W.J. Astore Jeremy Scahill is a reporter for whom the word “intrepid” may have been invented. He’s been remarkably bold in covering the creation of private mercenary forces in the United States (as documented in his bestseller, Blackwater) as well as America’s “turn to the dark side” after 9/11/2001, which led to “wars of choice” in…
Daniel N. White. Introduction by W.J. Astore. Is the United States an empire or umpire? This is the intriguing question raised and interrogated in the latest probing article by Dan White. Since I’m a baseball fan as well as a student of the U.S. military, let me take a swing at an answer. An umpire…
b. traven What can I say after reading this article by Ann Jones on the horrific costs of war to our young troops? I do not belong in this century anymore. I do not recognize the time warp that has put me elsewhere. The country I grew up in [the USA of the 1920s and 1930s] was…
Veterans Day has become a day of sales and promotions instead of a time of reflection about the costs of war and the sacrifices of our troops. The great virtue of Ann Jones’s new book, They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars — The Untold Story is that it truly makes us…
W.J. Astore I teach a course on the Holocaust, so I’ve had ample opportunity to confront the use of euphemisms by the Nazis to cloak their murderous intent. The most infamous euphemism was “the final solution to the Jewish question,” which of course refers to the mass murder–the extermination–of all Jews everywhere. But there were…
b. traven Breaking News. This one is hard to believe: A Brazilian traveler, David Miranda, transiting London’s Heathrow Airport from a European flight to catch his flight to Rio de Janeiro is accused of “terrorism” because he has encrypted data related to Edward Snowden on his computer. In my opinion this is the opening gun…
W.J. Astore Are we fighting a war on terror, or a war against predators? Surely the latter is more accurate. We see terrorists as predators. We fear them as such. They’re hiding in the weeds, morphing into the background, only to emerge to kill innocents with seemingly arbitrary (and thus very scary) rapacity. Therefore, following…
By Don Rose. Introduction by b. traven. Don Rose is part of the conscience of Chicago. He is a long time political strategist for some of the more liberal political representatives of the people in that city. Retired, Don now writes in the online “The Chicago Observer” about what is going on behind the scenes…
W.J. Astore In the 17th century, Harvard was all about preparing men to serve God. It was about educating ministers. And ministers were arguably the most deeply respected men of their day. In the 21st century, Harvard has a new god — mammon. Harvard grads today most commonly reach for the big bucks in the…
W.J. Astore A word that’s symbolic of our growing police state mentality is “lockdown.” I saw today on the news that Indiana University is in “lockdown” due to a suspect on the loose with a knife. You can lockdown a prison. But you can’t lockdown a campus as large as Indiana University in Bloomington. Nor…
The Contrary Perspective 