Jonathan Schell's latest book "The Seventh Decade" places our current situation in the context of the past 62 years of the nuclear age, or the past 68 years as Schell might prefer to date it.  It was 68 years ago that scientists concluded a nuclear bomb was possible.  Scientists and politicians immediately began trying to develop nukes out of fear that someone else would do so first.  And as soon as nukes had been developed in one country, spies began passing the information to other countries out of fear that they would fail to develop their own nukes, thus leaving one nuclear nation unchecked.

We arrived 18 years ago in a situation in which the first nuclear nation is largely unchallenged.  This has led to aggressive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not the use of nukes.  In fact, nuclear powers have time and again lost brutal wars to smaller states without making use of nuclear bombs.  It is highly unlikely that a small state developing a nuclear bomb in a nuke-free world would be able to bend other states to its will.  And nukes are no weapons at all against non-state terrorists with box cutters.  So why don't the nuclear powers disarm?

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"I asked Sgt. Gaskins about his hopes for the future. He replied that he has no future." — psychotherapist Rosemary Masters

This is the cost of our wars, and sooner or later we need to begin paying down the debt. But it is only payable in the devalued currency of the truth. For now, Soldier, we’re still in denial and you’re under arrest.

Welcome to PTSD Nation.

We don’t have a draft because in Vietnam our draftee army mutinied and refused, finally, to continue pursuing a hellish, unwinnable war. Today, as we pursue an equally hellish, equally unwinnable war, we are in the process of destroying our all-volunteer, gung-ho army, one GI at a time.

Brad Gaskins, of Newark, N.J., was at one time as gung-ho as a soldier can get, the ideal recruit, the boy with a hero’s heart. He’d been the starting quarterback on his high school football team and had enlisted in the Army at age 17, while still a senior. That was 1999. He wanted to serve his country, fight hard, win a medal. He swelled with pride when he wore his olive-green dress uniform to church. When we think “support our troops,” we’re thinking of Brad Gaskins.

A few decades ago, upwards of one-third of the American workforce was unionized. Now the figure is down around 10 percent. And news media are central to the downward spiral.

As unions wither, the journalistic establishment has a rationale for giving them less ink and air time. As the media coverage diminishes, fewer Americans find much reason to believe that unions are relevant to their working lives.

But the media problem for labor goes far beyond the fading of unions from newsprint, television and radio. Media outlets aren’t just giving short shrift to organized labor. The avoidance extends to unorganized labor, too.

So often, when issues of workplaces and livelihoods appear in the news, they’re framed in terms of employer plights. The frequent emphasis is on the prospects and perils of companies that must compete.

Well, sure, firms need to compete. And working people need to feed and clothe and house themselves and their families. And workers hope to provide adequate medical care.

Remarks at Denver, Col., impeachment forum November 17, 2007, organized by "Be the Change."

For the past year or so, every month the moon gets full, and I suddenly get a couple of hundred emails telling me that Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will allow impeachment hearings if she gets enough emails or phone calls or handwritten letters.

And a lot of the emails I get are along the lines of: “Is it true? Because if it’s true my group can send 5,000 letters.”

And I usually reply along the lines of: “Of course it’s not true, but since when do you need an invitation to act like a citizen of a democracy? Send her 10,000 letters immediately, and do so precisely because it’s not true!”