TomDispatch
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For those seeking a deeper understanding of our post-9/11 world & a clear sense of how our imperial globe actually works. https://tomdispatch.com/
From TomDispatch this morning: Tom Engelhardt, "Once Upon a Time (And Not Any Time Either!), My Strange Tale of How the War on Terror Came Home in the Age of Donald J. Trump" tomdispatch.com/once-upon-a-...
Once Upon a Time (and Not Any Time Either!)
Okay, here's what this old man remembers nearly a quarter of a century later. I was living in New York City (as I still am) when, on September 11, 2001, two hijacked planes full of
tomdispatch.com
June 4, 2026 at 6:39 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Tom Engelhardt, "Once Upon a Time (And Not Any Time Either!), My Strange Tale of How the War on Terror Came Home in the Age of Donald J. Trump" tomdispatch.com/once-upon-a-...
From TomDispatch this morning: Tom Engelhardt, "Once Upon a Time (And Not Any Time Either!), My Strange Tale of How the War on Terror Came Home in the Age of Donald J. Trump" tomdispatch.com/once-upon-a-...
Once Upon a Time (and Not Any Time Either!)
Okay, here's what this old man remembers nearly a quarter of a century later. I was living in New York City (as I still am) when, on September 11, 2001, two hijacked planes full of
tomdispatch.com
June 4, 2026 at 3:30 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Tom Engelhardt, "Once Upon a Time (And Not Any Time Either!), My Strange Tale of How the War on Terror Came Home in the Age of Donald J. Trump" tomdispatch.com/once-upon-a-...
American imperial decline and whether the world will have any reason to regret the passing of Washington’s world order in the years to come -- Alfred W. McCoy, "After America, The Causes and Consequences of U.S. Global Decline" tomdispatch.com/after-america/
After America
While Washington’s war with Iran drags on, month after month, without any end in sight, the world is witnessing the very real limits of U.S. global power. As President Donald Trump lurches repeatedly ...
tomdispatch.com
June 2, 2026 at 7:13 PM
American imperial decline and whether the world will have any reason to regret the passing of Washington’s world order in the years to come -- Alfred W. McCoy, "After America, The Causes and Consequences of U.S. Global Decline" tomdispatch.com/after-america/
From TomDispatch this evening: Rebecca Gordon, "About That Arc of the Moral Universe, Sometimes It's More Like a Meandering Sine Wave" tomdispatch.com/about-that-a...
About That Arc of the Moral Universe
This is my last article for TomDispatch. For over a decade, Tom Engelhardt has given me a platform to write about pretty much anything that grabs my -- I’ll admit it, easily attracted -- attention.
tomdispatch.com
June 1, 2026 at 6:36 PM
From TomDispatch this evening: Rebecca Gordon, "About That Arc of the Moral Universe, Sometimes It's More Like a Meandering Sine Wave" tomdispatch.com/about-that-a...
From TomDispatch this morning: Can the pillars of the MAGA movement manage to stick together in the ever-grimmer Trumpian years to come? -- William D. Hartung, "Donald (Disaster) Trump, And the Fight for a Humane Future" tomdispatch.com/donald-disas...
Donald (Disaster) Trump
Donald Trump's America is a scary place in significant part thanks to an unholy alliance of MAGA devotees who don’t believe in science and see intellectuals as public enemy number one, and a gaggle of
tomdispatch.com
May 28, 2026 at 6:36 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Can the pillars of the MAGA movement manage to stick together in the ever-grimmer Trumpian years to come? -- William D. Hartung, "Donald (Disaster) Trump, And the Fight for a Humane Future" tomdispatch.com/donald-disas...
From TomDispatch this morning: Can the pillars of the MAGA movement manage to stick together in the ever-grimmer Trumpian years to come, not to speak of the post-Trumpian ones? -- William D. Hartung, "Donald (Disaster) Trump, And the Fight for a Humane Future" tomdispatch.com/donald-disas...
Donald (Disaster) Trump
Donald Trump's America is a scary place in significant part thanks to an unholy alliance of MAGA devotees who don’t believe in science and see intellectuals as public enemy number one, and a gaggle of
tomdispatch.com
May 28, 2026 at 3:33 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Can the pillars of the MAGA movement manage to stick together in the ever-grimmer Trumpian years to come, not to speak of the post-Trumpian ones? -- William D. Hartung, "Donald (Disaster) Trump, And the Fight for a Humane Future" tomdispatch.com/donald-disas...
From TomDispatch this morning: Robert Lipsyte, "A Short History of Sportswriting (from Bat Masterson to Shams Charania), The Clues Are on the Billionaires' Scorecards" tomdispatch.com/a-short-hist...
A Short History of Sportswriting (from Bat Masterson to Shams Charania)
When Chinese leaders claim that the American empire is in decline, I immediately assume their analysts are decoding dispatches from ESPN, The Athletic, and columnist Shams Charania. After all, it’s in...
tomdispatch.com
May 26, 2026 at 7:37 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Robert Lipsyte, "A Short History of Sportswriting (from Bat Masterson to Shams Charania), The Clues Are on the Billionaires' Scorecards" tomdispatch.com/a-short-hist...
In Pete Hegseth’s eyes, of course, women should only be on the front lines of war if they’re naked and in ink. Jasper Craven, "Pete Hegseth's Desperate Crusade for Masculine Validation, Failed Wars and the Secretary of War's Flailing Identity"
tomdispatch.com/pete-hegseth...
tomdispatch.com/pete-hegseth...
Pete Hegseth’s Desperate Crusade for Masculine Validation
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump surveyed his top military brass on the prospect of making war in Iran. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine urged caution, presciently pred...
tomdispatch.com
May 25, 2026 at 6:21 PM
In Pete Hegseth’s eyes, of course, women should only be on the front lines of war if they’re naked and in ink. Jasper Craven, "Pete Hegseth's Desperate Crusade for Masculine Validation, Failed Wars and the Secretary of War's Flailing Identity"
tomdispatch.com/pete-hegseth...
tomdispatch.com/pete-hegseth...
From TomDispatch this morning: Donald Trump's America is starting to seem ever more like an aircraft in distress -- John Feffer, "Is the U.S. Heading Toward a Hard Landing? What Can North Korea Tell Us About America's Future?"
tomdispatch.com/is-the-u-s-h...
tomdispatch.com/is-the-u-s-h...
Is the U.S. Heading Toward a Hard Landing?
Ever since North Korea suffered through the death of its first leader in 1994, a loss magnified by an economic collapse and a devastating famine, outside observers have likened the country to an airpl...
tomdispatch.com
May 19, 2026 at 6:23 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Donald Trump's America is starting to seem ever more like an aircraft in distress -- John Feffer, "Is the U.S. Heading Toward a Hard Landing? What Can North Korea Tell Us About America's Future?"
tomdispatch.com/is-the-u-s-h...
tomdispatch.com/is-the-u-s-h...
From TomDispatch this morning: Frida Berrigan, "Butter (and Schools), Not Guns (and Warfare), The War Against Iran, Up Close and Personal (and All Too Far Away)"
tomdispatch.com/butter-and-s...
tomdispatch.com/butter-and-s...
Butter (and Schools), Not Guns (and Warfare)
Guns or butter. Butter or guns. Can we have both? If not, which should come first? Consider it one of those chicken-and-egg conundrums of modern society. “Guns” is the stand-in for a well-funded milit...
tomdispatch.com
May 14, 2026 at 4:45 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Frida Berrigan, "Butter (and Schools), Not Guns (and Warfare), The War Against Iran, Up Close and Personal (and All Too Far Away)"
tomdispatch.com/butter-and-s...
tomdispatch.com/butter-and-s...
The Great Hormuz Fuel Crisis of 2026 has the potential to permanently reduce petroleum demand in a striking fashion -- Juan Cole, "The Electric Car Is the Only Winner in the Latest Iran War, The Hormuz Chokepoint and the Twilight of Petroleum" tomdispatch.com/the-electric...
The Electric Car Is the Only Winner in the Latest Iran War
After British troops had beaten German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s tank forces at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt on November 4, 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, “Thi...
tomdispatch.com
May 12, 2026 at 7:00 PM
The Great Hormuz Fuel Crisis of 2026 has the potential to permanently reduce petroleum demand in a striking fashion -- Juan Cole, "The Electric Car Is the Only Winner in the Latest Iran War, The Hormuz Chokepoint and the Twilight of Petroleum" tomdispatch.com/the-electric...
The Great Hormuz Fuel Crisis of 2026 has the potential to permanently reduce petroleum demand in a striking fashion -- Juan Cole, "The Electric Car Is the Only Winner in the Latest Iran War, The Hormuz Chokepoint and the Twilight of Petroleum" tomdispatch.com/the-electric...
The Electric Car Is the Only Winner in the Latest Iran War
After British troops had beaten German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s tank forces at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt on November 4, 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, “Thi...
tomdispatch.com
May 12, 2026 at 3:44 PM
The Great Hormuz Fuel Crisis of 2026 has the potential to permanently reduce petroleum demand in a striking fashion -- Juan Cole, "The Electric Car Is the Only Winner in the Latest Iran War, The Hormuz Chokepoint and the Twilight of Petroleum" tomdispatch.com/the-electric...
From TomDispatch: So far, Trump 2.0 has seen women, one after another, summarily gone from their posts (some fired, some resigning) as part of a larger DEI purge -- Karen Greenberg, "Now You See Them... Now You Don't, Women Leaders and Trump 2.0"
tomdispatch.com/now-you-see-...
tomdispatch.com/now-you-see-...
Now You See Them… Now You Don’t
It’s been a tough couple of months for women officials in Washington -- or, more accurately, in Trumpland. In early March (Women’s History Month, by the way), in a Truth Social post, the president fir...
tomdispatch.com
May 11, 2026 at 3:54 PM
From TomDispatch: So far, Trump 2.0 has seen women, one after another, summarily gone from their posts (some fired, some resigning) as part of a larger DEI purge -- Karen Greenberg, "Now You See Them... Now You Don't, Women Leaders and Trump 2.0"
tomdispatch.com/now-you-see-...
tomdispatch.com/now-you-see-...
A "Best of TomDispatch" piece from TomDispatch this morning: Eduardo Galeano, "A World of Violence: On Women Who Refused to Live in Silence and Be Consigned to Oblivion"
tomdispatch.com/a-world-of-v...
tomdispatch.com/a-world-of-v...
A World of Violence
[The following passages are excerpted from Eduardo Galeano’s book Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History (Nation Books).] The Shoe(January 15) In 1919 Rosa Luxemburg, the revolutionary, was...
tomdispatch.com
May 7, 2026 at 7:03 PM
A "Best of TomDispatch" piece from TomDispatch this morning: Eduardo Galeano, "A World of Violence: On Women Who Refused to Live in Silence and Be Consigned to Oblivion"
tomdispatch.com/a-world-of-v...
tomdispatch.com/a-world-of-v...
From TomDispatch this morning: How Donald Trump climbed into bed with "the world's coolest dictator" -- Rebecca Gordon, "Gangs and Climate Change, Born in the USA, Drive Migration and Autocracy in Central America" tomdispatch.com/gangs-and-cl...
Gangs and Climate Change, Born in the USA
Recently, I had the opportunity to stand in a friend’s kitchen eating pupusas, the Salvadoran national food, while listening to an update on conditions in Central America from Cristosal's Noah Bullock...
tomdispatch.com
May 5, 2026 at 3:11 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: How Donald Trump climbed into bed with "the world's coolest dictator" -- Rebecca Gordon, "Gangs and Climate Change, Born in the USA, Drive Migration and Autocracy in Central America" tomdispatch.com/gangs-and-cl...
From TomDispatch last evening: Donald Trump has always given unpredictability new meaning, but these days, a constant version of unpredictability is his aging middle name -- Tom Engelhardt, "A World in Trumple Deep (And We Are All His Apprentices Now)"
tomdispatch.com/a-world-in-t...
tomdispatch.com/a-world-in-t...
A World in Trumple Deep
Unlike every other TomDispatch piece, this one won't be broken up with section titles for a simple reason. It's all about Donald J. Trump and when it comes to him, in this strange world of ours,
tomdispatch.com
May 4, 2026 at 8:30 PM
From TomDispatch last evening: Donald Trump has always given unpredictability new meaning, but these days, a constant version of unpredictability is his aging middle name -- Tom Engelhardt, "A World in Trumple Deep (And We Are All His Apprentices Now)"
tomdispatch.com/a-world-in-t...
tomdispatch.com/a-world-in-t...
From TomDispatch last evening: Donald Trump has always given unpredictability new meaning, but these days, a constant version of unpredictability is his aging middle name -- Tom Engelhardt, "A World in Trumple Deep (And We Are All His Apprentices Now)" tomdispatch.com/a-world-in-t...
A World in Trumple Deep
Unlike every other TomDispatch piece, this one won't be broken up with section titles for a simple reason. It's all about Donald J. Trump and when it comes to him, in this strange world of ours,
tomdispatch.com
May 4, 2026 at 4:44 PM
From TomDispatch last evening: Donald Trump has always given unpredictability new meaning, but these days, a constant version of unpredictability is his aging middle name -- Tom Engelhardt, "A World in Trumple Deep (And We Are All His Apprentices Now)" tomdispatch.com/a-world-in-t...
From TomDispatch this morning: Andrea Mazzarino, "The Global War on Terror's Journey Home, The Collective Trauma of America's Twenty-First Century Wars" tomdispatch.com/the-global-w...
The Global War on Terror’s Journey Home
America’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been receiving lots of scrutiny right now from journalists and ordinary citizens like me -- and for good reason! Detaining people en route to their ...
tomdispatch.com
April 28, 2026 at 5:44 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Andrea Mazzarino, "The Global War on Terror's Journey Home, The Collective Trauma of America's Twenty-First Century Wars" tomdispatch.com/the-global-w...
From TomDispatch last evening: President Trump is now presiding over perhaps the most corrupt, incompetent, repressive regime in the history of this republic -- William D. Hartung, "Reining in the Pentagon, Can the Military-Industrial Beast Be Tamed?" shorturl.fm/VymJY
Reining in the Pentagon
Even as Congress moves to increase the Pentagon budget well beyond the astronomical levels proposed by the Biden administration, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has outlined th...
shorturl.fm
April 27, 2026 at 6:17 PM
From TomDispatch last evening: President Trump is now presiding over perhaps the most corrupt, incompetent, repressive regime in the history of this republic -- William D. Hartung, "Reining in the Pentagon, Can the Military-Industrial Beast Be Tamed?" shorturl.fm/VymJY
From TomDispatch this morning: Alfred McCoy, "American 'Micro-Militarism,' Or How Defeat in the Iran War Will Accelerate American Global Decline"
tomdispatch.com/american-mic...
tomdispatch.com/american-mic...
American "Micro-Militarism"
Writing more than 2,000 years ago, the Greek historian Plutarch gave us an eloquent description of what modern historians now call “micro-militarism.” When an imperial power like Athens then, or Ameri...
tomdispatch.com
April 23, 2026 at 5:57 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Alfred McCoy, "American 'Micro-Militarism,' Or How Defeat in the Iran War Will Accelerate American Global Decline"
tomdispatch.com/american-mic...
tomdispatch.com/american-mic...
From TomDispatch yesterday morning: Tom Engelhardt, "'You Dirty Orange Maniac! You Blew It All Up! Damn You to Hell!,' The President of Ultimate Destruction"
shorturl.fm/2Qr4B
shorturl.fm/2Qr4B
"You Dirty ORANGE Maniac! You Blew It All Up! Damn You to Hell!"
When he's on full blast, Donald Trump (not so long ago the "drill, baby, drill" candidate for president) is distinctly a furnace. And he seems intent on turning this planet, our only world, into a
shorturl.fm
April 22, 2026 at 7:04 PM
From TomDispatch yesterday morning: Tom Engelhardt, "'You Dirty Orange Maniac! You Blew It All Up! Damn You to Hell!,' The President of Ultimate Destruction"
shorturl.fm/2Qr4B
shorturl.fm/2Qr4B
From TomDispatch yesterday morning: Tom Engelhardt, "'You Dirty Orange Maniac! You Blew It All Up! Damn You to Hell!,' The President of Ultimate Destruction" shorturl.fm/2Qr4B
"You Dirty ORANGE Maniac! You Blew It All Up! Damn You to Hell!"
When he's on full blast, Donald Trump (not so long ago the "drill, baby, drill" candidate for president) is distinctly a furnace. And he seems intent on turning this planet, our only world, into a
shorturl.fm
April 22, 2026 at 2:24 PM
From TomDispatch yesterday morning: Tom Engelhardt, "'You Dirty Orange Maniac! You Blew It All Up! Damn You to Hell!,' The President of Ultimate Destruction" shorturl.fm/2Qr4B
From TomDispatch last evening: Liz Theoharis, "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor... The Case for Asylum in These Less Than United States" tomdispatch.com/give-me-your...
Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor…
In late March, I sat in the gallery of the Supreme Court for the first time in my life. Throughout my 30 years of grassroots anti-poverty work, I've joined countless protests and vigils outside the
tomdispatch.com
April 20, 2026 at 6:32 PM
From TomDispatch last evening: Liz Theoharis, "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor... The Case for Asylum in These Less Than United States" tomdispatch.com/give-me-your...
From TomDispatch Sunday evening: Is Donald Trump the reason why we have no real sporting heroes anymore? -- Robert Lipsyte, "Trump As The GOAT, The Greatest of All Time (or So He Believes)"
tomdispatch.com/trump-as-the...
tomdispatch.com/trump-as-the...
Trump As The GOAT
Seventy-five years ago, my father and I gazed down from the stands at Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle in the outfield at Yankee Stadium. I was thrilled by the sight of two heroes of my
tomdispatch.com
April 14, 2026 at 4:45 PM
From TomDispatch Sunday evening: Is Donald Trump the reason why we have no real sporting heroes anymore? -- Robert Lipsyte, "Trump As The GOAT, The Greatest of All Time (or So He Believes)"
tomdispatch.com/trump-as-the...
tomdispatch.com/trump-as-the...
From TomDispatch this morning: Arnold Isaacs, "From an Old Journalist, Another Letter to the Tribe, Cover the Election, Not Just the Candidates" tomdispatch.com/from-an-old-...
From an Old Journalist, Another Letter to the Tribe
A few weeks before the 2020 presidential election, I wrote "An Open Letter to My Old Tribe," urging "every reporter who is covering this election at any level" to focus on a crucial question -- whether
tomdispatch.com
April 9, 2026 at 10:07 PM
From TomDispatch this morning: Arnold Isaacs, "From an Old Journalist, Another Letter to the Tribe, Cover the Election, Not Just the Candidates" tomdispatch.com/from-an-old-...