Why leaders promote wars

“When a nation threatens another nation, the people of the latter forget their factionalism, their local antagonisms, their political differences, their suspicions of each other, their religious hostilities, and band together as one unit. “Leaders know that, and that is why so many of them whip up wars during periods of national crisis, or when […]

Violence and war overstated in the climate of fear

It seems as if violence is everywhere, but historically, we’ve never had it this peaceful. Statistics reveal dramatic reductions in war deaths, family violence, racism, rape, murder and all sorts of mayhem. Prominent Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker Pinker writes: “The decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history […]

9/11 made the US into what we loathe

Veteran correspondent Chris Hedges reflects on the 10 years since 9/11: Reporters in moments of crisis like 9/11 collect data, facts, descriptions, basic information, and carry out interviews as swiftly as possible. We make these facts fit into familiar narratives. We do not create facts but we manipulate them. We make facts conform to our […]

9/11 and the antidemocratic decade that followed

Ten years after 9/11, we have failed miserably in our attempts to bring about justice for our countrymen who died that day. Indeed, whatever success America has had in routing out terrorists over the past decade has been overshadowed by the new society in which we live. A month after the World Trade Center crumbled […]

Jon Stewart on American tolerance and turning our backs on hate

Assisted by a colorful cast of characters, Comedy Central funnymen Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held a raucous rally on the National Mall. Amidst all the hilarity, the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” carried a message about Americans turning their backs on hate and working together to make the world a better place. “The […]

Fear Inc. and the Age of Terror

You would never know that Americans living in the United States were in vanishingly little danger from terrorism, but in significant danger driving to the mall; or that alcohol, tobacco, E. coli bacteria, fire, domestic abuse, murder, and the weather present the sort of potentially fatal problems that might be worth worrying about, or even […]

The extraordinary power of irrational fear

Paul Craig Roberts shares a few thoughts on the power of irrational fear: Americans are at ease with their country’s aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, which has resulted in a million dead Muslim civilians and several million refugees, because the US government has filled Americans with fear of terrorists. “We have to kill them […]