W.J. Astore Former Army Ranger Rory Fanning has a thoughtful article at TomDispatch.com on why young men should not join the Army to fight the war on terror in distant lands. Here’s an excerpt: Believe me, it [the Afghan War] was ugly. We were often enough targeting innocent people based on bad intelligence and…
W.J. Astore On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a powerful speech (“Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence”) that condemned America’s war in Vietnam. Exactly one year later, he was assassinated in Memphis. What follows are excerpts from MLK’s speech. I urge you to read it in its entirety, but I’d…
Alex Dunn. Introduction by b. traven. Alex Dunn is one of TCP’s EU correspondents. An English ex-pat living in Luxembourg gives us a view of this disturbing massacre in Paris. I am sure that Alex’s view from Europe is as concerned as some of our views that the wrong lesson will be learned by politicians…
Matthew Jacobson. Introduction by William Astore. America has always postured as being open to immigrants – of the right kind, that is. Posturing becomes imposture when those immigrants are judged to be the “wrong kind” by prevailing groups. Matthew Jacobson reminds us of this in this satirical list, and poses a telling question at the…
Michael Gallagher If we can believe the N.Y. Times—and if we can’t believe the N.Y. Times, whom can we believe?—the American Catholic bishops meeting in Baltimore last month led to professions of confusion about what course to follow in the wake of the recent synod in Rome devoted to the family. Most of the bishops…
Richard Sahn I was appalled by Jeffrey Toobin’s analysis of the decision of the grand jury in the Darren Wilson indictment hearings. Toobin, a legal analyst for CNN is a former prosecutor as well as defense attorney. The reason the DA, Robert McCulloch, did not prosecute Darren Wilson during the hearings was because, Toobin says,…
W.J. Astore In 2006, I presented the following talk on Jewish resistance to the Holocaust. It’s a dangerous myth, and sadly a common one, that Jewish people did not resist the Nazis in meaningful or effective ways. From this myth stems a far more insidious one: that Jewish people were somehow complicit in the murderous…
Steve Naidamast In my last two pieces (“Why Nothing Works – Parts I & II”), I discussed the failure of software development to support the transactions in daily life dominated by current software foundations. Further, the misuse of modern software capabilities is having deleterious effects sociologically across a wide spectrum of users, especially here in…
W.J. Astore So, Republicans now control the Senate as well as the House. As we the people endure the forced march to 2016 and the next presidential election, our new political landscape is sure to produce more military escalations. The reason is as obvious as it is sad. De-escalation of military conflicts is defined, especially…
W.J. Astore Out shopping today at my local used bookstore and came across an early paperback copy (from 1952) of George Orwell’s 1984. A little overpriced at $15.00, but the cover called to me. What a classic! If you click on the picture, you can just make out, if you look closely, the slogans on…
The Contrary Perspective 