian forces advancing through an entire belt of fortified positions, pushing the front into Pokrovsk and Kostayantinivka.

2.     The main Ukrainian gambit on the ground (the incursion into Kursk) failed spectacularly, with the salient being progressively caved in. An entire grouping of critical mechanized formations wasted much of the year fighting on this unproductive and secondary front, leaving Ukrainian positions in the Donbas increasingly threadbare and bereft of reserves.

3.     An attempt by the Ukrainian government to reinvigorate its mobilization program failed, with enlistments quickly trailing off. Decisions to expand the force structure exacerbated the shortage of manpower, and as a result the decay of Ukraine’s frontline brigades has accelerated.

4.     Long awaited western upgrades to Ukraine’s strike capabilities failed to defeat Russian momentum, and stocks of ATACMs and Storm Shadows are nearly exhausted. There are now few options remaining to prop up Ukrainian strike capacity, and no prospect of Ukraine gaining dominance in this dimension of the war.

In short, Ukraine is on the path to debellation - defeat through the total exhaustion of its capacity to resist. They are not exactly out of men and vehicles and missiles, but these lines are all pointing downward. A strategic Ukrainian defeat - once unthinkable to the western foreign policy apparatus and commentariat - is now on the table. Quite interestingly, now that Donald Trump is about to return to the White House, it is suddenly acceptable to speak of Ukrainian defeat. Robert Kagan - a stalwart champion of Ukraine if there ever was one - now says the quiet part out loud:

Ukraine will likely lose the war within the next 12 to 18 months. Ukraine will not lose in a nice, negotiated way, with vital territories sacrificed but an independent Ukraine kept alive, sovereign, and protected by Western security guarantees. It faces instead a complete defeat, a loss of sovereignty, and full Russian control.

Indeed.   None of this should be particularly surprising. If anything, it is shocking that my position - that Russia is essentially a very powerful country that was very unlikely to lose a war (which it perceives as existential) right in its own belly - somehow became controversial or fringe. But here we are.

“The War Came to Pokrovsk” By John Helmer (Posted Oct 07, 2024).   Originally publishedDances with Bears  on October 4, 2024 (more by Dances with Bears).   WarEurope, Russia, UkraineNewswire.
[This is Helmer’s interview of a citizen of Pokrovsk who is pro-Russian.  Her comments reveal the extreme past and present complications.  I have copied the conclusion.  –D]

Pokrovsk, in the northwestern corner of Donetsk region, is almost a Russian city again.

. . . Born in Pokrovsk and a resident of the city for 30 years, a professional psychologist and newspaper editor left the city ahead of the final battle between advancing Russian forces and the Ukrainian retreat. Her name is not published to protect family members who have remained. In the form of a question-and-answer interview, this is her story. . . . 

[This is the interviewee’s final comment.  –D]  Many stay in the city because they are afraid of losing their homes, shops and other real estate. Also, there is simply no way to leave. But the only thing that scares the residents of Pokrovsk is not the arrival of the Russian armed forces, but the fact that after the retreat, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will start shelling the city and turn it into the same ruins as Bakhmut and Avdeyevka.

[But Helmer adds a contradictory conclusion by the NYT reporter in Kiev, to which he adds several qualifying comments!  –D]  In the New York Times version of the evacuation of Pokrovsk, written by Andrew Kramer, artillery bombardment of the city will come, not from the retreating Ukrainian army but from the advancing Russian forces. For many years Kramer failed to be promoted at the Times bureau in Moscow but became chief of the organ’s Kiev bureau in 2022. From Pokrovsk Kramer reported: “Now, it is too late to ensure that Pokrovsk will be protected from artillery bombardment, the town’s military administrator said….Russian forces since April have ground through five defensive lines east of Pokrovsk, said Serhiy Dobryak, the town’s military administrator. With only two more lines remaining, the incursion into Russia, and the potential diversion it might cause, was essentially a last hope…The town for now is not at risk of imminent capture, he said, but officials expect a sustained artillery bombardment that is likely to leave it in ruins. That has been the fate of other Ukrainian towns like Bakhmut and Avdiivka that Russia pummeled into rubble before forcing Ukraine to pull back. ‘They will bring the artillery nearby and they will destroy the town,’ Mr. Dobryak said. “That will happen.’ ”

John Helmer is the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. He first set up his bureau in 1989, making him today the doyen of the foreign press corps in Russia. [I assume this info. appeared in Dances with Bears.  -D]

 

STOP THE WAR: BEGIN NEGOTIATING
Lord Robert Skidelsky: “Speech in the House of Lords on Ukraine, 25 October 2024.”  ACURA (10-29-24).
[Skidelsky explains the flaws in the Ukrainian/NATO strategy and urges a rapid end to the war.]

House of Lords October 28, 2024  [Scroll to end for negotiation proposal.]

. . .What Ukraine thinks it takes is shown by President Zelensky’s latest victory plan: the Russian army must be driven out of Crimea and Donbass. However, who now believes that Ukraine can achieve this kind of victory at the present level of western support? Rather, there is growing agreement that without expanded western support, Ukraine, despite its courage and determination, faces defeat. This was always likely once Russia started to mobilise on a larger scale. 
The demographics alone indicate this: you have a country of 36 million fighting one of 147 million. In the last four years, Ukraine’s population has shrunk by 20% while Russia’s has grown. A population the size of London has simply disappeared through war and migration; that is the reality on the ground. Of course, North Korean involvement has added a new front in this debate, but we must not delude ourselves that Russia needs North Korean troops to go on fighting. So the question arises: what more must we do to do what it takes?

There are two basic answers. Tighten economic sanctions and use long-range missiles, but the first has already failed and the second is extremely dangerous to the whole world.

As I have argued  elsewhere, true ‘victory’ for Ukraine lies not in regaining lost territory but in becoming a prosperous, democratic European nation free of Russian political meddling and strong enough to defend itself against future military threats. Going on fighting a war that systematically destroys a new generation of young Ukrainians and annihilates the country’s infrastructure and economy would be the real victory for Vladimir Putin.

[NEGOTIATE]
Is there a way to bring the fighting to an end? The most hopeful recent development in this deadly game of chicken has been a statement by President Zelensky reported in the Financial Times two days ago:  “Russia putting an end to aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy targets and cargo ships could pave the way for negotiations to end the war”.  At last, there is a breakthrough to realism. Will the Government seize this opportunity to start some serious diplomacy? I mourn those who have died. What now moves me above all else is the thought of the thousands more young men, women and children yet to die if this war is not quickly brought to an end. I beg the Government to play their part in bringing the killing and destruction to a close.”


The Purpose of the War: Weaken Russia; Possible Consequence: Nuclear War .  STOP THE WAR
Scott Ritter.   “Life, preempted.”   Mronline.org (10-3-24).

Policymakers in both the U.S. and Europe are undertaking increasingly brazen acts of escalation in Ukraine designed to bring Russia to the breaking point.

Originally publishedScott Ritter Extra  on September 25, 2024 (more by Scott Ritter Extra).    Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireNuclear Bomb / Missile, Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons

What would you do to save Democracy? To save America? To save the world? How will you vote in November?

If you’re not thinking about the end of the world by now, you’re either braindead or stuck in some remote corner of the world, totally removed from access to news.

Last week we came closer to a nuclear conflict between the U.S. and Russia than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Today we are even closer.

Most scenarios being bandied about in the western mainstream media that involve a nuclear conflict between Russia and the United States have Russia initiating the exchange by using nuclear weapons against Ukraine in response to deteriorating military, economic, and/or political conditions brought on by the U.S. and NATO successfully leveraging Ukraine as a proxy to achieve the strategic defeat of Russia.

Understand, this is what both Ukraine and the Biden administration mean when they speak of Ukraine “winning the war.”

This is a continuation of the policy objective set forth by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in April 2022, “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” meaning that Russia should “not have the capability to very quickly reproduce” the forces and equipment that it loses in Ukraine.

This policy has failed; Russia has absorbed four new territories—Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Lugansk—into the Russian Federation, and the Russian defense industry has not only replaced losses sustained in the Ukrainian conflict, but is currently arming and equipping an additional 600,000 troops that have been added to the Russian military since February 2022.

It is the United States and its NATO allies that find themselves on their back feet, with Europe facing economic hardship as a result of the extreme blowback that has transpired because of its sanctioning of Russian energy, and the United States watching helplessly as Russia, together with China, turns the once passive BRICS economic forum into a geopolitical juggernaut capable of challenging and surpassing the U.S.-led G7 as the world’s most influential non-governmental organization.

As a result of this abysmal failure, policymakers in both the U.S. and Europe are undertaking increasingly brazen acts of escalation designed to bring Russia to the breaking point, all premised on the assumption that all so-called “red lines” established by Russia regarding escalation are illusionary—Russia, they believe, is bluffing.

And if Russia is not bluffing?

Then, the western-generated scenario paints an apocalyptic picture which has a weak, defeated Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine in a last, desperate act of vengeance.

According to this scenario, which the U.S. and NATO not only war-gamed out but made ready to implement when these entities imagined that Russia was preparing to employ nuclear weapons back in late 2022-early 2023, the U.S. and NATO would launch a devastating response against Russian targets deep inside Russia designed to punitively degrade Russian command and control, logistics, and warfighting capacity. . . .MORE

When the United States launches the Trident missile carrying the low yield warhead, how are the Russians supposed to interpret this act?

The fact is, if the U.S. ever fires a W-76-2 warhead using a Trident missile, the Russians will assess this action as the initiation of a nuclear first strike and order the launching of its own nuclear arsenal in response.

All because the United States has embraced a policy of “first strike ambiguity” designed to keep the Russians and Chinese guessing about American nuclear intentions.

And, to put icing on this nuclear cake, Russia’s response appears to have been to change its nuclear posture to embrace a similar posture of nuclear pre-emption, meaning that rather than wait for the U.S. to actually launch a nuclear-armed missile or missiles against a Russian target, Russia will now seek to pre-empt such an attack by launching its own pre-emptive nuclear strike designed to eliminate the U.S. land-based nuclear deterrent force.

In a sane world, both sides would recognize the inherent dangers of such a forward-leaning posture, and take corrective action.

But we no longer live in a sane world.

Moreover, given the fact that the underlying principle guiding U.S. policies toward Russia is the misplaced notion that Russia is bluffing, any aggressive posturing we might engage in designed to promote and exploit the ambiguity derived from the first-strike potential inherent in existing U.S. nuclear posture will, more likely than not, only fuel Russian paranoia about a potential U.S. nuclear pre-emption, prompting Russia to pre-empt.

Russia isn’t bluffing.   And our refusal to acknowledge this has embarked us on a path where we appear more than willing to pre-empt life itself.

We need to pre-empt nuclear preemption by embracing a policy of strict no first use principles.

[CHOOSING PEACE AND EARTH AS HOME]

By choosing deterrence over warfighting.

By deemphasizing nuclear war.

By controlling nuclear weapons through verifiable arms control treaties.

And by eliminating nuclear weapons.

It truly is an existential choice—nuclear weapons or life.

Because they are incompatible with one another.

 

Western Missiles to Strike Russia

Chris Bambery.   NATO’s spiralling commitments to Ukraine risk catastrophe.”    Editor.  mronline.org

We are on the possible verge of a major escalation in the war in the Ukraine, one which risks war between NATO and Russia, and one involving nuclear weapons, argues Chris Bambery.
Originally publishedCounterfire  on May 29, 2024 by Chris Bambery (more by Counterfire (Posted May 31, 2024).

Economic Crisis, State Repression, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireATACMS Long-Range Missiles, British-French Storm Shadow/Scalp Long-Range Missiles, F-16 Fighter Jets, Military Weapons, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), President Joe Biden, President Vladimir Putin, Russia-Ukraine War, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, U.S HIMARS Short-Range Missiles, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky

France and Germany have agreed that Ukraine should be allowed to use its allies’ missiles to ‘neutralise’ Russian military bases used to fire missiles into Ukraine, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday on a state visit to Berlin. He added: ‘We should not allow them to touch other targets in Russia, and obviously civilian capacities.’ The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he agreed with the French president, as long as the Ukrainians respected the conditions of the weapons’ suppliers. . . .  MORE

 

 

RELATED ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS

NUCLEAR  DANGER

Edith Lederer and Jennifer Peltz.  WATCH: “Russian foreign minister invokes nuclear capacity in UN speech condemning the West.  World SepT. 28, 2024 .

Russia’s top diplomat warned Saturday against “trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power,” delivering a U.N. General Assembly speech packed with condemnations of what Russia sees as Western machinations in Ukraine and elsewhere — including inside the United Nations itself.

Three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West of using Ukraine — which Russia invaded in February 2022 — as a tool to try “to defeat” Moscow strategically, and “preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade.”

Watch Lavrov’s remarks in the player above.

“I’m not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power, which is what Russia is,” he said.  The specter of nuclear threats and confrontation has hung over the war in Ukraine since its start. Shortly before the invasion, Putin reminded the world that his country was “one of the most powerful nuclear states,” and he put its nuclear forces on high alert shortly after. His nuclear rhetoric has ramped up and toned down at various points since.

WATCH: Harris meets with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy as Russia makes nuclear warning . . . .   MORE

Edith Lederer and Jennifer Peltz.  “Russia Issues Nuclear Warning.  UN Remarks Aim at Ukraine Allies.” Assoc. P, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (9-29-24). 

 

Military-Corporate-MEDIA Complex

Lee Fang.“ New York Times’ Previous Reporting Undermines Its War Escalation Journalism.”   Sept. 13, 2024.

Warnings about major escalation of war -- and potential nuclear war -- take a backseat to think tank experts from the defense industry.    Lee Fang  
. . .The NYT series on think tank corruption began ten years ago. Little has changed in terms of the behavior of defense industry-funded think tanks. Instead, the NYT has gone on to embrace them.

In its ongoing reporting on the Ukraine-Russia war and the debate over whether to fuel the conflict, the NYT routinely goes to CSIS [Center for Strategic and International Studies, Seth G. Jones, a senior vice president] for quotes to justify more weapons and more war. The latest flashpoint is the news that NATO powers are moving to likely approve Ukraine’s use of Army Tactical Missile System missiles, known as ATACMS, to strike deep into Russian territory, potentially targeting oil refineries, factories, and other infrastructure that serve a mix of military and civilian purposes. The move would amount to a major escalation that may provoke a wider war across Europe, strikes on U.S. assets, or even nuclear war.

President Vladimir V. Putin has said that such missile strikes from American-provided ATACMS into Russian territory would "mean that NATO countries -- the United States and European countries -- are at war with Russia." . . .. 

– the NYT is engaging in the same type of industry opinion laundering it once decried.  CSIS vice president Seth Jones doubles as an official at Beacon Global Strategies, a consulting firm that lobbies on behalf of the defense industry, with previous clients that include Raytheon.

As the NYT has previously reported, CSIS is funded and routinely directed by the largest defense contractors in the world. Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer behind the ATACMS missile system, is among the 
think tank's largest corporate benefactors. As we’ve reported, Lockheed Martin stands to benefit financially from the war, citing $10 billion in opportunities.

 [Highland Industrial Park in East Camden, AR,  is a major center of Star Wars  production in the United States.]


“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 publishedWorld 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.  . . .MORE

 

Ted Snider:  “The Damage Victoria Nuland Has Done.”  ACURA (Sept. 22, 2024).   Orig. pub. The American Conservative.
The State Department’s former top woman on Ukraine has strongly supported initiated and sustained the war. 
Read in browser »

Anatol Lieven.  “Biden team blows off deadline for Ukraine war strategy.”   ACURA (Aug 07, 2024).  Perhaps the administration can’t admit it doesn’t have one.  Read in browser »
 

PODCAST.  Unintended Consequences.  “Ben Abelow: NATO, Russia and the Ukraine War.”  ACURA (Aug. 07, 2024).
As the Ukrainian war rumbles on is it time to examine whether NATO and the influence of America in Europe has contributed to the escalation in Eastern Europe?
Benjamin Abelow joins Unintended Consequences to discuss his book How the West Brought War to Ukraine.

 

Senior U.S. Diplomats, Journalists, Academics and Secretaries of Defense Say: the U.S. Provoked Russia in Ukraineby Donald A. Smith, PhD.   (Forwarded to me by Sonny San Juan, one of my best forwarding sources.)   https://progressivememes.org/senior-US-diplomats-academics-journalists-and-secretaries-of-defense-say-the-US-provoked-Russia-in-Ukraine.html

It took some years for Americans to realize they'd been lied to about the war in Vietnam. Thanks to the publication of the Pentagon Papers, and thanks to the antiwar movement, Americans eventually learned about the injustices and failures of that war.

Likewise, it took several years after the starts of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for Americans to realize they'd been lied to about those wars as well.

Americans are just now starting to realize that they've been lied to about the war in Ukraine. (The propaganda effort has been quite effective, with the New York Times, in particular, acting as a mouthpiece for the government's position.) More and more mainstream publications are exposing the lies, and a majority of Americans now oppose further arming of Ukraine.

This essay is a summary of what the U.S. government has been hiding about the war in Ukraine, with links to sources for further information.

According to Brown University's Costs of War project, U.S. military actions since 9/11 directly killed over 900,000 people,  with an additional 3.5 million people dying from indirect effects.  The wars cost Americans at least $8 trillion and displaced over 38 million people from their homes. The U.S. spends over a trillion dollars a year on its military, if you count all expenditures.

If we go back to the 1960s, the number killed by U.S. wars includes the several million killed in the Vietnam war, the approximately 1 million killed by U.S. support for Indonesian military's attacks on left wing groups, and the hundreds of thousands, at least, killed in proxy wars and government overthrows in Latin America.

The wars, overthrows, and associated sanctions caused mass migrations worldwide -- particularly in Europe and at the southern U.S. border -- and destabilized politics. Yet almost nobody (except for whistleblowers) was held accountable for these disasters; indeed, many of the same people are in Congress or work for the government or the weapons industry.

Moreover, the U.S. government lied about almost all the wars -- in particular, about the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but also about the war in Yugoslovia, as documented in Harper's Magazine and here. (In short, the Kosovo Liberation Army that the U.S. supported was, basically, a terrorist organization funded by the CIA, an d U.S. propaganda greatly overstated the nobility of the U.S. intervention.)

So, it should come as no surprise that our government is lying now about the war in Ukraine. Specifically, claims by President Biden and others that the Russian invasion was "unprovoked" are greatly exaggerated.

Read what these diplomats, secretaries of Defense, journalists, academics, politicians, and others have to say:          Sat, Jun 15, 2024.  [28 scholars, politicians, et al. reject the US line regarding the origin of the war.  Following that is a summary of all the US lies and insincerities in response to Russian overtures for peace.   A major document in the history of peacemaking.      -D]  https://progressivememes.org/senior-US-diplomats-academics-journalists-and-secretaries-of-defense-say-the-US-provoked-Russia-in-Ukraine.html

(Note on San Juan.,  He is the highly regarded Filipino-US scholar.  In addition, beginning with a Ph.D. in British lit. with a book on Oscar Wilde, San Juan turned  to literary criticism, in which he was a chief critic of modernist criticism.  And all along he was a critic of US foreign policies, beginning with the atrocious US colonial repression of Filipino resistance. 

 

Jonathan McCormick.   An Interview with Professor Nicolai N. Petro: On Ukraine’s prospects.”  ACURA (Jun 13, 2024). 
Fluent in both Russian and German from his youth, Dr. Petro served as Special Advisor for Policy in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs at the US State Department in the early 1990s, as dramatic and historic events were unfolding. Since that time he has written extensively on Russian foreign and domestic policy, and was […]
Read in browser »
https://standard.sk/680402/nicolai-petro-on-ukraines-prospects-if-something-happens-in-kiev-it-will-be-sudden-and-dramatic

[Wide-ranging discussion of the Istanbul Accords, the Budapest Memorandum, Ukrainian neutrality, the possibility of a coup, Germany’s negotiations at end of WWI,  negotiations between Zelensky and Putin, and more.  -Dick]

No country which is weaker and which borders a larger and stronger neighbour can survive if it makes an enemy of that neighbour. This has simply never happened in human history. The Americans and NATO obviously think only of their own security interests in relation to Russia, and Ukraine is only interesting to them as a tool to defeat it, says American professor Nicolai Petro.

As the situation in Ukraine gets steadily more desperate, with military experts now considering a possible collapse of Ukraine’s front line, some Western voices have begun to dismiss the conventional wisdom that negotiations must eventually take place between Moscow and Washington, calling instead for direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian leaders. One such voice is Nicolai Petro, Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island and author of The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution. . . .

In what sense can the Istanbul accords be a starting point for negotiations, now that four oblasts, in addition to Crimea, have been annexed to Russia, and Russia is not likely ever to agree to give them back?
No, but Russia is still advancing within those four regions and looking to ‚liberate‘ them, as it sees it, to their administrative borders. When that happens, as seems likely, will Russia continue? And to what end? If I am right, that Russia invaded not in order to subjugate Ukraine but in order to force it to accept neutrality – to keep it from manoeuvring in ways that Russia considered threatening – then we’re essentially back to where the Istanbul accords left us: with the same deal on the table of security and neutrality for Ukraine in exchange for Russia not taking more territory, for not pushing further. It’s still the same exchange. So let’s assume for a moment one scenario, which is being more and more widely discussed. There’s a breakthrough on the front lines, the lines collapse, Ukraine has no defensive positions left. Russia can now either move forward – for example in the direction of major cities, Kharkiv, Kiev, Odessa – or not. Let’s assume Russia really doesn’t want to do that, because of the costs involved – in all senses. Then the option of not doing that becomes what they are offering – because they could obviously do it, given the collapse of Ukraine’s lines. And they say to Ukraine: we will in fact guarantee the security of your borders, in a multilateral guarantee with other parties agreeing to serve as guarantors, as they did in the 1990s with the Budapest Memorandum. And this then becomes part of the negotiations.

Right, the Budapest Memorandum, which involved Western countries as well. And you foresee this as a possibility as to how things might be settled, some sort of similar agreement for Ukraine’s security, guaranteed by Russia on one side and Western countries on the other?

Logic would dictate that if a country’s elite wants to survive, then in the face of military collapse it negotiates. It negotiates essentially a surrender. World War I ended without Germany being invaded, because the high command of the German staff said: Well, we lost the battle, we are now vulnerable, let’s cut a deal. Which is why they suffered at the settlement in Versailles, but not to the extent that the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires did, which were totally dismembered. And we know that the German high command basically posed an ultimatum to Kaiser Wilhelm II. They said we can’t fight anymore – there are no resources – so you need to abdicate, so that we can negotiate a ceasefire and surrender. So that would be the scenario presumably in Ukraine now. Again, not an unusual scenario – basically involving, as it did after World War I, a military coup replacing the political leadership at the time. . . . MORE

And is that feasible, given the fact that – as you mentioned when we talked last

Isn’t it more in Russia’s interest not to subsume Ukraine, but rather to keep it as a separate state that can serve as a buffer between Russia and NATO?

Well the interesting thing about that is that Ukraine is being offered a curious combination of security and economic prosperity: security by Russia agreeing to the current borders – guaranteed also by a number of other countries – and prosperity by membership in the EU.

Which Russia will not object to?

Will not object to, right. That was part of the Istanbul accords as well. It’s an interesting strategy, because what it ultimately does, oddly enough, is to reconstitute Ukraine in what I have been arguing for, for more than a decade. Actually sixteen years ago – in 2008, my first trip to Ukraine – I gave a talk at Kharkiv University, which was later published. And I said: Ukraine needs to be a bridge between Russia and the West. And by linking the essential security and economic interests of Russia and Europe in Ukraine, it effectively constitutes Ukraine as that bridge.

 

James W. Carden.  “Why Does American Folly March on in Ukraine? ACURA (Jun 13, 2024).
As the tide of the war has turned, perhaps permanently, in Russia’s favor (itself an entirely foreseeable development despite the wishful thinking that has characterized too much of what passes for informed analysis here in Washington), Ukraine’s Western sponsors find themselves scrambling to find a way to halt Russia’s momentum.  
Read in browser »


What Future Might We Have and How?

 “Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: Ukraine War, The Third Year, featuring Grigory Yavlinsky.”   VIDEO.  ACURA.  May 27, 2024.
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation held a virtual event to discuss the third year of the Ukraine War and the nuclear dangers associated with this conflict. The event featured Professor Grigory Yavlinsky, a Russian economist and politician who ran for the Presidency of Russia three times. Yavlinsky was joined by ACURA President Katrina vanden Heuvel,  and Prof. Falk […]   They discuss what must be changed in present policies if the planet nuclear war is to be prevented.    Read in browser »      


“Ukrainian communist Dmitri Kovalevich: Ukraine has become a private mercenary company of NATO to fight against its opponents (Interview)
” BY Saheli Chowdhury. Mronline.org (5-21-24).

According to Dmitri Kovalevich, the United States controls all decisions in Ukraine, not only military but also economic. “It is not the Ukrainian [military] command that decides where to advance, what to undermine, what to shell; Ukrainian soldiers are acting on the advice of Western instructors,” he said, referring to the actions of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Originally publishedOrinoco Tribune  on May 19, 2024 (more by Orinoco Tribune). Imperialism, State Repression, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesInterview, NewswireDmitri Kovalevich, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War

 

 Star CIA Analysts Are Out of Touch With Reality When it Comes to RussiaBy Larry C. Johnson.    CovertAction Magazine (Nov 26, 2022).
 They See Only the Bad Old Days of the Soviet Union

The CIA, thanks to Hollywood and fanboys, enjoys an undeserved reputation for competence in carrying out espionage and covert actions.

I am fascinated by the delusional punditry offered by former CIA officers, such as Douglas London and Steven Hall. Full disclosure, Hall was a young 20 something in my Career Trainee class (we entered on duty in September 1985). He is emblematic, in my opinion, of the problems that have plagued the CIA over the last thirty years–he was a legacy, i.e. got into the agency in part because his Daddy preceded him.

Steve, if you recall, was one of the liars who signed a letter declaring that Hunter Biden’s laptop had all the earmarks of Russian disinformation. Attaching himself to such a libelous letter (he was impugning the character of John Paul Mac Isaac) highlights his tendency to follow the herd and eschew critical thinking.

But I want to focus on Douglas London. He is popping up all over media, especially CNN and the Wall Street Journal, and offering analysis that ranges from the banal to the delusional.

Consider this snippet, published in the Wall Street Journal, in March:

“I spent 34 years in the Central Intelligence Agency’s clandestine service, and watching Vladimir Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine from the sidelines fills me with both sadness and a sense of opportunity. Espionage is a predatory business, and there’s blood in the water. Mr. Putin’s self-inflicted damage has done more to turn his own people against him than anything the West could have done. . . .

Russian mystique is gone. Mr. Putin has proved his country is the declining power that the best-informed Russia watchers claimed it was. Fewer pundits will wax poetic over Mr. Putin’s cunning and strategic brilliance. He might have been a capable operations officer during his KGB career, but he clearly missed the classes on self-awareness and counterintelligence. The more he tightens the security screws and covers Russia’s window to the world, the more likely those he depends on will turn against him.”

Got that? Russia, whose economy is clicking along nicely in contrast to the implosion underway in Europe, is a declining power in Mr. London’s fanciful world. Since the start of the Special Military Operation last February, Putin has frustrated Western attempts to paint him as Hitler reincarnated and has forged closer ties with China, India, Saudi Arabia and Brazil. […]     Read in browser »

 

Media Obscures Key Reason For Russian Retreat From Kherson; Namely to Prevent the Destruction of the Nova Kakhovka Dam

By Sonja Van den Ende.  CovertAction Magazine. Nov 21, 2022.
 

Predictions of imminent collapse of Russian army are fanciful

The Western media have widely celebrated the retreat of Russian forces from the city of Kherson, presenting the Ukrainians as liberators of the city and the Russian retreat as an example of the weakness of the Russian army and its impending collapse.  However, the same media have a track record of biased and misleading coverage of the Ukraine war that leads one to question its veracity in all aspects of its reporting.  With regards to Kherson, the media have failed to acknowledge that the Russian retreat was a calculated one designed in part to save the Nova Kakhovka dam, which the Ukrainians had threatened to blow up in an act of state terrorism.

The Khakovka dam has an associated lock and power station with an installed capacity of 357 megawatts. The water from its reservoir cools the 5.7 gigawatt Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, and flows through the North Crimean Canal to irrigate large areas of southern Ukraine and northern Crimea.

If the Ukrainians had attacked the Khakovka dam, it would mean that Crimea would run out of water and it could lead to a nuclear fall out, which Russia had warned about for weeks. . . .MORE

 

Risks of Opposing Warmongering

Aidan Jonah.   Canadian Professor attacked by mainstream media for opposing NATO narrative on Ukraine.”   Editor.  Mronline.org (11-10-22).

A highly regarded Russia specialist in Canada, Professor Michael Carley at the University of Montreal, has refused to support the NATO narrative on the Ukraine conflict and has since been subjected to a vicious smear campaign.
Originally published: Internationalist 360°  on November 6, 2022 by (more by Internationalist 360°) (Posted Nov 09, 2022)

Human Rights, Media, Strategy, WarAmericas, Canada, Europe, Russia, UkraineNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War

 

CONTENTS UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY #33 (19)
Peace Talks
Abel Tomlinson.   Two Messages on Peace Conference.
Global South v. West.
Ben Norton.  Ukraine War Unpopular in US.
Sachs.  “Putin Offers Diplomacy.”
ACURA.  Poll: “Putin Wants Ukraine Ceasefire.”
“A
Green Deal for Post-war Ukraine.”

Prashad.  China’s 12-Point Peace Plan.
Kevin.  China’s Peace Plan.
Quaker Peace Statement.
Fulbright’s Exchange and Bumper’s Peace Links.

Causes of and Continuation of the War
Benjamin Abelow.  How the West Brought War to Ukraine.
Kit Klarenberg.  
Civil War in Donbass 10 Years On.” 

Russophobia
ACURA.  William Drew.  “The Hoover Institution Declares War on Russia.”
Rubenstein.  US Weapons to Azov Battalion.
Associated Press.  “New #225 Million…to Ukraine.”
Dave DeCamp.  “Speaker Johnson Thinks Ukraine Should Use US Weapons on Russian Territory.”

The War: Military History, Strategies, Tactics, Failures, Victories
Big Serge.  “Russo-Ukraine War: Widening the Front….”
Nikolai Petro.  “Ukraine’s Draft Woes….”
Dick Bennett.  Jacques Baud.  (Book).  Operation Z.  Analyzing Propaganda.



 

END UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY #34

 

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #232, MAY 26, 2025.

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OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #232, MAY 26, 2025.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.

Chris Hedges.  Facing the Climate Crisis.
Gene Ray.  After the Holocene: Commoning.


The Chris Hedges Report: Facing The Climate Crisis And Human MortalityBy Chris Hedges, Scheer Post.  Popular Resistance.org (5-23-25).   In a world gripped by daily catastrophes, there is one that affects all but lacks the attention it deserves. The climate crisis— pervaded by ecological collapse, war, endless resource accu mulation fueled by capitalism — is the issue of our time. The warning signs are there but as author Eiren Caffall tells host Chris Hedges, people are not able to handle the facts regarding the “fragility of our ecosystem, and [they] just don’t really have a great way of managing the emotional impact of that.” Caffall joins Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to discuss her novel, All the Water in the World. -more-

 

 Instead of creating a third Weekly to solely confront President Trump’s  totalitarian depredations against the climate and Constitution, I will add “democracy” items to WWW and CMM weeklies.  --D

 

Gene Ray.  AFTER THE HOLOCENE: Planetary Politics for Commoners.  Autonomedia, 2025.
Publisher’s description:   Capitalism has ended the Holocene. The epoch of planetary heating and climate chaos has begun. Business-as-usual is
leading to hothouse earth and mass extinction, but how to pull the
emergency brake on the extraction and techno-acceleration regime?
Alternatives exist, but the capitalist classes are blocking them. This
book argues that one such alternative, commoning, offers first steps
on a pathway to metabolic sanity and collective self-rescue. As the
mutualist and more-than-human association of direct producers,
commons ecologies will be a necessary and buildable factor in the
strategic struggle to disarm, power down and abolish capitalism.

Autonomedia is an autonomous zone for arts radicals in both old and new media. We publish books on radical media, politics, and culture that seek to transcend party lines, bottom lines and straight lines.   https://autonomedia.org/product/after-the-holocene-planetary-politics-for-commoners-by-gene-ray/
Commons reading:
Ian Angus.  The War Against the Commons.  Dispossession and Resistance in the Making of Capitalism.  MRP, 2023.   Future Natures: On Seeing Commons Through Popular GenresBy David Bollier.    Explaining The Commons EconomyBy Dave Darby.

OMNI Ukraine War ANTHOLOGIES #35 June 1, 2025

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OMNI

Ukraine War ANTHOLOGIES #35

June 1, 2025

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

https://omnicenter.org/donate

What’s at stake in all of OMNI’s anthologies? 

"It is the fundamental duty of the citizen to resist and restrain the violence of the state. It is cheap and easy to deplore the crimes of others, while dismissing or justifying our own. An honest person will choose a different course."  Noam Chomsky
Beginning in 2014, with the intention to follow the Motto of the University of Arkansas—To advance the truth--, I began gathering into anthologies (at first labeled newsletters) correctives to the official justifications for the Ukraine War. 

OMNI RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #1 (RUSSIA AND UKRAINE).  March 23, 2014.  http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/03/russia-ukraine-newsletter-1.html
OMNI RUSSIA NEWSLETTER #2 (AND UKRAINE).  April 10, 2014.    
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/04/russiaukraine-newsletter-2.html

That is, a decade of conflict between Russian-speaking eastern and western Ukraine led to civil war in 2014 following a coup overthrowing the elected president.  Russia invaded Ukraine eight years later in February 24, 2022.  This is the date that Ukraine, the US, and NATO use to date the beginning of the war to justify blaming Russia, and their combined propaganda machine so far has been able to convince many people of the falsehoods.   

If you ask, but what can I do? If you believe that knowledge is essential to rational decision-making thenforward my anthologies not just to friends but to organizations that ought to be well-informed, and ask them to try to influence national policy to follow truth and peace.   Or select one of the best essays to forward (I usually place the more comprehensive essays near the beginning of each anthology).   As the UN Charter teaches, war is an unimaginable horror, the worst atrocity, but we must try to imagine it if we are to leave our copium sandboxes. 

 

CONTENTS Ukraine War Anthology #35 (Fifty articles and books demonstrate the copiousness of opposition to US empire, over 500 in the 35 anthologies, in reality a small sample  )

WAR

Gordon Hahn.  Ukraine Over the Edge.  2018.
Chris Hedges.  

 Chris Hedges Report.”  March 11, 2023.
VIDEO.  “ Professor Stephen F. Cohen.  “Ukraine vs. Russia – History & Causes.”   2024.
Martin Sieff: “How the US and Its Allies Created the Ukraine Crisis…   2024.
Wolfgang Munchau.  “Europe’s reckless bid for victory.”  2025.
Gordon hahn.  “A River Runs Through the End of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War.” 
Gordon Hahn.   “The Empty Tank: Is Demise of the Ukrainian Army Near?
PEACE
Paul Robinson.  Ending the War in Ukraine: Analysis and Recommendations.” 

Sachs and Ritter.   Peace Negotiations, What We Need to Know.”
Jeffrey Sachs. “Negotiating Lasting Peace in Ukraine.”       
Scott Ritter.    The Odessa Moment.”   
 
Prabir Purkayastha.  Biggest threat from Ukraine war: Last Nuclear Agreement suspended.” 
  Joe Lauria.  Trump Says No To ‘Foolish’ US Missile Attacks On Russia
  Gordon Hahn.   “First steps toward ending the war in Ukraine.
  Axios.   “Trump says he wants to meet Putin soon to discuss a Ukraine peace deal
.”
  Ed Lozansky.  “Trump’s Mixed Feelings Team.”
  Insider: “Trump’s advisors are laying out plans on how to end the war in Ukraine.” 
VIDEO. Col. Douglas Macgregor.  “We Have No Leverage.”
Vijay Prashad.  All wars end in negotiations. So will the war in Ukraine.”
Ted Galen Carpenter.  “Ending the Second Cold War.”
 
Joe Lauria.  On Neo-Nazi Influence In Ukraine.”  
Ilya Tsukanov.   Odessa Massacre 10 Years On: Neo-Nazis Drowned The City In Blood.  
Tara Copp.  “US to Send Near-$1B in Arms for Long-term Use to Ukraine.”
James W. Carden.  “How the Neocons Won the Transition.”    
Anatol Lieven.   “Trump’s threat to walk away leaves Ukraine exposed.”  
Robert Skidelsky.   “Why Is the UK So Invested in the Russia–Ukraine War? 
VIDEO: Nicolai N. Petro.  “The future of Russia and Ukraine as the war draws to a close…
James W. Carden.    “A Question of Incitement? 
Ron Ridenour.  “Journalist Randy Credico has been placed on Ukrainian terrorist ‘kill-list’ via CIA project website
.”   
Atilio Borón. 
Habermas and the war in Ukraine.” 
Uriel Araujo.   Popular Revolt Looming in Ukraine? Zelensky’s Battle Over Death Numbers Speaks for Itself.” 

Joe Lauria.   “US Bill Would Reverse ATACMS Order.” 
Moon of Alabama.  To The Last Ukrainian.”
VIDEO.  “State Department Asked About Any Potential Talks To End War In Ukraine Before Biden Leaves Office.”
Andrew Napolitano.  “A Brief History of Free Speech in America.” 
Christopher Caldwell.  “The Imminent Russia-US War.”
Robert Hackett. “The Economist and the War in Ukraine.”  
Ted Snider.  “The Cost of Kursk
.”
 
George Beebe.   “The Hazards of Ukraine’s Incursion into Russia.”
Yuri Pushchaev: The Philosophy of the Ones Who Left: An Experiment in Intellectual Autism. 
“CHRIS HEDGES INTERVIEWS SEYMOUR HERSH ON NORD STREAM PIPELINES AND US PRESS FAILURE.” 
Max Blumenthal.   New evidence from Nord Stream underwater expedition refutes official claims.”  
David Starr.  Profiting Off of Death and Suffering is the American Way.”  
Moon of Alabama.  'Western' Media Spread Copium To Prolong The War In Ukraine
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gifThe Chris Hedges Report .  "They Lied About Afghanistan. They Lied About Iraq. And They Are Lying About Ukraine." 
Ambrose Sylvan.   Western media has falsely presented the Donbas’ ‘Drive For Autonomy’ as being instigated by Moscow
.” 

Jessica Corbett. 

Tensions in Ukraine Show Why 'Nuclear Power Is the Most Dangerous Way to Boil Water'.” 
Reuters.   “Putin wants to restart nuclear arms cuts talks, Kremlin says after Trump comment.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEXTS

HISTORY

 

THE WAR CONTINUES: When, Where, and Why Did It Begin?

Gordon Hahn.  Ukraine Over the Edge.  McFarland, 2018.   368.

Publisher’s description:   The Ukrainian crisis that dominated headlines in fall 2013 was decades in the making. Two great schisms shaped events: one within Ukraine, its western and southeastern parts divided along cultural and political lines; the other was driven by geopolitical factors. Competition between Russia and the West exacerbated Ukraine’s divisions. This study focuses on the historical background and complex causality of the crisis, from the rise of mass demonstrations on Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) to the making of the post-revolt regime. In the context of a “new cold war,” the author sheds light on the role of radical Ukrainian nationalists and neofascists in the February 2014 snipers’ massacre, the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, and Russia’s seizure of Crimea and involvement in the civil war in the eastern region of Donbass.

“Ukraine’s 2013-2014 revolution, its civil war, and Russia’s annexation of the Crimea have been succeeded by newer crises, but political analyst Hahn uses detailed reportage and geopolitical theory to argue for their long-term significance, presenting Ukraine as a troubling turning point in Russo-American relations and a case study of how democratization efforts can go awry…. with Russia atop American headlines to an extent not seen since the end of the Cold War, [this book] will be a strong addition to global studies collections”—Booklist

“It was not only Ukraine that went over the edge in 2014, but the whole European security system disintegrated, while a ‘new cold war’ chills relations between the great powers. In this masterful study, Gordon Hahn examines how Ukraine’s internal divisions combined with external lines of fragmentation to create an explosive mix, which in turn intensified domestic conflicts. The result is an internationalized civil conflict, with catastrophic consequences for Ukraine and the world. Hahn is one of the few scholars with the knowledge and discernment to make sense of it all. His impressively well-researched and well-written book is essential reading.”—Richard Sakwa, University of Kent

“This impressively researched and strongly argued book is an essential corrective to the myths that have been generated concerning the crisis in Ukraine, and an essential warning against a continuation of the frivolous and dangerous policies of regime change adopted by the West after the end of the Cold War.”—Anatol Lieven, Professor, Georgetown University in Qatar and author of Ukraine and Russia, A Fraternal Rivalry

Ukraine Over the Edge is a rigorous analysis of the cultural, historical, and intellectual origins of the Ukrainian crisis. While stressing that blame for the latest phase of this crisis is shared all around, Hahn traces its domestic origins to the militancy of the opposition to president Yanukovych, and its international origins to NATO expansion, which he regards as militarized democracy-promotion. The result is both a sophisticated, multilevel analysis of how and why Ukraine emerged as the key hotspot in East-West relations, and an indispensable guide for those wishing to understand the origins of the New Cold War.”—Nicolai N. Petro, Silvia-Chandley Professor of Peace Studies and Nonviolence, University of Rhode Island

[High praise for this apparently reliable history, which I am late to anthologize.     -Dick]

 

Chris Hedges.  

 Chris Hedges Report.”  March 11, 2023.

Ukraine is a pawn for militarists intent on degrading Russia and ultimately China in a self-defeating quest to ensure U.S. global hegemony. The end of this war, like most proxy wars, will be ugly. 

There are many ways for a state to project power and weaken adversaries, but proxy wars are one of the most cynical. Proxy wars devour the countries they purport to defend. They entice nations or insurgents to fight for geopolitical goals that are ultimately not in their interest. The war in Ukraine has little to do with Ukrainian freedom and a lot to do with degrading the Russian military and weakening Vladimir Putin’s grip on power. And when Ukraine looks headed for defeat, or the war reaches a stalemate, Ukraine will be sacrificed like many other states, in what one of the founding members of the CIA, Miles Copeland Jr., referred to as the “Game of Nations” and “the amorality of power politics.”. . . . For Hedges’ full analysis of proxy wars click on the title.

The arming of Ukraine is not missionary work. It has nothing to do with liberty or freedom. It is about weakening Russia. Take Russia out of the equation and there would be little tangible support for Ukraine. There are other occupied peoples, including the Palestinians, who have suffered as brutally and far longer than Ukranians. But NATO is not arming Palestinians to fight against their Israeli occupiers or holding them up as heroic freedom fighters. Our love of freedom does not extend to Palestinians or the people of Yemen currently being bombed with British and American weapons, or the Kurds, Yazidis and Arabs resisting Turkey, a longtime NATO member, in its occupation and drone war throughout the north and east of Syria. Our love of freedom only extends to people who serve our “national interest.”

There will come a time when the Ukrainians, like the Kurds, will become expendable. They will disappear, as many others before them have, from our national discourse and our consciousness. They will nurse for generations their betrayal and suffering. The American empire will move on to use others, perhaps the “heroic” people of Taiwan, to further its futile quest for global hegemony. China is the big prize for our Dr. Strangeloves. They will pile up even more corpses and flirt with nuclear war to curtail China’s growing economic and military power. This is an old and predictable game. It leaves in its wake nations in ruins and millions of people dead and displaced. It fuels the hubris and self-delusion of the mandarins in Washington who refuse to accept the emergence of a multipolar world. If left unchecked, this “game of nations” may get us all killed.

VIDEO.   Professor Stephen F. Cohen.  “Ukraine vs. Russia – History & Causes.”  ACURA (Aug 30, 2024).
Professor Cohen’s thoughts on the early years of the Russia, Ukraine conflict.
Read in browser »

 

Martin Sieff: “How the US and Its Allies Created the Ukraine Crisis…  Oct 31, 2024.  ACURA (11-1-24).  ACURA’s mailing address is:   The American Committee for US-Russia Accord, PO Box 2134, New York, NY 10025.
The culpability of the West in general and the United States in particular for provoking and preserving the Ukraine war, Europe’s most destructive conflict since the end of World War II, is clear, documented, obvious and public. It is even admitted by several of the Western leaders who actively collaborated in it.    
Read in browser »

 

Wolfgang Munchau.  “Europe’s reckless bid for victory.”

ACURA (Mar 06, 2025). 
The absurdity of the European position was perhaps best captured in its full hubris last year by the historian and writer Anne Applebaum when she won a prestigious German peace prize. During her acceptance speech, she maintained that victory was more important than peace, asserting that the West’s ultimate goal should be regime change in […]
Read in browser »

 

“A River Runs Through the End of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War,” Parts 1 and 2 (Complete) by Gordon hahn.  October 28, 2024.     ACURA (11-1-24).     A river runs through Russian and, more recently, Ukrainian history. Ironically enough, the Dnieper River that unites Russia and Ukraine in this and other ways – the river rises in the Valdai Hills of Smolensk, Russia and runs through Belarus and Ukraine – is now the focus of the greatest schism in the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations. Russian forces appear impossible to stop and will arrive at the Dnieper at some point along its snaking length no later than next year, with Russian troops perhaps controlling the river’s and the country’s Left Bank by then. Russia – as well as the West and whatever remains of Ukraine‘s Maidan regime will then face some     serious decisions.

 

Gordon Hahn.   “The Empty Tank: Is Demise of the Ukrainian Army Near?  ACURA (Feb 03, 2025). 
The collapse of Ukraine’s defense fronts along all or nearly the entire line of combat – which stretches from Kherson just north of Crimea to the east, then north through Donetsk to Kharkiv and Sumy – appears imminent.   
Read in browser »  

 

PEACE

ENDING  WARS: A Theory Applied to the Ukraine War 

Paul Robinson.  “ Ending the War in Ukraine: Analysis and Recommendations.”    ACURA (12-12-24).  

Originally published: Landmarks: A Journal of International Dialogue.  Reaching a peace deal in Ukraine is not impossible, but it will require many Western leaders to recalibrate their expectations.

The war in Ukraine is nearing the end of its third year, but as yet there is no indication of imminent peace. For the past three years, Western powers, led by the United States of America, have sought a solution to the war by means of a single strategy: supporting Ukraine and pressuring Russia. The aim has been peace through victory. This strategy has failed. Probably over 200,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have been killed; possibly tens of thousands of civilians have been killed also; and property worth tens of billions of dollars has been destroyed. The time has come when the policy of peace through victory needs to be replaced by a policy of peace, pure and simple.

The return of Donald Trump to the US presidency in January 2025 offers an opportunity to pursue such a policy. President Joe Biden has shown no interest in mediating a peace process. Neither have any European leaders. Trump, however, has indicated that he wishes to do so, and as a first step has appointed General Keith Kellogg as his Special Envoy for Russia and Ukraine, tasked specifically with finding a way to end the war.

In this context, proposals for how to end the war in Ukraine have acquired a new importance. Unfortunately, to date, many such proposals have been divorced from any understanding of how in practice wars actually end. This paper thus seeks to ground policy recommendations in studies of war termination. To that purpose, it first analyzes war termination theories and then applies those theories to the war in Ukraine.

The paper examines the topic from the standpoint of what is most likely to produce a lasting peace settlement. The rights and wrongs of the Ukrainian and Russian causes are not the subject of concern. While it has been said that “there is no peace without justice,” it might be more correct to say that “there is no justice without peace.” The aim of the analysis is peace in the negative sense of an absence of war, not peace in the positive sense, as the achievement of justice. Some may object to this approach, but any peace plan that fails to place the ending of war at the top of its agenda is liable to fail.

How Wars End. . . .  MORE click on title


“Peace Negotiations, What We Need to Know” : Sachs and Ritter.          

The complaints by Trump and Zelensky during the past few days over Putin’s non-appearance to discuss the end of the war (May 14 -17) did not include a statement from Putin or his representative.   The televised statements by Trump and Zelensky, devoid of historical context, made it seem that Putin was opposed to peace.  This breakdown of negotiations  could have been prevented had Zelensky and his Western supporters followed through with March and April agreements described by Prof. Sachs, and perhaps is why Scott Ritter wrote his article “The Odessa Moment,” dated May 16, 2025,  Scott Ritter Extra  (https://scottritter.substack.com/p/the-odessa-moment).    Unfortunately peace negotiations are not being led by peacemakers like them.  -Dick

 

Jeffrey Sachs. “Negotiating Lasting Peace in Ukraine.”  Consortium News (March 11, 2025). 
Ukraine will have to cede more territory than it would have in April 2022 — when the U.S. and U.K. talked it out of a peace deal — but it will gain sovereignty and international security arrangements. Read here...  

This article is originally from Common Dreams.    Biden AdministrationCommentaryNATORussiaTurkeyU.S.UkraineUnited NationsUntil This Day--Historical Perspectives on the News

By Jeffrey D. Sachs.
Common Dreams. Volume 30, Number 71 —Tuesday, March 6, 2025.    

There should be little doubt about how a lasting peace can be established in Ukraine. In April 2022, Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of signing a peace agreement in Istanbul, with the Turkish government acting as mediator.    The U.S. and U.K. talked Ukraine out of signing the agreement, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have since died or been seriously injured. Yet the framework of the Istanbul Process still provides the basis of peace today.

The draft peace agreement (dated April 15, 2022) and the Istanbul Communique (dated March 29, 2022) on which it was based, offered a sensible and straightforward way to end the conflict. It’s true that three years after Ukraine broke off the negotiations, during which time Ukraine has incurred major losses, Ukraine will eventually cede more territory than it would have in April 2022 — yet it will gain the essentials: sovereignty, international security arrangements, and peace.

In the 2022 negotiations, the agreed issues were Ukraine’s permanent neutrality and international security guarantees for Ukraine. The final disposition of the contested territories was to be decided over time, based on negotiations between the parties, during which both sides committed to refrain from using force to change boundaries.

Given the current realities, Ukraine will cede Crimea and parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, reflecting the battlefield outcomes of the past three years.

Such an agreement can be signed almost immediately and in fact is likely to be signed in the coming months. As the U.S. is no longer going to underwrite the war, in which Ukraine would suffer yet more casualties, destruction and loss of territory, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is recognizing that it’s time to negotiate.

In his address to Congress, President Donald Trump quoted Zelensky as saying, “Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.”   MORE [essential reading for understanding the full contexts for Prof. Sachs’s proposals.  -D]

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the U.N. Broadband Commission for Development.

 

Scott Ritter.    The Odessa Moment.”  May 16, 2025.

 

 

https://scottritter.substack.com/p/the-odessa-moment

 

Russia has informed Ukraine of its baseline condition for conflict termination—the withdrawal of all Ukrainian troops from the territory of lands which, from the perspective of the Russian Constitution, constitute part of Mother Russia. These include Kherson, Zaporozhia, Donetsk and Lugansk. Russia has also made it clear that if Ukraine not accept these terms, the next time Russia is willing to sit down and negotiate with Ukraine their demands will include four additional Ukrainian oblasts, or administrative regions—presumably Odessa, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov. We have reached the Odessa Moment.

Back in January 2023, while appearing on “The Gaggle” with George Szamuely and Peter Lavelle, I postulated that Russia was approaching what I called “the Odessa Moment,” that confluence of military and political circumstances which, once reached, would trigger a strategic decision by Russia to expand the Special Military Operation (SMO) beyond the geography defined by the territories absorbed by Russia following a controversial referenda held in September 2022 on the territory of Kherson, Zaporozhia, Donetsk and Lugansk, in which the question of self-determination was answered by a vote on whether these territories should be incorporated into the Russian Federation or not.

As originally conceived, the SMO was not about territorial acquisition but rather defending the rights of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. In negotiations which began less than a week after the SMO began—first in Gomel, Belarus, and later in Turkey—Russia simply sought to achieve that which had been promised as part of the Minsk Accords entered into with Ukraine, Germany and France in 2014-2015, in which Ukraine promised to make the appropriate changes to its Constitution guaranteeing that the rights and status of Russian-speaking Ukrainians would be protected.

Ukraine, backed by both Germany and France (and the United States as well) opted to treat the Minsk Accords as an opportunity to build up military power sufficient to reclaim parts of the Donbas region (comprised of the oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk) as well as Crimea which were lost in the aftermath of the CIA-backed Maidan coup of February 2014 which saw the Russian-speaking lawfully elected President, Victor Yanukovych, ousted and replaced by US-backed Ukrainian nationalists. Between 2015 and 2022, the US and its NATO allies trained and equipped hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers for the sole purpose of reclaiming by force the territories of Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea.

Zelensky meets with Macron, Merkle and Vladimir Putin, December 2019

In April 2019 Volodymyr Zelensky, the former comedian-turned politician, won the election for the office of President of Ukraine, ousting the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko. Zelensky ran on a platform of peace, winning over the Russian-speaking population on the promise that he would “crawl on his knees” if necessary to work out a peace plan with Russia. Instead, within months Zelensky was convening a war council where he promised to use the Ukrainian military to reclaim the parts of Donetsk and Lugansk that had freed themselves from Ukrainian rule.

This was Zelensky’s first mistake.

Scott will discuss this article and answer audience questions on Ep. 264 of Ask the Inspector.

The path he chose led to Russia, in the days before the initiation of the SMO and after Ukraine began mobilizing its forces to attack the Donbas, recognizing the independence of both Donetsk and Lugansk and entering into a collective security agreement, actions which guaranteed that the Donbas would never again be part of Ukraine.

This was Zelensky’s Donbas moment.

Russian troops in Ukraine

Zelensky’s second mistake came in April 2022, when he walked away from the negotiations that Russia had initiated immediately after the start of the SMO which culminated in a finalized signature-ready peace agreement which has become known as the Istanbul communique. This agreement would have recognized the independence of the Donbas republics, but returned all other Ukrainian territory that had been occupied by Russian troops during the SMO.

Zelensky, pressured by his US and NATO supporters, rejected this agreement, and instead took tens of billions of dollars in military aid from the US and NATO which he used to rebuild his depleted military force, which he then used to launch a counterattack against Russian forces which had already began their withdrawal from Ukraine as a good faith measure in keeping with the terms of the Istanbul communique.

Russia responded by organizing referenda in both the Donbas and the two oblasts, Kherson and Zaporozhia, that constituted the land bridge connecting Crimea with Russia proper. These referenda were on the question of these territories becoming part of the Russian Federation; all four voted yes, and after the appropriate legal action was taken by the Russian parliament, President Putin signed a decree which made all four oblasts part of the Russian Federation.

This was Zelensky’s Little Russia moment.

A Kherson citizen votes in the September 2022 referendum on joining Russia

And now Zelensky finds himself at a new crossroads.

His Odessa Moment. . . .  MORE   https://scottritter.substack.com/p/the-odessa-moment


Biggest threat from Ukraine war: Last Nuclear Agreement suspended.”

Prabir Purkayastha. Mronline.org (3-8-23). 

War rarely stays within the boundaries set or desired for it. That makes returning to arms control crucial for the survival of humanity.
Originally publishedNewsClick.in  on March 5, 2023 (more by NewsClick.in).  WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireAnti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), New START or New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War

 

 

 

OTHER PEACE ADOCATES

President Trump as Peacemaker (5 articles).
TRUMP  Constraining the War 

Trump Says No To ‘Foolish’ US Missile Attacks On Russia

By Joe Lauria, Consortium News. (12-14-24).   President-elect Donald Trump accused the Biden administration of “escalating this war” in Ukraine and “making it worse” by allowing U.S. long-range ATACMS missiles to be fired from Ukraine deep into Russia. “I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” Trump told Time magazine in an interview published on Thursday. He said: “Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done. Now they’re doing not only missiles, but they’re doing other types of weapons. And I think that’s a very big mistake.” -more-

Trump as Peacemaker

Gordon Hahn.   “First steps toward ending the war in Ukraine.”  ACURA (Mar 06, 2025).
Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s clumsy rhetoric, he has taken the first courageous
steps to ending the needless, all too avoidable NATO-Russia Ukrainian War.   Read in browser »   [But read Scott Ritter’s article cited above.]

Axios.   “Trump says he wants to meet Putin soon to discuss a Ukraine peace deal.”  ACURA (Jan 27, 2025).
“Our effort to reach a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine are now hopefully underway. It is so important to get that done. Millions of soldiers are getting killed. Millions of Russians and millions of Ukrainians. It has to end,” Trump said in his video address to Davos attendees.   
Read in browser »
Ed Lozansky.  “Trump’s Mixed Feelings Team
.”  ACURA(Dec 10, 2024).
During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged that if he won, he would end the war within 24 hours, even before moving into the White House. This didn’t happen, and
moreover, the fighting kept escalating. So, one would assume the real action would start after January 20, 2025, but the team he chooses to fulfill this […]
Read in browser »

Insider: Trump’s advisors are laying out plans on how to end the war in Ukraine.”  ACURA (Nov 11, 2024).  
The proposals all depart from President Joe Biden’s approach of letting Kyiv decide when peace talks should begin. They also all recommend freezing the war where it stands, geographically.  
Read in browser »

 

VIDEO. Col. Douglas Macgregor.  “We Have No Leverage.”  ACURA (May 20, 2025). Acura mailing address is:  The American Committee for US-Russia Accord
PO Box 2134, New York, NY 10025

Doug Macgregor talks with the Deep Dive podcast on Trump’s delusions of leverage over Russia.  
Read in browser »

 

 Prashad: Opposition to NATO’s advocacy of the war in the Global South and Europe.

Vijay Prashad.  All wars end in negotiations. So will the war in Ukraine,” The Third Newsletter (2025).   Mronline.org (1-18-25).

By Vijay Prashad (Posted Jan 17, 2025).   Originally published: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research  on January 16, 2025 (more by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research).    Imperialism, Inequality, Strategy, WarGlobalNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), President Elect Donald Trump, Russia-Ukraine War, Tricontinental Newsletter

Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of 
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.  Mark Rutte, the current secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). . . .on 12 December 2024, Rutte gave a speech. . . . published on NATO’s website in a very curious form, as a poem rather than the typical bureaucratic prose. [Four stanzas I shortened  to one.  –D]:
And, finally, to the citizens of NATO countries, especially in Europe, I say:
Tell your banks and pension funds it is simply unacceptable that they refuse to invest in the defence industry.
Defence is not in the same category as illicit drugs and pornography.
Investing in defence is an investment in our security.
It’s a must!

Rutte wrote no such poem for Palestine or for Sudan, where the devastation has been much greater. Only Ukraine, with several evasions and errors of fact, at a time when there is no appetite within Europe to prolong this conflict. Rutte’s poem asks the already austerity-struck NATO states to increase their defence spending to at least 2% of their GDP. Donald Trump has already called to raise the threshold to 5%.

From No Cold War comes briefing no. 16, which provides a clear analysis of the overwhelming opposition to the Ukraine war within the Global South and Europe alike. Please read it carefully, download it, and share it. The clarity of this text speaks directly to Rutte’s doggerel. . . .    MORE   https://nocoldwar.org/

 

 

Ted Galen Carpenter.  “Ending the Second Cold War.”  ACURA (Apr 18, 2024).   We should not want another period of multiple decades marked by hostility and a lack of normal economic relations.  Let’s see if the current generation of policymakers can be wiser than their predecessors.
Read in browser »

 

 

SUPPORT FOR THE WAR AND OTHER COMPLICATIONS TO PEACEMAKING

 Ukraine’s Nazi History

Joe Lauria.  On Neo-Nazi Influence In Ukraine.”  Consortium News. Popular Resistance.org (4-21-25).  The U.S. relationship with Ukrainian fascists began after the Second World War. During the war, units of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) took part in the Holocaust, killing at least 100,000 Jews and Poles. Mykola Lebed, a top aide to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the fascist OUN-B, was recruited by the C.I.A. after the war, according to a 2010 study by the U.S. National Archives. The government study said, “Bandera’s wing (OUN/B) was a militant fascist organization.” Bandera’s closest deputy, Yaroslav Stetsko, said: ““I…fully appreciate the undeniably harmful and hostile….” -more-

Odessa Massacre v. revolutionaries.

Odessa Massacre 10 Years On: Neo-Nazis Drowned The City In Bloodby Ilya Tsukanov.  Orinoco Tribune. Popular Resistance.org (5-5-24).   This Thursday marked the 10th anniversary of the May 2, 2014 Odessa Trade Unions Building massacre, in which 48 anti-Maidan activists were burned alive by neo-Nazi thugs. The violence, coming soon after Kiev kicked off its ‘anti-terrorist operation’ in the Donbass, demonstrated the new regime’s readiness to drown Ukraine in blood to cling to power. The warm weather of the spring of 2014 was accompanied by the winds of revolutionary fervor across southeastern Ukraine, with activists from across Kharkov, the Donbass, Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk, Kherson, Nikolayev and Odessa rising up in opposition to... -more-

 

US SUSTAINING THE WAR

Tara Copp.  “US to Send Near-$1B in Arms for Long-term Use to Ukraine.”  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (December 8, 2024).
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Biden Admin. is spending the remaining congressionally approved $8 billion for Ukrainian drones and munitions programs of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket systems.  This is in addition to the $725 million for weapons recently drawn directly from Pentagon stockpiles.  “The U.S. has provided Ukraine with more than 62 billion in military aid” since Feb. 2022.    Austin and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell were honored for their lifetime service [as leaders of the US War Party] at the annual gathering of national security officials, weapons manufacturers, and lawmakers.   Lloyd  presented the US line: “Ukraine, American security, and human freedom.”  [Typically, Russia as a threat is mentioned several times as the motive for all this money and weapons, typically without any questioning of whether such preparation for war is needed, since the Cold War ended with the end of the USSR, which had also disbanded the Warsaw Pact.  See my anthologies on NATO, US Soviet/Russophobia, and the many US wars.   OMNI NATO ANTHOLOGY #2, JUNE 18, 2023,  jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com    

 

James W. Carden.  “How the Neocons Won the Transition.”   ACURA(Dec 10, 20247).
Trump’s campaign rhetoric led many to believe that foreign policy realists and restrainers might have had a shot at some of the top national security and diplomatic posts. Whatever the reason, Trump’s nominee s for secretary of state,  secretary of defense, deputy secretary of defense, national security adviser, and UN ambassador—as well as those heading the […]
Read in browser »

 

Anatol Lieven.   “Trump’s threat to walk away leaves Ukraine exposed.”   ACURA (Apr 20, 2025).    
The Trump administration has warned that if there is not an early agreement on an end to the war in Ukraine, the US will “walk away” from the peace process. In Trump’s words: “Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re […]   
Read in browser »

 

Robert Skidelsky.   “Why Is the UK So Invested in the Russia–Ukraine War?  ACURA (Jan. 07, 2025).
Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election of November 2024 has shredded the liberal script about the Ukraine war. That script was to offer unconditional moral and material support for a Ukrainian victory, defined minimally as recovery of the invaded territories of Crimea and Donbass. In Britain, it was considered almost treasonable to
suggest […]    Read in browser »


VIDEO: Nicolai N. Petro.  “The future of Russia and Ukraine as the war draws to a close… ACURA Mar 18, 2025.
Part 2 of Professor Petro’s conversation with Pascal Lottaz. There is a serious risk that even if the political establishment of Ukraine (Parliament and Government) came to the conclusion that only a surrender could save the country from complete annihilation, the ultra-right wing with its willingness to kill their own people, might be able to […]   
Read in browser »

James W. Carden.    “A Question of Incitement?   ACURA (Mar 18, 2025).
Last week came news of a Ukrainian “intelligence gathering” service called MOLFAR with an “enemies list” that includes, among other notables, the current vice president, JD Vance. What makes this all the more galling is that it was ( is?) being funded by the US government though USAID. Whatever sympathy we may (and do) feel […]    Read in browser »


Ron Ridenour.  “Journalist Randy Credico has been placed on Ukrainian terrorist ‘kill-list’ via CIA project website
.”   Editor.  Mronline.org (6-28-23). 

Friends are urging Credico to go underground.
Originally published: CovertAction Magazine  on June 23, 2023  (more by CovertAction Magazine)  |  (Posted Jun 27, 2023).   Human Rights, Inequality, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswire'Hit-List', Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Julian Assange, Kill List, Randy Credico

 

 Habermas and the war in Ukraine.”  Atilio Borón.  Mronline.org (6-28-23).    The prevailing rarefied ideological climate that Germany and most European countries are suffering from today makes a very cautious call for prudence and negotiation a criminal offense that deserves to be punished with ostracism.

Western Support for the War from Western Media.

A friend sent me a list of a dozen reasons why Trump won in 2024, one of which, #8,  applies perfectly to Western support for the Ukraine and against Russia:  “Eight, more people than I wish to think about get their news from a single source or like sources.”  See SCOTT RITTER: “Why I Support Consortium News” (12-7-24).  https://consortiumnews.com/2024/12/06/scott-ritter-why-i-support-consortium-news/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c3b17198-0544-4e41-9881-ac7061530d08

 Read here...


Uriel Araujo.   Popular Revolt Looming in Ukraine? Zelensky’s Battle Over Death Numbers Speaks for Itself.”  BRICS Portal - TRANSCEND Media Service.   12 Dec 2024.    [Here are some passages from the ending of this significant article.  –D]   Making a peace deal is of course something the radical nationalists and their armed militias would never allow and things escalated instead.  It would not be an exaggeration at all to describe today’s Ukraine as a kind of corrupt oligarchic dictatorship – with an acute far-right problemt. . . .  Regardless of one’s own political sympathies, any honest discussion on the roots of the current confrontation should include such ethnopolitical issues as well as the geopolitics of NATO enlargement – or else one fails to grasp some of the key points.

 

Joe Lauria.   “US Bill Would Reverse ATACMS Order.”  Consortium News (12-7-24).  A bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, if it were law, would reduce the danger of nuclear war over Ukraine by stopping U.S. ATACMS attacks on Russia, reports Joe Lauria. Read here...

 

JOE BIDEN AND THE DEMOCRATS

To The Last UkrainianBy Moon of Alabama. Popular Resistance.org (11-30-24).  The U.S. is willing to (proxy-)fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian. White House presses Ukraine to lower draft age to meet manpower needs against Russia WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's administration is urging Ukraine to quickly increase the size of its military by drafting more troops and revamping its mobilization laws to allow for the conscription of those as young as 18. A senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private consultations, said Wednesday that the outgoing Democratic administration wants Ukraine to lower the mobilization age... -more-

VIDEO.  “State Department Asked About Any Potential Talks To End War In Ukraine Before Biden Leaves Office.”  ACURA (Nov 11, 2024).  
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller reiterates Biden Administration’s unconscionable lack of interest in pursuing negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
Read in browser »

Andrew P. Napolitano.  “A Brief History of Free Speech in America.”  Consortium News (9-27-24).
When the feds claim that articulating views of the war in Ukraine from a Russian perspective is somehow criminal they ignore the core purpose of the First Amendment, writes Andrew P. Napolitano. Read here...

 

Christopher Caldwell: “The Imminent Russia-US War.” ACURA (Sept. 13, 2024).
What makes ATACMS lethal isn’t just their payload and  speed, but their GPS targeting. The weapon uses a dedicated system that the United States controls, drawing on a constellation of satellites run by the US military that operate together in real time. The Biden administration has sought to reassure the public that Ukrainians will have […]
Read in browser »     Christopher Caldwell

All week long, the Biden administration has been hinting that it would authorize Ukraine to strike deep inside Russian territory with US-made Army Tactical Missiles Systems, or ATACMS. These are computer-guided supersonic missiles with a range of up to 190 miles. They can’t reach Moscow, but they could hit the Russian cities of Kursk, Voronezh, and Rostov. Britain has already authorized Ukraine to use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to attack Russia. Secretary of State Tony Blinken traveled to Kiev in the company of British Foreign Secretary David Lammy to discuss the matter with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky. Some kind of escalatory announcement was expected to accompany British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Friday visit to Washington. 

This development prompted Vladimir Putin to make a carefully worded statement to a TV interviewer Thursday: “If this decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, the European countries, in the war in Ukraine. This changes the very nature of the conflict.” Starmer dismissed the remark. Putin, he said, can stop his war with Ukraine any time he wants. One could just as easily say that, any time they wanted, Starmer and Biden could stop risking Armageddon to meddle in the affairs of sovereign countries halfway around the world.

The more troubling thing is that Starmer doesn’t seem to understand what Putin is saying. Because, although the point is somewhat complex and the reporting on the West’s intentions has been cloudy, Putin is right. 

Right about what? What is Putin complaining about? This ATACMS business seems like familiar ground. We have already armed the Ukrainians to the teeth. In Russian eyes, the American-initiated militarization of what had been a de facto buffer zone is what started the war in the first place. Although the Ukrainians have been doing a great deal of dying in this war, at several important junctures, they have seemed immaterial to a conflict that is really being fought by the United States. . . .    MORE  click on title

Christopher Caldwell is a Compact columnist, a contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books, and the author of The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties.   

Robert Hackett. “The Economist and the War in Ukraine.”   ACURA(Aug 30, 2024).
A retiring foreign editor, to nervous laughter from his colleagues, joked that “The Economist never met a war it didn’t like.”  
Read in browser »

 

 

KURSK
Ted Snider.  “The Cost of Kursk
.”  ACURA (Aug 28, 2024).
The bold and surprising incursion across the border into the Kursk region of Russia has won Ukraine the temporary possession of several Russian villages and a few hundred square miles of Russian territory. But the strategically cheap Russian land may have been bought at a very costly price.  […]
Read in browser »

 

George Beebe.   “The Hazards of Ukraine’s Incursion into Russia.”Acura (Aug 20, 2024).
Should Americans regard Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region as a turning point in the war, one that could bring Kyiv important new leverage in bargaining over a settlement, if not outright victory? As tempting as it is to believe that the Ukrainian military can aspire to more than stalemate and compromise, there is […]
Read in browser »

Yuri Pushchaev: The Philosophy of the Ones Who Left: An Experiment in Intellectual Autism.  ACURA (April 18, 2024).

In the following essay, which first appeared in Russkaya Istina (Jan. 8, 2024), Russian philosopher Yuri Pushchaev takes issue with a group of émigré Russian writers who have written a book sharply condemning their home country for the war in Ukraine.  According to Pushchaev, these émigré authors have shut their eyes to history. They write as if the war in Ukraine […]   Read in browser »

“CHRIS HEDGES INTERVIEWS SEYMOUR HERSH ON NORD STREAM PIPELINES AND US PRESS FAILURE.”  Chris Hedges Report (

March 14, 2023).

The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Seymour Hersh on how the U.S. blew up the Nord Stream pipelines and why the press has ignored what is arguably an act of war against Russia.  [Hedges’ Introduction and the Interview are essential reading in understanding Cold War II, US hatred of Russia, NATO, and several other important subjects.  Here is the Intro.  -D]

 

On Monday, September 26, 2022, a series of underwater explosions blew huge holes into the Nord Stream 1 and 2, two pairs of pipelines, constructed to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. These four pipelines, steel-reinforced concrete cables built to withstand the direct impact of the anchor of an aircraft carrier, were destroyed in a clandestine act of sabotage, according to an investigation by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh. The pair of Nord Stream 1 pipelines carried Russian gas to Germany until Moscow cut off supplies at the end of August 2022. The pair of Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which would have doubled the amount of gas that would be available to Germany and Western Europe, were never operational as Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson called Hersh’s report “false and complete fiction.” CIA spokesperson Tammy Thorp said: “This claim is completely and utterly false.” 

Denials by U.S. officials of covert operations, of course, are routine. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, for example, denied any U.S. involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, assuring the American people that the invasion was not “staged from American soil.”  When Seymour Hersh in 2004 published the first stories about the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a Pentagon spokes called his reporting “a tapestry of nonsense,” adding that Hersh was a guy who “threw a lot of crap against the wall” and “expects someone to peel off what’s real.”

Despite the denials, the United States has long expressed hostility to the pipelines. It worked to prevent the completion of the pipelines and imposed illegal sanctions on enterprises engaged in its construction. President Biden on February 7, 2022, prior to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, stated: “If Russia invades … there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2 …We will bring an end to it.”

During a Senate hearing, Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, was asked by Senator Ted Cruz whether his legislation aimed at sanctioning the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which was voted down in January 2022, could have stopped the war.

“Like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea,” Nuland said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the destruction of the pipelines as a “tremendous opportunity,” which would enable EU countries to become less dependent on Russian energy.

The New York Times reported in December that Russia had begun expensive repairs on the pipelines, raising questions about Washington’s claim that Russia had bombed its own pipelines.

These explosions are not insignificant acts.  They are acts of war. They expose not only the collapse of the rule of law, but the lack of oversight by Congress. I covered the mining of Nicaragua’s harbors in 1983 by the Reagan administration as a reporter in Central America. The mining was designed cripple the economy in Nicaragua and boost the fortunes of the US-backed contra rebels seeking to overthrow the Sandinista government. The mining backfired. It sparked outrage around the globe and saw Congress cut off funding for the Contras a year later. The International Court of Justice in 1986 ruled against the United States over its mining of the harbors.

Hersh’s revelations should have led to a similar condemnation by Congress and an internal investigation into illegal activities by the CIA and Pentagon. It should have prompted news organizations to dig deeper into a scandal, a flagrant violation of the U.N. Charter and international treaties. It should have prompted a national debate about the war in Ukraine and the steady escalation of our involvement, one that could lead to a direct confrontation with Russia and nuclear war. Joining me to discuss his latest investigative piece is Seymour Hersh, one of our most important and fearless investigative reporters who, among many ground-breaking stories, exposed the U.S. Army’s 1969 My Lai massacre and cover-up, the Watergate scandal, the secret bombing of Cambodia, the torture by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib of Iraqi prisoners and the false narrative told by the U.S. government about the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden. . . .MORE

 

New evidence from Nord Stream underwater expedition refutes official claims.”   Max Blumenthal.  Mronline.org (6-30-23). 

Observers have drawn a number of conclusions based on a recent series of visits to the site of the Nord Stream pipeline rupture via drone.
Originally published: The Grayzone  on June 27, 2023 by Wyatt Reed (more by The Grayzone).  Inequality, State Repression, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireNord Stream pipelines

After a recent underwater expedition, The Grayzone can now reveal…what the real blast sites tell us about the worst act of eco-terrorism in history.   [But this detailed, technical investigation does not reveal who was behind the explosion.  –D]



Arms to Ukraine
Arms imports to Europe surge despite global decline.”

Mronline.org (3-16-23). 
By teleSUR Desk (Posted Mar 15, 2023).  Originally publishedteleSUR English  on March 13, 2023 (more by teleSUR English).

Financialization, Movements, Strategy, WarAmericas, Asia, Australia, China, Europe, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, United StatesNewswire

As a result of military aid from the U.S. and many European states, Ukraine became the 3rd biggest importer of major arms during 2022.

 

War Profiteering

David Starr.  Profiting Off of Death and Suffering is the American Way.”   CovertAction Magazine Mar 03, 2023.
 
Arms Industry and U.S. Government Have Now Practically Merged

The United States’s imperial foreign policy has been evident since day one, but especially starting with the Gilded Age and the arrogant doctrine of Manifest Destiny of the mid-19th century. The imperial “cause” continued through the decades leading up to today. 

And today, the U.S. arms industry and the U.S. Congress have a reciprocal relationship. Because of this relationship, many members of Congress have grown rich off of war and death. 

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has presented the latest opportunity for profiteering off of war. The arms industry is certainly making big bucks, with policies that fuel the conflict with the selling of an array of weaponry. There are politicians who have bought stock in the arms industry just before Russia invaded Ukraine. Nothing like perfect timing to secure one’s profits. 

Never to turn down a “good” military intervention, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) invested in Lockheed Martin shares the day before the invasion. The amount was small, between $1,001 and $15,000, compared to some investors. But Greene could not resist. […]

 

WESTERNMEDIA

'Western' Media Spread Copium To Prolong The War In UkraineBy Moon of Alabama. Popular Resistance.org (7-6-22). 

Above photo: People wave Russian national flags celebrating the recognition of independence in the centre of Donetsk, the territory controlled by pro-Russian rebels, in eastern Ukraine, on Monday, February 21. Alexei Alexandrov/AP Photo.
The war in Ukraine is clearly progressing in Russia’s favor.   That is why I am appalled by the incompetent descriptions in ‘western’ media of past and current operations in that war.  
What did Russia just do? It had made an ambitious attempt to encircle a large are in Donbas and succeeded with the effort in just a few days.. -more-

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif"They Lied About Afghanistan. They Lied About Iraq. And They Are Lying About Ukraine."  The Chris Hedges Report .           Wed, Jul 5,   https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gifListen to This Article: "They Lied About Afghanistan. They Lied About Iraq. And They Are Lying About Ukraine."     The U.S. public has been conned, once again, into pouring billions into another endless war.   Listen · 13M


Ambrose Sylvan.   “Western media has falsely presented the Donbas’ ‘Drive For Autonomy’ as being instigated by Moscow
.”    Editor.  mronline.org (7-16-23).    In Reality It Resulted Largely from Kyiv’s Destruction of Eastern Ukraine’s Economy Under Neo-Liberal Economic Policies Pushed by Washington Since the 1990s.
Originally publishedCovertAction Magazine  on July 13, 2023 by Ambrose Sylvan (more by CovertAction Magazine).    Media, Movements, State Repression, StrategyAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswire

The war in Ukraine is commonly seen through one of two lenses. The vision presented by Western, NATO-aligned powers is one of an astro-turfed Donbas separatism created by Moscow to justify the division of Ukraine.

The view of NATO’s critics is that the Donbas republics rebelled against the Euromaidan revolution and the country’s nationalistic, Euro-centric tilt. The reality is that this conflict started much earlier and was merely frozen until the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2013. . . .  MORE

 

 Conor Gallagher.  Underestimate Russia at your own risk: A comparison of Hubris by Germany during WWII and today’s collective West.”    Editor.  mronline.org (7-13-23).      In honor of the NATO summit July 11 and 12, this is a comparison of how the Nazi leadership in World War Two and today’s collective West similarly underestimated Russia and overestimated their capabilities.
Originally published: Naked Capitalism  on July 10, 2023 by Conor Gallagher (more by Naked Capitalism)  (Posted Jul 12, 2023).   Empire, History, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswire

In honor of the NATO summit July 11 and 12, this is a comparison of how the Nazi leadership in World War Two and today’s collective West similarly underestimated Russia and overestimated their capabilities.

Despite Russia’s overwhelming upper hand in Ukraine, Western officials and media continue to largely pump sunshine and weave stories of Russian collapse.

There are increasing breaks in the fever, and it looks like maybe, hopefully the acceptance of the loss is gaining traction in Washington.

Meanwhile, the unwillingness or inability for hardliners to objectively assess efforts against Russia occurs today just as it did during Operation Barbarossa. As Seymour Hersh writes:

There is an enormous gap between the way the professionals in the American intelligence community assess the situation and what the White House and the supine Washington press project to the public by uncritically reproducing the statements of Blinken and his hawkish cohorts.

This too is reminiscent of the Nazi offensive against the Soviet Union when the failure was hidden from the German public. Adding to the similarities is the fact that both the Third Reich command and today’s officials in the West simultaneously downplay Russia’s military capabilities while endlessly hyping the threat from Moscow.

Hitler, similar to so many Western “experts” and officials today, mocked Russia’s supposed backwardness while also hyping the threat “Slavic Bolshevism” posed to the West. The progression of his comments show him seesawing between a reluctant acceptance and desperate hope as his miscalculations of Russia slowly dawn on him. It’s a path today’s governments in the West are still discovering. . . .  MORE

NUCLEAR DANGER ATZaporizhzhia
 Jessica Corbett. 

Tensions in Ukraine Show Why 'Nuclear Power Is the Most Dangerous Way to Boil Water'.”  Common Dreams (7-6-23).    "Calling for a no-fire zone around Zaporizhzhia is not enough," said Beyond Nuclear. "We must call for no nuclear power at all."    Jessica Corbett

 

RELATED ISSUE

Nuclear Weapons
Reuters.   “Putin wants to restart nuclear arms cuts talks, Kremlin says after Trump comment
.”  ACURA  (Jan 26, 2025).
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear he wants to restart nuclear arms cuts talks as soon as possible, the Kremlin said on Friday in response to comments by U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump said on Thursday he wanted to work towards cutting nuclear arms, adding that he thought Russia and China might support reducing […]   
Read in browser »

 

 

CONTENTS Ukraine War Anthology #34  (25 articles and books)

Trump’s Call to Putin: [VFP-all] Is peace at hand in the long Cold War with Russia?

AGAIN A TIME FOR REFLECTION FOR PEACE

Walter Hixson.  Imperialism and War: The History Americans Need to Own.”
Consortium News.
Benjamin and Davies.  War in Ukraine.  (Dick’s rev. with  Baud’s Operation Z).
Benjamin Abelow.  How the West Brought War to Ukraine. 
Melvin Goodman.   A Personal Discussion of Russian National Security.”


THE WAR
Eva Bartlett.  Maligned in Western Media, Donbass Forces are Defending their Future from Ukrainian Shelling and Fascism.”
Big Serge. “
Total Kievan Debellation:The Russo-Ukrainian War: Year 3.”
John Helmer.“The War Came to Pokrovsk.” 
Lord Robert Skidelsky: “Speech in the House of Lords on Ukraine.”
Scott Ritter.   “Life, preempted.”
Chris Bambery.   NATO’s spiralling commitments to Ukraine risk catastrophe.”

RELATED ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS
Lederer and Peltz. “Russian foreign minister invokes nuclear capacity in UN speech…”
Lee Fang.“New York Times’ . . .War Escalation Journalism.”  
World Socialist Web Site.      “. . .long range NATO missiles against Russia….”

Ted Snider.   “The Damage Victoria Nuland Has Done.”
Anatol Lieven.  “Biden team blows off deadline for Ukraine war strategy.”
Unintended Consequences Interviews Benjamin Abelow.
Donald A. Smith.  “The US Provoked Russia over Ukraine.”
Jonathan McCormick.   An Interview with Professor Nicolai N. Petro: On Ukraine’s prospects.”
James W. Carden.  “Why Does American Folly March on in Ukraine?
 Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: “Ukraine War, The Third Year, featuring Grigory Yavlinsky.”
Saheli Chowdhury. “Ukraine … a private mercenary company of NATO. . . . ” (Interv.)
.
Larry Johnson.  Star CIA Analysts Are Out of Touch With. . . Russia.  
Sonja Van den Ende.   Media [and] Russian Retreat From Kherson….”
Aidan Jonah.   Canadian Professor attacked by mainstream media for opposing NATO narrative on Ukraine.”    

Ukraine War Anthologyy #33

 

 

 

 

       END UKRAINE WAR ANTHOLOGY #35


OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #233, JUNE 2, 2025.

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OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #233, JUNE 2, 2025.    Compiled by Dick Bennett


GreenPeace Debunks FF Industry Lies.  2025.
Debra J. Rosenthal, editor.  Teaching the Literature of Climate Change. 2024.
Karen G. Lloyd and Martin Crook.  CAPITALISM, COLONISATION AND THE ECOCIDE-GENOCIDE NEXUS.  2023.

GREENPEACE DEBUNKS LIES BY THE FF INDUSTRY.  5-26-25. https://engage.us.greenpeace.org/a/250507_mwemailCLM_makepolluterspay_ext_inc?contactdata=&am=100&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ea&utm_campaign=inc__250526_mw_clm07appl_lpd8zzzzzzzzzcz&sourceid=1021686&emci=5977586f-1938-f011-a5f1-6045bda9d96b&emdi=a453cef8-4b3a-f011-a5f1-6045bda9d96b&ceid=4201130

 

Debra J. Rosenthal, editor.  Teaching the Literature of Climate Change.  MLA, 2024.  344.  Publisher’s description:
Options for Teaching.   Bottom of Form

“[A]n indispensable sourcebook for instructors and a valuable companion for anyone seeking to comprehend the climate emergency. . . . It is an excellent reference for instructors who want to engage their students with climate literature and the climate change debate in general.”   Ecozone
Subjects    Contents    Reviews

Over the past several decades, writers such as Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, Octavia E. Butler, and Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner have explored climate change through literature, reflecting current anxieties about humans’ impact on the planet. Emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinarity, this volume embraces literature as a means to cultivate students’ understanding of the ongoing climate crisis, ethics in times of disaster, and the intrinsic intersectionality of environmental issues.    Contributors discuss speculative climate futures, the Anthropocene, postcolonialism, climate anxiety, and the usefulness of storytelling in engaging with catastrophe. The essays offer approaches to teaching interdisciplinary and cross-listed courses, including strategies for team-teaching across disciplines and for building connections between humanities majors and STEM majors. The volume concludes with essays that explore ways to address grief and to contemplate a hopeful future in the face of apocalyptic predictions.

 

Karen G. Lloyd, Martin Crook.  CAPITALISM, COLONISATION,  AND THE ECOCIDE-GENOCIDE NEXUS. U. of Chicago P, 2023.
Focusing on the former British colonies of Kenya and Australia, Crook draws attention to the critical role that ecological destruction has in the genocide of Indigenous and place-based peoples. He synthesizes radical political ecology with a political-economic approach, illuminating the inherent genocidal and ecocidal properties of global capitalism.   Reviewed in Climate and Capitalism.

 

END OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #233, JUNE 2, 2025.    Compiled by Dick Bennett

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #232, JUNE 4 , 2025.

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OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #232, JUNE 4 , 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett

 

US Right Wing Militarism Post WWII
Scientists Call for Ban on Nuclear Weapons Testing.

Jacqueline E. Sharkey.  Under Fire: U.S. Military Restrictions on the Media from Grenada to the Persian Gulf.
Peace&Planet News.  Veterans for Peace.  [VfP recognizes three existential threats: wars, warming, fascism.
Laleh Khalili.   Silicon Valley knows that war is good for business.
Jimmy Tobias.  “The Nuclear Age, Reborn.” 

 

June 3, 1957.   Linus Pauling and 2,000 other scientists join call for ban on nuclear weapons testing.  Eisenhower rejects plea.  Source: Peace Calendar 2025, Syracuse Cultural Workers.

 

Jacqueline E. Sharkey.  Under Fire: U.S.Military Restrictions on the Media from Grenada to the Persian Gulf (1955-1989).  Center for Public Integrity, 1991. 

This revelatory book has a wider range than the title suggests, for it covers not only the invasion of Grenada (1983) and the war in the Gulf (1990-91), but also the Vietnam War (1955-75), the Falklands/Malvinas War, and the invasion of Panama (1988-89), four intro. chapters on the military and the media, and an excellent final “Conclusions and Recommendations.”  The important book contrasts the Pentagon’s Principles of Information that commit the military to policies free of political influence, to White House and Pentagon repeated violations in both “letter and spirit” to maintain public support for unjustifiable wars.   This repeated process is ruinous to democratic government because it undercuts the democratic ideal that “in the United States the military is the army of the people, not the President.”   (Book available at Mullins Library, UAF.)  See OMNI’s six online anthologies on the increasing power of the executive branch, which Pres. Trump seeks to consummate as the “Unitary Executive”:  PRESIDENTIAL POWER ANTHOLOGY #6, February 17, 2020,   https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2020/02/us-presidential-power.html     --Dick

Peace&Planet News.  Veterans for Peace (Spring 2025).  [Sometimes I’ll report this magazine in CMM, for VfP recognizes three existential threats: wars, warming, fascism.  This no. of P&PN reports on wars mainly.] 
Authoritarianism
Chris Hedges.  “Surrendering to Authoritarianism.”

Vinnie Rotondaro.  “Rule by Fiat a Bipartisan Legacy.”
Wars

Doug Rawlings.  “Forty Years Ago.”  (Features a frequent visitor to OMNI—Duncan Murphy.)

Jack Gilroy.  “The Perfidy of the Merchants of Death.”
Col. (Ret) Anne Wright (from Bentonville).  “They’re All Going to Hell.”  (Israeli and US officials for Gaza genocide and WB occupation ).

W.D. Ehrhart.  “If a Tree Falls in the Forest.” (Essay by a US poet about an Israeli poet.)

Col. (Ret) Ann Wright.  “Sen. Tom Cotton Tells McCarthyite Lies about Women’s Peace Group.” etc.

Collective Property, Private Control” [for War}.  Portside Snapshot (June 2, 2025).  By Laleh Khalili.  June 2, 2025.  London Review of Books.  The U.S. was born in war and has waged a war of some sort in every year of its existence. Silicon Valley knows that war is good for business. Many of its most powerful people want us to stop worrying about ethics or ecology and love the bomb.

 

NUCLEAR WAR WARNING

Jimmy Tobias.  “The Nuclear Age, Reborn.”  The Nation (June 2025).     “The Post-Cold War status quo has broken down.  In its place is a frightening multipolar arms race.”  While most of the world looked away, a new nuclear arms race has broken out between the US, Russia, and China, raising the risk of nuclear confrontation to the highest in decades.”   [A significant appeal to us to pay attention against the arms race.  You know what to say and do to try to wake up Boozman and Cotton   –D]

OMNI UN WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY, JUNE 5 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

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OMNI

UN WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY, JUNE 5

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology, June 5, 2025

https://omnicenter.org/donate

What’s at Stake:  In 1974, the UN urged the world to celebrate World Environment Day with the slogan “Only One Earth”; in 2021 the theme was “Ecosystem Restoration.”   These are the large contexts within which the UN seeks to preserve our planet and its civilizations.

 

CONTENTS

UN World Environment Day June 5, 2025, Slogan, “Beat Plastic Pollution.”

The Shalom Report.  “From Sap Rising Up, To People Rising Up.”

George Monbiot. 

Protection Racket.” 

 

 

 

TEXTS

 

World Environment Day 2025 is observed on June 5th and focuses on the theme "Beat Plastic Pollution". The Republic of Korea is hosting the global celebrations for this year's event. This year's theme calls for action to tackle the mounting crisis of plastic pollution and urges communities to take collective action to safeguard the planet. 

World Environment Day

World Environment Day

https://www.worldenvironmentday.global   World Environment Day 2025 calls for collective action to tackle plastic pollution. By drawing inspiration from nature and showcasing real-world solutions.    

2025 Campaign  

News & Stories

World Environment Day - Beat plastic pollution

Welcome to the United Nations

https://www.un.org › observances › environment-day

In 2025, it is hosted by the Republic of Korea. Why take part? Time is running out, and nature is in emergency mode. To keep global warming below 1.5°C this ...

Background  

Stories

Resources

The Economic Times

World Environment Day 2025: Date, theme, poster ideas, host country, significance, history

UN News

World Environment Day: UN sounds alarm on plastic pollution crisis

Geneva Environment Network

World Environment Day Celebration 2025 | Multilateral Geneva Collectively Acting to Beat Plastic Pollution

World Environment Day: UN sounds alarm on plastic pollution ...

UN News   https://news.un.org › story › 2025/06

To rally momentum, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is leading the 52nd annual World Environment Day on 5 June, the world's largest platform ...

 

The Shalom Report  2-19-23

“From Sap Rising Up, To People Rising Up.”

Last week, on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Shvat - Tu B’Shvat - I wrote to you about the birthday of the trees, the Atlanta Forest Defenders, our duty as Jews to protect life - human and arboreal alike, and some initial action steps to support what’s happening in the Weelaunee Forest.

Today I write to you with additional opportunities to show up for those defending the trees and forests in Atlanta, and to announce The Shalom Center’s co-sponsorship of Third Act’s National Day of Action on 3.21.23, calling on the big banks to move their investments out of fossil fuels.

While more on those opportunities can be found towards the end of this email (or at the links above), first, I want to share some Torah:  
The verses that we looked at last week (Deuteronomy 20:19-20), that command us to not destroy trees - actually form the basis of the Jewish legal (halachic) principle against destroying any of Creation. Known as bal tashchit (do not destroy), this principle evolves to emphasize the inherent value of not only trees, but all resources. For instance, the Babylonian Talmud applies the principle to prevent the wasting of lamp oil, the tearing of clothing, the chopping up of furniture for firewood, or the killing of animals (Talmud Shabbath 67b, Tractate Hullin 7b, Kiddushin 32a).
 
What arises from this line of thought is a general sense that preservation and honoring the sacredness of Creation is paramount. As The Sefer HaChinuch (13th c, Spain) teaches: [It] is the path of the pious and people of action; …They will not destroy even a mustard seed in the world, and they are distressed at every ruination and spoilage they see; and if they are able to do any rescuing, they will save anything from destruction with all their power” (529:2).

If this isn’t a call to action, I don’t know what is. But even beyond that, the Talmud even goes so far as to state that "…one who tears their clothes or breaks their vessels or scatters their money in anger should be considered like an idol worshiper (b.Shabbat 105b; b.Shabbat 67b)." For the rabbis, wanton destruction was not just bad, but a form of evil idolatry.
 
Now, there are those in our tradition and contemporary society who would argue that profit is the most important thing, and if destruction could yield a profit, it is justifiable (Baba Kama 91b–92a; Mishneh Torah Shoftim; Hilkhot Melakhim 6:9). But The Shalom Center rejects that premise and follows prophet over profit. Because yes, short-term monetary gain for the few may come from razing a forest or fracking a well, but Jewish time doesn’t operate in the short-term and cost isn’t calculated for the few.

Instead, Judaism offers us the promise of the collective, the long game, of ancient time, and the world to come. Surely the cumulative monetary price we will have to pay to try to survive an ever worsening climate catastrophe will cost far more than today’s profits from environmental destruction. But even more essential, for Jews, life is paramount and our God is infinite, eternal. Our purpose is not accumulation of wealth (see the laws of shmitah and yovel), but sanctifying creation, of being a holy nation (Exodus 19:6, Leviticus 20:26), of aligning with the Breath of All Life.

Halachah - Jewish law - could more accurately be translated as “the going,” “the walking,” or “the path-making.” Basically, “walking the walk” or “living out our values.” Within this framework, the “walking” that is inspired by bal taschit most certainly necessitates taking action now to protect sacred life all over. Please see below for two different opportunities to join us in walking the walk of environmental justice and the promise of a more healthy and whole Earth.

 

George Monbiot. 

Protection Racket.”  The Guardian 30th November 2022.    6th December 2022.
https://www.monbiot.com/2022/12/06/protection-racket/

The more destructive the business, the more likely it is to enjoy political protection.  In every conflict over the living world, something is being protected. And most of the time, it’s the wrong thing.

The world’s most destructive industries are fiercely protected by governments. The three sectors that appear to be most responsible for the collapse of ecosystems and erasure of wildlife are fossil fuels, fisheries and farming. In 2021, governments directly subsidised oil and gas production to the tune of $64bn (£53bn), and spent a further $531bn (£443bn) on keeping fossil fuel prices low. The latest figures for fisheries, from 2018, suggest that global subsidies for the sector amount to $35bn a year, over 80% of which go to large-scale industrial fishing. Most are paid to “enhance capacity”: in other words to help the industry, as marine ecosystems collapse, catch more fish.

Every year, governments spend $500bn on farm subsidies, the great majority of which pay no regard to environmental protection. Even the payments that claim to do so often inflict more harm than good. For example, many of the European Union’s pillar two “green” subsidies sustain livestock farming on land that would be better used for ecological restoration. Over half the European farm budget is spent on propping up animal farming, which is arguably the world’s most ecologically destructive industry.

Pasture-fed meat production destroys five times as much forest as palm oil does. It now threatens some of the richest habitats on Earth, among which are forests in Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and Myanmar. Meat production could swallow 3m square kilometres of the world’s most biodiverse places in 35 years. That’s almost the size of India. In Australia, 94% of the deforestation in the catchment area of the Great Barrier Reef – a major cause of coral loss – is associated with beef production. Yet most of these catastrophes are delivered with the help of public money.

The more destructive the business, the more likely it is to enjoy political protection. A study published this month claims that chicken factories being built in Herefordshire and Shropshire are likely to destroy far more jobs than they create, wrecking tourism through the river pollution, air pollution, smell and scenic blight they cause. But none of the planning applications for these factories has been obliged to provide an economic impact analysis. Planning officers, the paper found, are highly dismissive of the hospitality industry, treating it as “non-serious and trivial”. By comparison, the paper found, “attitudes to farming were very different; described as serious, ‘proper’ (male) work”. The “tough”, “masculine” industries driving Earth systems towards collapse are pampered and protected by governments, while less destructive sectors must fend for themselves.

While there is no shortage of public money for the destruction of life on Earth, budgets for its protection always fall short. According to the UN, $536bn a year will be needed to protect the living world – far less than the amount being paid to destroy it – yet almost all this funding is missing. Some has been promised, scarcely any has materialised. So much for public money for public goods.

The political protection of destructive industries is woven into the fabric of politics, not least because of the Pollution Paradox (“the more damaging the commercial enterprise, the more money it must spend on politics to ensure it’s not regulated out of existence. As a result, politics comes to be dominated by the most damaging commercial enterprises.”) Earth systems, by contrast, are treated as an afterthought, an ornament: nice to have, but dispensable when their protection conflicts with the necessity of extraction. In reality, the irreducible essential is a habitable planet.

In 2010, at a biodiversity summit in Nagoya, Japan, governments set themselves 20 goals, to be met by 2020. None has been achieved. As they prepare for the biodiversity Cop15 summit in Montreal next week, governments are investing not in the defence of the living world but in greenwash.

The headline objective is to protect 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030. But what governments mean by protection often bears little resemblance to what ecologists mean. . . .  more   https://www.monbiot.com/2022/12/06/protection-racket/    

The protected industries driving us towards destruction will take everything if they are not checked. We face a brutal contest for control over land and sea: between those who seek to convert our life support systems into profit, and those who seek to defend, restore and, where possible, return them to the indigenous people dispossessed by capitalism’s fire front. These are never just technical or scientific issues. They cannot be resolved by management alone. They are deeply political. We can protect the living world or we can protect the companies destroying it. We cannot do both.  www.monbiot.com  

 

OMNI CELEBRATES UN WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY, JUNE 5, 2021

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