I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of "emergency" is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning. So, the first thing you do is to take all the plans off the top shelf and throw them out the window and start once more. But if you haven't been planning you can't start to work, intelligently at least. That is the reason it is so important to plan, to keep yourselves steeped in the character of the problem that you may one day be called upon to solve--or to help to solve.

killing large groups of people who often at the prime of their working age means suddenly you're losing often decades or centuries of working hours as well. In every single case, it's a wasteful use of energy. Conspicuous consumption or as a way of saying I am more important than you. I have higher status than you do.

Paris Peace Accords

Vietnamization.

antiwar movement

Vietnam War

maximize the asymmetry in agency which is achieved by strengthening one's own while weakening that of the opponent

The record of what Canada did during World War II is astounding. And that's what we need to confront the climate crisis

But if Cox and Trump represent two rival impulses within the Republican coalition, Trump is undoubtedly winning. “Democrats own what happened today,” Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina said on Wednesday. “Y’all caused this,” Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida told Democrats on the House floor. “It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, & prosecute every single Leftist organization,” the influential Trump adviser Laura Loomer posted on X. “We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The Left is a national security threat.”Other influential figures on the right have been equally or more strident. “The Left is the party of murder,” Elon Musk declared on X before a suspect had even been identified. Andrew Tate, the misogynist who has been charged with sex trafficking in two countries (which he denies); Alex Jones, the conspiracy-theorist broadcaster; and Libs of TikTok influencer Chaya Raichik all invoked “civil war.”

My new book, More Everything Forever

even this idea of progress

I think we we we we're going through some sort of consciousness war or even spiritual war.

The presence of McDonald’s in Moscow signaled the triumph of capitalism inthese post-Cold War years, spread by new patterns of globalization

Rationing of red meat during the Second World War had increased demandfor poultry

Nixon held up this space, its technologies and abundant processed foods,and the feminine women staffing it, as proof of American superiority.

These foods offeredat least a semblance of preparedness in a time of turmoil

The green bean casserole embodiedall of these qualities. It was easy enough for any housewife to prepare, madeof ubiquitous canned foods, and produced through the marriage of homeeconomics and the food industry. It was thus a potent ideological weapon,alongside other processed food dishes.

Wartime mobilization led to a doubling of the gross national productand eliminated unemployment, ending the Great Depression

the camp “is hunger: weourselves are hunger, living hunger

Hormel began to ship up to 15 million cansof meat overseas every week, most of it Spam, to Britain and the SovietUnion

the United States could save 40percent of the cargo space if meatpackers removed the bones before freezingand shipping.

All armies on their stomachs move, and this one moves on spam.

The United States’ leading status in food production gave it outsizedinfluence both during the war and after. The rapid industrialization of Americanagriculture and food processing before the war allowed the United States tofeed Allied troops all over the world, to keep its domestic population fedeven during food rationing, and to set the country up for dominance on theglobal stage after the war.

One posterappealed to immigrants, reading “you came here seeking Freedom, youmust now help preserve it.” The organization printed its materials in dozensof languages.

The United States was a clear global leader in agricultural productivity andused this advantage to provide international food aid, simultaneously as away of saving starving Europeans, preventing anarchy, and projecting thesuperiority of American politics and culture.

The war launched the beginning of a wider acceptance of peanuts, assoldiers on the move became exposed to new foods and wartime scarcityrequired food substitutions.

This is the start of the undoing of the postworld war II order.

Ένα, όλο και σημαντικότερο, τμήμα του, λοιπόν, είναι αναγκαίο να δαπανάται σε μη-παραγωγικές δραστηριότητες, από τη διαφήμιση και τον χρηματιστικό τομέα, έως το real estate και αντίστοιχες σπατάλες, στις οποίες καταστρέφεται κοινωνικός πλούτος, προκειμένου να ευνοηθούν τα μονοπώλια.

In 2013, jaw-dropping details emerged about the extent of US intelligence agency surveillance programmes. This prompted the Russian Federal Guard Service (FSO) to revert to typewriters in an attempt to evade eavesdropping. German officials were also reported to be considering a similar move in 2014. (During the Cold War, Soviet spies actually developed techniques for snooping on electric typewriter activity, a form of "keylogging" technology – where the keystrokes inputted on a keyboard are captured. US operatives also reconstructed text from typewriter ribbons – meaning that even typewriters aren't completely safe.)

turning conscientious objectors . . . into heroes of the antimilitarism movement could unwittingly perpetuate exactly the sort of masculinized privilege that nurtures militarism”

archetype of the hypermasculine wheelchair-bound veteran dissenter.

The figure of the grieving mother is a collectivity, with women characterized as part of a population of mothers with a collective experience of loss. Their dissent is practiced through invocations of a dead or imperiled soldier child, who signifies the claim to associative military masculinity. In contrast, the perspective of the returning veteran is grounded in individual experience. The film depicts women as caregivers, with their dissenting subjecthood derived from their relationships with men.

this narrative of personal growth and triumph is complicated by the fact that Tomas's newfound power and authority are rooted in traditional masculine ideals. The film ultimately suggests that the military peace movement is shaped by masculinized privilege, which can be both productive and limiting.

Cathy and wife Brie, are affected by his injury and how they perform a disruptive reiteration of military masculinity through their care for him.

ement simultaneously targets and reinforces military authority, with masculine privilege producing hierarchies within experiences, truth claims, and dissenting subjecthoods. The article suggests that women's dissenting subjecthood is produced out of relational invocations of military masculinity, which limits their dissenting capacity and reinforces gendered relations of power.

the challenge is for men to become personally and collectively reflective about masculine privilege without taking the lead in activism or intellectual discussions. The goal is to achieve a mutually understood analysis and a truly respectful partnership between women and men in peace movements, with a feminist analysis of violence and war being understood and accepted.

White Ribbon Campaign, which originated in Canada and has a branch in England, is a group of men committed to discussing and ending male violence against women. However, there is a lack of groups of men in the anti-militarist and peace movements who analyze and resist the deformation of manhood by militarization. For war to end, men need to become self-aware and refuse the violence expected of them, and the association of masculinity with militarism. Some men, such as those in the Turkish conscientious objectors movement and South Korean anti-militarist men, are starting to listen to feminist ideas and take on board their perspectives.

hat governments cannot militarize without making women complicit, that wars rely on specific forms of masculinity, and that grappling with the militarization of women and men must be done together.

The party used stereotypes of Muslim men as rapists and Hindu goddesses to mobilize women's support, while also enforcing control over female sexuality and personhood.

No Pride in War (NPIW) challenged the involvement of BAE Systems and the Red Arrows in Pride marches, accusing them of "pinkwashing" and glossing over militarized violence by focusing on LGBT inclusion.

Sisters, formed an all-women and non-binary anti-militarist group to highlight the gendered politics of the arms trade and build solidarity with Syrian women affected by conflict.

opposing militarism requires resisting patriarchy, heterosexism, and racialized configurations of queer inclusion/exclusion.

Private militias have provided criminal groups with greater mobility and fighting power, enabling them to engage in large-scale violence and seek control of criminal markets and territories beyond their home towns. The Mexican case highlights the need for democratic elites to reform authoritarian judicial and security institutions and to punish state agents who protected organized crime, in order to prevent the intertwining of democratic politics and the criminal underworld.

The spread of subnational party alternation in states with drug trafficking routes and the proliferation of private militias led to the outbreak of intercartel wars. The development of private militias allowed cartels to contest their rivals' control over drug trafficking territories, leading to largescale criminal violence.

political alternation and the rotation of parties in state gubernatorial power undermined the informal networks of protection that had facilitated the cartels' operations under one-party rule. Without protection, cartels created their own private militias to defend themselves from rival groups and incoming opposition authorities.

The power dynamics shifted when the Colombians began paying Mexican traffickers in product rather than cash, allowing the Mexicans to invest in their own drugs. This led to Mexican gangs controlling 90% of the cocaine entering the United States, worth an estimated $70 billion a year.

The Zetas' business model was based on imposing protection fees on businesses, including illegal activities such as drug trafficking, and licit businesses such as farming and shopkeeping. Those who refused to pay were killed or threatened with violence. This led to a culture of fear and intimidation, where businesses were forced to pay protection fees to avoid violence. The violence in Mexico was further fueled by the struggle between powerful groups for control of drug protection rackets and the pursuit of aggressive counternarcotics policing. This led to a cycle of violence, where struggles between rival groups sparked aggressive policing, and aggressive policing generated increasing struggles between rival groups.

The sale of drugs was no longer limited to tourist areas and border cities, but spread to small towns and rural areas. This led to an increase in violence as local drug gangs fought over control of drug-selling areas.

In Mexico, drug traffickers began selling drugs in bulk to the domestic market, leading to an increase in drug use and addiction.

The violence in Mexico escalated due to several factors, including changes in American narcotics demands, the gun market, and criminal practices in Mexico. The availability of guns increased after the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons was lifted in 2004, leading to a global boom in gun manufacture and sales.

New organizations emerged, armed with high-caliber weapons and prepacked political creeds and religious messages. The Familia Michoacana, a Sinaloa-linked group, tossed the heads of five Zetas into a Michoacán bar, declaring that they did not kill for money, but for divine justice. The conflict continued to spread throughout Mexico, with cartels fighting each other, and soldiers and police often caught in the middle.

extort small-time smugglers, torturing and killing those who refused to pay.

In the mid-1990s, the Gulf Cartel recruited members of the Mexican army special forces, known as the Zetas, leading to an increase in violence connected to the drug trade.

Life is a war and only the strongest warriors will survive. Compassion with the weak is a luxury, which neither Fascists nor Libertarians can afford.

The US government classifies any male eligible for combat as a potential enemy combatant, producing an embodied target of drone warfare.

This gaze is also productive of turning people into objects, classifying, categorizing, and making them knowable as potential targets.

The development of drone warfare is linked to a masculine framework of thinking, where the fleshy body is seen as getting in the way of war. Drones are presented as more reliable, intelligent, and vigilant than humans, and are seen as surpassing all human limitations. This masculine framework is evident in the way drones are represented as "just warriors," more humane in their precision and rational calculations. The relationship between masculinity and vision is also explored, where vision is seen as a way to signify a leap out of the marked body and into the conquering gaze from nowhere.

The experience of killing with drones can be both hypermasculine and emasculating, as operators are both invulnerable to physical harm and removed from the traditional masculine ideals of combat.

The technostrategic discourses of drone warfare also distance the use of lethal technology from its deadly consequences, using rational language, euphemism, and abstraction. The altered spatiotemporal experience of drone warfare makes killing easier, but it also raises questions about the masculinity of drone operators. They are often depicted as being in the domestic sphere, juxtaposing their combat experience with running errands for their spouses or coaching a kids' soccer team.