'…a major destabilizing influence'
[T]he imperial power that we veterans fought for abroad is the same one some of us are now struggling against at home, and the two couldn’t be more intimately linked. Our struggle is, at least in part, over who gets to define patriotism. – Danny Sjursen, The Nation I have nothing against Tammy Duckworth as …
Continue reading “Did Tammy Duckworth Fight For Our Right to Protest?”
The conquerors of America glorified the devastation they wrought in visions of righteousness, and their descendants have been reluctant to peer through the aura. …
Continue reading “Inaccurate Public History Is the Issue, Not the Statues”
The great leaders of the United States Navy finally made their decision about the fate of the skipper of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. This was apparently a hard one for these men — too much humanity and courage openly at play. They shuffled around and sputtered very uncomfortably for a while, went back on …
In a time when Americans are inundated by messages of “support the troops,” and “honor our veterans,” and simultaneously veterans continue to commit suicide at alarming rates, go homeless and hungry, face battles with addiction, and isolate themselves, it certainly feels as if more effort can be made to think of and offer innovative programs …
Newsflash, The New York Times, March 31, 2020: As the coronavirus pandemic brings the world to a juddering halt and anxious citizens demand action, leaders across the globe are invoking executive powers and seizing virtually dictatorial authority with scant resistance. . . . As the new laws broaden state surveillance, allow governments to detain people …
Something pretty amazing is happening thanks to the COVID19 virus. Doctors, nurses and other health workers are being respected in ways they haven’t been until now. Last night, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell expressed the current narrative in a way I’ve never encountered before. He was speaking of nurses, but it would apply to other health workers …
Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about … the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial. – Martin Luther King In their [evangelical Christians’] view, Christ did not live a perfect life so …
Continue reading “Democratic Socialist or Democratic Fascist”
It would be hard to find a more obnoxious display of American corporatism and imperialism than this year’s super bowl. The whooshing super-hero graphics, the flag-waving, the pre-hyped $11-million-a-minute ads and a succulent J-Lo pole-dancing at halftime. If I hadn’t decided to write about it as decadent spectacle, I’d have turned it off and read …
Who exactly is responsible for US casualties in Iraq during the Iraq War? The question has been raised thanks to President Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian General Gasem Soleimani. On January 13, the New York Times published a front-page story about a lawsuit filed against Iran in federal court by US veterans and veteran families; …
Continue reading “Iran Is NOT Responsible For US Dead in Iraq”
Here we go again. We lived through George Bush Senior’s war, then George Bush Junior’s war and now we have Donald Trump’s war. Our leaders don’t learn from our mistakes very well. True, the curtain is just rising on Act Three, and the players are just now entering the stage; no one in the audience …