'…a major destabilizing influence'
It gets deeper and deeper by the day, with less than 60 days to go. If, like me, you see the Trump Presidency as a live reality show — or maybe a post-postmodern autofiction novel narrated by Norman Mailer’s ghost — you’re turning pages like mad anticipating the final scene. Will he leave? Will elements …
Continue reading “Is Joe Biden Already Biting the Hand That Got Him Elected?”
Herds of rhinoceroses rushing at top speed through the streets became a sight that no longer surprised anybody. People would stand aside to let them pass and then resume their stroll, or attend to their business, as if nothing had happened. – Eugene Ionesco, “Rhinoceros” Few can hold a candle to Vietnam veteran medic Mike …
[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. – Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. During the summer of 2020, an angry mob tore down a public bust of Ulysses Grant in …
Continue reading “Inaccurate Public History Is the Issue, Not 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 …