At the October 18 “No Kings Day” protest in Milwaukee, Peace Action Wisconsin members met with Rep. Gwen Moore urging her to support H.R. 3565, the Block the Bombs Act. Her response - “What good would it do?”

Well, here is our answer:

On Tuesday, May 13, the Wisconsin Defense Industry Council (WDIC) held their inaugural WDIC Annual Conference at The Ingleside Hotel in Pewaukee. Inside the conference, defense contractors and lobbyists met to increase the defense industry’s footprint in Wisconsin. Outside, members of the Milwaukee Anti-War Committee, Peace Action Wisconsin, and other community organizations gathered in protest. At the same time, a coordinated disruption was planned inside the conference, where a die-in was staged, resulting in two arrests and several others escorted out. This action is part of an ongoing campaign to expose the WDIC’s role in expanding the war economy in Wisconsin.

Close Military Bases, Not Embassies

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, April 20, 2025
https://worldbeyondwar.org/close-military-bases-not-embassies/

In U.S. culture and media, where it’s one’s duty to pretend that the military budget and everything that goes with it does not exist, one could hardly be blamed for thinking that the closure of embassies actually meant a full departure.

And one could hardly be blamed for thinking this a positive development. Those embassies have steadily been transformed over the decades into weapons dealerships, military sidekicks, and dens of spies. (The CIA may yet point out to Trump how many embassy employees are CIA and make him an offer he can’t refuse.) It’s hard sometimes to imagine other functions. In fact, in U.S. culture, withdrawing the U.S. military from a place is usually called “isolationism” as if militarism were the only way to interact with people. But that’s the one thing that’s not ending in Africa or anywhere else.

The U.S. government is cutting off all sorts of aid, but not what it calls “military aid” or “defense aid” — meaning the U.S. military giving money and training to other countries’ militaries (never mind all the trainees who do coups). Go here, pick a year, and click on “Department of Defense.”

Most of Africa has been loaded up with U.S.-made weapons, and there’s been no indication of a halt to that (despite the planned closure of the dealerships). Go here and scroll back through the years.

The blue countries below are the ones without U.S. troops:

The red countries below have had U.S. wars or military interventions over the past 80 years:

The red countries below are under illegal U.S. sanctions:

Maintaining the militarism but dropping even the pretense of anything else is not progress.

Ways to relate to people other than through mass slaughter include cooperation on environment, healthcare, migration, and international law; and actual aid. Such approaches can be perverted into “soft power” and used for ulterior purposes. Eliminating them is asking for trouble, for hostility, for misunderstanding, for incapacity to handle any conflict through anything other than bombs and missiles. As everywhere else on Earth, the people of Africa have no widespread interest in competing with Donald Trump’s greedy business interests, but do have an interest in peace.

PREPARED REMARKS: Sanders Speech on Senate Vote to Block $8.8 Billion Sale of Heavy Bombs to Israel

April 3, 2025

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/prepared-remarks-sanders-speech-on-senate-vote-to-block-8-8-billion-sale-of-heavy-bombs-to-israel/

WASHINGTON, April 3 – After filing Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) to block the sale of two of the most egregious Trump Administration offensive arms sales to Israel, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today rose to bring the JRDs up for a vote by the full Senate.

The sales would provide almost $8.8 billion more in heavy bombs and other munitions to Netanyahu, including more than 35,000 massive 2,000-pound bombs.

Biden Lied about the Risk of Nuclear War

By Ann Batiza

As Adam Entous wrote on March 29, 2025, in the New York Times, “The Secret History of the War in Ukraine”, the Biden administration lied to us constantly about the real threat of nuclear war. The quote below from Entous’s article, based on 300 interviews, shows how the Biden administration knew they were operating with a 1 in 20 or 1 in 10 chance that their actions in Ukraine would lead to a nuclear response from Russia, with that soaring to a 50/50 chance if the Ukrainians were successful.

535 Days: Where Is Your Line?

By James Hinden

I, James Hinden, am a writer you don’t know behind a screen, telling you how to think. You, the reader, are new to this page - you have to be, because so am I. The majority of what will be written here going forward will have a fair amount of humor built in to make otherwise heavy (or ADHD-unfriendly) topics more palatable. This piece isn’t one of them - there's nothing to laugh at in genocide. On that positive note, let’s begin.

THE NATION MAGAZINE

How Biden’s Foreign Policy Destroyed His Presidency

January 17, 2025

Jeet Heer

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/biden-gaza-legacy-foreign-policy/