In 1980, when I asked the press office at the U.S. Department of Energy to send me a listing of nuclear bomb test explosions, the agency mailed me an official booklet with the title “Announced United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 Through December 1979.” As you’d...
It’s Always a ‘Difficult Decision,’ They Tell Us
“In a dark time,” poet Theodore Roethke wrote, “the eye begins to see.” Stanley Kunitz observed: “In a murderous time / the heart breaks and breaks / and lives by breaking.” In the current murderous time, amid the dim media swirl, acuity arrived for some with the news...
The Patriotism of Killing and Being Killed
The Fourth of July -- the ultimate patriotic holiday -- is approaching again. Politicians orate, American Flags proliferate and, even more than usual, many windows on the world are tinted red, white and blue. But an important question remains unasked: Why are...
US Media Blind to American War Carnage
On the first day of March 2022, visitors to The New York Times homepage saw a headline across the top of their screens in huge capital letters: ROCKET BARRAGE KILLS CIVILIANS It was the kind of breaking-news banner headline that could have referred to countless US...
Daniel Ellsberg Has Passed Away. He Left Us a Message.
When Daniel Ellsberg died on Friday, the world lost a transcendent whistleblower with a powerful ethos of compassion and resolve. Ellsberg’s renown for openly challenging the mentalities of militarism began on June 23, 1971, when he appeared on CBS Evening News ten...
Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished,’ 20 Years Later
Twenty years ago, President George W. Bush landed in a twin-engine Navy jet on an aircraft carrier, strode across the deck in a bulky flight suit and proceeded to give a televised victory speech under a huge red-white-and-blue banner announcing "Mission...
Daniel Ellsberg Has Foiled Those Who Want Him Confined to the Past
In just a few words – "those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future" – George Orwell summed up why narratives about history can be crucial. And so, ever since the final helicopter liftoff from the U.S....
We Don’t Have To Choose Between Nuclear Madmen
The announcement by Vladimir Putin over the weekend that Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus marked a further escalation of potentially cataclysmic tensions over the war in neighboring Ukraine. As the Associated Press reported, "Putin said the...
The Urbanity of Evil: 20 Years After the Invasion of Iraq
Vast quantities of lies from top US government officials led up to the Iraq invasion. Now, marking its 20th anniversary, the same media outlets that eagerly boosted those lies are offering retrospectives. Don’t expect them to shed light on the most difficult truths,...
Israel’s Liberal Supporters Are Taking Their Denial to a New Level
This week, when the New York Times featured an opinion piece by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, it harmonized with a crescendo of other recent pleas from prominent American supporters of Israel. Bloomberg warned that Israel’s new governing coalition is trying to give...