The tubes connected to my arm are melting. I am surrounded by flames moving closer and closer like an angry mob waving torches above their heads. Except there are no people around. I have been yelling for help at the top of my lungs, but no one can hear me. Or if they do, perhaps they are afraid, like the man who never learned to swim and knows that if he jumps in to save someone drowning, there will be two victims rather than one. And it’s true: I’m not at all sure that anyone can stop this raging conflagration in time to save my life. I thought I was safe in this place. Who would attack a...

Drone Swarms and the Homicidal Impunity of Governments
Drone swarms have been under development for years now, with the usual suspects touting the virtues of the latest and greatest automated technology to be purchased through lucrative government contracts for what are claimed to be purposes of national defense. As the name implies, drone swarms are modeled after the behavior of large groups of birds or insects which move in concert to produce what looks like purposeful action, despite the lack of a conscious intention on the part of any of the individual members of the group. Drones can be programmed to act in tandem to accomplish tasks such...
Speaking of democracy…
Democracy has been a much discussed topic of late, what with the separation of President Joe Biden from his delegates only weeks before the upcoming Democratic party convention, to be held in Chicago from August 19 to 22, 2024. There have been brokered conventions in history before, but will Vice President Kamala Harris secure the Democratic party's presidential nomination after entirely bypassing the primary process and receiving not a single vote from the electorate? Only time will tell. Right before the DNC palace coup, and just after the attempt on former President Trump's life, Alex...

Julian Assange’s Deal With the Devil
After five years of incarceration in Belmarsh high-security prison, having already spent seven years in political asylum—what was tantamount to house arrest in the Ecuadorian embassy—Julian Assange was finally permitted by the British government to return to his homeland of Australia. The deal Assange made with the U.S. government to end its extradition quest and thereby secure his release can be viewed in one of two ways. On its face, the deal required that Assange “confess” to a felony which he did not commit, accepting a sentence of prison time already served. The second way of...

Parody of a Statesman: Antony Blinken, Secretary of War
For Halloween last year, the United States’ highest ranked diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, dressed his son and daughter up as Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian flag, respectively. At a White House event on that day, Blinken’s children were photographed soliciting candy from President Joe Biden. Meanwhile, Zelensky himself had been doing his usual media circuit, appearing progressively more desperate to extract a fresh supply of “candy” from U.S. taxpayers by way of their nonrepresentative elected officials, most of whom, it would seem, have little if any...

Sham-ocracy, Scam-ocracy
The word "democracy" is bandied about rhetorically by politicians on a regular basis to rationalize whatever it is that they want to do. This tendency has increased markedly in recent times as so-called wars of democracy and campaigns to save or preserve democracy are cast as the most pressing priorities of the day. In the U.S. presidential election campaign currently underway, both members of the War Party duopoly claim to be the champions of democracy, while depicting their adversaries as loose cannon authoritarians. President Joe “Our Patience is Wearing Thin” Biden attempted in 2021 to...

Life During Gaza Wartime
People are by now firmly entrenched in their respective positions regarding the conflict raging in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The Hamas attacks on that day have served as the pretext for a “war” on the Palestinian people for the past seven months. The announcement that the ICC (International Criminal Court) has applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, along with their highest-level associates (asserting, in other words, that both sides are wrong) is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about what is going on. Many American...
No Crickets for Cricket!
The governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, has been plagued by a self-inflicted and festering wound for about a week now. An excerpt from her soon-to-be released memoir, aptly and prophetically entitled No Going Back, has transformed the governor from a Republican party darling and possible choice as Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate to a permanent political pariah, even more repugnant than some people find Trump himself to be. Given that Noem has been vying for the position of vice commander-in-chief of the endless missions of mass homicide perpetrated by the U.S. military...