Paradise and Inferno

The World War I poet Ivor Gurney wrote: “There are strange Hells within the minds War made.” If a new Vietnam War poem is ever written in America, it will be a descent into that…

He Won’t Be Swayed

“And so I am practically compelled to follow that path, and I shall keep to it in spite of all the world.  It is useless for you to wear yourselves out trying to persuade me…

He Made an Impression

“God grant us more such Russian rogues,” Marya Dmitrievna suddenly mixed in vexedly. “He lived a week with us; we saw nothing but good from him,” she said. “Courteous, wise, just.”   –Leo Tolstoy, Hadji…

Manufacturing Consent

And thus when, by a series of measures undertaken everywhere and at the same time—always thanks to the power in its hands at the command of the Government—a certain portion of the people, chiefly the…

Biden and Putin Would Despise Tolstoy

To destroy governmental violence only one  thing is needed: it is that people should understand that the feeling of patriotism which alone  supports that instrument of violence is a rude,  harmful, disgraceful, and bad feeling,…

The Rule Is Still Golden

Armies will only be diminished and abolished when people cease to trust governments, and themselves seek salvation from the miseries that oppress them, and seek that safety, not by the complicated and delicate combinations of…

Arundhati Roy on How MLK Is Remembered

Martin Luther King Jr. made the forbidden connections between Capitalism, Imperialism, Racism and the Vietnam War. As a result, after he was assassinated even his memory became toxic, a threat to public order. Foundations and…

Two Questions from Glenn Greenwald

Does anyone really believe that there are massive gaps — massive gaps –between the world view of multi-millionaire Nancy Pelosi and multi-millionaire Mitch McConnell, both of whom are married to people who also wield extreme…