Trent R. Nelson is a poet, historian, and philosopher, as well as a political and socioeconomic analyst. He is the managing editor for MWF Springfield and a contributing editor with Liberal Currents.
The United States has had many questionable relationships with nations across its history, befriending and casting nations aside with equally curious motives and callousness, but none may be stranger and more questionable than that which America has with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While American President after American President for
Despite the hesitancy in some quarters to acknowledge the likelihood of an invasion before February 24, the landscape of analysis and punditry—including myself—has, since that entire calamity earnestly began, come to terms with the fact that what Russia is doing in Ukraine right now is absolutely dreadful. The
What is currently occurring in Ukraine is beyond barbaric and is in no way sustainable by the Russian government on any level. Period. While the invasion of Ukraine was not sustainable before the massive, multilateral sanctioning campaign that has since occurred, it is even less so today as the Russian
“The Great Era of Sanction Diplomacy” is nothing more than a ruse. The extreme use of sanctions is not diplomacy at all, though they begin with diplomats, include multinational agreements and negotiations, and ostensibly seeks to avoid the death that is wrought by conventional warfare. Rather, sanctions are, like conventional
When analyzing events in foreign countries, it is important not to overemphasize the importance of one’s own – all politics are local, as they say, and every election is determined by a variety of factors, most of them internal. At the same time, a country the size of the United
The homeless population of America carries with it undue burdens unique among wealthy nations. While Canadian researchers have recently experimented with new methods of welfare for their own homeless population, America has done its best to ignore the ever growing issue across the nation. During the current COVID-19 pandemic however,
Modern international sanctions are barbarism, disguised as diplomacy; the losses incurred from this lack of cooperation limits the potential of all humanity, and sanctions themselves serve only to diminish the humanity that lies in their paths, never the elite or system which they are allegedly focused on curtailing, reforming or
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was called a crude misogynistic epithet by Congressman Ted Yoho, the largely universal furur grew, rightly, upon the misogyny of the statement. Lost in this however, is what he was reacting to: her argument that the recent spike in crime in NYC was caused by the COVID-19
Throughout the course of history, organized groups of people have turned to isolating their adversaries from resources when faced with conflict. They generally do so through two main mechanisms; the rather primitive, yet timeless blockade and its diplomatic successor, the sanction. Appearances aside, deprivation lacks the obvious moral superiority to
American exceptionalism extends beyond its absolute wealth, into its absolutely atrocious homeless problem. While the USA does not have the greatest proportion of homeless people in the world, the isolation of these individuals is truly striking. The remarkable vulnerability of this population is evidence of the immorality of a society
The assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani by US drone strikes on Friday, the third of January, sent a shockwave across the world. The United States, leading superpower in the world, had murdered a remarkably high ranking leader from a nation it was not at declared war with. While President
As the headlines on August 18th blared out the news of Steve Bannon’s firing, a wave of relief seemed to grip many of President Donald Trump’s opposition. From moderate Republicans, news anchors and journalists, to liberals, leftists and intellectuals, the feeling was of triumph, of invigoration at such