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The Global Suicide Budget

By Robert C. Koehler “Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” I truly wish these words of Ike, uttered seven decades ago, were no longer quite so relevant. Perhaps what he should have called it was a “cross of irony.” In 2021, the human race, in order […]

Humanity: Evolving in Spite of Itself

By Robert C. Koehler As wars rage, as cruelty shatters lives across the planet — as nuclear Armageddon remains a viable option for all of us — I think it’s time to claim some stunning awareness in this regard. The human race is evolving in spite of itself — evolving beyond war, beyond empire, beyond […]

Nuclear Weapons and Cranial Winter

By Robert C. Koehler Nuclear sanity: ultimate (or, God help us, immediate) disarmament. Nuclear insanity: ongoing development and deployment, endless investment, eventual (either accidental or intentional) use. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., addressing Congress several weeks ago, made a heartfelt and powerful case for nuclear sanity, for a revamping of the system of mutually assured destruction, […]

Standing Together for the Sacred

By Robert C. Koehler The soul of humanity cries out from the crowded streets of Moscow, from steps near the Kremlin, as a man — an artist in the deepest sense — brings the slaughter of civilians in Bucha back to the home country . . . not by killing a bunch of Russians, but […]

Save the Planet, Behead the Military Budget

By Robert C. Koehler Americans “need to imagine their vote has an impact on policy, an illusion the media encourages them to believe in.” Ouch! Peter Isaacson, writing in Fair Observer, seems to be saying . . . oh my God, democracy is a cliché, a big sham. I stand up, put my hand on […]

When Jim Crow Greeted Black Veterans

By Robert C. Koehler I figured I’d better write this column while doing so is still legal (at least I think it is), but I don’t recommend reading it aloud in a third-grade classroom. There’s a piece of legislation sitting in the House Veterans Affairs Committee — H.R. 5905 — that cuts a swath 75 […]

Transcending the Certainties of War

By Robert C. Koehler Peace, in the deepest sense — in the midst of war — requires a clarity and courage well beyond the boundaries of linear understanding. The warning lights flash. World War III has entered the red zone. Can we stare into hell and refuse to see . . . an enemy? This […]

Life Goes on, Right?

By Robert C. Koehler I had a breakthrough yesterday — and I don’t mean metaphorically. Wars rage, countless humans suffer, the rich get richer, life goes on. I still have my morning coffee. But not yesterday. What happened — about 5 a.m. — was a fleeting . . . oh so fleeting . . . […]

The Frailty of Peace in the Midst of War

By Robert C. Koehler Prior to any analysis of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, prior to the casting of blame and outrage — at Putin’s hubris, at NATO’s pernicious eastward expansion over the last three decades — there’s this: “Our world has become so interdependent that violent conflict between two countries inevitably impacts the rest […]

Creating Peace Means Changing the World

By Robert C. Koehler Only threat, pain and inflicted hell preserve peace, right? Get the bad guy! Russia: bad. If it invades Ukraine, such a “voluntary war of aggression,” according to David Leonhardt of the New York Times, “would be a sign that Putin believed that Pax Americana was over and that the U.S., the […]

Afghanistan on the Brink of Disaster

By Robert C. Koehler Gay rights, women’s rights — in reality, these are a nuisance to many U.S. conservatives, but purporting to protect these rights on the other side of the world is a great excuse to play war. And you don’t need bombs to play. All you need is the will to dominate and […]

The Court of Ecological Awareness

By Robert C. Koehler Pssst . . . here’s a little secret. Don’t tell anyone, OK? It might cause trouble. In recent years, there have been more than a thousand lawsuits filed around the world — including a few in the United States — challenging corporate or governmental negligence about climate change and ecosystem damage. […]

Ukraine and the Nuclear Paradox

By Robert C. Koehler Somewhere out there in the geopolitical wilderness of Eastern Europe, two powerful beasts stalk each other. One of them is good. One of them is evil. The future of all life on this planet is at stake. We’ll be back after these messages . . . (or maybe not). This seems […]

Jim Crow Wails in Anguish

By Robert C. Koehler “The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” Even if Mitch McConnell’s viral gaffe last week is as innocent as he claims it to be, the stench of something deep — the unexamined racist fear […]

A Citizen of the World (Still) Speaks

By Robert C. Koehler I decided to honor Martin Luther King Day this year by reading — and trying to absorb, more fully than ever before — the entirety (nearly 7,000 words) of the iconic speech he gave at Riverside Church a year to the day before his assassination. The speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time […]

Untangling Ourselves from the Dark Side

By Robert C. Koehler Guess what? I direct the following insight to, among others, the U.S. Congress, which annually and without comment, with only a few objectors, passes a trillion-dollar (and growing) military budget, by far the largest such budget on Planet Earth. “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.” The words are those […]

The Myth of the Good War

By Robert C. Koehler Love thy enemy? I get a chance to do so on a regular basis, thanks to the email (or nasty-mail) I sometimes get in response to my column, e.g.: “Must be a dearth of anyone with anything intelligent to say for the News to put your drivel out for us to […]

Do We Dare Stop Being Afraid of Ourselves?

By Robert C. Koehler What’s your story? We tell stories, which evolve into myths — and myths are what hold us together. They create the collective entity known as the human race. And myths evolve. At least, good God, I hope they do. We’re stuck, right now, in the myth of collective suicide, more generally […]

Poisoning Ourselves with War

By Robert C. Koehler War spews hell in all directions. Just ask the guys at Talon Anvil, a secret U.S. “strike cell” recently exposed by the New York Times as a unit with a reputation for ignoring the rules of engagement and killing lots and lots of civilians with drone strikes as it plays war […]

Mass Murder: New Victims, Same Old Questions

By Robert C. Koehler Four students dead, six more, plus a teacher, wounded. Can you believe – another mass shooting last week. This one north of Detroit, at Oxford High School. A 15-year-old boy – and his parents – were arrested. While the shock and collective horror are still fresh, before the news cycle moves […]

Our Shackled Planet

By Robert C. Koehler “Protecting the border” is essentially the same thing as protecting your own property, right? You’ve got to protect it from invaders, thieves — lawless jerks who want what you have. If you’re rich and paranoid, then you have no doubt that’s what refugees are, especially down there at the southern U.S. […]

Reclaiming a Lost Sense of Community

By Robert C. Koehler The first time it happened was bad enough. “It” amounted to this: It was Wednesday afternoon, I had finished my column early and walked out to my car, parked in the alley behind my house. I was on my way to an art show — very excited. I got in the […]

National Defense and Dead Children

By Robert C. Koehler A new defense budget looms. Maybe we’re running out of wars to fight, but no matter. The proposed figure before Congress is bigger than ever: $778 billion. How fascinating — and how irrelevant — that the vote is scheduled just a few days after the New York Times published its investigation […]

American History: Let’s Face the Truth

By Robert C. Koehler When you’re losing the game, summon the commies! And conservative white America has been losing for quite some time — losing control of the future, that is. The good old days of unabated white supremacy aren’t coming back; racism can only maintain a public forum, and political relevance, if it’s wrapped […]

A World Without Money

By Robert C. Koehler And climate change begins . . . “Three or four thousand years ago the gods began a migration from the lakes, forests, rivers, and mountains into the sky, becoming the imperial overlords of nature rather than its essence.” So writes Charles Eisenstein in Sacred Economics, defining a transition in human existence […]