WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS

Compiled by Dick Bennett   https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/02/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-217-february.html Origins of Wars:Walter Karp.  Indispensable Enemies: leaders’ desire for power.Herman and Chomsky.   Manufacturing Consent: media support of ruling power.Monthly Review:  failure to abide by international weapons treaties. Leaders’ Desire for Power Walter Karp, Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America.  Saturday Review P, 1973. “In prosecuting an aggressive foreign policy, the party oligarchs have been driven by no cause or interest external to themselves: by no fundamental economic interest, by no genuine threat to the security of the Republic, by no irresistible poplar demand.  Except in the post-World War I period [v. “Wilson’s war”], […]

Compiled by Dick Bennett   https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/02/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-216-february.html Dick Bennett.  Annie Jacobsen’s new book Nuclear War: A Scenario. NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION     The best introduction to Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024) is probably a book published 39 years ago–Dr. Helen Caldicott’s Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War (rev. 1986).  Here is a key passage from Missile Envy:  “The logical consequence of the preparation for nuclear war is nuclear war.  The behavior that perpetuates this race to oblivion can be changed only when people actually allow themselves to contemplate the true medical and ecological implications of such an event.  Only […]

Compiled by Dick Bennett .   https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/02/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-215-february.html    US Imperialism Abel Tomlinson.  “Silent Propaganda.”Leila Sansour. The Racket. Abel Tomlinson’s latest article on US imperialism has been published by Covert Action Magazine.  The basic fact that the United States is an empire is perhaps the most systematically taboo subject within mainstream American information systems and public discourse. U.S. imperialism is almost never discussed in depth, critically or intelligently, within corporate media or the educational system. It is never mentioned by candidates of the two dominant political parties, or brought up at presidential debates. It is rarely mentioned even within universities, outside of a […]

Compiled by Dick Bennett   https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/01/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-213-january.html Bertram Gross.  Friendly Fascism: NCTE George Orwell Award. [I am recovering from covid, feeling much better today.  I had roughly prepared WWW 213 before the virus struck.] Gross’ analysis of US fascism is over 40 years old but is truer today than then. Bertram Gross.  Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America.  M. Evans & Co., 1980.  South End P (paper), 1980. Gross cites George Orwell’s novel 1984, published in 1948, several times while elucidating the politics of oligarchies..   In a section entitled “Triplespeak” (p. 204) he begins with the contradiction-and deception- riddled […]

Compiled by Dick Bennett    https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/01/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-212-january.html Claude Julien. America’s Empire.  Pantheon/Random House, 1971.  Vintage, 1973.   Not in Mullins Library. Wikipedia’s description 1971.Reacting against a common preconception, he publishes the stand out book L’Empire Américain (America’s Empire) in 1968, which received the French literary award of the Prix Aujourd’hui.[7] The book argues that, despite the USA not possessing colonies, they do, regardless, constitute an “Empire without borders”.[8] “It is nowadays the most powerful that history has ever known, by its manufacturing capacity (with 6% of the world’s population, the USA account for 43% of the non-communist world’s production), by its military power, by its catching dynamism and […]

Compiled by Dick Bennett   https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/01/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-211-january-8.html Leading the TV news this Wednesday morning: fires in Los Angeles, Trump wants Panama and Greenland for US national security and the free world v. Russia and China. William Astore.  The US Empire of Air, Naval, and Land Bases. Patrick Lawrence.  The US is Spoiling for a Fight. Chomsky and Robinson.  How US Foreign Policy Endangers the World. William Astore.   “The Trillion-Dollar Blob.”  ACURA.  Dec 06, 2024.   “America has a bellicose, bullying, immature leadership that thinks military might is the answer to everything, as reflected by U.S. Special Forces in 80+ countries and roughly 800 […]

Christmas 2024.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.   https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/12/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-209-december.html Preventing Wars, Stopping WarsEmpathy:  Jesus, Scott RitterInternational LawInternational Children’s Peace Prize PREVENTING WARS, STOPPING WARS COMPASSION Jesus often spoke and acted for compassion; e.g., The Beatitudes.  Washing the feet of his disciples after a long, dusty day of travel.  The parable of the good Samaritan.  The parable of the lost son.  Jesus identified with suffering people and desired to bring them relief.   I grew up with the King James Bible, but today I read Thomas Jefferson’s Bible (i.e. Gospels), especially on Christmas Day. “In Search of Empathy” BY Scott Ritter (Dec 25, 2024).  […]