CHRIS HEDGES—There was once a wing of the Democratic Party that stood up to the war industry. J. William Fulbright, George McGovern, Gene McCarthy, Mike Gravel, William Proxmire, and, of course, Dennis Kucinich. But that was largely decades ago. The new Democrats, especially with the presidency of Bill Clinton, became shills not only for corporate America, but the arms industry. The massive military budget, $858 billion in military spending allocated for fiscal year 2023, is an increase of $45 billion over the Biden administration’s budget request, and nearly $80 billion more than the amount appropriated by Congress for the current fiscal year.
ANTIWAR
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RANIA KHALEK— It’s been 20 years since the US invaded Afghanistan. As the US finally withdrew, Taliban control over Afghanistan has been portrayed as inevitable. But what happened to the other political forces in the country? The war on Afghanistan didn’t really start in 2001. US meddling goes back to the 1970s and British meddling even further. Most people don’t know that there have been liberal, secular nationalist and communist Afghan forces who tried to transform their country but were prevented from doing so by Western imperial powers who supported religious and tribal conservatives to maintain control.
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The failed coup in Russia through American looking glass
19 minutes readM.K. BHADRAKUMAR—The former US president Donald Trump’s remarks regarding the failed coup attempt in Russia by Yevgeniy Prigozhin stood out for their sheer subtlety amidst the crass new Western narrative that the dramatic events on June 23-24 highlighted “cracks” within the Russian system.
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Today, we speak to political commentator and analyst Garland Nixon about Washington’s growing confrontation with Russia and China, the political climate back in the United States, and much more…
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BRUCE GAGNON and Joan Roelof discuss the many obstacles, including distractions such as manufactured political divisions, social stresses, insidious entertainment, lack of leadership, etc., that stand in the way of forming a powerful national and international antiwar movement in the West.