By Edward Said Edward Said’s book “Orientalism” has been profoundly influential in a diverse range of disciplines since its publication in 1978. In this engaging (and lavishly illustrated) interview he talks about the context within which the book was conceived, its main themes and how its original thesis relates to the contemporary understanding of […]
By Jan Oberg March 20, 2018* Today marks the 15th Anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Neither solid analyses, moral reasoning and decent argument nor history’s probably largest pre-war, anti-war demonstrations worldwide had any discernible impact on the Bush and Blair Administrations’ decision to go to war and do so on a false […]
By Richard Falk Prefatory Note With apologies for this long post, which attempts to situate the struggle for an ethically and ecologically viable political future for the United States and the world in the overheated preoccupation with Trump and Trumpism, which is itself a distraction from the species challenges confronting the whole of humanity […]
Robert J. Burrowes February 18, 2018 • The United States Department of Defense released its latest ‘Nuclear Posture Review 2018’ (NPR) on 2 February, updating the last one issued in 2010 during the previous administration. See ‘Nuclear Posture Review 2018’. The Executive Summary of the NPR is also available, if you prefer. See ‘Nuclear […]
By Jan Oberg WASHINGTON (Associated Press) — The U.S. has no evidence to confirm reports from aid groups and others that the Syrian government has used the deadly chemical sarin on its citizens, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday. “We have other reports from the battlefield from people who claim it’s been used,” Mattis told […]
By Robert J. Burrowes 24 Jan 2018 • As our world spirals deeper into an abyss from which it is becoming increasingly difficult to extricate ourselves, some very prominent activists have lamented the lack of human solidarity in the face of the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya. See ‘The Rohingya tragedy shows human solidarity is […]
By David Swanson Remarks at Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, October 28, 2017. Thank you for inviting me. Can everyone who thinks that war is never, and can never be, justified please raise your hand. Thank you. Now if you think every war is always justified. Thank you. And finally all […]
Shock. It’s a word that has come up a lot since November – for obvious reasons.I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about shock. Ten years ago, I published “The Shock Doctrine,” an investigation that spanned four decades from Pinochet’s U.S.-backed coup in 1970s Chile to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I noticed a brutal and […]
New book by Evelin Lindner • Humankind has reached a boiling point. Violence, hatred, and terror have become deeply entangled with honor, heroism, glory, loyalty, and love. Over the past five percent of modern human history on planet Earth, roughly the past ten millennia, human activity has reached a crescendo of rapid and ruthless competition […]
By Jan Oberg Written April 1990 • Published in Bulletin of Peace Proposals 3-1990, pp 287-298 and on TFF’s homepage at the same time 1. Four hypotheses The West has lost a close enemy, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Which reactions can be discerned and what psycho-political emotions are they indicative of? How […]
