The 2020 World Happiness Report, based on an extensive global survey, finds that the world's major military powers, which are also among the world's richest nations, are failing badly when it comes to promoting public happiness.  Indeed, ranked by their own citizens, they appear far down on the list of the happiest countries.  What accounts for their dismal standing, as well as for the happiness of the ten highest ranked nations?

It's often said that government budget are "an expression of values."  That's certainly the case with Trump's budget proposal for fiscal year 2021, which slashes funding for public health, public education, environmental protection, feeding the hungry, the United Nations, and the World Health Organization, while increasing funding for immigration restriction, fossil fuel production, war preparations, and new nuclear weapons.

During his 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump portrayed himself as a champion of American workers.  Since entering the White House, however, he has undermined workplace health and safety regulations, blocked wage increases, championed measures to deprive American workers of healthcare and pension benefits, and led an assault upon labor unions.

There really is no other solution to the onrushing climate catastrophe than for people and nations to forget their tribal animosities and start behaving as part of a world society.

Back in 1941, the year of my birth, fascism stood on the brink of conquering the world.  Fortunately, a titanic struggle turned the tide, producing a postwar international order committed to promoting democratic institutions, improving living and working conditions for all people, and, through the United Nations, saving future generations "from the scourge of war."  But, in recent years, fascist movements and parties -- adopting the old Radical Right playback of racism, xenophobia, and militarism -- have made a dramatic revival in numerous nations.    

Although today's public protests against nuclear weapons can't compare to the major antinuclear upheavals of past decades, there are clear indications that most Americans reject the Trump administration's nuclear weapons policies.  These indications include public opinion polls on nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements, the administration's $1.7 trillion nuclear weapons buildup, and the use of nuclear weapons, as well as strong antinuclear resolutions recently adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and state and local governments.

A workers and their unions have learned over the centuries, a nonprofit employer is not necessarily a better boss than a profit-making one.  That sad truth is reinforced by the experience of thousands of nurses at Albany Medical Center, who have been fighting for a fair contract since April 2018, when they voted for union representation.

This little satire -- in the form of a public relations statement -- celebrates how rulers of powerful countries are making their nations "great" again by improving the opportunities for mass death and destruction.

Amid what we are told is an "economic miracle," the gap between the super-rich and the rest of us is rapidly increasing.  According to federal government data released this year, economic inequality in the United States has reached the highest level since the U.S. Census Bureau began measuring it five decades ago. 

The meaning of democratic socialism -- a mixture of political and economic democracy -- should be no mystery to Americans, who appear happy enough with a wide range of democratic socialist institutions in the United States, including public schools, public parks, minimum wage laws, Social Security, public radio, Medicare, public libraries, and the U.S. postal service.  Even so, a remarkable number of Americans mistakenly associate democratic socialism with dictatorship and oppression.  For more than a century, communists and conservatives helped cause this confusion.