Departments

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militarism

  • SOURCE: Substack
    2/13/2023

    Militarized Super Bowl Abuses Truth of Pat Tillman's Life and Death

    by William Astore

    Tillman’s statue captures the essence of a man full of life. His death by friendly fire in a misbegotten war, made worse by the lies told to the Tillman family by the U.S. military, reminds us that the essence of war is death. The NFL, as a sponsored partner of the Pentagon, would like us to forget.

  • SOURCE: Noema
    1/10/2023

    Why the Kremlin Made "Z" its Symbol of the Ukraine Invasion

    by Alexander Etkind

    Can Russia's aggression against Ukraine be explained by its leaders fetishizing the small differences in national life, and the divergent fortunes of the post-Soviet generation, in the two countries? Are those gaps so small that only an invented symbol could express them? 

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    1/11/2023

    Will Ukraine Be the Death of German Pacifism?

    by Stephen Milder

    The real transformation wrought in Europe by the Russian invasion isn't the return of war (which was certainly present in the 1990s) but the turn of Germany away from a post-fascist pacifist posture to a potential remilitarization. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    12/15/2022

    Peace is Not Our Profession

    by William J. Astore

    The unveiling of the newest stealth bomber underscores the fundamental insanity and cruel wastefulness of the policy of peace through nuclear deterrence, argues a historian and retired USAF lieutenant colonel. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    6/2/2022

    Destroying the Town is Not Saving It

    by William Astore

    An imagined graduation speech to the Air Force Academy encourages listeners to refuse to become death dealers. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    5/24/2022

    The Arsenal of Autocracy

    by William Hartung

    If the current global situation is getting you down, think of the arms manufacturers: they're doing great. 

  • 5/1/2022

    Democracy's Enemies are Abroad, but Also at Home

    by Jim Sleeper

    If neoconservative warnings of a coming global struggle between Russia and "the West" are right, the west must consider what changes it is willing to make to allow for a victory without planetery catastrophe. 

  • SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
    4/4/2022

    Honoring Dr. King's Other, More Challenging Dream, 55 Years Later

    King's famous Riverside Church speech on April 4, 1967 marked the leader's decisive opposition to the war in Vietnam and reflected his moral clarity and willingness to take unpopular positions in the pursuit of justice by calling out racism, capitalism and militarism as three intertwined evils. 

  • SOURCE: Foreign Policy
    3/20/2022

    Why is the News Media so Hawkish?

    by Mark Hannah

    Editorial choices made by influential news organizations can push policy in the direction of more aggressive intervention. A media scholar asks why those organizations have consistently chosen to boost the voices of advocates for war.

  • SOURCE: War on The Rocks
    3/22/2022

    Beware the Imperative in Foreign Policymaking

    by Michael J. Mazarr

    When foreign policy decisions are presented as imperative – that some action must be taken –  consideration for the consequences is often neglected. 

  • 3/20/2022

    On the Illogic of War

    by Don Fraser

    The logic of war rejects dissent and the moderating influence of political concerns in the pursuit of destruction, and liberal democracies aren't exempt. 

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    3/14/2022

    Why Do Leaders Start Wars Assuming Victory?

    by Gregory A. Daddis

    For millenia, leaders have been seduced by the promise that war unifies fractious politics, elevates leaders, and offers a final solution to conflict, despite the historical wrongness of these lessons.