TomDispatch
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Tom Engelhardt launched TomDispatch in October 2001 as an informal listserv offering commentary and collected articles from the global media to a select group of friends and colleagues. In November 2002, it gained its name and, as a project of the Nation Institute (now the Type Media Center), became a web-based publication aimed at providing “a regular antidote to the mainstream media.”
In the 18 years since, TomDispatch has regularly published three original articles weekly on subjects ranging from the American way of war and this country’s “forever wars” to economic inequality to the climate crisis. It has served as a syndicated source for websites ranging from Alternet and Common Dreams to the Nation magazine and Salon. Source
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Media Outlet details
| Scope | International |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Country | United States of America |
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| Frequency | Weekly |
| Days Published | N/A |
Recent Articles
Search ArticlesEngelhardt, A Personal TomDispatch Farewell (of Sorts)
My Strange Tale of How the War on Terror Came Home in the Age of Donald J. Trump 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 passengers hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, killing almost 3,000 innocent people. Until that moment, of course, such a thing would have been beyond inconceivable, no less watchable on TV, in the United States of America.
Alfred McCoy, A World Without America?
The Causes and Consequences of U.S. Global Decline 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 from threats of devastation to promises of peace, it’s becoming increasingly clear that U.S. military might is no longer capable of subduing even a mid-sized power like Iran, much less holding the rest of the world in its thrall.
Rebecca Gordon, Endings and Beginnings
Sometimes It’s More Like a Meandering Sine Wave 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. It’s been a wonderful partnership for me, offering not just a place to publish, but a chance to think, talk, and often argue with the best editor I’ve ever worked with.
William D. Hartung, Raging Against the Machine
And the Fight for a Humane Future 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 Silicon Valley militarists who think that they’re the smartest people in the room, if not the universe.
Robert Lipsyte, To Understand Where America Is Heading, Read Sports
The Clues Are on the Billionaires’ Scorecards 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 sportswriting, I’ve come to think, that the songs of the canary in the all-American coal mine couldn’t be clearer. If the games we play and watch reflect our past and present lives, then the coverage and commentary about them may help predict our future.
Jasper Craven, A Hell of a Secretary of War
Failed Wars and the Secretary of War's Flailing Identity 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 predicting that a ramped-up campaign against Iran could lead its leaders to close the Strait of Hormuz. However, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s self-styled “Secretary of War,” jumped at the prospect of such a conflict.
Nick Turse, A Global War on Children
In the Trumpian Age, Every Accusation Is Also a Confession “It’s got no anything,” President Donald Trump said of Somalia in a recent xenophobic rant. “All they do is run around shooting each other.” As is true of so much with this administration, every accusation is also a confession. U.S. troops have been shooting Somalis since the early 1990s, after lame duck President George H. W. Bush launched an ostensibly humanitarian intervention there that would be embraced by his successor, Bill Clinton.
John Feffer, America’s Flight 93 Moment Original
What Can North Korea Tell Us about America’s Future? 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 airplane experiencing a serious malfunction. The major question they posed: in the end, would North Korea experience a soft landing or a catastrophic crash?
Engelhardt, Defeat at Sea (And That's Just to Start Down the List)
Making War on Everything in the Age of Donald Trump Hey, I always suspected that Donald Trump and I, having both grown up in New York City in the 1950s and early 1960s, had something in common. Now, I know just what it is — his boyhood love for the 1950s TV program Victory at Sea. (“Did you ever see ‘Victory at Sea?’ ” he asked reporters in January while talking about the new “Trump class” battleships he wants to build.
Frida Berrigan, Every Warship Launched Is a Local Disaster
The War Against Iran, Up Close and Personal (and All Too Far Away) 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 military and “butter” for all the human goods, comforts, and needs of a society. Economists, politicians, and generals have long considered the balance of guns and butter.