The direct costs of World War I to the United States were: 130,000 combat deaths; 35,000 men permanently disabled; $33.5 billion (plus anoth...
Back in the 1960s, the U.S. peace movement came up with a catchy phrase: “What if the schools got all the money they needed and the Navy h...
If Karl Marx were to miraculously reappear in 2011, what would he make of the world today? Firstly, no doubt, he would feel some dismay that...
Alexander the Great, who ruled much of the ancient world until his death in 323 B.C., was conquered at age 32 not by an enemy, but possibly ...
On the eve of 1959, the US-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, instead of welcoming in what might have been his 25th year in power, s...
For weeks, Joseph Stalin had been plagued with dizzy spells and high blood pressure. His personal physician, Professor V. N. Vinogradov had ...
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The belief that dictatorship of some kind is the inevitable outcome of any attempt at radical change is one of the main barriers to people’s engagement with socialist ideas today.
In April 2009, President Barack Obama gave hope to nuclear disarmament activists around the globe. Speaking in the Czech Republic, he affirmed “America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” It was, and remains, the most laudable of objectives. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that the president is truly committed to eliminating these terrifying weapons of mass destruction.
The moral grandeur of Lincoln is rooted in the myth that he made a war on the South to abolish slavery. This is, at most, a Platonic noble lie designed to legitimate the Unionist regime. Lincoln thought that slavery was immoral, but so did Robert E. Lee. And Lee, at his own expense, freed the slaves he had inherited, through marriage, from the family of George Washington. Only around fifteen percent of southerners even owned slaves, and the great majority of these had holdings of one to six. Jefferson Davis was an enlightened slave holder who said that once the Confederacy gained its independence, it would mean the end of slavery. The Confederate Cabinet agreed to abolish slavery within five years after the cessation of hostilities in exchange for recognition by Britain and France. Southerners were not fighting to preserve slavery, but simply and solely because they were being invaded. And the North certainly did not invade to abolish slavery.
By the fall of 1944, it was obvious that the war in Europe was in its final year. In France, British and American forces had broken out of Normandy and were driving toward Paris and the Rhein. In the East, the Soviet Army was expanding its control westward across Europe. All over the Continent, Allied domination of the air was complete, and in the North Atlantic the back of the German U-Bootwaffe was finally broken.
