Op-Ed
“All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” — 1 Samuel 17:47
I’ve heard the Palestinians called “Hitler’s last victims.” That starts to get at the history of all this — the seed that sprouts anew every generation. Israel, born of the Holocaust, brings to the world not some new way of envisioning a nation, not an experiment in compassion between and among peoples, but the old cruelty, the old wish to be rid of an inconvenience, to grind a defenseless “enemy” out of existence.
Maybe the Gaza blockade, which has wreaked economic devastation on the region, destroyed its infrastructure and kept one and a half million people “food insecure” for the last year and a half, will now be broken by world opinion. Let us hope so, for Israel’s sake as well as the Palestinians’.
I’ve heard the Palestinians called “Hitler’s last victims.” That starts to get at the history of all this — the seed that sprouts anew every generation. Israel, born of the Holocaust, brings to the world not some new way of envisioning a nation, not an experiment in compassion between and among peoples, but the old cruelty, the old wish to be rid of an inconvenience, to grind a defenseless “enemy” out of existence.
Maybe the Gaza blockade, which has wreaked economic devastation on the region, destroyed its infrastructure and kept one and a half million people “food insecure” for the last year and a half, will now be broken by world opinion. Let us hope so, for Israel’s sake as well as the Palestinians’.
Hi,
I just wanted to congratulate you guys on being the most illegitimate organization I can remember encountering. You must be so proud that the amount of people who give credence to the crap that you put out can be counted on one hand. Kudos!
Good luck pushing your liberal socialist agenda on Americans who have absolutely no interest in listening to what you have to say. How appropriate it is that an organization that calls itself "Free Press" is supporting a call for censorship on talk radio, cable and the internet. Do you really think that by doing that people might actually come to you to listen to your ridiculous propaganda?
In truth, I actually pity the fact that when your time comes to move on to a better place your greatest achievement may be the fact that you worked for this pitiful excuse for a media organization. But hey, best of luck either way. Maybe, if you're lucky, your servers will crash so that you can quietly crawl away and not be heard from again, and you can just blame it on bad technology.
I just wanted to congratulate you guys on being the most illegitimate organization I can remember encountering. You must be so proud that the amount of people who give credence to the crap that you put out can be counted on one hand. Kudos!
Good luck pushing your liberal socialist agenda on Americans who have absolutely no interest in listening to what you have to say. How appropriate it is that an organization that calls itself "Free Press" is supporting a call for censorship on talk radio, cable and the internet. Do you really think that by doing that people might actually come to you to listen to your ridiculous propaganda?
In truth, I actually pity the fact that when your time comes to move on to a better place your greatest achievement may be the fact that you worked for this pitiful excuse for a media organization. But hey, best of luck either way. Maybe, if you're lucky, your servers will crash so that you can quietly crawl away and not be heard from again, and you can just blame it on bad technology.
Preface: While I recognize that there are many atheists in the Animal Rights Movement who adhere to veganism, and that people of many different religions and philosophies advocate and fight for nonhuman animals, my personal spirituality is the backbone of my veganism and my activism. I want to make it clear that I'm not questioning the commitment of vegans or activists who aren't spiritual and I also want to clarify that I am not a theologian. I merely want to use this essay as a vehicle to comment on the nature of my spirituality and to express the immensity of the strength it provides me.
If a person could approach you on the street, gently caress your cheek, and walk away leaving you with the feeling of having been violently slapped and dowsed with a bucket of ice water, they would approximate Tom Engelhardt's writing, including that in his newest book "The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's."
Let me stipulate from the start that at least three-quarters of the book has nothing to do with Obama, but deals purely with Bush's wars. However, those wars -- which always were and still are our wars and our Congress's wars, and the wars of our grandchildren who will pay for them financially and probably in more serious ways -- have not been fundamentally changed by applying the name of a different emperor to them. What Engelhardt has written over the past several years and collected here on the subject of war needed to be said and will continued to need to be said more loudly with each passing day.
Let me stipulate from the start that at least three-quarters of the book has nothing to do with Obama, but deals purely with Bush's wars. However, those wars -- which always were and still are our wars and our Congress's wars, and the wars of our grandchildren who will pay for them financially and probably in more serious ways -- have not been fundamentally changed by applying the name of a different emperor to them. What Engelhardt has written over the past several years and collected here on the subject of war needed to be said and will continued to need to be said more loudly with each passing day.
I'd guess roughly 3% of the Americans who watch the new Disney movie Prince of Persia have any idea that Persia and Iran are the same place. A similar number are probably aware of Iranians' demonstrations of sympathy following 9-11 and of Iran's assistance to the United States in Afghanistan in 2001. But surely an even smaller percentage of Americans know that Iran, Turkey, and our own country all fought revolutions against British colonialism, and developed democracies, our own serving as an inspiration for the others, our nation serving as a friend and ally to them. And you could probably fit into one football stadium every American who knows that Turkey's democratic advance succeeded where Iran's failed, principally because Teddy Roosevelt's grandson, working for the CIA, overthrew Iran's elected leader and installed a dictator, whom the United States proceeded to support and arm for decades.
The God of War doesn’t dine on raw shank bone or bellow orders quite like he used to. When he talks to Congress, say, it goes more like this:
“And, oh, while you’re up, I’m going to be needing, uh (cough, cough) . . . $159 billion this go-around, you know, for the troops. Thanks.”
It works.
With the war on terror in its ninth year and disappearing from even the pretense of national debate, let alone outrage and protest, and with the President of Hope prosecuting it so quietly most of us no longer notice, we could be at an eerie national transition point, beyond which war is no longer controversial or a big deal but just the way things are: “normal,” like background noise. And the enormous transfusions of cash it requires — well, nice people don’t talk about it.
Oh Lord.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
“And, oh, while you’re up, I’m going to be needing, uh (cough, cough) . . . $159 billion this go-around, you know, for the troops. Thanks.”
It works.
With the war on terror in its ninth year and disappearing from even the pretense of national debate, let alone outrage and protest, and with the President of Hope prosecuting it so quietly most of us no longer notice, we could be at an eerie national transition point, beyond which war is no longer controversial or a big deal but just the way things are: “normal,” like background noise. And the enormous transfusions of cash it requires — well, nice people don’t talk about it.
Oh Lord.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Anna Janek is a Republican candidate for Congress from West Bloomfield, Mich. She says: "Socialism, Communism, Welfare-ism, Globalism, Fascism, Obama-ism…it's all the same: State control of the Human Spirit under the guise of benevolence."
Marcy Winograd is a Democratic candidate for Congress from Los Angeles, Calif. She promises to "establish a new federal agency to employ millions of Americans building rapid transit and repairing bridges, ports, water treatment plants and other infrastructure."
What could Janek and Winograd possibly agree on?
Winograd on healthcare, says: "We need Medicare for All – or a single-payer system that pays doctors, nurses, and other health care providers from a single fund."
Nick Coons, a Libertarian candidate for Congress from Tempe, Ariz., disagrees: "Wherever government is most involved, we see skyrocketing prices and decreased quality. Years ago, our free-market health care system was the envy of the world . . . government involvement was nowhere to be found."
Marcy Winograd is a Democratic candidate for Congress from Los Angeles, Calif. She promises to "establish a new federal agency to employ millions of Americans building rapid transit and repairing bridges, ports, water treatment plants and other infrastructure."
What could Janek and Winograd possibly agree on?
Winograd on healthcare, says: "We need Medicare for All – or a single-payer system that pays doctors, nurses, and other health care providers from a single fund."
Nick Coons, a Libertarian candidate for Congress from Tempe, Ariz., disagrees: "Wherever government is most involved, we see skyrocketing prices and decreased quality. Years ago, our free-market health care system was the envy of the world . . . government involvement was nowhere to be found."
I first encountered Reza Aslan on the Jon Stewart Show and was somewhat perturbed by his interview - unfortunately I have not been able to retrieve that reference on the internet, but it did intrigue me and led me to purchasing his book Beyond Fundamentalism. More than likely that was what his intentions originally were for, to promote purchase and readership of his latest book, originally published as “How to Win a Cosmic War.”
At first appearances the writing seemed highly sensationalized, presenting definitions about the differences between holy wars and ‘cosmic’ wars as if there was a substantial difference between the two. That a “cosmic war is a religious war,” does not seem to offer much differentiation to that of a holy war. That cosmic warriors “are fighting a war of the imagination,” seems all too obvious, either from a secular perspective without a god, or from a religious perspective in which the image and reality of god are often described as unknown realities to mere humans.
At first appearances the writing seemed highly sensationalized, presenting definitions about the differences between holy wars and ‘cosmic’ wars as if there was a substantial difference between the two. That a “cosmic war is a religious war,” does not seem to offer much differentiation to that of a holy war. That cosmic warriors “are fighting a war of the imagination,” seems all too obvious, either from a secular perspective without a god, or from a religious perspective in which the image and reality of god are often described as unknown realities to mere humans.
"Why are we violent, but not illiterate?"
This question, originally posed by writer Colman McCarthy, was asked at the Midwest Regional Department of Peace conference, which was held last weekend outside Detroit. It cuts to the core of our troubles. The answer is agonizingly obvious: "We're taught to read!" Could it be we also need to be taught, let us say, calmness, breath and impulse control, practical applications of the Golden Rule? But until we know enough to ask these questions, violence, like ignorance, is just a fact of life.
Oh, humanity. In Russian, the word "mir" means "earth"; it also means "peace." We know the answers. They're hidden in our language. We long for peace with every fiber of our being, yet we spend countless trillions annually pursuing its opposite, as though determined in our perversity to be the worst we can be, to squander our enormous intelligence chasing fear and rage to their logical conclusion and annihilating ourselves.
This question, originally posed by writer Colman McCarthy, was asked at the Midwest Regional Department of Peace conference, which was held last weekend outside Detroit. It cuts to the core of our troubles. The answer is agonizingly obvious: "We're taught to read!" Could it be we also need to be taught, let us say, calmness, breath and impulse control, practical applications of the Golden Rule? But until we know enough to ask these questions, violence, like ignorance, is just a fact of life.
Oh, humanity. In Russian, the word "mir" means "earth"; it also means "peace." We know the answers. They're hidden in our language. We long for peace with every fiber of our being, yet we spend countless trillions annually pursuing its opposite, as though determined in our perversity to be the worst we can be, to squander our enormous intelligence chasing fear and rage to their logical conclusion and annihilating ourselves.
“The fact that 11 human beings were killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion (their bodies never found) has become, at best, an afterthought. BP counts its profits in the billions, and, therefore, it’s important. . . This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans who, of course, are the great majority of Americans. The great majority of Americans no longer matter.”
-Bob Herbert, “More Than Just An Oil Spill,” NY Times, May 22, 2010
Just about a week ago I was on a conference call with leaders of about a dozen national and regional groups which have made the climate crisis a top priority of their work. The two main things we talked about were the prospects for decent climate legislation in the Senate and how we should be responding to the catastrophic BP oil spill.
-Bob Herbert, “More Than Just An Oil Spill,” NY Times, May 22, 2010
Just about a week ago I was on a conference call with leaders of about a dozen national and regional groups which have made the climate crisis a top priority of their work. The two main things we talked about were the prospects for decent climate legislation in the Senate and how we should be responding to the catastrophic BP oil spill.