Daniel N. White The University of Texas at Austin recently hosted an Event on the new book on the newest release of the Nixon White House recordings. It rates the capital E on account of their bringing in out of town talent, Douglas Brinkley the biggest, for a panel discussion on the new book about…
Steve Naidamast After surviving tragedy at the World Trade Center on 9-11-2001 (I escaped from building #5, which was engulfed in a fireball 30 to 45 minutes after I evacuated), I became driven to find out the underlying causes of that event. My studies took me toward subjects in sociology and political history as well as…
Michael Murry President Barack Obama’s most recent speech launching yet another self-declared Personal Presidential Crusade against yet another Evil Muslim Acronym (ISIS/ISIL/IS, whatever) reminds me of something that General David Petraeus, Commander of the International Security Assistance Forces in Afghanistan once said regarding his mission objectives and his prospects for achieving them: “I think no…
By KokonutGrove As a student of American history and politics, in my lifetime I’ve witnessed a dangerous erosion of civil and personal liberties. Such an erosion is the hallmark of fascism. Back in the 1970s and ‘80s when my father was stationed in Berlin, he often discussed the totalitarian police state the East Germans created as…
Matthew Jacobson Today’s Democrats do not realize the extent to which the Republican Party, and the media machine that it so expertly operates, have transformed politically emotional energy into pure, purposeful political power. They do not realize that issues no longer count for much in the new reality of American politics. Emotions, and the identification…
Michael Murry In 2008 Barack Obama was elected president in a wave of euphoria for “hope” and “change,” but he threw away his mandate during his first year in office when he did not liquidate Deputy Dubya’s dimwit debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. He became a predictable mediocrity after that, his two terms of office…
Alex Dunn If you want to understand Europe, ignore the convoluted EU and focus on the Eurovision Song Contest, argues Alex Dunn. I would imagine that for the average American, European Politics is rather like cricket: overly complicated and not terribly interesting. Well I have news for you: Europeans feel the same way. There are…
Richard Sahn Driving us ever closer to the brink of World War III and possible nuclear annihilation is the bi-partisan, seemingly all-American political position that we “never negotiate with terrorists.” That means having no diplomatic relations with the “bad guys.” “Terrorists,” we’re taught to believe, must be followers of Satan himself. (Witness Joe Biden’s “Gates…
S. and B. Lett Every day in America it seems there is a report of police brutality or a shooting of an unarmed civilian, often a shooting death. The typical response from a generally white public is ho-hum. Why is this? One reason is that white people of certain socio-economic classes have no experience of,…
A World War II Veteran I am 90 years old. I have lived through much. My parents were immigrants from post-World War I Europe. Following the Crash of 1929 we were very poor. Our country was awash in poverty, and anti-Semitism was widespread. When I was about ten years old, my father, who had been…
The Contrary Perspective 