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July 18, 2025 / Nolan Higdon & Sydney Sullivan / CounterPunch -  During President Donald Trump’s second term, education has remained a central battleground in American politics. Republicans claim that classrooms have become hotbeds of “woke” indoctrination, accusing educators of promoting progressive agendas and tolerating antisemitism. In contrast, Democrats argue that conservatives are systematically defunding and dismantling public and higher education precisely because it teaches values like diversity, equity, and inclusion. While these partisan skirmishes dominate headlines, they obscure a much deeper and more enduring issue that encompasses all of these issues and more: the influence of corporate and military power on public education.

Men raised in poverty had greater odds of draft and all-volunteer military service. Early-life experiences, independent of military service, appear associated with greater odds of Major Depression. Assessing childhood poverty in service members may identify risk for depression in later life.

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Natalie Bareis / Briana Mezuk  / Journal of Affective Disorders / NIH  - Major Depression (MD) is the most common psychiatric disorder among middle-age and older adults, affecting between 15% and 20% of this population (Aldrich, 2016; Diefenbach and Goethe, 2006). MD is associated with premature mortality from lack of self-care, diminished functioning, and suicide (Fiske et al., 2009). There is a growing body of research that indicates mental health in middle age and later-life is influenced by exposures experienced much earlier in the life course, including in childhood. For example, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as experiencing neglect and abuse, are associated with MD in adults across the lifespan (Culpin et al., 2015). Even less severe exposures such the experience of poverty early in life have been associated with depression in older adults (Johnson et al., 1999).

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 April 05, 2024 / Tarik Ata / The International - Propaganda is something we in the West often associate with Nazi Germany and the likes of Joseph Goebbels or even that of the Soviet Union — often incorrectly equating the USSR to the Nazi regime in the process. But what if I were to tell you we currently live in a far more propagandised world, one that even the notorious propagandist Goebbels would not have been able to fathom. Well, this is the predicament we find ourselves in.

Propaganda is disseminated via a myriad of mediums, be it entertainment (cinema, TV, video games, and even music) to academia, journalism, and various other information-producing industries. The United States government has, and continues to, propagate an image of itself as a benevolent power seeking the promotion of “liberal” virtues around the globe. Despite furthering its own interests by breaking international law and committing crimes against humanity, as we saw in Abu Ghraib, the notorious prison in Iraq where many were tortured and sexually abused, and in Guantanamo Bay, where hundreds were detained — many still are — without trial and held against their will often suffering barbaric abuses such as sodomy and torture.

The propaganda machine of the United States has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, dictating the narrative empire wants to be told and masking the crimes that are committed. The barbarity that Washington engages in serves the capital and political interests and is often at the expense of those within the metropole as taxpayers fund Washington’s imperial ambitions. All the while the United States is crumbling from within, with tens of millions currently living in poverty, life expectancy is falling, and infrastructure collapsing; the empire, as Parenti notes, bleeds the republic.

One area that is insidious, because of the often-alleged apolitical approach of this industry, from Hollywood, and the entertainment industry more broadly, as it partakes in spreading an imperial doctrine around the globe propagating it to the masses. The image that is developed and the message which is distributed, as we shall outline, is dictated by American exceptionalism and hegemonic interests using entertainment as a tool in empire building.

(The following article is a reposting from eleven years ago from the office of the War Resisters' International at the Peace Pentagon in London - Seems appropriate to raise the bar for counter-recruitment in the time of Trump.)

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17 Jun 2014 / Sahar Vardi and Dola Nicholas Oluoch / War Resisters' International - The images of war, armed conflict and organized violence worldwide can take different forms, but the one thing they almost always have in common are the young men and women filling the lines of military and paramilitary organizations.