Category Archives: Commentary

What characterizes American government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as it is ruthlessly contrived governance carried out behind the entertaining, distracting and disingenuous curtain of political theater. And what political theater it is, diabolically Shakespearean at times, full of sound and fury, yet in the end, signifying nothing. Continue reading →

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice recently opened in Montgomery, Alabama, to great fanfare. The memorial tells the stories of the more than 4,000 recorded lynchings perpetrated against black men, women and children by American terrorists for nearly 100 years. The crimes were gruesome public spectacle. Victims died by gunshots, hanging, fire, dismemberment and castration. The massacres took place mostly in the South but not entirely. Lynch law was a nationwide phenomenon and while unwritten it was defended as much as any legislation on the books. Continue reading →

Three more Palestinians were killed and 611 wounded last Friday, when tens of thousands of Gazans continued their largely non-violent protests at the Gaza-Israel border. Continue reading →

Those titular words were sent to me by Fr. Daniel Berrigan shortly before he died. Continue reading →

While pundits can engage in endless debate over whether President Trump’s sanctions forced North Korean dictator Kim Jung-un to the negotiating table or whether Kim’s threat of firing nuclear weapons at the United States forced Trump to the negotiating table, one thing that the mainstream commentators are ignoring is the discomforting fact that Korea remains none of the U.S. government’s business. Continue reading →

In the first two parts of this report, I have estimated that about 2.4 million people have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, while about 1.2 million have been killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a result of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. In the third and final part of this report, I will estimate how many people have been killed as a result of U.S. military and CIA interventions in Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen. Continue reading →

We landed in darkness. The last time I was in Narita was 18 years earlier. With a six-hour layover, I inexplicably didn’t leave the airport. “Can I possibly die without at least a glimpse of Japan?” I’d ask myself, cringing. Continue reading →

Monday PM Netanyahu provided a fascinating glimpse into a psychotic tribal mind. A clown who sits on a huge pile of WMD, an arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons designed to kill millions, is crying foul, complaining that another state in the region may attempt to equip itself with similar weapons as a means of deterrence. Netanyahu’s performance looked like a raging toddler pointing to another toddler’s nappies while his own pampers are dripping from every direction. Continue reading →

Like Trump, Netanyahu is a serial liar. Neither one can be trusted. Nothing they claim on vital issues is credible. Deception and Big Lies substitute for truth-telling. Continue reading →

An angelic-faced two-year-old toddler drew his last breath at 2am on Friday. Alfie Evans fought to survive for four days shocking doctors at Liverpool’s Alder Hey children’s hospital who believed he would die once his life support was turned off. Continue reading →

Why did working class voters choose a selfish, thin-skinned, petulant, lying, narcissistic, boastful, megalomaniac for president? Continue reading →

Most wars are fought for profit, though most war propagandists say they are fought for humanitarian reasons. U.S.-led wars profit the military industry, including weapons manufacturers, and give wealthy corporations control of more territory and money, but they cause unspeakable pain to innocent civilians. The reality of war is different from the fantasy version our political leaders sell to the public, and it is long past time both politicians and the general public speak truthfully about war. Continue reading →

Fifty years have elapsed since Thomas Merton died under mysterious circumstances in a cottage at a Red Cross Conference Center outside Bangkok, Thailand, where he was attending an international inter-faith monastic conference. The truth behind his death has been concealed until now through the lies and deceptions of a cast of characters, religious, secular, and U.S. governmental, whose actions chill one to the bone. But he has finally found his voice through Hugh Turley and David Martin, who tell the suppressed truth of Merton’s last minutes on earth on December 10, 1968. Continue reading →

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep . . . It starts at 6:30 AM and, together with numerous other stressful construction noises, goes through breakfast, lunch, cocktail hour and dinner. In south Walton county, construction crews are permitted to work from 7 AM until 7 PM six days a week Monday through Saturday. Residents miss the white construction crews. They didn’t get going until 8 AM, knocked off at 3:30 PM, and didn’t work on Saturdays But the Mexican construction crews produce non-stop construction noise 72 hours a week. Continue reading →

There has never been a peace agreement between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States. When the Korean War ended is was planned that both sides would work out an agreement, but it never happened. President Trump is boasting that he will fix this problem, but, ignorant man that he is, he doesn’t understand that he can’t fix it. Continue reading →

If there is any surprise that Senate Democrats, most of whom are virtually indistinguishable from pro-war Republicans, are about to coalesce in support of the newest version of the Authority for the Use of Military Force of 2018 (AUMF), then you have seriously not been paying attention. Continue reading →

False Flag is a concept that goes back centuries. It was considered to be a legitimate ploy by the Greeks and Romans, where a military force would pretend to be friendly to get close to an enemy before dropping the pretense and raising its banners to reveal its own affiliation just before launching an attack. In the sea battles of the eighteenth century among Spain, France and Britain hoisting an enemy flag instead of one’s own to confuse the opponent was considered to be a legitimate ruse de guerre, but it was only “honorable” if one reverted to one’s own flag before engaging in combat. Continue reading →

Is the U.S. government evil? Continue reading →

Albert Einstein, along with other Jewish luminaries, including Hannah Arendt, published a letter in the New York Times on December 4, 1948. That was only a few months after Israel had declared its independence and as hundreds of Palestinian villages were being actively demolished after their inhabitants were expelled. Continue reading →

Now that the Trump, May, and Macron regimes have proven beyond all doubt that they are lawless war criminal regimes, what is next? Continue reading →

The Koch brothers are oil magnates and billionaire GOP funders. Continue reading →

It was true that the sun never set on the British empire. The voracious appetite for resources and wealth, including human property, made Britain one of the most criminal nations in all of human history. From Australia to Africa to India to the Caribbean the British empire committed numerous genocides and thefts on a massive scale. Continue reading →

April 14 US, UK, French aggression in Syria failed to achieve its objective, despite Pentagon claims otherwise. Continue reading →

One reason it’s so easy to get an American administration, the mainstream media, and the American people to jump on an anti-Russian bandwagon is of course the legacy of the Soviet Union. To all the real crimes and shortcomings of that period, the US regularly added many fictitious claims to agitate the American public against Moscow. That has not come to a halt. During a debate in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, candidate Ben Carson (now the head of the US Housing and Urban Development agency) allowed the following to pass his lips: “Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: Our spiritual life, our patriotism, and our morality.” This is a variation on many Stalinist “quotes” over the years designed to deprecate both the Soviet leader and any American who can be made to sound like him. The quote was quite false, but the debate moderators and the other candidates didn’t raise any question about its accuracy. Of course not. Continue reading →

Congressional Republicans would be more willing to stand up to Trump if their major financial backers—big business and Wall Street—had more backbone. Continue reading →

Last Thursday, the Genesis Prize announced it was cancelling its so-called “Jewish Nobel” prize ceremony in Israel in June because its 2018 recipient, Natalie Portman, said she would not take part in light of “recent events.” Continue reading →

The kids are doing a fine job of re-alerting everyone to the problem of the weapons business when it comes to private citizen ownership of a gun and the thousands we kill with them. But we need those kids and especially their parents and grandparents to wake up and face up to the very public social problem of the weapons and hundreds of thousands of murders we all pay for under the misnomer of defense. Continue reading →

They also escalate ongoing conflicts—incidents staged to deceive, one party falsely accused of something conducted by someone else. Continue reading →

Ah, the “Sorrows of Empire.” Its lies these days so easily exposed. Yet, too often ignored. Continue reading →

The leaders of Western countries never cease touting their nation’s values, such as freedom of expression, respect for the rule of law and care for the less fortunate. Those responsible for bringing chaos to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya almost always base their actions on ‘values,’ no matter how much death and destruction or collateral damage (a horrible term) they inflict. Continue reading →