Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Suicide Squad

 

at 7/25/24 7:28am

At the end of the last century, hoping to drive the United States from Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest sites, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden sought to draw in the American military. He reportedly wanted to bring the Americans into a fight on Muslim soil, provoking savage asymmetric conflicts that would send home a stream of “wooden boxes and coffins and weaken American resolve. “This is when you will leave, he predicted. After the 9/11 attacks, Washington took the bait, launching interventions across the Greater Middle East and Africa. What followed was a slew of sputtering counterterrorism failures and stalemates in places ranging from Niger and Burkina Faso to Somalia and Yemen, a dismal loss, after 20 years,... Read more Source: Suicide Squad appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— The Democratic Party’s Culture of Loyalty

 

at 7/23/24 7:34am

The Biden campaign drove the Democratic Party into a ditch and speculation is rampant about grim prospects for the election. But little scrutiny has gone into examining how such a dire situation developed in the first place. Joe Biden was on a collision course with reality long before his abysmal debate performance led to his withdrawal from the race. “Several current and former officials and others who encountered him behind closed doors noticed that he increasingly appeared confused or listless, or would lose the thread of conversations,” the New York Times reported five days after the debate. Some had noticed the glaring problem months earlier but kept quiet. A culture of dubious loyalty festered far beyond the Biden White House.... Read more Source: The Democratic Party’s Culture of Loyalty appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Remembrance of Wars Past

 

at 7/21/24 3:24pm

There was the old American lefty paper, theGuardian, and theVillage Voice,which beat the Sixties into the world, and its later imitators like theBoston Phoenix. There wasLiberation News Service, theRatin New York, theGreat Speckled Birdin Atlanta, theOld Molein Boston, the distinctly psychedelicChicago Seed,Leviathan,Viet-Report, and theL.A. Free Press, as well as that Texas paper whose name I long ago forgot that was partial to armadillo cartoons. And they existed, in the 1960s and early 1970s, amid a jostling crowd of hundreds of “underground” newspapers all quite above ground but the word sounded so romantic in that political moment. There were G.I. antiwar papers by the score and high school rags by the hundreds in an “alternate” universe of opposition that somehow... Read more Source: Remembrance of Wars Past appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Best of TomDispatch]

— The Decline and Fall of Presidential America

 

at 7/18/24 7:34am

Its not a happenstance or some sad mistake that, barring a surprise, Americans will go to the polls in November to vote for one of two distinctly ancient men, now 77 and 81, both of whom have clearly exhibited language and thought problems for a significant period of time.To put this in perspective, remember for a moment that, until Ronald Reagan entered his second term in office in 1985 (during which he would get dementia before leaving the White House at age 77), the oldest president was Dwight D. Eisenhower and he was 70 (yes, 70!) not on entering the Oval Office but on leaving it after his second term in 1961. Of course, that was another America in another... Read more Source: The Decline and Fall of Presidential America appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— When Too Much Is Not Enough

 

at 7/16/24 7:28am

It began with Aaron Bushnell and a visceral response of mine: Why would anyone do such a thing? Bushnell was the 25-year-old active-duty airman who set himself ablaze on February 25th in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., to protest that countrys brutal war in Gaza. The first question was tough enough, but his dramatic and deadly action also brought to mind other questions that have occupied my thinking, research, and writing in these last several years: What spurs someone to such an unyielding, ultimate commitment to a cause? What kind of political action is actually effective? When the campus protests over the bloodbath in Gaza exploded shortly after Bushnell’s act, those questions came to seem even more... Read more Source: When Too Much Is Not Enough appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Settled

 

at 7/14/24 3:34pm

In 1979, I made the first of what would turn out to be decades of periodic visits to Israel and the West Bank. I traveled there for the New York alternative publication The Village Voice to investigate Israel’s growing settler movement, Gush Emunim (or the Bloc of the Faithful). The English-language Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, then reported that settlers from Kiryat Arba, a Jewish West Bank outpost, had murdered two Palestinian teenagers from the village of Halhoul. There, in one of the earliest West Bank settlements established by Gush Emunim, a distant cousin of my husband had two acquaintances. Under cover of being a Jew in search of enlightenment, I spent several days and nights with them. Gush Emunim:... Read more Source: Settled appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Who Thinks Donald Trump Is Racist?

 

at 7/11/24 7:02am

Former president Donald Trump often finds himself on the defensive against accusations of racism. He regularly denies the charges, distorting his record and resorting to his “Black friends” defense, while attempting to throw the allegations back at liberals. However, he never explains why he is the favorite son of the one group in society about whose racial bigotry there can be no debate: avowed racists. Since Trump emerged as a public political figure, they have been resolute in their loyalty to him. Are Trump’s African American allies like Senator Tim Scott or Representative Byron Donalds, or Latino ones like Senator Marco Rubio, truly ignorant of his unapologetically racist champions? Or is their blind ambition to share a ticket with him... Read more Source: Who Thinks Donald Trump Is Racist? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Judgment Day for America’s Worst Supreme Court Justice

 

at 7/9/24 7:31am

That counts for something here on the other side of death, where I wait for you, Clarence Thomas, and your sharp-toothed wife Ginni, and someday the others whose decrees and rulings from afar have aided and abetted the mayhem and the massacres. Cowards all of you, and boring and petty to boot, at such a safe distance from the volleys, the salvos, the gunfire. Oh, the names I have had to learn Sandy Hook and Columbine and Uvalde and so many hundreds more and even more after that, while you were careful to stay at a safe distance from the children as they fell. Not me, not me. In his play about treachery and murder in medieval Scotland, Shakespeare... Read more Source: Judgment Day for Americas Worst Supreme Court Justice appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— War and Famine

 

at 7/7/24 3:29pm

Many war stories end with hunger wreaking havoc on significant portions of a population. In Christian theology, the Biblical four horses of the apocalypse, believed by many in early modern Europe to presage the end of the world, symbolized invasion, armed conflict, and famine followed by death. They suggest the degree to which people have long recognized how violence causes starvation. Armed conflict disrupts food supplies as warring factions divert resources to arms production and their militaries while destroying the kinds of infrastructure that enable societies to feed themselves. Governments, too, sometimes use starvation as a weapon of war. (Sound familiar? I’m not going to point fingers here because most of us can undoubtedly recall recent examples.) As someone who... Read more Source: War and Famine appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Trusting the “Five Eyes” Only

 

at 7/4/24 7:43am

Wherever he travels globally, President Biden has sought to project the United States as the rejuvenated leader of a broad coalition of democratic nations seeking to defend the “rules-based international order” against encroachments by hostile autocratic powers, especially China, Russia, and North Korea. “We established NATO, the greatest military alliance in the history of the world,” he told veterans of D-Day while at Normandy, France on June 6th. “Today… NATO is more united than ever and even more prepared to keep the peace, deter aggression, defend freedom all around the world.” In other venues, Biden has repeatedly highlighted Washington’s efforts to incorporate the “Global South” the developing nations of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East into... Read more Source: Trusting the “Five Eyes” Only appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Turning the Red Sea Redder

 

at 7/2/24 7:36am

In mid-June, the Associated Press announced that the U.S. Navy had been engaged in the most intense naval combat since the end of World War II, which surely would come as a surprise to most Americans. This time, the fighting isnt taking place in the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans but in the Red Sea and the adversary is Yemen’s yes, Yemens! Shiite party-militia, the Helpers of God (Ansar Allah), often known, thanks to their leading clan, as the Houthis. They are supporting the Palestinians of Gaza against the Israeli campaign of total war on that small enclave, while, in recent months, they have faced repeated air strikes from American planes and have responded by, among other things, attacking... Read more Source: Turning the Red Sea Redder appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— The True Catastrophe of Our Times

 

at 6/30/24 3:00pm

Ive been writing about climate change for so many years now but, in truth, it was always something I read about and took in globally. It was happening out there, often in horrific ways, but not what I felt I was living through myself. (Its true that, in past winters, Manhattans Central Park went 653 days without producing an inch of snow, almost double any previous record, but if youre not a kid with a sled in the closet, thats the sort of thing you dont really feel.) However, thats begun to change. As it happens, like so many other New Yorkers, I only recently experienced a June heat dome over my city. Here in Manhattan, where I walk many... Read more Source: The True Catastrophe of Our Times appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— An Election in Danger?

 

at 6/27/24 7:35am

Officials and election experts are now struggling in a big-time way. How, they wonder, can they effectively address mounting threats of violence, election denialism, foreign influence, and voter discrimination? Do they run the risk of alarming the public to the point of reducing voter turnout?Are there reasons to assuage fears about either election disinformation or possible election interference in 2024? Standing in Pointe du Hoc, France, to mark the anniversary of D-Day, President Biden told the world that those who fought in that pivotal battle are “asking us to do our job: to protect freedom in our time, to defend democracy.” Election security would be a good place to start. Perhaps one way to assess the question of election... Read more Source: An Election in Danger? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Philosopher Kings or New-Age Militarists?

 

at 6/25/24 7:30am

Venture capital and military startup firms in Silicon Valley have begun aggressively selling a version of automated warfare that will deeply incorporate artificial intelligence (AI). Those companies and their CEOs are now pressing full speed ahead with that emerging technology, largely dismissing the risk of malfunctions that could lead to the future slaughter of civilians, not to speak of the possibility of dangerous scenarios of escalation between major military powers. The reasons for this headlong rush include a misplaced faith in “miracle weapons,” but above all else, this surge of support for emerging military technologies is driven by the ultimate rationale of the military-industrial complex: vast sums of money to be made. The New Techno-Enthusiasts While some in the military... Read more Source: Philosopher Kings or New-Age Militarists? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Humanity Imperiled

 

at 6/23/24 3:14pm

What is the future likely to bring?A reasonable stance might be to try to look at the human species from the outside.So imagine that you’re an extraterrestrial observer who is trying to figure out what’s happening here or, for that matter, imagine you’re an historian 100 years from now assuming there are any historians 100 years from now, which is not obvious and you’re looking back at what’s happening today. You’d see something quite remarkable. For the first time in the history of the human species, we have clearly developed the capacity to destroy ourselves. That’s been true since 1945. It’s now being finally recognized that there are more long-term processes like environmental destruction leading in the same... Read more Source: Humanity Imperiled appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Best of TomDispatch]

— The Art of the Submarine

 

at 6/20/24 7:31am

Walk through any art museum and youre likely to see a mix of the classical and contemporary, impressionist and surrealist, refined and raw, beautiful, eerie, and provocative. Looking at art allows me at least a few moments of relief from the “that’s just the way it is” attitude of our hyper-consumerist, hyper-militarized, hyper-nihilist nation. I can step outside my day-to-day life and accept an invitation, however briefly, to boundlessness! I can experience invention, creation, and re-creation just moments apart. I can see everyday objects with new eyes as theyre repurposed and reframed in extraordinary ways. I can celebrate the relentless power of human vision and imagination. In a museum, I often find that I can actually breathe. The Lyman Allyn... Read more Source: The Art of the Submarine appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— A National Climate Action Plan

 

at 6/18/24 7:36am

While April and May are usually the hottest months in many countries in Southeast Asia, hundreds of millions of people are now suffering in South Asia from an exceptionally intense heat wave that has killed hundreds. One expert has already called it the most extreme heat event in history. Record-breaking temperatures above 122º F were reported in the Indian capital of New Delhi and temperatures sizzled to an unheard of 127º F in parts of India and Pakistan. Nor was the blazing heat limited to Asia. Heat waves of exceptional severity and duration are now occurring simultaneously in many areas of the world.Mexico and parts of the United States, notably Miami and Phoenix, have recently been in the grip of... Read more Source: A National Climate Action Plan appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Trump or Biden on Israel?

 

at 6/16/24 3:29pm

Recently, I attended a demonstration called by groups opposing the carnage in Gaza, where eight months of air, ground, and sea attacks by the Israeli Defense Forces have leveled entire quadrants of cities and killed more than 36,000 Palestinians. Many of the participants, justly outraged by the ongoing mass murder triggered by Hamass October 7th terrorist massacre, bitterly criticized President Biden over his continuing support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war. Asked about the likely choice in November between Biden and Donald Trump, the consensus among the demonstrators was that they wouldn’t vote for “Genocide Joe,” and that there was nothing to choose from between Biden and Trump when it comes to Middle East policy. Some would simply stay home,... Read more Source: Trump or Biden on Israel? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— Air Conditioning

 

at 6/13/24 7:32am

The odds are that the entire continental United States will swelter through a hotter-than-normal summer this year. And no surprise there. It seems as if thats been the forecast every spring for years now. But this summer promises to eclipse even the summer of 2023, which, in the Northern Hemisphere, was the hottest since at least the year 1 AD, according to tree-ring analysis. You read that correctly: this summer may be hotter than any summer in the last 2,024 years (and undoubtedly many tens of thousands before that, since tree rings can take the data back only so far). The world’s hot future has already arrived in parts of the Global South, thanks largely to past greenhouse gas emissions... Read more Source: Air Conditioning appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— What Did We Know

 

at 6/11/24 7:30am

A few days ago, my partner and I went in search of packing tape. Our sojourn on an idyllic (if tick-infested) Cape Cod island was ending and it was time to ship some stuff home. We stopped at a little odds-and-ends shop and found ourselves in conversation with the woman behind the counter. She was born in Panama, where her father had served as chief engineer operating tugboats in the Panama Canal. As a child, she remembered celebrating her birthday with a trip on a tug from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, sailing under an arch of water produced by fireboats on either side. “But that all ended,” she said, “with the invasion. It was terrifying. They were bombing... Read more Source: What Did We Know appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

— The Absence — and Presence — of Daniel Ellsberg

 

at 6/9/24 4:46pm

On a warm evening almost a decade ago, I sat under the stars with Daniel Ellsberg while he talked about nuclear war with alarming intensity. He was most of the way through writing his last and most important book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. Somehow, he had set aside the denial so many people rely on to cope with a world that could suddenly end in unimaginable horror. Listening, I felt more and more frightened. Dan knew what he was talking about. After working inside this countrys doomsday machinery, even drafting nuclear war plans for the Pentagon during President John F. Kennedys administration, Dan Ellsberg had gained intricate perspectives on what greased the bureaucratic wheels, personal... Read more Source: The Absence and Presence of Daniel Ellsberg appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

[Category: Tomgram]

As of 7/26/24 11:28pm. Last new 7/25/24 8:18am.