Global

Top U.S. officials want us to believe that the Pentagon carefully spares civilian lives while making war overseas. The notion is pleasant. And with high-tech killing far from home, the physical and psychological distances have made it even easier to believe recent claimsthat American warfare has become “humane.”

War spews hell in all directions. Just ask the guys at Talon Anvil, a secret U.S. “strike cell” recently exposed by the New York Times as a unit with a reputation for ignoring the rules of engagement and killing lots and lots of civilians with drone strikes as it plays war with ISIS.

Part of the problem, a source told the Times, is that “the daily demands of overseeing strike after strike seemed to erode operators’ perspective and fray their humanity.”

Nuclear weapons are at the pinnacle of what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” If you’d rather not think about them, that’s understandable. But such a coping strategy has limited value. And those who are making vast profits from preparations for global annihilation are further empowered by our avoidance.

At the level of national policy, nuclear derangement is so normalized that few give it a second thought. Yet normal does not mean sane. As an epigraph to his brilliant book The Doomsday Machine, Daniel Ellsberg provides a chillingly apt quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: “Madness in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”

Now, some policy technocrats for the USA’s nuclear arsenal and some advocates for arms control are locked in a heated dispute over the future of ICBMs: intercontinental ballistic missiles. It’s an argument between the “national security” establishment -- hell-bent on “modernizing” ICBMs -- and various nuclear-policy critics, who prefer to keep the current ICBMs in place. Both sides are refusing to acknowledge the profound need to get rid of them entirely.

The decision by several governments across the globe to institute travel bans on seven African countries, starting on November 27, due to the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, was perceived to be hasty in the eyes of some and fully justifiable on medical grounds, in the view of others. However, the matter is hardly that of a difference of opinion.

The swiftness of choking off some of Africa’s poorest countries, including Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe, is particularly disturbing if placed within a proper context concerning the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Global South, generally, and Africa, in particular.

09 december 21

Amidst our ever-escalating climate Apocalypse, the viral insanity of atomic power gets ever worse. Now it’s spread deep into the Biden Administration, with no apparent cure in sight.

Nowhere is the atomic disease more potentially lethal than at California’s ancient, aging, embrittled reactors at Diablo Canyon.

Throughout the US there are now 93 big licensed commercial reactors. Except for one, they are all more than 30 years old. Many are more than 40.

Worldwide there are more than 400.

After more than 60 years of uneven operation, the US nuke industry still can’t get private insurance. Any American reactor could be blowing up as you read this, taking down your health, your family, your home.

Since there’s no private insurer (your homeowner’s policy explicitly excludes liability from any reactor disaster) you’ll have no recourse beyond a very limited federal taxpayer fund…if that.

Over the decades the industry has touted one “Nuclear Renaissance” after another. Each time, with a few pliant “environmentalists” in tow, they declare atomic energy’s time has really really come.

Four students dead, six more, plus a teacher, wounded. Can you believe – another mass shooting last week. This one north of Detroit, at Oxford High School. A 15-year-old boy – and his parents – were arrested.

While the shock and collective horror are still fresh, before the news cycle moves on, a question resonates with every heartbeat. It’s always the same one: Why? Why? Why?

Partial answers abound. Mostly, we keep them to ourselves. Nothing changes. The accused killer, Ethan Crumbley, has been charged as an adult for murder. . .  and terrorism. So what? Should we call in drone strikes on Oakland County? Bureaucratic “justice” is not going to keep us safe, any more than endless war has kept us safe.

For whatever reason, some mistakenly perceive the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, as liberal, progressive and even ‘pro-Palestinian’. Of course, none of this is true. This misconstrued depiction of an essentially Zionist and anti-Palestinian newspaper tells of a much bigger story of how confusing Israeli politics is, and how equally confused many of us are in understanding the Israeli political discourse.

On November 28, newly-elected Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, stormed the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Palestinian city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) with hundreds of soldiers and many illegal Jewish settlers, including the who’s who of Israel’s extremists. 

Keynote Speaker:
KENNY BRUNO: DEFCON FOR DEMOCRACY

The Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition zoom #75 headlines the great long-time activist KENNY BRUNO in a devastating 90-minute discussion of what we need to do to save our democracy.

We start with a brief report from HEDY TRIPP in Minnesota who organized our GREEP #74 call with KEITH ELLISON, the state’s Attorney-General.

Kenny’s bio includes important work with Greenpeace USA, Pipeline Fighters Hub, the Ruckus Society, EarthRights International and more.  He is co-author with Beth Handman and their daughter Antonia Bruno of a number of very cool children’s books.

Kenny’s current article “Trump Has Already Laid the Groundwork to Subvert the 2024 Election” appears at Truthout (https://truthout.org/articles/trump-has-already-laid-the-groundwork-to-subvert-the-2024-election/) with an overview of what we face to preserve what’s left of our democracy and protect ourselves from a devastating dictatorship.

The Belgian government’s decision on November 25 to label products made in illegal Israeli Jewish settlements is welcome, although it will ultimately prove ineffectual.