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Ralph spends the entire hour with co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Norman Solomon, to discuss his latest book, \u201cWar Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,\u201d which examines how our \u201cmilitary-industrial-media-intelligence complex\u201d conspires to suppress the truth about war.

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of War Made Easy, Made Love, Got War, and his newest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.

The tacit motto of huge media outlets like the New York Times is: Being pro-war means never having to say you\u2019re sorry. If a journalist or a media outlet is in favor of the US engaging in war, that is couched as \u201cobjective.\u201d If a journalist (such as Phil Donahue on MSNBC) in the leadup to the war even raises questions, serious questions critical of an impending invasion or ongoing US war then that's considered \u201cbiased.\u201d

Norman Solomon

These wars are treated as though they aren\u2019t wars. That they don\u2019t exist. That \u201cthere\u2019s nothing to see here, folks!\u201d Because we say so. We have our own criteria. And part of that is the jingoism and the nationalism and the racism that says if the people at the other end of US firepower don\u2019t look like us, are not in a country aligned with us, then we don\u2019t think there\u2019s really a reason to consider it a major problem. It\u2019s only a problem when Americans are dying.

Norman Solomon

This was a real sociocide\u2014thousands and thousands of bombs and missiles dropped on Iraq. And here\u2019s the New York Times, being fed by one of their reporters Judith Miller total lies about Saddam importing uranium from Niger and Africa and other falsehoods that made page one in the New York Times. What is clearly probably its darkest journalistic chapter\u2026 There doesn\u2019t seem to be anything learned today. They could just as well do it today against another country.

Ralph Nader

In Case You Haven\u2019t Heard

1. On Wednesday, The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that the online retailer \u201ctricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions [for Amazon Prime] without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,\u201d according to FTC Chair Lina Khan. Khan added \u201cThese manipulative tactics harm consumers and law-abiding businesses alike.\u201d According to internal documents \u201cAmazon named [the cancellation] process \u2018Iliad,\u2019\u2026refer[ing] to Homer\u2019s epic about the long, arduous Trojan War.\u201d More about this lawsuit is available at the Washington Post.

2. As the Teamsters continue to negotiate for a better deal with UPS, the membership has voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike. This vote \u2013 which passed with 97 percent support \u2013 gives the union \u201cmaximum leverage to win demands at the bargaining table,\u201d according to the union\u2019s statement. The statement goes on to note that the Teamsters represent more than 340,000 UPS package delivery drivers and warehouse logistics workers nationwide. Teamsters president Sean O\u2019Brien added \u201cThe strongest leverage our members have is their labor and they are prepared to withhold it to ensure UPS acts accordingly.\u201d

3. For the fist time since 2019, the Democratic-controlled Senate Banking committee will hold a \u201cmark-up\u201d session on a bill \u2013 a key step toward enacting any legislation. This bill \u2013 sponsored by Senators Sherrod Brown, who chairs the committee, and Tim Scott of South Carolina \u2013 seeks to claw back excessive compensation from executives at failed banks and penalize them for misconduct. This legislation was almost certainly drafted in response to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. The draft text of this bill is available at Punchbowl News.

4. The American Prospect reports that, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, Tesla\u2019s \u201cFull Self Driving\u201d or FSD has led to at least 736 crashes \u2013 causing 17 fatalities \u2013 since 2021. Mile for mile, Tesla\u2019s FSD system is \u201clikely\u2026ten times more dangerous at driving than humans.\u201d

5. Leaving aside self-driving, a CBS News report sheds light on new dangers associated with electric vehicles. \u201cTheir batteries make the vehicles heavier, offering better protection to the passengers inside, but that extra weight \u2014 hundreds to even thousands of pounds \u2014 has traffic safety advocates concerned about the potential risk to other drivers.\u201d To give some perspective on how heavy these vehicles are, \u201cGMC's Hummer EV weighs more than 9,000 pounds\u2026more than 3,000 pounds heavier than the GMC's full-size pickup. The Hummer EV's battery alone weighs about the same as a Toyota Corolla.\u201d

6. The Washington Post reports that the strike at Insider magazine, the \u201clongest ever [strike] in digital media,\u201d has ended. The new deal raises the minimum salary for Insider staff and prevents any further layoffs this year, along with an immediate 3.5 percent raise upon ratification of the contract. The strikers got a boost in public support when the editor-in-chief was filmed \u201ctearing down fliers bearing his face with the phrase, \u201cHave you seen this millionaire?\u201d\u2019 Insider, formerly Business Insider, was acquired by German media conglomerate Axel-Springer in 2015; Axel-Springer\u2019s later acquisition of POLITICO was covered in the first edition of the Capitol Hill Citizen.

7. Yahoo Finance reports that, in a major reversal, Shell plans to \u201c[pivot] back to oil to win over investors.\u201d The company will forego its goal to reduce oil outputs by 1-2% each year, and its CEO Wael Sawan emphasized that \u201cshift[ing] to low-carbon businesses cannot come at the expense of profits.\u201d No word yet on whether life on planet Earth can come at the expense of corporate profits.

8. This month, American troops will begin arriving in Peru, where they will be stationed until the end of the year. These troops, invited by the wildly unpopular Peruvian Congress and unelected president Dina Boluarte, are charged with \u201cpreparing Peru\u2019s intelligence command for \u201cjoint special operations.\u201d The timing of this arrival is notable; while protests against the antidemocratic Peruvian government peaked in February, resulting in 70 deaths, a new rash of protests are planned for July. This from CounterPunch.

9. The Catholic News Agency reports that a restaurant in Sacramento, California \u201chad an individual impersonate a priest to encourage employees to confess their \u201csins\u201d against their employer,\u201d \u2013 the catch? He wasn\u2019t a priest at all. The Department of Labor called this \u201camong the most shameless\u201d of employee intimidation methods they\u2019d ever seen. In addition to the priest fiasco, investigators said the restaurant \u201cdenied overtime pay to employees and illegally paid managers from the employee tip pool\u2026.[and] threatened employees with retaliation and immigration-related consequences for cooperating with investigators.\u201d The employer has agreed to pay $70,000 in back wages and $70,000 in damages to 35 employees, as well as $5,000 in civil penalties to the Department of Labor.

10. Daniel Ellsberg, the legendary whistleblower who exposed the lies being fed to the American people regarding the Vietnam War via the Pentagon Papers, has passed away. He was 92. Ellsberg, who had been in hospice following a diagnosis of inoperable pancreatic cancer, wrote a final note in March. This note mostly focused on the nuclear peril posed by the war in Ukraine, but the last few lines should be repeated here:

\u201cI\u2019m happy to know that millions of people\u2013including all those friends and comrades to whom I address this message!\u2013have the wisdom, the dedication and the moral courage to carry on with these causes, and to work unceasingly for the survival of our planet and its creatures.

I\u2019m enormously grateful to have had the privilege of knowing and working with such people, past and present. That\u2019s among the most treasured aspects of my very privileged and very lucky life. I want to thank you all for the love and support you have given me in so many ways. Your dedication, courage, and determination to act have inspired and sustained my own efforts.

My wish for you is that at the end of your days you will feel as much joy and gratitude as I do now.

Love, Dan\u201d