Tomgram: Aviva Chomsky, The Criminalization of Immigrants From Clinton to Trump
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Talk Nation Radio: Deirdre Enright on Freeing Innocent People from Prison
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
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Focus: Syria - Apr 24, 2017
Press Release: Treasury sanctions 271 Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center staff in response to sarin attack on Khan Sheikhoun - treasury.gov
VIDEO: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announces Syria sanctions - YouTube
‘Full, transparent’ investigation into Idlib chemical attacks needed: EU official Mogherini - kurdistan24.net
OPCW decision not to send chemical weapons experts to Syria ‘strange’: Lavrov - Sputnik
Ceasefire for Khan Sheikhoun if experts come to probe Syria chemical incident: Russian MoD - RT News
Iran, Russia boost military ties amid U.S. action in Syria - freebeacon.com
Anatomy of a sarin bomb explosion (Part I) - bellingcat
Anatomy of a sarin bomb explosion (Part II) - bellingcat
Why is US media ignoring all dissenting expert voices on the Khan Sheikhoun attack? - RT Op-Edge
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Wanted to Hire: Someone who can convert websites from Drupal to Wordpress
Tomgram: Engelhardt, The Chameleon Presidency
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
The F-35 and the Incinerating Ski Slope
By David Swanson
Remarks in Burlington, Vermont, April 22, 2017
Thank you all for inviting me. There is no place I’d rather be on earth day. And that includes marching for science at the March for Science in Washington. Although I certainly support marching for honesty, and I’d even march for the cause of getting more scientists to march — and any other group that hasn’t yet found the time to bother.
Unless resisting madness becomes mainstream, the madmen will decide our fate.
Thank you also for having started the first chapter of World Beyond War and for having given us the idea to have chapters. We now have people working on starting dozens of chapters in over a dozen countries. And we have staff to help them, and we have people in 151 countries who have signed the pledge that I’ll pass around here, pledging to work to end all war. We’re trying to get to 175 countries, because that’s how many the U.S. military admits to having troops in. So, 24 more to go. If you know anybody in Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras, Mongolia, Algeria, Lithuania, Ethiopia, or Papua New Guinea, please point them to WorldBeyondWar.org.
And thank you for having set up such a terrific program of workshops today, and — I hope — of work that will follow the workshops.
I hope my comments fit into the program, because I’m going to take a round about way of speaking in support of peace and environmentalism by praising garbage incinerators.
Why Is There So Little Popular Protest Against Today's Threats of Nuclear War?
In recent weeks, the people of the world have been treated to yet another display of the kind of nuclear insanity that has broken out periodically ever since 1945 and the dawn of the nuclear era.
How U.S. Race Laws Inspired Nazis
James Q. Whitman's new book is called Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. It is understated and overdocumented, difficult to argue with. No doubt some will try.
In cartoonish U.S. historical understanding, the United States is, was, and ever shall be a force for good, whereas Nazism arose in a distant, isolated land that lacked any connection to other societies. In a cartoonish reversal of that understanding that would make a good strawman for critics of this book, U.S. policies have been identical to Nazism which simply copied them. Obviously this is not the case.
The 'mother of all bombs' is big, deadly – and won't lead to peace
Trump dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb ever used in Afghanistan on Thursday. Just where is this escalation going?
Tomgram: Michael Klare, Do African Famines Presage Global Climate-Change Catastrophe?
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
There are the terrorists, who get attention out of all proportion to their actual clout, and then there are those with big-time clout -- I think of them as the terrarists -- who get almost no attention at all. Back in May 2013, I came up with that term and here’s how I described those I thought it should apply to:
Focus: Syria - Apr 19, 2017
Note: To stimulate the discussion and full independent investigation of the Syrian chemical explosion, I focus on expert opinions that oppose the narrative that the Syrian government carried out the gas attack.
FM Ayrault says France will prove Syria's Assad used chemical weapons - usatoday.com
Top U.S. intelligence analyst Theodore Postol accuses White House of fraud about Syrian sarin gas attack - washingtonsblog.com
The nerve agent attack that did not occur: Analysis of the times and locations of critical events in the alleged nerve agent attack in Khan Sheikhoun, by T. Postol - washingtonsblog.com
Ex-UN inspector Barton says Syrian crater ‘too small’ for toll, 'To kill the number of people killed there would require more than one little rocket’ - theaustralian.com.au
Talk: Alleged chemical attack Khan Sheikhoun 4 April 2017 - A Closer Look On Syria
VIDEO: Virginia Sen Dick Black explains why Assad had no motive to gas civilians. - YouTube
VIDEO (and transcript): Former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson says the Syrian Government may not be responsible for the chemical attack - therealnews.com
'Truth is first casualty of war': GOP Rep. skeptical Assad carried out gas attack - Fox News Insider
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Tomgram: Danny Sjursen, Remind Us How This Ends...
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Truth defenders: Two Men Who Made Their Mark on History
By Linn Washington, Jr.
One man enhanced the legacy of a legend revered around the world.
Accomplishments of the other man include his involvement in a seminal court battle where the trial judge issued a pivotal ruling about racism that sparked enraged denials among authorities in that nation.
Tomgram: Ira Chernus, Love Trumps Domination (Without the Combover)
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
A metaphoric right-brained essay: President MOABA (Mother of All Bullshit Artists)
By John Grant
Painting isn’t an aesthetic operation; it’s a form of magic designed as mediator between this strange hostile world and us. . . . It’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.
Never-Ending War in the Time of Trump and How to Stop It
By David Swanson
Remarks in Cambridge, Mass., April 13, 2017
The Mother of All Lies is this: you can fix things by blowing them up. Alcoholics should not drink, and people who cannot watch TV and distinguish it from reality should not watch TV. Donald Trump watches a lot of TV and may very well believe what it teaches, namely that blowing things up solves problems. He certainly has figured out, as I knew he would, that the way to get love from the U.S. corporate media is to blow stuff up.
For many of us who are not believers in myths about good wars and just wars and defensive and humanitarian wars, war may have initially struck us as evil because it so directly does harm. Driving a gas-burning car helps render the earth uninhabitable, but only very slowly and only in combination with larger factors. Building a nuclear power plant risks horrible disaster, but it doesn't intentionally and immediately create it. War, on the other hand, when looked at clearly, consists of mass murder described with other words. It's direct and immediate and fatal and large-scale violence. What could be more evil?
It's ironic, then, that the bulk of the damage that war does, and the vast majority of the deaths it causes are caused indirectly. The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees put out a statement this week that warned of mass starvation in Yemen without mentioning that there is a war there. The Washington Post yesterday published a shockingly honest article that described the famines in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria, and noted that they would be unimaginable without the wars in those countries. At least 20 million people are at risk of starving to death there, a number that dwarfs the number killed directly in wars in a given year -- and that is true even using credible numbers, not the super low estimates of which the U.S. media is so fond.
Tomgram: William Astore, From Deterrence to Doomsday?
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Focus: Syria - Apr 12, 2017
Leading MIT rocket scientist Theodore Postol issues a report: White House claims on Syria chemical attack 'cannot be true' -washingtonsblog.com
REPORT (Full text): The Assad regime's use of chemical weapons on 4 April 2017 - White House
White House background Press Briefing on Syria chemical attack, 4/11/2017 - whitehouse.gov
OPCW to begin Syria probe after use of chemicals in idlib attack is confirmed - The Siasat Daily
Syria invited OPCW to send inspector to Shayrat airfield: Representative to UN - Sputnik
At UN, Britain says it has evidence of Syria sarin gas use - WGNO
Turkey: Autopsies show sarin gas used against Syrian town - The Ledger
Putin says chemical weapons incident in Syria’s Idlib could be a provocation - TASS
Putin: Russia has data on new provocations planned against Syrian authorities - TASS
Trump: 'Unlikely' Russia had no knowledge of Syrian chemical attack - ABC News
Tillerson warns Russia on Syria, saying Assad era is ‘coming to an end’ - The New York Times
Defense chief Mattis says Syria will pay a big price if it uses gas again - usatoday.com
McMaster and Russia - Sic Semper Tyrannis
Out of 47 major editorials on Trump’s Syria strikes, only one opposed - FAIR
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Tomgram: Mattea Kramer, Road Rules, or Rediscovering My Country from Cuban Soil
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
It has to be one of the oddities of our history: the near-obsessive level of attention that, for almost 60 years, Washington has lavished on a modest-sized, impoverished island-nation of little strategic importance 90 miles off our southern coast. I’m talking, of course, about Cuba, which the U.S. has embargoed since 1959, as it hasn’t North Korea or any other country on this planet.
Syria: Was It Really a “Chemical Weapons Attack?”
Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation
Two dozen ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Trump to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib and to pull back from his dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)*
SUBJECT: Syria: Was It Really “A Chemical Weapons Attack”?
Don't Be a United Airlines Passenger
Do not sit still like a United Airlines passenger in a video when an injustice is happening. If the other passengers had simply blocked the aisles, corporate thugs could not have dragged their fellow passenger away. If everyone on board had demanded that the airline offer higher compensation until someone volunteered to take a later flight, rather than being violently "reaccommodated," then it would have done so.
Passivity in the face of injustice is the greatest danger we face. This fact does not mean I'm "blaming the victims." Of course United Airlines should be shamed, sued, boycotted, and compelled to reform or "reaccommodate" itself out of our lives entirely. So should the government that has deregulated the industry. So should every police department that has come to view the public as an enemy in a war.
But one should expect corporations and their thugs to behave barbarically. They are designed to do so. One should expect corrupt governments that lack popular influence or control to abuse power. The question is whether people will sit back and take it, resist with some nonviolent skills, or disastrously resort to violence themselves. (I've not searched yet for proposals to arm airline passengers, because I really don't look forward to reading them.)
The one nonviolent skill that seems to be advancing most encouragingly is videotaping and livestreaming. People have got that down. When police blatantly lie, such as by claiming to have carried a passenger who fell, rather than dragging a passenger whom they assaulted, video sets the record straight. But we often lack video of events far away that the U.S. military blatantly lies about, events locked out of sight that prison guards blatantly lie about, and events that happen over long periods -- such as the willful destruction of the earth's climate.
When it comes to those injustices that can't be videotaped or sued in court, too often people fail to act entirely. This is extremely dangerous behavior. We're collectively being dragged down an airplane aisle, and we're failing to act. A U.S.-Saudi war is threatening millions with starvation in Yemen. In Syria, the U.S. is risking a nuclear confrontation with Russia. The Pentagon is considering attacking North Korea. Baby steps toward slowing down the destruction if the earth's climate are being reversed. Warrantless spying, lawless imprisonment, and presidential drone murder have been normalized.
What can we do?
We can educate and organize. We can confront Congress members while they're home. We can pass local resolutions. We can divest from horrible businesses. We can build global alliances. We can go and stand in the way of deportations, of weapons shipments, or of the broadcasting of corporate "news." We can put a stop to injustice wherever we see it and require diplomatic negotiation and resolution from dying domestic industries and killing foreign service officials alike.
Civil disobedience is not something we should shy away from.
Civil obedience should horrify us. There is an epidemic.
Focus: Syria - Apr 10, 2017
US Official: Russia knew in advance of Syrian chemical attack - AP
McCain: Russia cooperated with Syria in chemical attack - ABC News
PODCAST: Michael Savage prosecutes the Syrian attack and his results are jaw-dropping ⋆ WayneDupree.com
Gabbard takes heat from Dems for skepticism of Syria chemical attack - TheHill
VIDEO: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard slams Trump’s attack on Syria - Antiwar.com Blog
Where was CIA’s Pompeo on Syria? Is he doubting Assad guilt? - Consortiumnews
Wag the dog -- How Al Qaeda played Donald Trump and the American media - The Huffington Post
VIDEO: Ray McGovern addresses the 2013 Ghouta Syrian gas attack accusations - YouTube
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Talk Nation Radio: Dennis Kucinich on Opposing War on Syria
https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-dennis-kucinich-on-opposing-war-on-syria
Dennis Kucinich is an internationally renowned champion of diplomacy and peace. His distinguished career in public service dates back to 1969 and spans councilman, clerk of courts, Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio State Senator, 8 term Member of US Congress and 2-time Democratic candidate for President of the United States. We discuss U.S. warmaking in Syria.
See
http://kucinich.com
http://facebook.com/denniskucinich
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
Tomgram: Dahr Jamail, Alaska in the Crosshairs
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
New Gary Lindorff poem in ThisCantBeHappening!: What am I shouting?
I saw a photo of an elephant in a concrete cell
alone,
so alone.
Focus: Syria - Apr 7, 2017
Putin considers US attack in Syria aggression against sovereign state: Kremlin - Sputnik
Putin to Netanyahu: Unacceptable to make 'groundless accusations' on Syria chemical attack - Haaretz.com
Russian Foreign Ministry statement on US military action in Syria on April 7, 2017 - mid.ru
Russian Defense Ministry: 36 Tomahawk missiles out of 59 did not reach the Ash Sha’irat airbase, total cost of the operation $110.271 million - southfront.org
Russian Defense Ministry decides on expansion in Syria following Putin's orders - Sputnik
Russia to take measures to Increase Syrian air defense capabilities - southfront.org
Russian warship steams toward US destroyers that launched Syria strikes - Fox News
Russia expects US to provide evidence of chemical weapons use by Syria - TASS
Moscow reminds all chemical weapons were taken out of Syria in 2014 with US help - Sputnik
Syria has 'ridiculously huge' stockpile of sarin gas, Pentagon memo reveals - Washington Times
Rebel warehouse with chem weapons hit by Syrian airstrike in Idlib: Russian MOD - RT News
White Helmets & SOHR can't be considered as reliable sources: Russian Foreign Ministry - southfront.org
US probes possible Russia role in Syria chemical attack - CNN.com
UN Chief urges ‘very clear' probe into Syria's Idlib chemical attack - Sputnik
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Eyewitness says Syrian military anticipated U.S. raid - ABC News
What caused the chemical calamity in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria on April 4, 2017? - Rootclaim
Chemical Weapons 2017: What Just Happened In Syria? - activistpost.com
Tahrir AL sham said the warplane that did the airstrikes was Su-22 2/4 - Yusha Yuseef on Twitter
VIDEO: Minutes after the sarin gas attack on Idlib - LiveLeak.com
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Syria strike disappoints Trump backers in media - TheHill
Trump’s Syria strike is sign of Bannon’s waning influence - nymag.com
Trump supporter Marine veteran warns Trump: ‘You're being duped’ on Syria (VIDEO) - southfront.org
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
