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I'm a 72-year-old American who served in Vietnam as a naive 19-year-old. From that moment on, I've been studying and re-thinking what US counter-insurgency war means. I live outside of Philadelphia, where I'm a writer, photographer and political activist. I have been a member of Veterans For Peace for 40 years. I think America and Americans are living through a complex cultural and economic reckoning we do not fully understand. I'm convinced we, as Americans, need to re-evaluate who we are and, in the process, ratchet down the imperial world policeman role we too often take for granted. A nation of our size must stay engaged diplomatically in the world and protect ourselves from attack; but for our own good and the good of the world, we need to better look after our own nation's problems.
I like good writing, good film, good music and good times. I drink alcohol and, yes, smoke a doobie now and then. I say this publicly because I think the Drug War is an abject and hypocritical failure. Much worse and more corrupting than Prohibition ever was; the gangs that have been spawned are far worse and more dangerous than Al Capone.
I taught writing in a Philly prison for 12 years and met too many poor, African American young men stuck in there for some stupid drug crime. I'm a committed pragmatist who actually subscribes to the old right-wing formula: My Country Right Or Wrong. When our government is wrong, which it is a lot of the time, I'm happy to say that. I plan to stick around.
(22 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 6, 2011 The Drug War: A Roller-Coaster To Hell
The US War On Drugs is a disastrous assault on supply outside the US; it is a war that will never end. What we really should be doing is addressing the incredible demand for drugs we have in the US.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, April 20, 2012 A Conspiracy of Whores
The Secret Service scandal that came out of the Cartagena summit is nothing but a distraction from the real story, which is the shifting economics and politics of Latin America vis-a-vis the imperial United States. Whoring is nothing new, and in fact prostitution and US imperialism have always gone hand-in-hand.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, August 4, 2017 Me and The New York Times
I've been a leftist antiwar activist in the veterans movement for over 30 years. Lately, in this strange Trumpian moment, I find myself defending more and more the fact that I read The New York Times every morning. It's all very complicated. And that's the point. The Times is a flawed institution that's essential to countering the right ascendancy.
(34 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 25, 2010 They're "Slow Torturing" Bradley Manning Right Under Our Noses
Reports suggest the military jailers at Quantico are doing what is known as "slow torture" to Bradley Manning. There is a long and ugly history to this nefarious procedure.
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, May 6, 2011 A Troubled Nation Feeds On bin Laden's Corpse
Sure, the raid to kill bin Laden was a super-competent action and it is full of great mythic and symbolic power, which President Obama is "harnessing." It may feel good, but it tragically does nothing to solve our real problems.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 11, 2010 Bradley Manning and the secret world
Bradley Manning's homosexuality has nothing to do with the issue of WikiLeaks versus the secrecy regime of the US military.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 24, 2011 Marijuana and PTSD: Give the Joy of Life a Chance
A team wants to study the positive effects of marijuana on combat stressed Iraq and Afghan vets. But will a federal government mired in the War On Drugs allow it to happen? Fear of the truth runs deep in this government, and the effects from marijuana may be just what combat vets need. Enough of them already "self medicate" with pot.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 11, 2014 Balls, Brains and History: The New Crimean War
The downfall of the Ukraine president, Russia's President Putin has acted fast to establish a red line in Crimea. The US right wing has gone ballistic. When you distill it down, the imbroglio is all about three things: History, Brains and Balls. The world is changing and the ol' USA ain't what it used to be.
(16 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 22, 2011 Historical Amnesia: The Nation's Number One Disease
Despite -- or because of -- our military occupations, signs suggest US influence is waning in the Middle East and SW Asia. One way to help is to address the disease called historical amnesia.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 12, 2010 Pay No Attention To the Man Behind the Curtain
The US is in decline at the same time its citizens are told they are "exceptional" in the world. The result is the disaster we are living through.
(14 comments) SHARE Monday, August 9, 2010 American stupidity
The efforts to thwart a mosque in New York and other areas of the US reveals a dangerous strain of American stupidity.
(16 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 16, 2014 Warrior Cops Lose a Round in Missouri
The cable news duel between Fox News and MSNBC was interesting to follow as the story in Ferguson, Missouri unfolded through the week. Fox took a retro, pro-police line and MSNBC ran with compelling, live images from social media observers on the ground. As a battle of narratives, we have not heard the last from Ferguson, Missouri.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 20, 2011 Veterans Tell Obama White House its War Policy is a Disgrace
Veterans gathered at the White House on the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, which turned into the day of our aerial intervention into Libya. Over a 100 veterans were arrested and two speeches characterized the challenges faced by the anti-war movement.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 21, 2015 Dirty Harry Goes To Iraq
Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is a very well made, classic film about American violence in the world. It's also a film that corruptly perpetuates the worst dishonest antecedent of the war -- all in the service of an iconic work of hero worship. As late Eastwood cinema, it follows the tried and true formula of early Eastwood's Dirty Harry movies.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 14, 2015 A Hero With a Cell Phone Instead of a Gun: Cops, Cameras and Justice
Thanks to a brave cell phone camera user an incredible advance for justice was made in North Charleston, South Carolina. It was a watershed moment in the on-going struggle between cops and cameras and one-sided surveillance.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 5, 2011 The National Shame of the US Military "Slow Torture" of Bradley Manning
The military's policy of stripping and "slow torturing" Bradley Manning at Quantico Brig is a national moral disgrace. There is an ugly history behind this kind of behavior, and more American citizens should speak out.
SHARE Wednesday, May 22, 2013 Veterans and Pennsylvania's Criminal Justice System
In Pennsylvania, there is no parole allowed for those sentenced to life in prison. This has become an issue in the discussion of incarcerated veterans and PTSD. This is discussed in a speech given on Armed Forces Day to the Vietnam Veterans of America inmate Chapter 466 inside Graterford Prison outside Philadelphia.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 16, 2010 Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Think
Don't Ask, Don't Tell is ridiculous and in denial of reality. A federal judge has said the obvious and our leaders should have the courage to accept it and move on.
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, January 2, 2012 Iran and Historical Forgetting
As we enter the Presidential silly season, we're hearing drum beats for war against Iran. The problem is our national trait of forgetting history and believing the myth of American exceptionalism.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 2, 2010 Get Over It! WikiLeaks Is Good For America
The right-wing and militarist outcry over WikiLeaks indicates that Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are onto something important. The results of their courageous acts are good for America in today's changing world.
(17 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 17, 2013 Despite Hand-Wringing, Cairo Massacres Suit US Policy
Let's stop kidding ourselves: The massacres of Egyptian citizens is messy but it conforms perfectly with US desires in the Middle East. Plus, the kleptocratic military institution running amok in Egypt is largely a US creation. We need to honestly recognize our national culpability.
(17 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 18, 2013 Who's really "The Enemy" in the Bradley Manning Case?
The only "enemy" Bradley Manning was aiding by leaking what he did was the American people -- that is, in the logic of the court martial judge.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 31, 2011 Why Are We In Libya?
The TARP special inspector has concluded the TARP bailout was a "colossal failure" because it betrayed working American homeowners. There is a lesson in this as to why we are in Libya.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 15, 2011 The Battle Over PTSD
With so many wars and returning soldiers, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is becoming a major issue here at home. The Pentagon sees the problem as a "deployment" issue; while others see it as a human issue. The battle is on.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 13, 2011 The Gaza Flotilla and the Blood-Dimmed Tide
W.B. Yeats had it right in 1919 when he referred to the blood-dimmed tide being loosed and the best lacking conviction as the worst "are full of passionate intensity." Tragically, the disaster in Israel/Palestine reflects this only too well. And the undermined Gaza Flotilla is at the center of it all.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 22, 2014 How I Became Radicalized
You hear it all over the media and from politicians. Someone was "radicalized" from a good, normal American or European life to join al Qaeda or ISIS and do violent things. It's a misuse of the term radical. What they mean is to recruit someone to extremism. It gives radical thinking a bad name. Using myself as an example, here's how one responsible American was "radicalized."
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 26, 2020 Iran Is NOT Responsible For US War Dead In Iraq
The charge that Iranian General Gasem Soleimani and his Quds Force is responsible for US dead in the Iraq War needs to be recognized for what it is: malicious propaganda produced to justify a crude murder by lethal drone. The real culprit in Iraq, of course, was/is George W. Bush and his administration.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 6, 2014 Is the Police Reform Movement Getting Legs?
Have the three recent white cop killings of Black males incited enough outrage that it has belatedly given power to a movement to reform police and the criminal justice system in America?
The system is vulnerable, and citizen crowbars need to be applied to these cracks, chipping and wiggled
them open further so the moral issues can seep in and further break down the
governmental concrete.
SHARE Saturday, June 30, 2012 Forgotten Casualties of the Vietnam War
A number of Vietnam veterans with PTSD are serving life-without-parole sentences in Pennsylvania. It is an injustice that needs to be addressed in this age of sensitivity toward veterans and PTSD issues. Commer Glass is one of those veterans.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, October 29, 2010 Xbox versus WikiLeaks
Teenagers use computers to practice Black ops killing and destruction, so why not give a break to those teenage kids who use computers to search for answers and find the truth?
(33 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 14, 2012 Hugo Chavez, Drugs, Guantanamo Bay and Vultures
As we watch Hugo Chavez welcome Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Caracas, it's time to re-think our relationship with Latin America, dump the legacies of the 20th Century and join the 21st with a new face.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 11, 2011 The Israel-US Relationship As a Train Wreck
Three things are happening this month that puts Israel on the hot seat. When does the intransigent Israeli right cause the US to re-evaluate its relationship with Israel?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 10, 2017 US Values, Moral Accommodation and Remembering Vietnam
Establishing meaning in the realm of war and peace is a major struggle in America. The power of facts and truth are undermined by the amazing flood of information we are all drowning in. As a Vietnam veteran convinced his war was wrong, the struggle is particularly acute. This essay runs that struggle down.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, September 5, 2014 The Odor Seeping Out of Our Criminal Justice System
Ferguson shooting of an unarmed black youth by a police officer and the subsequent criminal justice response unleashed a smell, but the exoneration of two half-brothers in North Carolina after serving 340 years in prison has released a pent-up blast of fetid stink that reaches all the way to the US Supreme Court.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, September 18, 2015 Wrestlemania and the Return of American Greatness
It's tragic that our leaders are so scared to talk to world leaders they're at odds with. Syria and the refugee debacle reveals the depth of the mess in which the US is deeply implicated, a mess talks can only help resolve. Plus, it's time to quash the siren song of a return to America's "greatness." It's impossible to go backwards in history; all we can do is deal with where we are.
SHARE Monday, December 16, 2019 Clint Eastwood Trips On a Quid Pro Quo
Clint Eastwood's new movie Richard Jewell is a good, entertaining movie, but it puts off a propaganda smell. Why was this movie funded and made at this time? There's a number of references to the Trump narrative where he's a poor victim of the deep state FBI. Meanwhile, the film has bombed.
SHARE Saturday, February 29, 2020 America, What's it Gonna Be: Democratic Socialist or Democratic Fascist?
The trashing of Bernie Sanders for being a "socialist" is getting tiresome. There are lots of -isms in America; the point is to get the balance right. And right now it's way off. If Sanders is a democratic socialist, Trump is certainly a democratic fascist. Instead of Stalin and Castro as socialists, how about Jesus Christ? Can we stop the hysteria and get real? America needs an injection of bottom-up government.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 30, 2014 Thomas Friedman Comes In From the Cold War: Vietnam Was About Liberation!
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman just made an incredible discovery after visiting Vietnam. He realized the Vietnam War had never been about stopping communism. That was only an emotional trigger for us. It was about anti-colonialist nationalism and the Vietnamese were really fighting a war of liberation against the US. The American public needs to understand this truth even deeper than Friedman is willing to go.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, October 21, 2011 Bring In The Drones: Agent Provocateurs And Moral Protest
Two classic agent provocateurs were caught out in an October protest focusing on killer drones at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. One of them bragged about his actions in the right wing magazine, The American Spectator. Besides being a fool, the man has helped us see how provocateurs think and work.
SHARE Sunday, December 2, 2012 Citizens Are Winning the Battle Over Cops and Cameras
There's a battle in America between citizens using ever-more-compact digital video cameras and i-phones to record police doing their public duty. The tourist-shot image of a New York cop who bought a barefoot homeless man warm boots adds a new wrinkle to the battle. New court cases show citizens winning the battle.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 25, 2015 Lone Wolf Racist Terror Backfires
If the term means anything, Dylann Roof is a "lone wolf terrorist" -- just as much as if he were attacking people in a marathon race. The matter becomes complicated by US politics and embarrassing coziness with the radicalizing element. The point is to allow this amazing teachable moment to come to fruition. Americans need to keep their eyes on The Prize.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 21, 2017 Honor, Sacrifice and Imperial Duplicity
General John Kelly's press conference nicely symbolizes the quandary in which US leadership often puts members of our military. On one hand, it was bottom-up identification with the sacrifice of common soldiers like LaDavid Johnson. On the other hand, it was top-down demonization and attack against a manufactured "enemy." In the end, it was self-inflicted collateral damage.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 13, 2018 Are We Living Under a Military Coup? (An Ironically Patriotic Essay)
Ex-general John Kelly as Chief of Staff in a chaotic White House is a hard-line military man with some far-right views. Masha Gessen says he talks in the language of the military coup. Given US history from 1933, when there was a plot against FDR that many have called a "coup" attempt, can we look at Kelly in a similar light?
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, December 5, 2011 Balancing The Noir Shadow In US Culture
As the US faces the decline of its empire, it is carrying around a huge and complex Jungian shadow. The sensibilities of the 40s and 50s film noir world captures that notion of a shadow world nicely. As Jung would say, cultural health comes from recognizing and balancing that shadow with light.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, November 28, 2011 General Santa Claus and His Secret North Pole Base
The holiday cartoon movie Arthur Christmas is a well-made piece of militaristic propaganda intended, of course, to make lots of money as it entertains kids and their parents. But we need to get beyond militarism, secrecy and bigness and teach are kids that E. F. Schumacher was right: Small Is Beautiful.
SHARE Monday, November 10, 2014 Iraq Veteran Emily Yates vs. the Federal Military Machine: A Veterans Day Story
Last week, Iraq veteran and folk singer Emily Yates was convicted and sentenced for assaulting US park rangers at the Independence Mall area in Philadelphia in August 2013. This was after they had first jumped her from behind and "assaulted" her. It was a pretty clear case of over-zealous federal police power. Yates may have lost in federal court, but she won in the court of Life, Art & Humanity.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 5, 2013 The Battle Over What Vietnam Means: Individual Honor or Unpleasant History?
The war is long over, but the struggle over its meaning in the American mind is still raging. The Pentagon's $65 million clean-up campaign -- the Vietnam War Commemoration Project -- is only one side of the fight.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 13, 2011 The Tucson Shooting and the End of the Frontier Myth
We are told that gun control and mental health screening are impossible in America. Meanwhile, the right is in a "last stand" mode, holding onto an outmoded Frontier Myth. Something's got to give.
SHARE Sunday, December 29, 2019 Corrupting Jesus to Trump the Constitution
This Christmas season was a doozy in the absurdity department. Fundamentalists who admire Christ pulled all the stops to defend bad-Christian strongman Donald Trump as the protector of their religion, reminiscent of Torquemado and the Inquisition. Then we read about Washington stare Rep. Matt Shea -- and the plot thickened. Are we in for bad weather?
(22 comments) SHARE Friday, May 22, 2015 The Debacle That Bites Back: Here We Go Again
The drums of war are again beating as ISIS gains more control in Anbar Province and parts of Syria. Bombing to take back Ramadi from ISIS would be following George W. Bush's Iraq debacle with more of the same, and the result will be more of the same psychopathic reaction. It's time for a new approach.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 23, 2016 Humanizing Our Militarized Border
The recent Encuentro At the Border in Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, called attention to our crazy, tragic militarized border. For me, it was a return to the Arizona/Mexico borderlands where I spent a year in the US Army 48 years ago. As I cruised the borderlands, I pondered some basic history. It's very clear: We need to begin to end the failed Drug War and to humanize our southern border.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 13, 2019 Joe Biden, Crime Fighter From Hell
Joe Biden is a personable politician, but he's also highly culpable as a passionate advocate of crime and prison bills that contributed to the mass incarceration of African Americans. And he did it in bed with a notorious racist senator. Unlike Bill Clinton, Biden has not atoned in any way for this. Plus, there's other reasons why good ol' Joe would be a terrible candidate for president in 2020.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 22, 2010 Selling the "Founding Principles" like a Used Car
By calling her nemesis Anita Hill with the assumption she was owed an apology, Virginia Thomas whacked the hornets' nest that is her husband's appointment to the Supreme Court as the replacement for a civil rights giant, Thurgood Marshall.
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 25, 2014 Bad Wars and the Voice of Disillusion
It's the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One, a war founded on rotten political leadership and known for the voices of disillusion that came out of the trenches. The legacy of top-down bad leadership and bottom-up voices of disillusion are still with us today from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghansistan.
SHARE Sunday, November 5, 2017 "I Made A Horrible Mistake": Who endangered soldiers more, George W. Bush or Bo Bergdahl?
The hysterical right-wing blood lust for Bo Bergdahl's scalp needs to be put into perspective. Who endangered soldiers deployed overseas more, Bergdahl or President George W. Bush? Let's wake up. Screw-ups happen all the time in war, and some of them are real doozies that pay dark dividends for a long time.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 10, 2015 The Killer Elite, At Home and Abroad
Elite special ops manhunting is the new war doctrine, according to a New York Times article on SEAL Team Six. Are these killer elite elements unaccountable and out of control? How much to they make us safer, and how much do they actually do the opposite? These are questions that need to be maturely addressed.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 15, 2017 President MOABA: Mother Of All Bullshit* Artists
Donald Trump is not preposterous or laughable anymore. The more you learn about him, the more opposing him must transcend satire. As an entertainer, his power comes out of the right brain, not the usual left-brain route of the lawyer, the soldier or the politician. He's a master bullshitter, and bullshit comes out of the right brain. That's where he should be fought.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 14, 2016 Digging Up Truth With a Teaspoon
President Obama was called a "son of a prostitute" by the psychopath elected President of the Philippines; more important, he "acknowledged" what many see as US war crimes in Laos. Revealing and undoing US atrocities like Laos and absurd tragedies like the Drug War are not easy. It's often an asymetrical excavation struggle between a teaspoon and a huge dump truck.
(14 comments) SHARE Monday, June 5, 2017 My Vietnam War, 50 Years Later
The New York Times ran an essay titled "Was Vietnam Winnable?", then refused to run a reasonable letter to the editor I wrote. This personal essay, then, got loose and I gave it all the rope it needed. The Vietnam War was a tragedy and a crime that never should have happened. It's time we in the US dealt with that reality.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 19, 2020 Walkin' the 'Hood With the Bats: The Confessions of a White Privileged Radical
Times are stressful, and I couldn't sleep. So as dark slipped into dawn, I decided to walk my suburban 'hood in painted-spattered clothes and no socks. I had a fantasy of my own fatality, then I ran into the bats and heard an echo from the past: "Can we all get along?"
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 19, 2010 Maintaining the empire
The left is attacked for not going along with the tragic decision to pursue more war in Afghanistan. General Petraeus means to stay a long time.
SHARE Saturday, December 7, 2019 Killers, Gumbas and Politics Circa 2020
Donald Trump's narcissistic, authoritarian instincts and his admiration of gangster-capitalist Vladimir Putin raises the issue of killing. America has a long history of reverting to violence when things get sticky. It's a post-Consitutional area that should not be ignored.
SHARE Monday, December 20, 2010 Taking a Moral Stand Outside Obama's White House
While President Obama was warm and toasty in teh White Hoiuse announcing an escalalation in Pakistan, 500 veterans outside in the freezing snow said "no!" What does taking a moral stand really mean?
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 9, 2016 Killing and Our Current American Crisis
The media treated Dallas with kids gloves, avoiding any hard questions on what it was about as a national crisis, which everybody agreed it was. The roots of the crisis are not pretty and involve things like the Pandora's Box that was the Iraq War. It's time to take a hard look at these roots.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, July 23, 2012 Who the F#&% Is William Brownfield?
William Brownfield is central in selling the new War On Drugs as it becomes linked inextricably with the Global War On Terror. Who is William Brownfield and why is he saying all these crazy things to promote militarism in Latin America and, now, in Africa.
SHARE Friday, July 15, 2016 The Post-Dallas Kumbaya Window Begins to Close
After Dallas, there was a moment of coming together, for healing. But it is tested and may not last given the way some commentators like Sean Hannity spew hatred and make war instead of seeking unity. Meanwhile, Dallas Police Chief David Brown's fed-up remarks on how we ask cops to solve our social problems was a rare moment of clarity worth pursuing.
SHARE Saturday, January 4, 2020 Donald Trump's War is a Tragedy Foretold
It makes sense to see Trump's Iran War as Act Three in a three-act tragedy with Act One, the Gulf War and Act Two, the Iraq War. The curtain is going up now on Act Three, and the players are walking on stage. The suspense is maddening. And Donald Trump loves it! But if history is any guide, this play isn't going to end well.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 21, 2017 Jeff Sessions, Jesus Christ and Reefer Madness
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is getting tough on sentencing in an effort to return to the "great" days when mass incarceration was set in motion. This goes against decades of slowly-building reform on a local level. Sessions is especially focused on marijuana, the most harmless of illegal drugs. The absurdity of this is worthy of examination.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 6, 2016 Hypocrisy, The New York Times Version
The New York Times is a great newspaper, but, like Dr. Jekyl had his Hyde, there's the imperial rag side of the Times. It came out in full force in an August 5th editorial trashing President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. The story is much more complicated -- and much more interesting -- than the Times tells it.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 29, 2011 Is the United States a Police State
It all depends on whose ox is gored whether a society is a "police states." From the point of view of the political left in America, there's no question the US is a police state. The recent police created melee in Wall Street is a case in point.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 17, 2014 Ending Torture One Dick At a Time: A Hollywood Hack Holiday
A movie made up of dick jokes and the assassination of a sitting world leader. Cool! I can't wait for the sequel featuring torture-lover Dick Cheney being rectally re-hydrated. Think of it as a bedtime story for this Christmas season.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, June 22, 2012 The Vietnam War and the Struggle For Truth
The government and the Pentagon have launched a 13-year propaganda project to clean up the image of the Vietnam War. As President Obama preached at the Vietnam Wall on Memorial Day, the war made us a better people. Vietnam veterans like myself disagree with that profoundly. The war was an historical debacle of immense proportion. Nothing has changed.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 5, 2010 OK, Mister Boehner, let's really cut the budget
Now is not the time for Democrats to cave in. For the good of the nation's health and security, now is the time to cut the Pentagon budget and take care of America.
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 21, 2015 It Takes a Life Cult to Beat a Death Cult
President Obama avoids the religious craziness and insists on calling ISIS a "death cult." He's right, and Sigmund Freud would have understood what he means. Troubled by the carnage of WWI, Freud developed his idea of the life and death impulses that can take over societies. The point is, more death and destruction cannot solve this problem; only a devotion to life can do that.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 27, 2015 Sorting Through the Bullshit in America
The 2016 campaign has become the ultimate reality TV show. The final-round winner doesn't get a million dollars; he gets the White House. This is all part of how neo-liberal, free-market capitalism is sucking the respect of ideas and free-thinking from our culture. It's entertaining, but it's no joke.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 11, 2017 Mandalay Bay: Top O' The World, Ma!
The consensus is that Las Vegas mass murderer Stephen Paddock is an enigma and it's impossible to conceive of a motive. We're told by the right it's too soon to get "political." Well, that's garbage. We know plenty, enough to do some responsible speculation on what drove this aging baby boomer to do what he did -- where he did it.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 14, 2011 The Dude Abides For You and Me
The Dude in the film The Big Lebowski is a character for these crazy times noted for the militarization and financialization of every facet of Americans life. The Dude is a beloved member of the peace movement who makes us peace activists laugh at ourselves with love.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 12, 2012 Mindless American Support For Israel May Be Cracking
A synagogue in New York City disses the Israeli militarist right wing and raises the question is the embargo on free thought about Israeli policy among Americans finally beginning to crack.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, February 7, 2014 Philip Seymour Hoffman and Drug War Sanity
Philip Seymour Hoffman led an acting life that one could say was about socially educating the public on the inner lives of his characters. The last thing he would want is his death to be the catalyst for more Drug War madness. In his name, we should reform the Drug War employing the Harm Reduction approach.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 10, 2019 The Central America US Border Blues
With all the current cruelty now being employed by the US government against poor people from Central America along our borde4r with Mexico, there is a crying need to include in the national discussion US involvement in places like El Salvador and Honduras. This essay and photos by the author is a small effort to do that.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, July 16, 2018 The Politics of Cruelty
The Trump actions separating families on the border are a perfect example of the politics policies on torture and the research on that topic. Corruption is becoming more and more normalized in today's world. Cruelty is the application of power without mercy.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 26, 2013 David Brooks, John Wayne and the American Worker
New York Times columnist David Brooks suggests John Wayne in The Searchers symbolizes the current plight of the American male worker. He's got it all wrong.
SHARE Tuesday, June 23, 2020 Navy Leadership Runs Aground
Captain Brett Crozier, skipper of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, was fired for caring about his crew's welfare more than he cared about being promoted to admiral. The Navy was going to reinstate him, then, decided not to. It was shameful decision. The story is reminiscent of the movie Mister Roberts.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 24, 2015 Pope Francis Drops a Bomb on Washington
Pope Francis delivered an incredible speech to the US Congress, a message that body needed to hear. The roots of the speech amount to a mainstream version of the preferential option for the poor, a key tenet of Latin American Liberation Theology. For me, as an atheist, his expression of Christ's message of compassion and love was extraordinarily powerful.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 2, 2012 A Killer In the White House
It is becoming clear how vital the special ops and drone killing doctrine is for President Obama and his image. His sidekick VP Joe Biden has been plowing this ground for decades with the Drug War. The two Wars (Drugs & Terror) are now merging, which means trouble ahead.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, December 24, 2012 The President's 900 Pound Stinking Elephant
President Obama is a sensitive father who oversees a project of targeted assassinations. The former role works for him the gun-control issue. The latter role does not.
SHARE Wednesday, April 1, 2020 OPERATION WAR PRESIDENT: Hybrid War As a Domestic Political Tool
Hybrid Warfare is here. Mix that with a runaway virus and a president vulnerable to losing his re-election campaign who has declared himself a wartime president -- and you're asking for trouble. The possibilities are the sort that can make you unsure whether to laugh or cry.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 25, 2014 LOSING TIM: A Mother Unravels Her Son's Military Suicide
LOSING TIM is a memoir by a well published novelist about her son's suicide in 2004. A veteran Army Ranger, Tim Eysselinck gravitated to the contractor world and ended up in Iraq training de-mining teams at the point that war zone had descended into a moral cesspool. The "moral wound" good men like Tim suffered needs to be better understood by Americans.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 24, 2011 Veterans Court Hits the Beach in Philadelphia
Veterans Court is a growing phenomenon across the nation. It is part of prison reform that can be slipped in under the right-wing radar. As restorative justice, it's a good model for future reform.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 31, 2016 Likudist Israel Damned For Pursuing Its Version Of Manifest Destiny
A summary glance at history is good when it comes to Israel and the recent Security Counsel resolution to condemn Likudust Israel for its belligerent settlement policy. While it's world's and centuries apart and the scale is very different, Likudist Israel's desire for land expropriation shares a lot with US crimes of Manifest Destiny.
SHARE Saturday, June 29, 2019 Biden Needs to Address Why He Threw Black Males Under the Bus
Joe Biden needs to candidly explain why he worked with Strom Thurmond on crime bills that affected so many inner-city black males in order to get Democrats back in the game after the Reagan debacle made them powerless. He needs to be honest and not calculating and air that laundry out, no matter how dirty it is.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 31, 2018 I Nominate Donald Trump For Best Actor in a Reality Drama
Donald Trump's State of the Union performance was acting of the highest order. At least that's how deceased playwright Arthur Miller would likely see it. He literally wrote the book on it: it's called "On Politics and the Art of Acting."
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 27, 2015 Antiwar Veterans Join the Conversation at the Vietnam Wall: Memorial Day 2015
Antiwar vets from Veterans For Peace delivered 150 letters to Vietnam Veterans Wall during ceremonies on Memorial Day. The purpose was to enter the national conversation on what the Vietnam War means to citizens and the culture. It was a good day.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 4, 2020 Freud Goes to the Super Bowl
The 2020 Super Bowl was maybe the most obnoxious display of American corporatism and imperialism I've ever witnessed. I happened to be reading Sigmund Freud's 1930 classic Civilization and its Discontents on game day. Flags, glorified male aggression and J-Lo pole dancing at halftime. Freud would have been amazed. Fortunately the game was a good one, so I held my lunch long enough to write this piece.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 8, 2014 Troglodytes, Weasels and Young Turks
Lots of people are playing the meaning game these days as the war with ISIS grows. Some are whipping up more war for their own purposes. Some are trying to make sense of it with clarity and humility. And some are just weasels.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 15, 2013 Trust and Verify and Vomit
All the criticism of President Obama for "dithering" and President Putin for being a "KGB thug" playing the US president misses the point. Something different is going on. And it's an improvement.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 30, 2013 Women In Combat: A Distraction From the Real Issue
The Pentagon decision to allow women into combat is a distraction from the real issue, which is our costly, expanding, provocative military presence around the world.
SHARE Saturday, August 13, 2011 Special Ops: The New Face of War
Special Ops is the new face of war and Washington is going for it big. What does it mean for America and the future of our wars without end?
SHARE Monday, November 15, 2010 The Manchurian Candidate Gives Out a Medal Of Honor
As the first Medal Of Honor to a living soldier is being awarded in Afghanistan, the right criticizes President Obama for his family background. Maybe it's time Mr Obama stopped running from his background and led a "teaching moment" as to US involvement in the world.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 25, 2016 Omar Mateen: The Answers Are All Around Us
Any effort to suggest gun access, homophobia, mental illness or other things might help us understand Omar Mateen and prevent future crimes like his is met from the right with the magical words "Radical Islam!" This incredible terror of complexity is a major problem for Americans in 2016.
SHARE Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Letter to an American hero
PFC Bradley Manning is imprisoned in Kuwait charged by the Army with leaking the WikiLeaks "Collateral Murder" video. The American public needs to know more about what he did. The military is hoping to make him disappear from the cultural radar screens.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 3, 2010 The new Afghanistan policy: Murder Inc.
The military is playing hardball with WikiLeaks because the secret document magnet is making it clear the war in Afghanistan is over. We'll be cutting back our troops to the basics of assassin teams and their support.
SHARE Sunday, March 22, 2020 Memes and Viruses
US citizens are being assaulted by the COVID19 virus, something that is disrupting our lives. But we're also assaulted on our iphones and internet social media venues by memes that disrupt and whipsaw our lives around. Sometimes it's hard to know what's real and what's not. Is the COVID19 shut-down actually opening a path to socialism? Lots of questions.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 8, 2010 The corruption conundrum
Corruption is the big issue now in Afghanistan. But that is not the real story; the real story is the overarching US corruption and a misguided unending war.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 12, 2014 Americans Need to Break the Cycle of War: A Meditation on Peacemaking
It's clear the George W. Bush invasion of Iraq has led to the psychopathic ISIS reaction in Anbar Province in Iraq. Vengeance is no longer the right response; it failed back in 2003 and it will only lead to more killing. How about, this time, we honor John Lennon and just "give peace a chance"?
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 24, 2020 The Abraham Accords Are Not a "Peace Deal"
Donald Trump trashed a peace deal and, with Jared Kushner, facilitated the creation of The Abraham Accords. These accords among small Arab states and Israel are being called "peace deals." They are not about peace. They are actually "war deals" against Iran. The Biden administration needs to get tough with Israel and the Arabs and re-establish the Iran peace deal, which was really about peace.
SHARE Sunday, August 23, 2020 Veteran Slimed By Rhinos In Portland: Non-Violent Meets Non-Lethal
Vietnam veteran Mike Hastie is 75-years-old and a gentle, dedicated natural poet and photographer who had spent six days photographing the melee in Portland when he ran into a phalanx of armor-plated, de-humanized federal operatives who didn't like what he was saying so one of them sprayed him in the face with painful pepper slime. The episode brings to mind Eugene Ionesco's play Rhinoceros about the rise of fascism.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 23, 2019 Congress Is Being Punked; It Needs To Find Its Backbone
Congress is being "punked" daily by a would-be authoritarian president. Speaker Pelosi's caution to impeach is understandable, but no longer defendable, if the body's integrity matters. It's time to take the risk to impeach. If it's done with commitment, passion and, yes, even some ruthlessness, the House will come off as a stand-up institution and not a punk.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, August 1, 2011 Reading Nietzsche in Starbucks
The gloom and the absurdity of the final days of the debt ceiling negotiations found me in Starbucks reading an essay about "truth" from Friedrich Nietzsche. Then the existential realities really began to make themselves known.
SHARE Friday, January 10, 2014 Thanks to George Bush, Talks With Iran Make Sense
Whose to blame for the current horrors in Iraq, Presidents Bush or Obama? The Obama administration is hardly an anti-war activist's dream, but its recent decision not to bomb Syria and its efforts to negotiate with Iran are good things. It's all about what Thomas Ricks meant when he talked about continuing to eat "the fruit of a poisoned tree."
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 12, 2018 Welcome to the Apocalypse
These are weird times. On one hand, there's accusations of male abuse; then, we have to deal with someone like Gina Haspel and the US legacy of torture. John Bolton, Bibi Netanyahu and King Salmon are drum-beating for an invasion of Iran that feels like deja-vu. What's a poor antiwar activist to do?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 31, 2011 Return of the Malaise
Harry Frankfort made the term "bullshit" acceptable and no other term can quite characterize the state of American politics at this juncture. It is deeper than it has ever been. It's a harbinger of even worse times to come.
SHARE Friday, October 8, 2010 Afghanistan: Incubator for green energy
The war in Afghanistan is getting more and more absurd. Now, it's an incubator for the military's green energy future.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 19, 2010 Truth through a soda straw
Politicians from both parties now defer to Pentagon leaders for decisions on war and peace -- something the founding fathers precisely tried to avoid.
A man like Barack Obama with no military experience is forced to dance to their tune or be seen as taking them on. So he dances.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 5, 2013 Who's Hiding Behind the Accountability Mask?
There's an elephant in the room no one wants to talk about when it comes to debating whether or not to bomb Syria. There's more than "accountability" going on here. The elephant is Israel.
SHARE Saturday, July 11, 2020 Did Tammy Duckworth Fight For Our Right to Protest?
Senator Tammy Duckworth is running to be chosen Joe Biden's VP. In an op-ed in the Times she used the argument that she fought in Iraq to protect our rights to speak out here at home. During this moment of national dialogue, that argument should be forever trashed. First, it's not true, and second, and it encourages future quagmires. The nation needs to move beyond its imperial phase.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, October 15, 2012 The Silly Season Goes Into Overdrive
Both presidential candidates are hiding something and avoiding discussion of the real problems facing the nation. What if someone actually told the truth? Do Americans really want to be lied to? As the famous film character put it, can they handle the truth?
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 30, 2012 Is There a Way Beyond Israeli Madness?
Israel has big problems that become US problems. As the biggest sinner in the game, the United States needs to help its friend Israel be more Buddhist. Now that really sounds mad.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 8, 2011 We Don't Need No Stinkin' Press Passes
A day at Freedom Plaza in Washington ends with a confrontation with a police officer over the need for a Press Pass for access. New media are making the question who is a journalist and who has First Amendment right a vital question.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, February 20, 2017 On Killers and Bullshitters*
Donald Trump told Bill O'Reilly that the United States is not innocent and had a lot of killers in its history, something that angered John McCain. But in this strange case, the master bullshitter himself was telling a profound truth -- though the troubling part is he was not making a moral point that killing is bad.
SHARE Sunday, January 30, 2011 The Last Zealots: Hack History On the Right
Hack history more and more seems a weapon of the Right, in journalism, politics and popular entertainment. Glenn Beck pal and thriller writer Brad Thor is a particularly egregious example of this. What it is is classic Propaganda.
(15 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 17, 2015 Learning How Not to Rule the World
It's sickening to watch the calls for more bombing in Syria and Iraq after the Paris massacre. It's a replay of the rush to war after 9/11, and it brings back Susan Sontag: "By all means let's mourn together, but let's not be stupid together." There's a better way.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 16, 2012 The United States and Its Dark Passenger
The new spiffy US military doctrine of Special Operations hunter-killer teams came of its own in the Anbar "surge." Strangely, the rules and justifications of this program mirror those of Dexter, the popular book and TV psychopathic killer.
SHARE Thursday, July 19, 2012 Citizens Protest PA Prison Expansion at Graterford Prison
The Governor of Pennsylvania and others in the state are keen on building new prisons and expanding prisons like the one at Graterford outside Philadelphia. It's a really bad idea, and 50 citizens took to the street near Graterford Prison to say so. The State Police were waiting for them.
SHARE Sunday, April 11, 2021 Between Q's Headspace and the Hard Place of Western History
The timing is right for the truths told by two HBO series. The first is Q: Into The Storm, where Cullen Hoback hunts for is behind the Q-phenomenon. Then, there's Raoul Peck's magnificent history of the horrors of white supremacy and western colonialism/imperialism. It's an incredible one-two punch of needed truth.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, December 23, 2016 Morally Surviving America's War On Vietnam
You can look at Michael Uhl's just-published anthology of short works as a tool of memory in the War On Memory in US culture against the real truth about the US war against Vietnam. Donald Trump's Tweets tell us that respect for History is about to hit a new low. Books like this are culturally important.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 29, 2012 A Modest Proposal for Israel and Iran
The US is threatening to pull its military aid from Egypt. How about making that threat to Israel -- before it deludes itself into attacking Iran and starting World War Three. It's so tragic it makes you want to laugh.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 28, 2018 Citizens Show Up to Tell a Do-Nothing Government Enough Is Enough
With the ongoing corruption of the National Rifle Association virtually owning the United States Congress and now with the ascendancy of war hawk John Bolton to the diplomatic post of Secretary of State, things are getting pretty damn serious. So the really big question is: How will this youth movement affect the mid-term elections coming in November?
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 20, 2016 Shine the Light of Truth on Poor Honduras
Assassinations of advocates for the poor in Honduras are being murdered at an alarming rate. One of the roots of this bloody trend was the 2009 coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya. President Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, have a lot to answer for this. Ms. Clinton should be put on the hot seat to answer why she discouraged the return of Zelaya and worked to assemble Latin American acceptance the cou
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 25, 2010 President Obama and the curse of the Muslim seed
The slur about being a Muslim presents President Obama with a tricky dilemma: If he engages with the slur, he will find himself on a slippery slope to questioning the war he is determined to fight.
SHARE Saturday, June 25, 2011 Israel and the Roots of Disaster
As a second flotilla is leaving to break the Gaza blockade, Israelis and Americans need to re-think the hardline approach of the current Israeli government vis-a-vis Palestinians. The best place to start is the history, where the roots to the current disaster lie.
SHARE Wednesday, August 27, 2014 Why We Should Not Go To War Over James Foley
The killing of James Foley was an intentionally provocative act in cycle of vengeance that should be broken. Of course, the cycle was boosted to the level of psychopathic response by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq that dis-empowered the Sunnis of Anbar Province. Fueling the revenge cycle with Foley's killing will not help. Future-oriented sanity needs to prevail.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 14, 2013 Lara Logan, Hotness and Benghazi Gone Wild
Lara Logan of Sixty Minutes created a major journalism scandal with her sloppy interview with a phony, would-be military hero, an interview that played into a far right-wing campaign to undermine the Obama White House. It raises the question: Does Lara Logan use her sexual allure as a tool of access and on-air authority to advance the interests of the Pentagon and, in her words, its "clandestine warriors."
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, January 7, 2013 Joe Biden: Dancing With the Sausage maker
Joe Biden is a brilliant sausage maker when it comes to Mark Twain's famous metaphor. But the notion that bi-partisanship is missing in Congress is nonsense. Militarism, intelligence and surveillance and police are so bi-partisan they tend to be impregnable issues. Lovable Joe is dead-center in this disaster.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 12, 2014 Going To War With a Vengeance: A Cultural Essay
Vengeance plays a huge part in our current mess with ISIS. A glance at crime fiction and vengeance is interesting. It's also helpful to consider the powerful counter to vengeance, the thinking that goes under the term forgiveness.
(16 comments) SHARE Monday, January 14, 2013 High Noon in America or: How I learned to Love Gun Control
The think tank the Project For a New American Decade (PNAD) has come up with a Modest Proposal on gun control. It's a long shot, but it may be worth it.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 10, 2012 Americans Love a Good Killer
Killers are a perennial pop culture favorite, and that holds true for the new Special Ops doctrine. Things could get weird, though, as the militarization of domestic police forces keeps on developing as it has.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, May 16, 2016 Could the Problem of the 21st Century Be the Gender Line?
The current struggle between the reformist Obama government and classic states rights governors over transgender rights has gravitated to public bathrooms. The absurdity of it all is incredible -- as it's quite serious. My question is: Is this an echo of W.E.B.DuBois' notion that the 20th century's problem was the color line. Is the 21st century's problem the gender line?
SHARE Wednesday, April 6, 2016 WTF! John McCain Saluting an American Communist?
Senator John McCain wrote an op-ed in the New York Times honoring the last veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain, an "unreconstructed communist" to his last day. As a man who bombed countless "communists" fighting for their liberation against US invaders in Vietnam, what the heck was he thinking in 2016, the year of Donald Trump?
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 30, 2014 The War of the Heads
ISIS beheads one-on-one up-close, while we remotely "decapitate" terrorist leaders. Decision are made in secret in "head sheds" of power. It's The War of the Heads. From the vantage point of the couch, this war is the most confusing, exasperating and hypocritical maze of confusion one could imagine.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 4, 2012 Israel Lobby Beats the Drums For War
Israel and American right wing pro-war forces are linking in DC this week to push for war with Iran. It's an awesome blitzkrieg. The story is not pretty once you begin lifting rocks to see what's under the propaganda.
SHARE Thursday, January 8, 2015 Is the Islamic State Really Such a Psychological Enigma?
Major General Michael Nagata leads a group delving into the psychological enigma of the Islamic State. But is it really such a great mystery when you consider whose invasion and occupation helped inspire the Islamic State? But, then, imperialist never talk about their debacles and what they've wrought. Better to look at it as a great mystery.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 15, 2012 CLUSTERBALL: James Bond and the Petraeus Affair
The fact the Petraeus Affair broke the same week the latest James Bond thriller hit the US theaters makes for some interesting cross-over questions about art and life in America. Add to that the November issue of Newsweek and more is revealed.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 8, 2014 The Shame of Clarence Thomas
The recent Supreme Court ruling banning affirmative action in a case from Michigan shines a light on Justice Clarence Thomas, the affirmative action baby on the high court. His degree of hypocrisy is so profound if he any sense of honor he would resign.
SHARE Thursday, September 30, 2010 Rafael Correa stands up to a police insurgency for his people
Police are have the democratically-ele3cted President of Ecuador surrounded and a coup is possible. Meanwhile US leaders "follow" the situation and speak in vague platitudes without teeth.
SHARE Tuesday, June 21, 2016 PTSD as a Political Football in a Hobbesian Age
Within two weeks of each other, the New York Times published two contradictory stories on new PTSD research. One was based on civilian research and one on military research. War trauma is not dealt with in a political vacuum. In a moment overwhelmed by ISIS fear and mentally-unbalanced shooters citing ISIS connections that are tangential at best, it's not surprising PTSD might become a political football.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 16, 2012 Harvey Pekar, Graphic Art and Israeli State Policy
The well-known graphic narrative curmudgeon Harvey Pekar died in 2010, but a new book written by Pekar and drawn by artist J.T. Waldman goes through Pekar's life and mind about the State of Israel and where he thinks it has gone wrong. Igt's a most interesting story.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 12, 2013 Hugo Chavez and the Knuckleheads
The far right and much of the middle-brown mainstream press were so knee-jerk in their reductions and dismissals of Hugo Chavez that they missed the real story on what Chavez means for hemispheric history and the future.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 3, 2014 Gaza: The Moral Agonies of Asymmetrical Diplomacy
There is a hole in coverage of the Gaza assault and other middle east stories. That is the glib dismissal of suicide bombers. It says something when a culture is driven to the last-stand position of employing humans willing to sacrifice their lives to deliver bombs. While opposing bomb delivery by any means, it's time Americans pondered the fact of suicide bombers.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 28, 2012 Building Bridges Instead of Imperial Wars
History is telling, and an excellent film on the Italian imperial assault on Libya before WWII -- "Omar Mukhtar, Lion of the Desert", sheds interesting light on today's crisis of US imperialism, a quality of our lives most citizens hold in deep denial.
SHARE Thursday, June 6, 2013 Rape and War Go Hand-in-Hand
The Senate Armed Forces Committee is wrestling with rape and sexual assault in the military. The problem is improvement is impossible unless the current status quo that looks the other way to abuses of the hypermasculinity encouraged by our militarist war culture.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 24, 2012 Afghanistan Good Enough: If All Else Fails, Lower Your Standards
The NATO conference in Chicago launched a new slogan for the War in Afghanistan: "Afghanistan Good Enough." There's a realistic, sometimes sordid story of culture war struggle behind this nifty sound bite.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 5, 2012 The Trayvon Blues
The Trayvon Martin story is an important one that is not going away because it speaks volumes about the nation's current crisis of police officers (or wannabe cops like George Zimmerman) pumped up on fear and adrenaline overreacting and, then, not held accountable for the stupid, often lethal things they've done. If Trayvon's death can do anything, maybe it can shine a light on this.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, November 17, 2014 Is Lame Duck Obama Now Ready to Fight?
President Obama's China climate deal and his decision not to deport 5 million immigrants following the midterm rout of Democrats raises the question is he now belatedly ready to fight for the left? And what kind of an ex-president might Mr Obama become?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 3, 2014 "American Hustle" and Prosecutorial Politics
The current film "American Hustle" is, at the same time, a great entertainment and an essay on the state of American politics as far as it's dominated these days by the archetype of the aggressive prosecutor who lives and gets ahead off societal fears.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 23, 2012 The United States and Its Dark Passenger, Part II: Act Of Valor
US occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not ending well. US imperial ambitions face other problems in the world and, especially, at home. The new soloution is secret killing teams, and the Pentagon has gone into the propaganda movie business to assault the American public mind.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 23, 2012 The Sticky Wicket in Benghazi and Seal Team Imperialism
The Benghazi attack has become a political football that blinds too many Americans to the realities of our current moment in history. Benghazi is a symptom of much larger historical shiftings that involve even the United States of America and Americans.
SHARE Friday, April 8, 2011 How About a Spring Peace Offensive in Afghanistan?
It's Spring; the Afghan government is talking with the Taliban; President Obama needs to appoint a new Defense Secretary and a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. It may be unfamiliar to the American government, but, hey, why not give peace a chance?
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, July 29, 2013 Killers Turned Inside Out
The Act of Killing is an amazing film that tells the story of murders done by death squad killers in Indonesia's counter-insurgency massacre of 1965 in a most novel manner. It's also pretty damning for US police makers at that time who fully supported and aided the killing of 500,000 to 2 million Indonesians. Not America's finest hour.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 10, 2021 Redirect Law Enforcement Against the Right
The differences in how Black Lives Matter actions are treated by police and the way Trump's army was virtually unopposed as they bulled their way into the US Capitol shows the reality of selective enforcement in America. It's time to reverse the enforcement decisions and focus on right-wing terrorists.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 2, 2010 Looking for a straight answer
"God" is now being summoned to solve our problems, but a glance around the world makes it clear "God" is only making things worse.
SHARE Monday, November 7, 2011 Never Look Back: Herman Cain And Il Duce
The most interesting trait Herman Cain exhibits is his sense of imperiousness. His sexual harassment predicament underlines this quality about him. It raised in my mind an obscure historical episode about a more famous imperious politician and how his accuser was treated.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 27, 2011 The Peace Movemnt and The Roller Coaster Ride of US War Policy
The peace movement has been right about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since the beginning, and recent news supports this idea. It's not too late to listen to the peace movement. It would be good for the country.
SHARE Tuesday, December 15, 2015 Alienation, Despair and American Greatness
Since Ronald Reagan's City On a Hill trumped Jimmy Carter's Malaise, the discussion of alienation has been purged from our national discussion. This coincided with the rise of so-called neoliberal capitalism. Maybe it's time we re-visited the idea of alienation and despair as part of America's growing problem with murder/suicide.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 13, 2012 Covering Up Debacles: The Sandusky Affair and the Vietnam War
The nature of the Penn State cover-up debacle has a lot to tell us about how other debacles are covered up by those in power. The Vietnam War Commemoration Project is a good place to shine the metaphoric light of the metaphoric light of the Penn Sate case.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, November 2, 2012 Why I'm Voting For Barack Obama
President Obama is a disappointment, and third Party candidates can't win. So what is one to do? If you're a realist and don't nurse a fantasy that voting is about expressing your ideals, there is no other choice than a vote for President Obama.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 28, 2011 Cheri Honkala runs as Robin Hood for Sheriff of Philadelphia
Poor people activist Cheri Honkala is running for sheriff in Philadelphia on the Green Party ticket. It's likie Robin Hood dropping the bows and arrows and taking up the ballot to run for Sheriff of Nottingham.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 3, 2013 Killers and Roller-Coaster Rides: A Noir America
The world is changing in ways more profound than we may know. US leaders want to keep the US on top, and they are devising new ways to do that, starting with Cyber War and Special Ops secret killing. We aren't living in Kansas anymore; we're living in Oz and Toto has been declared a terrorist.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 13, 2014 Bleedback of a US Imperial Wound
Twenty-five percent of the kids at the center of the current border crisis are from Honduras. We need to look at the history and not pump up the military at the border. We need a more human border.
SHARE Sunday, November 29, 2020 Joe Biden and the American Shame of War
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Lameduck-President Trump contract the murder of an Iranian scientist in broad daylight to screw up President-Elect Biden's resurrection of the peace deal with Iran. And Joe Biden says nothing? We need to hear from the man what this means to him. What will he do? What won't he do? We don't need another shameful war like Iraq and Afghanistan.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 7, 2010 Saving Face in Afghanistan
An article on the Afghanistan quangmire from the War & peace beat of the blog This Can't Be happening.
SHARE Wednesday, September 15, 2010 The farce that keeps on giving in Afghanistan
The Obama administration is debating whether to tell President Hamid Karzai before we arrest members of his administration for corruption. US Afghanistan policy has now become farce.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 16, 2012 Afghanistan: The Wheels Are Coming Off
It's one thing after another. Now a soldier runs amok and kills 16 Afghans. What's going on? It's simple: The mission in Afghanistan is bankrupt and going down the tubes. It's time to be adults and recognize wed need to leave.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 28, 2010 Holding our soldiers accountable
The antiwar soldiers movement has a long and proud tradition. It's time thinking, caring people supported current soldiers in that tradition.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 2, 2011 The Gaza Flotilla: The Fear of Unscripted Non-Violent Action
The Gaza flotilla is a classic case of civil disobedience in the vein of Gandhi's satyagraha or truth force. Why are they so afraid of the truth? For the same reasons that Gandhi's ideas work.
SHARE Sunday, October 30, 2011 Occupying In The Shadow Of Frank Rizzo
Philadelphia occupiers discuss their occupation's future under a statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo. With Oakland and Atlanta on their minds, it raised lots of questions about relations between city mayors, police and the Occupations.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 7, 2013 The Heart IS a Lonely Hunter: Making It Right
The stories of Essie Mae Washington-Williams, whose father was Strom Thurmond, and Nancy Gonzalez, on trial for conceiving a child with a murdered she was guarding in a New York prison were back to back in the New York Times the other day. They tell us a lot about sex, race and power in America.
SHARE Wednesday, April 24, 2013 4/19: The Day It All Came Together
April 19th was a milestone in the emerging 21st century surveillance police state in America. Yeh, it worked like a charm. But there's a very dark side to consider.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 20, 2011 Hedging, Delusion and Dishonesty in Afghanistan
The Afghan High Peace Council is trying to make peace in Afghanistan. The US should get out of the way and give peace a chance.
SHARE Sunday, October 27, 2013 Washington Does Not Like Snarky
As someone who once tried to join the Foreign Service Washington Merry-go-round, I send a letter to Jofi Joseph suggesting he ponder what it means to became an insider Twitter gadfly in the Obama administration's national security team.
SHARE Friday, January 22, 2021 Three Wednesdays In January
Three Wednesdays: Insurrection. Impeachment. Inauguration. A remarkable two weeks that raised more questions than it answers. Thanks to the pandemic and the security panic, the inaguration of Joe Biden was an amazing TV-oriented, reality drama event. And the drama is just beginning.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 24, 2010 It's the war, stupid!
The scandal over General McChrystal was the perfect opportunity to open discussion on the war in Afghanistan. The opportunity was cut off at the pass.
SHARE Thursday, October 3, 2013 It's Time To Feed the Hungry Peace Wolves
John Lennon had it right: Just give peace a chance. As simple and elegant as that lyric is, it is one of the most difficult of human challenges. Is President Obama, after a first term appeasing the militarist beast, finally giving peace a chance?
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 27, 2013 Once Again, the Answer Is Bombing
Bombing Syria is simply a bad idea that will further exercise the Law of Unintended Consequences. Why not try something different for a change?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 8, 2013 Liberating Women With Bombs and Bags of Money
We have a legacy of using "bags of money" along with our bombs to engage with Kipling's "white man's burden." Lately, the right wing militarists have been assuming the antiwar left's view of European colonialism. And it has become pretty weird.
SHARE Monday, July 19, 2010 The Long War; just say "No"
Military violence has a grip on America. We need to give hard-ball diplomacy a chance in Afghanistan.
SHARE Thursday, February 4, 2016 Israel Wants to Control Its Artists
The right wing, militarist government in Israel has reached the point of cracking down on ideas and the arts. While not the worst oppressor or the arts, this trend is disturbing for the prospects of a two-state solution or any kind of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Free art and empathy are necessary for peace.
SHARE Thursday, June 17, 2010 Truth through a soda straw
President Obama and the US military under General David Petraeus are terrified of leaks from entities like WikiLeaks. They have good reason to be scared.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, April 1, 2013 How to Avoid the Bummer Myth With a Good Plan B
The recent tenth anniversary of the Iraq War invasion did not address the damage that unnecessary war had done to both Iraqis and to Americans. Why is it American leaders so easily turn away from unpleasant history toward the bright future?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 11, 2011 It's Time For a New Policy Face in Afghanistan
The more we follow the war in Afghanistan the more and more absurd it all seems. SO, here's a modest proposal to the President how to keep up with the absurdity.
SHARE Thursday, May 20, 2010 Honduras: Bad faith down in The Gulch
The Obama administration has shown bad faith vis-s-vis the June 2009 coup in Honduras. It needs to stand up more for the people of Honduras and give less aid and comfort to the Honduran oligarchy and its military.
SHARE Wednesday, May 26, 2010 Unless otherwise directed ...
The wars in Iraq and especially Afghanistan are out of control and all efforts to criticize and analyze the wars are crushed before they can get to the American mind.
SHARE Friday, February 11, 2011 The Tahrir Blues
As an American anti-militarism activist, watching my government dance between feel-good talk about democracy and under-the-table support for despotism in Egypt is demoralizing.