Tomgram

Leon Golub once related a story to a mutual friend. A Chicago artist famous for large canvases depicting crimson torture rooms in Central America, Golub had been asked what it meant to him to be a “Jewish political artist.” The painter’s quick reply was that he wasn’t a “Jewish political artist,” he was just a “political artist.” In the end, though, Golub came to believe that he had let himself off too easily, that his answer was too pat. Yes, he was a political artist. His paintings had focused not just on Latin America but on war-torn Vietnam and racism in the United States and South Africa. But he had consciously avoided Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.  Golub admitted that... Read more

Source: The Horrors Inflicted for 500 Years appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

With the Oval Office looking more like a middle school classroom every day, let’s recall the way, once upon a time, we responded to childhood taunts from a playground bully. You remember how it goes. Your nemesis says mockingly that you’re a this-or-that and you shout back: “Takes one to know one!” Indeed, it does. This month, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said of his fellow billionaire Elon Musk: “The world’s richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world’s poorest children.” Elaborating, Gates explained that Musk, as head of his self-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), had decided to put “U.S.A.I.D. in the wood chipper” by cutting 80% of its global humanitarian programs and that, he pointed out,... Read more

The Trump administration seems intent on undermining America’s ability to make human rights a significant element of its foreign policy. As evidence of that, consider its plan to dramatically reduce policy directives and personnel devoted to those very issues, including the dismantling of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Rights, and Labor. Even worse, the Trump team has attacked a crucial global institution, the International Criminal Court, and put it under crippling sanctions that have ground its operations to a halt — all for telling the truth about Israel’s illegal and ongoing mass slaughter in Gaza. The Trump administration’s assault on human rights comes against the background of years of policy decisions in Washington that too often cast aside such... Read more

Source: The End of Human Rights? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

On May 5th, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute held its annual fundraising gala. The event showcases the extraordinary imaginations of people who design exorbitant clothes and the gutsiness of those who dare (and can afford) to wear them. I’m dimly aware of this annual extravaganza because of my interest in knitting, spinning, and weaving — the crafts involved in turning fluff into yarn and yarn into cloth. Mind you, I have no flair for fashion myself. I could never carry off wearing the simplest of ballgowns and I’m way too short to rock a tuxedo. My own personal style runs to 1970s White Dyke. (Think blue jeans and flannel shirts.) But I remain fascinated by what... Read more

Source: No More Dog Whistles appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

I don’t know about you, but the news continues to stress me out. Trump administration officials are using any excuse they can think of to detain and deport people whose points of view — or whose very existence on U.S. soil — seem to threaten their agenda. Deportations to El Salvador In March, the U.S. government sent 238 men to a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison where they no longer have contact with family members or lawyers, and where overcrowding and cruel practices like solitary confinement, or far worse, seem to be commonplace. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released few details about who the men were, but when pressed, DHS officials claimed that most of them were members of Tren de... Read more

Source: America the Unfree appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

I remember the phrase from my boyhood, listening to baseball games on the old wooden radio by my bed. A major hitter would be up and — bang! — he’d connect with the ball in a big-time fashion. The announcer in a rising voice would then say dramatically: “It’s going, going, gone!” It was a phrase connected to success of the first order. It was Duke Snider or Mickey Mantle hitting a homer. It was a winner all the way around the bases. Today, though no one may say it anymore, somewhere deep inside my mind I can still hear it. But now, at least for me, it’s connected to another kind of hitter entirely and another kind of reality... Read more

Source: Going, Going, Gone! appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

In these first 100-plus days of the nation’s 47th presidency, President Donald Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk have cast a frightful spell over the country. As if brandishing wands from inside their capes — poof! — offices and their employees, responsibilities and aims, norms and policies have simply disappeared. The two have decreed a flurry of acts of dismantlement that span the government, threatening to disappear a broad swath of what once existed, much of it foreshadowed by Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for drastically reorganizing and even dismantling government as we know it during a second Trump administration. To my mind, the recent massive removals of people, data, photos, and documents remind me of the words of... Read more

Source: Poof! It’s Gone appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Ancient oak trees rise above gigantic boulders scattered across a high desert mesa in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest. This is Oak Flat (Chi’ chil Bildagoteel), a sacred site for Native Americans, including the Western and San Carlos Apache. And like many other lands across the West, it’s under grave threat from multinational mining interests, all in the name of climate mitigation, but most importantly, for the money. Oak Flat is as stunning as it is vast, and even though it’s only an hour’s drive from the concrete sprawl of Phoenix, when you’re there, you feel as if you’re on an entirely different planet. When I say that the place is sacred, if anything I may be underestimating its significance. To the... Read more

Forty years ago this month, I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. I would be part of America’s all-volunteer force (AVF) for 20 years, hitting my marks and retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 2005. In my two decades of service, I met a lot of fine and dedicated officers, enlisted members, and civilians. I worked with the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps as well, and met officers and cadets from countries like Great Britain, Germany, Pakistan, Poland, and Saudi Arabia. I managed not to get shot at or kill anyone. Strangely enough, in other words, my military service was peaceful. Don’t get me wrong: I was a card-carrying member of America’s military-industrial complex. I’m under... Read more

Source: The Real Evil Empire May Surprise You appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

If the overwhelming deluge from the Trumpian firehose of lies, threats, incompetency, illegal actions, and surreality is sweeping you off your feet, driving you to bedridden depression, leaving you passive and breathlessly unable to mount a response, much less resistance, please get into the huddle, take a time-out, and listen up to your Jock Culture coach. (That’s me, of course!) You need some distraction. Have you noticed lately how few sports stories are making their way to the top of the news beams? That’s because sports — once upon a time our most reliable source of outrage, speculation, cultish behavior, and lessons in domination, smackdown intimidation, and faux masculinity — has been replaced by a remarkable series of presidential half-time... Read more