Does America Need a Draft? Hell No.
Tom Ricks says we need a draft. This is nonsense. If we want to prevent stupid wars, make the country pay for them. Since the end of the military draft in 1973, every person...
Category: War
It’s not a war, and I am not a warrior.
Andrew Sullivan, in 2006, failing to give credit where credit is due: First, they came for the homos, then the near-dead, then the pregnant women. But you know who their ultimate target will...
Idiots and Maniacs
Tony Comstock, writing about his “Sputnik Moment“: Okay, I pretty much wonder “What the fish have I done with my life?” every time I have a set major back (which is pretty much...
Draft Protests
Perhaps it’s best to think of our historical opposition to war not as war protest but as draft protest. I’ve been reading Jerome Marmorstein’s “War As a Disease Epidemic” lately with a student I...
The Hunger Games and Politics
So what did I think? The Hunger Games is about the empire of economic necessity. If you’re a human being, congratulations. You’re playing the hunger games too. Within just a few hours, you will...
Book notes: Sex at Dawn
I suppose I’m the most likely culprit here to read and comment on the recent book Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships by Christopher...
Everyone in Afghanistan suffers PTSD
I’m pretty sure that long before American troops set foot in the mountains of Afghanistan, that the people of that country already suffered from post-traumatic-stress-disorder. Another ten years of war stacked on top of...
Something’s Rotten in the State of Our Union
Many have debated the President’s remarks from last Tuesday night’s State of the Union speech. E.D. Kain thought it was very successful, providing the American audience with a “rousing speech about the American dream,...
Anarchy, State, and Batman
The discussion between Taylor Marvin, Erik Kain, and Jamelle Bouie about Nolan’s Batman films is already superb. I’m not sure how much I can add to the conversation, but as a long time Batman fan...
Sullivan, Obama, and Elections
Let me get this out of the way first. I like Andrew Sullivan, appreciate a lot of the work he produces, and can cite the Dish as an enormous triumph in blogging that is both...
Ron Paul, Racism, and War
First things first, I’d like to apologize to mistermix for the rudeness of my last piece on the matter. Mainly I was feeling jaded over various Twitter exchanges that occurred prior to my reading...
Ron Paul and the racist newsletter
Mistermix asks: Both ED Kain and he-who-shall-not-be-named have endorsed Paul for President as a protest vote. Since I’m not a serious thinker, I’m free of the weighty obligation to endorse someone in the GOP primary. But for those serious folks, I...
Why I Will Be Voting for Ron Paul in 2012
Ron Paul is often described as a crank. Even folks like Ross Douthat who write basically sympathetic columns about the congressman from Texas say things like, “Paul, for all his crankishness, is the kind...
Journalism Is More Than Just Quoting Speeches
(Image via The Atlantic: Humvees sit parked in a courtyard at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, on September 30, 2011.(Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) Today, as every major news outlet is reporting, the Iraq war has officially been...
Some, Many, and Most
While flipping through yesterday’s New York Times I hit upon this piece which gave me pause. For a number of reasons it didn’t sit right with me, and I was happy to see Glen...
Found Conversation
SCENE: News footage of Occupy Boston protestors getting manhandled by police comes on screen, patrons at American Legion bar smirk and shake their heads. Bartender: Ya’know what these clowns want, do yah? Socialism! Socialism...
Bloody Madness
Updated below. Over at The Dish, Zack Beauchamp writes: It’s better to think of the U.S. as the global police chief rather than sole policeman. We may be the strongest of our allies, but...
Tripoli and the hawks
I’m concerned that any perceived “success” in Libya (i.e. the fall of Gaddafi as rebels even now storm the city, arrest his sons, and topple the regime – though this was never the stated goal of the mission)...
America, Forever At War
~by Elias Isquith James Joyner’s got a piece up at The Atlantic called “How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology” — and it’s a total disaster. From start-to-finish, the article is ill-conceived and under-thought and it...
Masters of War
Something light for Sunday. Pearl Jam hasn’t done much the last few years (gosh, ten years?) but they’re still one of favorites. A big influence when I was younger.
