a short review of Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (2017) by John M Repp Daniel Ellsberg is the whistle blower who exposed the lies of both Democratic and Republican Presidents about the American war of aggression in Southeast Asia that we call the Vietnam War. Few knew Ellsberg was a nuclear war planner in the Kennedy Administration and that he also wanted to blow the whistle on the nuclear war plans of the United States. He copied all the secret plans he had access to (and he had access to nuclear war plans that members of Congress did not even suspect existed) but those documents were lost. Because essentially the main concepts of nuclear…

The Senate Should Reject Gina Haspel and Mike Pompeo The warning signs of another major Middle Eastern war are flashing red. by Robert Crawford, first published on Common Dreams, April 10, 2018 https://www.commondreams.org/author/robert-crawford and the Seattle Times p A9, with a few key sentences removed  “Senate rejection of Pompeo would send a powerful message that the Trump-Bolton-Pompeo war agenda is not acceptable.” caption under a photo of Pompeo The Senate is set to hold confirmation hearings this week on two nominees for high office who, if confirmed, will dramatically shift the balance of power in the Trump administration toward torture, Islamophobia and war. Trump’s choice of Gina Haspel for director of the CIA and Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State, along…

How to Avoid Another Financial Crisis   a review of Steve Keen. Can we avoid another financial crisis? (Polity, 2017) According to one reviewer, Steve Keen was “one of just 18 registered economists, out of a global total of around 36,000, who actually anticipated the global financial crisis” of 2008-2009. Keen’s book lays out where he thinks mainstream economists have gone wrong and what they and the politicians they advise need to learn. Keen is not hopeful either party will actually take a new approach. They relish their positions in society for they are the only “social scientists” who advise the most powerful. They are the priesthood for a corrupt system. The forecast of official economic bodies and the Central…

by Stan Sorscher, first published in The Stand, Feb. 22, 2018 Stan Sorscher is a labor representative for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE 2001.  We could certainly use more rights at work, starting with respecting the role of unions as the voice of workers and communities.  The effort to expand cynically named “Right to Work” laws says a lot about what is wrong with politics in our country. Disguised as protecting workers, the real goal is to silence workers’ voice, reduce our bargaining power, and make our jobs more precarious. It’s about power — social, political and economic power. After years of deceptive messaging, most people have the misconception that state law can force a worker…

The last legitimately elected Republican President was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Richard Nixon committed treason in order to be elected. Nixon’s own records show that in 1968, as a presidential candidate, he ordered his liaison to the South Vietnam government, to persuade them to refuse a cease-fire brokered by President Johnson. This prolonged the war in Viet Nam and cost the lives of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese. Nixon’s interference violated the 1797 Logan Act, banning private citizens from intruding into official government negotiations with a foreign nation. In 1980, President Carter reached a deal with newly-elected Iranian President Bani-Sadr over the release of the hostages held by radical students at the American Embassy in Tehran. Behind Carter’s back, the Reagan…

Let’s Try a New Approach to Overcome the Politics of Division a review of The Third Reconstruction: How A Moral Movement Is Overcoming The Politics of Division and Fear by Reverend Dr. William J Barber II with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (Boston: Beacon Press, 2016). This is a short autobiography of Rev. Barber as well as his recollections on the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina. There was an extreme right-wing takeover of the North Carolina legislature in 2013. The Koch brothers, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and local billionaires were behind the takeover. Their extremist agenda was the defunding state government through a flat tax, the denial of federally funded health care to half a million North Carolinians, the rejection of…

Larry’s latest letter to The Chronicle by Larry Kerschner, received January 8, 2018 It is long past time for voters of the 3d Congressional District to wake up and make a change. Jaime Herrera Beutler clearly genuflects at the altar of Pence/Trump and Big Money. She voted in favor of the greatest transfer of wealth from the lower class to the upper class in the history of the world. We need to call her out on her statement about the recent corporate tax giveaway bill which she whole-heartedly supported. Herrera Beutler defends her tax vote, touting an estimate “that a family of four in Southwest Washington making $83,874 will save $2,385 annually under the new plan”. Since the average household income in Lewis County is about $44,000…

Korean War not over by Mary Margaret Pruitt, printed in The Seattle Times, January 6, 2018, page A7 U.S. policy toward Korea has been deadly and dominating [“How Korean War shaped current tensions for U.S.,” Jan.2, A3]. Three million to 4 million Koreans were killed; 70 percent were civilians;25 percent of North Korea’s prewar population was killed; the U.S. bombed with napalm; and children in North Korea are taught that the U.S. perpetrated a Holocaust. We claim to be a democracy working as part of the United Nations. We have not arranged a peace treaty to end the Korean War. We have escalated our bases and military personnel in South Korea in opposition to the desires of many Koreans. We…

Ditch the Plow, Cover Up and Grow Diversity for a Sustainable Future by John M Repp A review of Growing A Revolution: Bringing our Soil Back to Life David Montgomery. (Norton, 2017) Montgomery co-wrote The Hidden Half of Nature that explains how microbes in our lower gut and in topsoil make life and health possible. Growing A Revolution tells the story of a few farmers around the world that are adopting new practices that protect and enhance the life in the soil on land where humans farm or graze animals. Widespread adoption of these practices will keep the soil sustainable while maintaining crop yield for a better future. Montgomery sees a pattern in the history of many civilizations. They started…