OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #261, December 24, 2025.

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #261, December 24, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

 

This final War Watch Wednesday draws attention to the danger of a nuclear WWIII.  Only planetary warming poses a greater threat to all species. To eliminate the danger of nuclear holocaust, three movements are important, and one is essential.  

1.     The Peace Movement.    The overall problem is US militarism and aggressive empire.   OMNI has participated and is participating actively in many ways to this noble movement to avert catastrophic, planetary destruction.    A new book again explains the US War Machine and sets forth necessary remedies fundamental to the peace movement:  The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home  by William D Hartung and Ben Freeman.  

2.     The Arms Control Movement.  Arms regulation involves treaties and agreements, primarily between the U.S. and Russia, to limit, reduce, and manage nuclear weapons arsenals, preventing costly arms races, reducing war risk, and fostering stability through transparency and verification. Key treaties like New START (extended to 2026) set limits on strategic warheads and delivery systems.   See Scott Ritter.   “A New Start for New START.”    Perhaps the best book is The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump by William Perry and Tom Collina (BenBella Books, 2020).  They understand the urgency.    “There are many control systems in place to prevent nuclear weapons from being launched unintentionally or by an unauthorized person.  But currently there is no way to prevent a determined president from starting a nuclear war.  We strongly believe that the risks of having nuclear weapons ready to launch within minutes, on the president’s sole authority, outweigh any perceived benefits.  This system is unconstitutional, dangerous, outdated, and unnecessary” (5).  

3.    The Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Movement.  Of course, abolition is an option in a control system, but because it is the only option that will prevent a nuclear war, it should be treated separately.    The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), aiming for a total ban, has been ratified by the majority of the nations of the world.   The leader of the movement,  ICAN,  received the Nobel Peace Prize for its successful efforts.   Nuclear weapons are now immoral and illegal by international law.   But the struggle is not over.  The criminal nuclear-armed nations refused to sign the Treaty.  We must continue to support ICAN until global pressure compels the abolition of nuclear weapons by these criminal nations.

 

  END WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #261, December 24, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #260, December 22, 2025.

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #260,  December 22, 2025.    Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

OMNI’S FINAL CMM.   I hope someone will carry on its realistic analyses and ultimate hope.   OMNI continues its resistance to warming by its weekly general newsletter edited by Gladys Tiffany, its local actions, and its many anthologies already published and in preparation).  –Dick.

 

RESISTANCE
ICN Sunday Morning
Capitalism Nature Socialism
Mark Dunlea.   Putting Out the Planetary Fire.  2023.  Green New Deal.

Bill McKibben.  Here Comes the Sun.  2025.

Recently Published Resistance: Two Magazines and Two Books 

ICN Sunday Morning <newsletters@insideclimatenews.org>  12-21-25. 

 

 

 

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Capitalism Nature Socialism
Publisher’s description:
Capitalism Nature Socialism ( CNS ) is an international, multi-disciplinary journal of ecosocialism, encompassing anticapitalist perspectives that are both egalitarian and environmental in orientation. . . .   CNS serves as an outlet for those striving to connect/explain ecological and social issues through egalitarian anticapitalist approaches. We welcome submissions on themes like red-green politics, science/technology and relations of domination, technical/practicable solutions enabling ecosocialist alternatives, environmental movements/politics, political ecology, environmental history, environmental justice/conflicts, workplace and prison struggles, land/community/decolonisation struggles, political economy of environment, postcapitalist egalitarian futures. Works can be empirical and/or theoretical in orientation and expressed in a variety of ways, including standard scientific writing, poetry, and reviews of productions in any medium. We are especially interested in the work of younger authors and authors from underrepresented social groups and geographical areas.  
CNS is non-sectarian. We are affiliated with no political party or organised political tendency and are open to diverse views within left ecology/ecological left movements.    All research articles in this journal undergo rigorous peer review, based on initial and final editor screening and evaluation by two or more anonymous referees.
Capitalism Nature Socialism is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that was established by James O'Connor and Barbara Laurence in 1988. It is published by Routledge on behalf of the Center for Political Ecology and covers work on political ecology, with an ecosocialist perspective.  Source: Wikipedia   

The Green New Deal

Mark Dunlea.   Putting out the Planetary Fire: An Introduction to Climate Change and Advocacy.  2023.  Green Education and Legal Fund.

“Mark Dunlea has worked as hard as anyone in America to tamp down the fire of climate change. And because he has decades of knowledge of how to work the system from inside and out, he’s been particularly effective. Now you can take advantage of all that hard-earned wisdom: this is a book for the practical organizer who wants to make a difference in the biggest fight the earth has ever seen.” Bill McKibben, author (The End of Nature), co-founder 350.org and The Third Act

“This book is an excellent primer not only on climate change, its useful solutions, and false solutions we need to avoid, but also on how to implement the good solutions through advocacy. I highly recommend it.” Prof. Mark Jacobson, Stanford University, Author of No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save our Climate and Clean Our Air

“The climate explosion – record wildfires, droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, rising sea levels – has made Earth Day Every Day. People who know this keep telling me they want to do something but don’t know how. Enter Mark Dunlea whose half a lifetime of organizing around saving the Planet from climate disruptions and other perils is poured into this book, PUTTING OUT THE PLANETARY FIRE. Accurate, easy to read with valuable groups, tools and strategies laid out, Dunlea’s book takes away excuses for inaction and motivates for action! If you want to move from knowledge to action, this is your book.” Ralph Nader, author, citizen activist.

“Mark Dunlea couldn’t find a primer on how to fight global warming, so he put one together himself. “Putting Out the Planetary Fire” contains the information everyone needs to understand the crisis that we’re facing and — just as important — to become active.”  Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. 

Putting Out the Planetary Fire not only provides top-notch research, but also places advocacy high up on its agenda and goes through all the tools in the advocacy toolbox–from lobbying to rallying to direct action. I particularly appreciate the inclusion of the effects of militarism on the climate, including the need to slash the military budget, stop wars for fossil fuels, and invest the savings in a rapid transition  to a clean energy future. It is time to act like it is a climate emergency, because it is! Another World is Possible if we put the common good ahead of the wealth and greed of the 1%.  Medea Benjamin. Co-founder, Code Pink

 

 

McKibben’s Solar Hope
Bill McKibben.  Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Change for Civilization.   Norton, 2025.  China, Pakistan, and other countries are significantly turning to solar and wind power.  “Those kind of shifts. . .could take a real bite out of the grim predictions of climate scientists: the sun burns so we don’t need to.  We are in a desperate race; those scientists have told us that to stay on anything like a survivable path we must cut greenhouse gas emissions in half before the decade is out.  That target is on the bleeding edge of the technically possible, and this book is an effort to shove us toward that deadline” (4).  “And that prefigures a different world with a more localized and more humane geopolitics. . , which could allow the redress of some of earth’s great inequities. . . .the sun and the wind each day produce thousands of times as much energy as we could ever use—could even reconfigure our ideas of competition [capitalism] and conquest [wars].  Unlike oil and gas, sun and wind can’t be hoarded.  If fascism scares you the way it does me, figuring out how to break the centralized power of the fossil fuel industry is a key form of resistance” (5).    But McKibben’s optimism has been qualified by reviewers; e.g. David Wallace-Wells, "Bill McKibben's Far-Too-Sunny Outlook for Solar Power," The New Republic (Sept 17, 2025).  The struggle is ours.   –D

 

 

END OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #260,  December 22, 2025.    Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

 

 

WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #260, December 17, 2025.

 

WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #260, December 17, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

[WWW has never been more needed, but next week’s edition will be its final issue, unless you will be the new editor.  I am preparing to move to an assisted living residence.  -D]

 

 

Military-corporate-gov-media-neofascist Complex

US Militarism and Warmaking.

Kathleen Barry.  Unmaking War, Remaking Men:  How Empathy. . . . 
Nan Levinson. “Who’s Responsible When a Military Order is Illegal?”

Theocracy Watch.

Russophobia.
US Corporate Media Increasingly Centralized.
Common Cause.   Defending Arkansas PBS.
Robert Reich.  Major Media Being Bought by Trump’s Billionaire Friends.

TEXTS Empathy

Unmaking War, Remaking Men: How Empathy Can Reshape Our Politics, Our Soldiers and Ourselves by Kathleen Barry.  2010
 One day at a beach Kathleen Barry witnessed an accidental death. Seeing how empathy drew together the bystanders – strangers until that moment – in shared human consciousness, she asked: 'Why do we value human lives in everyday moments but accept the killing in war as inevitable?'    In Unmaking War, Remaking Men, Kathleen Barry explores soldiers' experiences through a politics of empathy.   By revealing how men’s lives are made expendable for combat, she shows how military training drives them to kill without thinking and without remorse, only to suffer both trauma and loss of their own souls.  She turns to her politics of empathy to shed new light on the experiences of those who are invaded and occupied and shows how resistance rises among them.   And what of the state leaders and the generals who make war? In 2001, a fateful year for the world, George W. Bush became President of the US; Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel; and Osama bin Laden became the de facto world terrorist leader. Analyzing their leadership and failure of empathy, Unmaking War, Remaking Men reveals a common psychopathology of those driven to ongoing war, first making enemies, then labeling them as terrorists or infidels. . . .

[Here is an excellent examination of the book by Gary Olson:  https://www.artsandopinion.com/2011_v10_n4/olson-2.htm  
Although it does not employ the expression, tparts of the review reminds me of a local veteran for whom “moral injury” was central to his soldiering and who killed himself: Jacob George.  –D]

 

“Doin’-the-Right-Thing Rag.   Who’s Responsible When a Military Order is Illegal? (Don't Ask Donald Trump!).”  By Nan Levinson.  Via Tarak Kauff.    . . . On enlistment, everyone in the military takes an oath of loyalty not to a person, a party, or any form of politics, but to the Constitution. Enlistees in all branches also pledge to obey orders from their officers and the president. As stipulated in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), it’s clear that this means only lawful orders. Officers take a slightly different oath: they, too, swear to support and defend the Constitution, but their oath doesn’t include anything about obeying orders from their superiors or the president, presumably because they’re responsible for giving orders and ensuring that those orders are lawful. Officers reaffirm their oath whenever they’re promoted. Across the board, the UCMJ, the Nuremberg Principles, and the U.S. Constitution establish the right and responsibility of servicemembers to refuse illegal orders or to refuse to participate in illegal wars, war crimes, or unconstitutional deployments. . . .  More click on title

THEOCRATIZING THE GOVERNMENT AND MILITARIZING THE BIBLE

Freethought Today (Oct. 2025), a publication of Freedom from Religion Foundation, contains three articles regarding the unconstitutional behavior of the Trump administration.  “Theocracy Watch: Christianity Gets More Government Backing” describes the DHS, HUD, White House, Department of War, State Department.  “Arkansas Law Is ‘Obviously Unconstitutional” and “Texas School Districts Must Comply with Aug. 20 Ruling.”   --D

 

USA, UK, BBC RUSSOPHOBIC

Regarding war-making, the US and UK march shoulder to shoulder, so it’s not surprising, given the militarized economies of both nations, that BBC is as biased as our mainstream commercial networks.   In a recent a single report on the Ukraine War, BBC supported:  the “Coalition of the Willing” v. Russia; maximizing costs of the war to weaken Russia; using more long-range missiles against Russia (Starmer); stealing impounded Russian funds; claiming without serious qualifications that Russia had occupied Ukrainian territory the size of Greece; reporting Ukrainian lives lost by the Russian “invasion” of 2022 (but not Ukrainian lives lost by the 2014 coup).   See Soviet/Russophobia Anthology #8.   --Dick

 

Hopes for Impartial Public News Diminishing: PBS Budget Slashed, Major Media Being Bought by Trump’s Friends.
Common Cause.  “DEFENDING PBS: NO STATE NEEDS IT MORE THAN ARKANSAS.”
 I just signed this petition – will you?
Trump has already slashed $1.1 billion from public broadcasting this year – gutting local stations, shrinking investigative reporting, and leaving communities without trusted news. That vacuum is exactly what corporate networks are racing to fill with gambling-driven coverage.  I just signed a Common Cause petition urging Congress to save impartial public media – and I hope that you will too.     https://act.commoncause.org/petitions/save-impartial-public-media/?source=email-share

Robert Reich.  “I’ve never seen the media this bad.”   12-20-25.   Inequality Media: Civic Action.
Friends, we’re watching the slow-motion takeover of virtually every major media outlet and news source by Donald Trump and his ultra-rich friends.

Here’s just a partial list of the biggest media platforms now controlled by Trump’s allies:

· Elon Musk, who apparently is back as Trump’s “First Buddy,” owns Twitter/X.

· Trump friend Larry Ellison owns Paramount, which owns CBS — and could soon own Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN.

· MAGA-friendly billionaire Mark Zuckerberg owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

· Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios.

· Right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post.

· A Trump-aligned consortium including Ellison and Trump mega-donor Marc Andreesson is angling to buy TikTok, the biggest social media platform in the world.

American democracy will not survive if a handful of Trump-friendly billionaires control everything the people see, hear, and read — and that’s exactly why Trump is using the power of his office to accelerate this consolidation and attack the shrinking number of remaining independent outlets.

 

END WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS #260, December 17, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #259, December 15, 2025.

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #259,  December 15, 2025.    Compiled by Dick Bennett.

[Next week’s CMM will be its last, unless someone continues it.  Even though the online newsletter/anthology is much more needed now than when it arose out of OMNI’s Climate Book Forum that began in 2006—when our study was Climate Change, and our subject is now Climate Emergency--, I must give it up.   Dick]

 

Paris Climate Agreement after 10 Years.
EarthJustice.
United Nations.
Ecosocialism.

Climate and Capitalism.

Yale Climate Connections.

 

 

Paris Climate Agreement Today.

“Need to know info on climate change.”

fran@deane-alexander.com via uark.onmicrosoft.com   12-13-25.
[Orig. pub. The Guardian, forwarded by Fran Alexander.]

‘A shift no country can ignore’: where global emissions stand, 10 years after the Paris climate agreement.   The watershed summit in 2015 was far from perfect, but its impact so far has been significant and measurable.    By Fiona Harvey.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/13/a-shift-no-country-can-ignore-where-global-emissions-stand-10-years-after-the-paris-climate-agreement

 

       DECEMBER NEWSLETTER 2025

Earthjustice is the nation’s leading environmental law organization. As a non-profit, our attorneys fight for everyone’s right to a healthy environment — and we represent our clients free of charge. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.  

The lawyers giving us hope in a challenging year

From protecting national forests and opposing a detention center in Florida’s Everglades, to pushing for policies that clean the air and create good jobs, these six Earthjustice attorneys share what motivates them to keep fighting for the planet and its people.

READ MORE >>

 

 

UNITED NATIONS

United Nations Climate Change Conference.  COP 30 ANTHOLOGY.  November 10, 2025.   https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2025/11/omni-united-nations-climate-change.html

Ecosocialism
“Ecosocialism and Degrowth in the Anthropocene.”
Climate & Capitalism <feedblitz@mail.feedblitz.com> 11-10-25          Ecosocialism and degrowth in the Anthropocene     Source   
Other recent articles ...

 

Climate & Capitalism.   “Fossil fuel projects threaten health and rights of two billion people.”    Fossil fuel projects threaten health and rights of two billion people.  11-14-25

Amnesty Report: Worldwide production of oil. gas and coal is undermining life, nature, and human rights.   Source
Other recent articles ...

 

If You Don’t believe the FF System Can be Abolished (revolution), at least Fight it (reform).
“Fight climate change by engaging your government.”  Yale Climate Connections (11-14-25).
Some climate actions are too big to take on as one person. Instead, they’re better tackled by the local, state, or federal government. But even then, individuals need to communicate to elected officials and other decision-makers, sometimes with annoying insistence, their support for climate solutions. If you doubt that loud voices make a difference, consider that, in communities across the U.S., people have advanced climate-friendly changes – like public transportation or renewable energy installations – by being loud at city meetings without much opposition.   Speaking at a city council meeting in favor of bike infrastructure, calling your senator to say that you support clean energy tax credits, or protesting a new oil project alongside climate justice groups are all individual actions that can have a ripple effect. 
13 tips for lobbying your elected officials about climate change
‘This is a moment in time to name names’: Writer Karin Kirk and your editors discuss oil and gas contributions to newly elected leaders 3) Vote in elections
‘Basic peer pressure’: The plan to turn out millions of pro-climate voters in the 2024 U.S. election 
How to talk with (just about) anyone about climate and the 2024 elections

 

 

END OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS #259,  December 15, 2025.    Compiled by Dick Bennett.