Rwanda Dispatches May 18 to July 12, 2018
At 30 years on to this day, April 7, 2024, the Rwanda Genocide broke out, that saw more than 1 million Rwandans murdered. CBC did the interview you see below. 30 years after Rwandan genocide, Roméo Dallaire feels ‘rage’ amid global crises | Watch (msn.com) Roméo Dallaire led the UN’s peacekeeping mission when more than […]
Easter Song and Reflections on the Resurrection
***NOTE: Please check out the footnotes for additional, more detailed commentary. Also, there are poetry and songs in the final footnote; and four additional songs below that.*** Please also see two great sermons, one on Good Friday, the other on Easter Sunday, by my colleague Randy Klassen: both in the context of criminal/restorative justice. Easter […]
Was America Great When It Burned Native American Babies? (Audio and Transcript) – Truthdig
Posted initially on Aug 5, 2016 Interview by Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer “Benjamin Madley1 has changed the conversation on genocide and American Indians. After An American Genocide, it will no longer be possible to debate whether or not genocide took place. Instead we will need to confront the questions of how and why […]
Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages WN: This is one of the few times I also posted a book review to this Blog. This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book. In an interview with Religion […]
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages WN: This is one of the few times I also posted a book review to this Blog. This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book. In an interview with Religion […]
Reflections on “Drone Strikes and Torture Will Cause Big Blowback”
November 5, 2021 by Brian Cloughley photo above: AK Rockefeller – CC BY 2.0 WN: It is ominous to read at the end of the highlighted article: Although the long-term consequences are measureless, there is no doubt that “explosive events” will blow back for a long time to come. The military-industrial complex has been manufacturing […]
Empire or Humanity?
By Howard Zinn Posted on August 15, 2021 image above from the Movie Poster: The Fall of the American Empire WN: A character in the movie highlighted says: “That’s what destroyed the United States: money.” Now greed, fear and power—these three–remain for every empire known to humanity. But the greatest of these is Greed. And […]
Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire
SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. The website is dedicated to: The Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire. More on Empire below. PLEASE NOTE: the Sitemap. There is also a list of all Book Reviews separately, and alongside each post. You may search the Blog too. Please consider […]
Opinion: It’s ‘The Code’ of the NHL, and it has no cure for stupid
Opinion by Ken Dryden May 27, 2021 photo above: Toronto center John Tavares is taken from the ice on a stretcher on May 20 after being injured during Game 1 of the Maple Leafs’ first-round playoff series against Montreal. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP) Ken Dryden, a former goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens and […]
I Was a Catholic Zionist: A Biblical Challenge to Tribalism and Idolatry
WN: This review is from THE AMERICAN COUNCIL FOR JUDAISM Review: “I Was a Catholic Zionist“–An Eloquent Exploration of Judaism’s Moral and Ethical Tradition and Zionism’s Departure From It by Allan C. Brownfeld Issues Winter 2019 I Was a Catholic Zionist: A Biblical Challenge to Tribalism and Idolatry By Ted Schmidt 430 pages, $28.00 (information […]
Empire Politician:
The new president’s paper trail reveals a man who has often betrayed his own bedrock principles. Jeremy Scahill April 28 2021 WN: The article highlighted pulls no punches in underscoring Biden’s war-hawk and pro-police brutality policies over a lifetime as a politician. He–as anyone–still may change! But not his brutal record, as laid out in […]
I’ve been a priest for 50 years and still struggle with the problem of evil
John J. Strynkowski March 28, 2021 photo above: Photo by Markus Schumacher on Unsplash WN: The reflection highlighted below is profound and humbling. excerpts: I have been a priest for 57 years. Ever since I read The Brothers Karamazov as a seminarian, with its description of the rejection of God by Ivan, the middle brother, […]
On the Relative Vileness of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene
February 10, 2021 by Gary Leupp photo above: via The Huffington Post WN: One can imagine with the above photo Trump himself readily carrying out family separations at the border . . . The writer of the article below however makes a compelling observation about U.S. leadership and comparative “vileness.” My only quibble is: he […]
Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity.
Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity. By Christine Mungai, Truthout Part of the Series: Religion’s Role in the Struggle for Justice December 16, 2020 photo above: howafrica.com WN: This is the central theme of this website! A significant portion of what follows is from the previous highlighted part. There is […]
Cornel West Says ‘Neo-Fascist Gangster’ Trump and Neoliberal Democrats Expose America as ‘Failed Social Experiment’
WN: Please see in light of the title this outstanding article by Canadian Wade Davis: The Unraveling of America. 1. Introduction to the Post: This post, updated numerous times, has become a kind of dog’s breakfast. One could spend hours working through all the written, cartoon, and video material. Footnote 7 in particular is full […]
Donald Trump: An American Tragedy for the U.S. and the Entire World
By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay Global Research, October 24, 2019 “If this [U.S.] government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful […]
Crises in Iraq and Haiti Expose the Failure of Militarized Neoliberalism
It should be no surprise that the new governments installed by all these U.S. wars and coups are among the most corrupt regimes on earth. Published on Thursday, October 10, 2019 by Common Dreams by Medea Benjamin and by Nicolas J S Davies photo above: Not only are they reeling from protests against government corruption […]
Christchurch, the White Victim Complex and Savage Capitalism
Christchurch, the White Victim Complex and Savage Capitalism March 15, 2019 by Ben Debney drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair WN: There is much on “savage capitalism” on this website. This expression likely references Rudyard Kipling’s famous line “The savage wars of peace” from his classic pro-American Empire poem: “The White Man’s Burden: The United States […]
Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity
Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout Published March 14, 2019 photo above: CNN Politics WN: The article highlighted below describes a continuing horror story… Lord, have mercy. Then, I must confess that this article makes me hopping furious for another reason! I’m livid about the majority of […]
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL D. COHEN COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FEBRUARY 27, 2019
photo above: CNN Politics WN: I’ve spent a 40-year career working with prisoners and ex-prisoners. Many were clearly cons. Many were not. Some (I’m convinced) were entirely innocent. (See for instance Innocence Project Canada, and Innocence Project USA, reflect a moment, and weep.) The advance copy of Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen’s testimony before […]
What’s Behind U.S. Troop Withdrawals Announced for Syria and Afghanistan?
By Sara Flounders Global Research, December 27, 2018 WN: What is indisputable is the U.S. remains singularly guided in the Greater Middle East (as everywhere else in the world) by unapologetic imperialist impulse. It is also indisputable that Israel is likewise an imperial power which not only does the bidding of the U.S., but also […]
Reinforcing US Status as ‘Bully and Hegemon,’ Bolton to Threaten ICC Over Probes into America’s War Crimes
Human rights advocates decried the Trump administration’s attack on the International Criminal Court as “another low point” in its effort to skirt accountability for war crimes September 10, 2018 Common Dreams by Jake Johnson, staff writer photo above: Afghans have been waiting decades for justice for war crimes, including some allegedly committed by U.S. forces. […]
Billy Graham and the Gospel of Fear
February 21, 2018 byCecil Bothwell Photo above by Richard Bromley | CC BY 2.0 [NOTE: For a differing view with my reflection on it, please also see my February 23, 2018 post about Billy Graham.] WN: Billy Graham’s passing (February 21, 2018) will occasion countless eulogies the world over; he will be touted as the […]
Kipling, the ‘White Man’s Burden,’ and U.S. Imperialism
by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney (Nov 01, 2003) photo above: The Moro Massacre (March 9, 1906): Phillipines – emblematic of the real meaning of “the white man’s burden” WN: The “white man’s burden” has ever been the white man’s horror, or the white man’s alibi, or the white man’s curse, or the […]
The Demolition of U.S. Global Power
Donald Trump’s Road to Debacle in the Greater Middle East Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Trumping the Empire Posted by Alfred McCoy at 4:23pm, July 16, 2017. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch. By Alfred W. McCoy excerpts: Trump’s Demolition Job Despite the obvious differences in their economic circumstances, there remain some telling resonances between Britain’s postwar politics and America’s troubles today. […]
Tomgram: Engelhardt, Aiding and Abetting the Tweeter-in-Chief
The Insult Wars in Washington How They Blind Us to Our Troubles By Tom Engelhardt Posted by Tom Engelhardt at 5:15pm, July 9, 2017. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch. photo above: From the article highlighted below is this: But one tweet truly caught my attention, even if it was at the very beginning of a donnybrook that, with twists […]
The Complete Censored ESCWA Report: “Israel Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid”
By Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley Global Research, March 19, 2017 The brutal decades-long dispossession of the Palestinian people is a towering injustice in the name of Empire. See for instance these resources. See in particular Mitri Raheb: Faith in the Face of Empire. The ESCWA Report removed from the United Nations website is further trampling of Palestinian […]
PAULIST FATHERS STATEMENT ON MORAL ISSUES IN THE 2016 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
photo above: St. Mary’s of the Lake, Lake George, N.Y. – Paulist Fathers, www.paulist.org Though this is not a ringing disavowal of war (when will the RC Church – and so many other churches – ultimately reject “just war” for the heresy it is?), it in many ways is encouraging. And though the Paulist Bishops […]
Empire’s Religion: Arundhati Roy Confronts the Tyranny of the Free Market
Published on Thursday, September 15, 2016 by Common Dreams by Jake Johnson photo above: ‘Whether she is writing of Kashmir or of the Palestinians, of American foreign policy or of terror in the Middle East, of environmental degradation or of the threat posed by nuclear proliferation, [author and activist Arundhati] Roy,’ writes Johnson, ‘maintains a […]
America and the Plague of ‘Moral Idiocy’
Tuesday, September 06, 2016 by Consortium News When it comes to applying rules of international law and ethics, the U.S. government and its mainstream media operate with stunning hypocrisy, what might be called “moral idiocy” photo above: Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger. (Photo: Atlantic Council/flickr/cc) Hillary Rodham Clinton was awarded, May 1, 2013, the Atlantic Council‘s Distinguished […]
Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
September 26, 2014 by CHARLES R. LARSON WN: There is someone of my acquaintance who rails against the US Black community for its violence of Black on Black, while almost completely downplaying police violence against Blacks. He also rails against them for their poverty: they just are not enterprising, and therefore deserve their state, end […]
Is War the Real [U.S.] National Pastime?
These are excerpts from an interview with Eugene Jarecki, director of the documentary: “Why We Fight“. For consideration: “Pax Americana: War is the means by which Americans learn geography.” – Ambrose Bierce an excerpt: Q: It is very interesting that in the film you used the footage of [current US Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld’s meeting […]
Is Paul the Father of Misogyny and Antisemitism?
WN: This paper highlighted below answers in the negative the question posed in the title. It was written by Pamela Eisenbaum, Pauline scholar, practising Jew, feminist, and professor at a Christian seminary. She subsequently wrote Paul was not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle. I delivered a sermon inspired by her, entitled […]
Focus On: Mapping Militarism 2020
by David Swanson May 6, 2020 WN: The article highlighted below represents a brilliant and multiplex presentation of the worldwide realities of the premier world blight of militarism. One could call it the Ultimate Virus, the Unremitting Pandemic–that few even recognize for the Monstrous World Nightmare it is. The other day I was forwarded an […]
Re-issuing: How Fossil Fuel Money Made Climate Change Denial the Word of God
by Brendan O’Connor August 8, 2017 WN: I decided to republish this article of seven years ago. The supreme haughty superiority of Christians who just know all the massive, irrefutable science about human-caused climate change — as the massive scientific support for the Darwinian theory of evolution — are all a big hoax, “because the […]
Extensive Commentary On: What white Christian support for Trump reveals about systemic racism
By Robert P. Jones | November 12, 2020 WN: Beyond tragic the pullquote to the right, this means four-fifths of American white evangelical Christians subscribe to “heresy” (an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth—Merriam-Webster). And this not limited to America! And many religious white non-evangelicals (Catholics, mainline Protestants, other faith members, etc.) also are […]
The Mumbai Bombs, July 2006
July 12, 2006 Dear Editor: Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter MacKay predictably was the pot that called the kettle black in (otherwise legitimately) condemning the bombing horror in Mumbai this week. Last July Prime Minister Tony Blair likewise as hypocritically called the London bombings “barbaric attacks.” On September 1, 1939, President Roosevelt similarly wrote […]
Is Violence Master of Us All?: Fight, Flight or Just Peacemaking
WN: The host was the affable lawyer Gerry Palmer, quite well-known in Abbotsford for his work with numerous non-profit organizations, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business at the University of the Fraser Valley. Is Violence Master of Us All?: Fight, Flight or Just Peacemaking Philosopher’s Café: Legal Grounds Coffee House, Abbotsford, April […]
Engagement With “Frances Haugen: ‘I never wanted to be a whistleblower. But lives were in danger’”
Dan Milmo Global technology editor October 24, 2021 WN: Now this is wonderfully gracious theology from Frances Haugen: Because the point of moral bankruptcy is … saying you deserve a chance to start over, that we as a society do better when people get a chance to wipe the slate. I can only add: Amen! […]
Interaction With “The CIA: 70 Years of Organized Crime”
September 22, 2017 by Douglas Valentine – Lars Schall photo above by Tom Thai | CC BY 2.0 WN: Welcome to America the Beautiful. As kids, my brothers and I loved the highlighted song, as sung by George Beverly Shea–who performed in front of more people than any other singer in history. We played it […]
Legacy of Shame:
October 19, 2021 by Kenn Orphan photo above: Photograph Source: Reagan White House Photographs – Public Domain WN: Saint Augustine recounts this story of Empire: The king asked the fellow, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “the same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because […]
On A letter from Hell
By Robin Schumacher, Exclusive Columnist photo above: pxhere.com WN: It is interesting that the photo chosen for the article highlighted below (not shown above) is along the lines of what Larry Dixon wrote (The Other Side of the Good News: Contemporary Challenges to Jesus’ teaching on hell 1 in apparent approval of an instance of […]
Engelhardt, A Hellfire World
By Tom Engelhardt photo above: ‘THEY ARE ALL DEAD’: Harrowing leaked footage shows US drone strikes in Afghanistan as pilot admits killing two civilians & child by mistake; Imogen Braddick WN: What can one say? God damn the monstrous capacity of the West (of course elsewhere too!) to cold-bloodedly commit mass murder via drone strike […]
9/11 was a test:
Essay by Carlos Lozada Illustration above: by Patrik Svensson Sept. 3, 2021 WN: Below are excerpts from an outstanding essay by a Pulitzer Prizer winner for criticism in 2019. But the last lines, though intended to be hopeful, ring perversely hollow–especially given what one can read on this website about the horrors of American Expansionism/Exceptionalism/Empire: […]
Bomber Biden Sends in B-52 Bombers in a Tantrum over Taliban Advance
August 12, 2021 by Dave Lindorff photo above: AC-130 Spectre gunship rains random death from the sky in the name of America (US Air Force photo) WN: So much for “Mr. Nice Guy Biden”–who is just one more of a long line of Presidential mass murderers. The West fawns over his repeated–indeed admirable–rising above personal […]
An American Kingdom
By Stephanie McCrummen July 11, 2021 photo above: Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth. (Dylan Hollingsworth for The Washington Post) WN: Oh dear! Oh dear! As my good Jesuit-trained friend Gerry Ayotte says, drawing on Tradition back to the Fathers and Mothers of the Church, God speaks loudest in the silence. In the fully choreographed […]
The Catholic Church must come clean—completely—about what it did to Native Americans
The Editors June 30, 2021 photo above: A young woman takes part in a rally in Toronto June 6, 2021, after the remains of 215 children were on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in May. For years Indigenous people in Canada have wanted an apology from the pope for the church’s role […]
Why Canada’s special forces ‘shadow army’ is still fighting ISIS
By Adnan R. Khan May 11, 2021 photo above: Spec Ops Magazine WN: In short, Canada’s Special Operations Regiment (CSOR), are a bunch of trained hitmen. There is no declared war Canada is in1. Testimonials are ubiquitous that intelligence gathered by CSOR and others by its very nature is often faulty, frequently manipulated, at best […]
Alfred McCoy, How Washington Lost the Ultimate Drug War
May 6, 2021 By Alfred McCoy photo above: Afghan War Kills 3 Children a Day: Report | Common Dreams News WN: The folly and futility of American Empire Wars know no bounds. This applies to Canada too and the West in general–all bundled together by greed, fear, will to domination, xenophobia, and arrogant incompetence. Democracy?–not […]
Joe Biden’s War Powers:
Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill April 28 2021 Recording: Go to website and listen to Joe Biden’s War Powers 2021-04-28·36 min. Transcript excerpts below. illustration above: Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism by Joel Andreas. WN: In the end, Joe Biden’s devout Catholicism, his profound empathy from personal tragedy, his commitment to the welfare […]
Tribes Want Medals Awarded for Wounded Knee Massacre Rescinded
Mark Walker April 23, 2021 photo above: Kristina Barker for The New York Times WN: This kind of story can be repeated ubiquitously in European worldwide Empire/colonization history over many centuries. One post of many is: The Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, and American Exceptionalism. Related posts may be pursued there. “Moving on” as beneficiaries […]
Restorative Justice: Peacemaking Not Warmaking; Transformative Justice: Penal Abolitionism Not Prison Reform
by Wayne Northey for The Kenarchy Journal, Volume 2. image above: cccu.org PLEASE NOTE: Below are excerpts of my paper for the above-noted Journal. At the very end of this post, one may click on the highlighted text, and read the full article in PDF. And of course one may also read it on the […]
Technology of Death:
March 26, 2020 by Ramzy Baroud photo above: Sgt. Paul L. Anstine III, U.S. Marine Corps – Public Domain WN: Israel is a brutal Empire, only less so than the U.S in one respect: scale. excerpts: The Middle East region, battered by wars and adjoining humanitarian crises that have left millions of people stateless, hungry […]
On Some Bad House Manager Language
February 12, 2021 by Paul Street photo above: Backbone Campaign – CC BY 2. WN: The highlighted article is a succinct dismantling of any notion that the United States is a democracy. We Canadians and other democracies are plagued by some of the same issues. But the so-claimed “oldest democracy” was never intended to be, […]
Reckoning with the Toxicity of Christian Nationalism
By Bill Berkowitz February 8, 2021 WN: The article highlighted below is very disturbing for followers of the one Mark Lewis Taylor dubs The Executed God (book review here, with the subtitle: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America). I stand in perpetual amazement at how the New Testament Jesus is read to be […]
Book Review of Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World
Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World, Jean Bethke Elshtain, New York: Basic Books, 2003, 240 pp. WN: My friend Ron Dart commissioned this review back in 2009. The author was a bright, productive Christian scholar. Incredibly naïve and blinded by ideology as well . . . The review […]
The Man Card
WN: Please see this new and powerful video–free until November 3! It tells America’s story of the past half century through White Male Identity Politics. Canadian-born Liz Plank in her fall 2019 book (before the pandemic!), For the Love of Men: From Toxic to a More Mindful Masculinity states baldly: Although the news often focuses […]
The Unraveling of America
by Wade Davis August 6, 2020 Wade Davis holds the Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. His award-winning books include “Into the Silence” and “The Wayfinders.” His new book, “Magdalena: River of Dreams,” is published by Knopf. WN: This is an exceptional article! There is however a […]
Life Under the Bomb Means a Life of Resistance
Published on Thursday, August 06, 2020 by Common Dreams by Rev. John Dear photo above: “Our message over the years has been simple and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us. They don’t make us safer; they don’t provide jobs; they don’t make us more secure—these are age-old lies. Instead they bankrupt us, economically and […]
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act July 22, 2020 Bats With Napalm Vests and Other Great American Innovations by David Swanson WN: This is horrible! Unconscionable! Despicable! Exponentially Hypocritical! . . . and whatever other superlative expletives can be thrown at U.S. planning, developing, experimenting, and deploying […]
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act
Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act July 22, 2020 Bats With Napalm Vests and Other Great American Innovations by David Swanson WN: This is horrible! Unconscionable! Despicable! Exponentially Hypocritical! . . . and whatever other superlative expletives can be thrown at U.S. planning, developing, experimenting, and deploying […]
An Open Letter To Joe Biden
Dear Mr. Biden. If I might be so bold, I wonder about connecting some dots at this incredible kairos moment of U.S. and world history. I was moved by your empathetic videoed message to the Floyd family during the funeral service in Houston. You have deeply suffered multiple losses as this article sensitively points out: […]
Beyond Impeachment: Remove This Regime from Below
October 1, 2019 by Paul Street photo above: White House – Public Domain WN: This is a powerful broadside against the Ultimate Bad Guy on the Planet: the Evil Empire of the United States of America! The vehemence is found not only in the colourful language, but even in the typos . . . Mr. […]
Why the Justice Department Can’t Be Trusted to Investigate Abysmal Conditions in Federal Prisons
Obama’s Imperial Presidency
September 14, 2018 by Carl Boggs photo above: The U.S. Army | CC BY 2.0 WN: It is astounding that Obama (no less Hillary Clinton) was through and through a warmonger on a grand scale exceeding both Bushes, and far more so far than Trump. This is laid out in the article below. Obama is […]
Millennial Evangelicals Diverge from Their Parents’ Beliefs
The separation of families at the border, climate change, and various progressive causes have galvanized young Christians. By Eliza Griswold August 27, 2018 WN: I have a white Canadian Evangelical friend who expresses being fed up with white Evangelical-bashing — in particular towards white Evangelicals south of the border1. I argue on the contrary that […]
The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism
The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean August 24, 2018 Slavery and the Origins of Capitalism by Louis Proyect WN: I wrote the following in introduction to a book similar in its findings about 19th-century American capitalism to 17th-century colonial capitalism, entitled The Half Has Never […]
Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Will China Be the Next Global Hegemon?
Beijing’s Bid for Global Power in the Age of Trump “America First” Versus China’s Strategy of the Four Continents By Alfred W. McCoy image above: Visual Capitalist, from “The world’s top economy: the US vs China in five charts” WN: As usual, Dr. McCoy’s trenchant analysis proves compelling, sage, hugely informed, and immensely helpful. Trump’s […]
How Does This All End? How Do We Come Back Together?
August 1, 2018 by Tim Suttle 8 Comments WN: In the article highlighted below, we are told — again by this author — that America has a wisdom problem. I have no doubt that he is right. What must be asserted however much more so is that America has an Evil Empire problem. When an […]
Pope revises catechism to say death penalty is ‘inadmissible’
Commits the church to working toward its abolition worldwide1 Aug 2, 2018 by Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service Theology photo above: Pope Francis gestures before speaking about the death penalty at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, at the Vatican in this Oct. 11, 2017, file photo. […]
Trump is now dangerous – that makes his mental health a matter of public interest
Bandy Lee This world authority in psychiatry, consulted by US politicians, argues that the president’s mental fitness deserves scrutiny Sun 7 Jan 2018 00.05 GMT Last modified on Fri 9 Feb 2018 18.35 GMT WN: Today in Rwanda, we discussed why many African leaders have destroyed home and people over whom they rule(d). When traits such as […]
The Last Real Evangelical: Evangelist Billy Graham
Feb 23, 2018 photo above: Evangelist Billy Graham speaks in Dallas at the 1974 Southern Baptist Convention. (AP) by Mel White / MelWhite.org1 WN: On the day of Billy Graham’s death (February 21, 2018), I posted a critical commentary on Graham. Today I post a positive reflection by Mel White, who counted Graham as a […]
Pope Denounces ‘Mentality of Fear’ Caused by Nuclear Regimes, Urges Disarmament
Published on Friday, November 10, 2017 by Common Dreams At a seminar at the Vatican, Pope Francis praised the U.N.’s recent anti-nuclear weapons treaty by Julia Conley, staff writer photo above: Pope Francis called for nuclear disarmament at a Vatican summit on Friday, a week after an emotional anti-war speech at a military cemetery in […]
The Pentagon’s New Wonder Weapons for World Dominion
Or Buck Rogers in the 21st Century By Alfred W. McCoy [This piece has been adapted and expanded from Alfred W. McCoy’s new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.] illustration above: Mongol airships fire disintegrator rays to destroy America. (Buck Rodgers, 2429 A.D., 2-9-1929, Roland […]
Exploring the Shadows of America’s Security State
Or How I Learned Not to Love Big Brother By Alfred W. McCoy [This piece has been adapted and expanded from the introduction to Alfred W. McCoy’s new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.] WN: A family member once quipped about the United States that she would […]
Why Trump Could Be Gone Before 2020
AUGUST 18, 2017 by PAUL STREET excerpts: Increasingly, though, one really must wonder if the arch-authoritarian racist idiot Donald Trump will make it to 2020. The supreme madness and evil of the rolling atrocity that is the Insane Clown Trump presidency has just now reached a new level of bizarre and scary-weird ruling-class dysfunction. Just last […]
Tomgram: Dilip Hiro, Two Impulsive Leaders Fan the Global Flames
Posted by Dilip Hiro at 6:51am, July 6, 2017. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch. image above: Winning entry of this year’s International Trumpism Cartoon and Caricature Contest in Tehran. WN: The article highlighted below shows two impulsive leaders, Trump and Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Salman, to be hell-bent on fanning the flames of the Middle East, and thereby […]
The Unacknowledged Logic of North Korea’s Missile Tests
We may not like it, but nuclear weapons may be all that stands in the way of another US-conducted “regime change.” By Patrick Lawrence July 6, 2017 2:05 PM photo above: South Korean and U.S. Army tanks fire live rounds during a joint live-fire military exercise near the demilitarized zone in Pocheon, South Korea, April 21, […]
Worried About Those Global Cyber Attacks? They Were Started by Washington
Worried About Those Global Cyber Attacks? They Were Started by Washington The notorious US spy agencies invented this monster, first with the Stuxnet virus against Iran—but then they lost control over it. By William Greider JUNE 30, 2017 WN: Of course, the United States has never been the “peacekeeper that upholds the world’s higher values”, as […]
Obama: a Hollow Man Filled With Ruling Class Ideas
Obama: a Hollow Man Filled With Ruling Class Ideas JUNE 2, 2017 by PAUL STREET WN: The review below of the recent massive biography of Barack Obama is scathing with reference to Obama’s supreme narcissism (matching Trump’s one could argue, though not in constant bombast). Paul Street powerfully demonstrates how Obama, in a long line […]
America’s Iran Hysteria
The Irrationality of Iran Vilification By Danny Sjursen Posted by Danny Sjursen at 7:46am, May 30, 2017. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch. WN: It is now almost in every geopolitical instance a truism that if the United States says “black” the reality is the inverse – or significantly other. Such is the case in the article highlighted below. America’s view […]
VOW – Statement on Syria
Justin Trudeau has shown his true colours in his complete flip-flop on what The Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (VOW) calls for below. He lacks the spine of his father, who in part was willing to stand up to U.S. Empire. Without doubt, he will also bless (has done so already?) the MOAB dropped […]
The Banality of War
WN: Below is the first footnote of an essay for a possible chapter in an upcoming book slated for fall publication, Hellrazed, edited by Kevin Miller, of Hellbound? (the documentary) fame. I look at the issues of war and hell together from a Christian perspective. I periodically update the essay, then upload the revised version […]
Fifty Years On: MLK’s Concerns Still Plague Us, Including Militarism
Tuesday, 04 April 2017 photo above: Racism, extreme materialism and militarism are still inextricably linked, and still prevent our society’s becoming anything close to Dr. King’s “beloved community.” (Photo: Susan Melkisethian) KEVIN MARTIN AND REVEREND DR. HERBERT DAUGHTRY WN: The United States has acted like an empire since its inception: its two foundational sins are indigenous […]
Constantine in Canada – Ron Dart – with Vancouver letter re: Franklin Graham
February 27, 2017 Constantine in Canada: The Conservative Evangelicals Ron S. Dart WN: Years ago, I wrote an editorial in The Mennonite, a U.S.-based periodical, about evangelism being carried out – without the Gospel. The Editor later informed me that he had never received so many angry Letters to the Editor attacking my article in his […]
Why Do So Many Americans Fear Muslims? Decades of Denial About America’s Role in the World.
Jon Schwarz February 18 2017, 6:11 a.m. photo above: During a memorial service in Baghdad, Iraqis gather around a bomb hole in the ceiling of the Al-Amariya shelter in 2003, where more than 400 people were killed in a U.S.-led missile attack during the Gulf War. Iraqis opened a new memorial center outside the Al-Amariya shelter […]
The Republic Repeals Itself
By Andrew Sullivan WN: The article linked below is one of despair. There is no doubt this is a sentiment joined in by untold millions around the world, not least in America. However, Andrew Sullivan’s painting of the American Republic as an ideal to emulate was only ever that: an ideal with a hollowed-out centre. […]
My Journey to the Center of the Alt-Right – The Huffington Post
By Luke O’Brien Illustrations By Mariano Pascual November 3, 2016 I went to a white nationalist ethnostate in Indiana. I got bounced from a secret meeting in D.C. I spent weeks figuring out how hate gurgles up from the nastiest recesses of the Internet. And I’m sorry to report that unconscionable racists will be a […]
An Open Letter to Michelle Obama, October 13, 2016
WN: A friend reminded me, in response to that below, that none of us in the first world is untainted vis à vis violence. And with that taintedness is a bending at least towards hypocrisy and Pharisaism – which my friend also reminded me about. So with that mea culpa, please read on.: Dear […]
North Korea accused of ‘maniacal recklessness’ after new nuclear test
US Geological Survey records 5.3 seismic event at ground level near nuclear test site Friday 9 September 2016 Martin Farrer and agencies WN: The grand irony is ever there: the US and the Western world accuse North Korea of “maniacal recklessness” (indeed, absolutely accurately), and we read in the article linked below that “the United […]
The Revenge of Roger’s Angels
How Fox News women took down the most powerful, and predatory, man in media. September 2, 2016 7:30 a.m. By Gabriel Sherman photo above: Wesley Mann/AUGUST: Roger Ailes. WN: There is something profoundly disturbing, but in no way surprising, about Roger Ailes, who recently was fired from Fox News, after his decades-long harassment and abuse […]
US War Crimes or “Normalized Deviance”
Tuesday, 23 August 2016 09:22 By Nicolas J.S. Davies, Consortium News | Op-Ed photo above: 1986 launch of the doomed spaceshuttle Challenger, with reference to the “normalization of deviance” in the NASA culture that led up to the disaster, an expression coined by sociologist Diane Vaughan [WN] This is as succinct and compelling a statement […]
There’s No Business Like the Arms Business
photo above: A mural near the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran. (David Holt / CC-BY-2.0) July 26, 2016 Tomgram: William Hartung, How to Arm a “Volatile” Planet Editorial by WN It is a very strange world: Michelle Obama makes a highly impassioned, brilliant speech at the Democratic National Convention – one nearly universally praised, […]
The London Bombs, July 2005
By Wayne Northey July 9, 2005 Dear Editor: Prime Minister Tony Blair hypocritically called the London bombings “barbaric attacks.” On September 1, 1939, President Roosevelt similarly wrote to the major powers that aerial bombing of civilians had “profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity” and was “inhuman barbarism.” He later as disingenuously referred to the December 7, 1941 […]
Mr. Harper, But Emperor Bush Has Nothing on At All!!!
By Wayne Northey Stephen Harper is a scary man. He is at best sycophant, at worst dupe, of the confidence racket called American Foreign Policy. There is a growing collection of articles on my computer about American Empire and “Emperor” George W. Bush. The assortment exceeds to the point of crescendo journalist Serge Schmemann’s agonizing […]
The Executed God
The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America, Mark Lewis Taylor, Fortress Press, 2001, 208 pp. excerpts: “Is it a contradiction that Christians pray and adore their imprisoned and executed God while supporting or tolerating the execution and imprisonment of so many today?… Is there a contradiction when in 2001 a new U.S. president, George […]
Restorative Justice
NOTE: Some of what follows is excerpted from Chapter One of Justice That Transforms: Volume 1 WN: From a Canadian vantage point, Dr. Herman Bianchi, a Dutch criminologist, is one of the three “grandfathers” (if one must use that term) chronologically of Restorative Justice, together with Mark Yantzi and Dave Worth, the first and longstanding […]