Nick Turse. Courtesy of TomDispatch.com. [Editor’s Note: In his recent address to the nation, President Obama expressed his belief in the U.S. as an exceptional nation. Inherent to that belief is the idea the U.S. is a shining city on a hill, a moral exemplar to the world, a beacon of freedom, a nation whose…
Nile Stanton In a thought-provoking article by Dominic Johnson, Richard Wrangham, and Stephen Rosen of Harvard, the authors observe that “Human decision-making has been shown to violate rational choice theory in a variety of contexts….” “[S]ome of the most intriguing and important examples concern how people perceive and react to risk. Most notably, people appear…
W.J. Astore During the Roman Empire, chariot races and gladiatorial games served to entertain the people. The U.S. empire’s equivalent, of course, is NASCAR and the NFL. Serve up some bread to go with the circuses and you have a surefire way to keep most people satisfied and distracted. That’s true enough, but let’s dig…
Nicolas J S Davies As I wrote this essay on the 12th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq (March 19-20), the news was filled with its violent repercussions across the Middle East and the world. The latest atrocity was a multiple suicide bombing at two mosques in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, that have killed…
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…
W.J. Astore In Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, the U.S. military is fairly good at projecting power. Indeed, the military prides itself on “global reach, global power,” achieved through a worldwide system of bases and funded by enormous amounts of “defense” spending. What the U.S. military is not so good at is understanding foreign cultures. Often,…
W.J. Astore I wrote this for Truthout but debated whether to publish it. I just didn’t want to deal with all the gun enthusiasts who equate liberty with owning lots of guns and ammo. This article is not specifically about guns. It’s about our propensity for seeking quick and violent solutions to societal and political…
W.J. Astore Back in July, my wife and I visited the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Mass. At the shrine, there’s a simple, moving, memorial to the Sandy Hook children (see photo above). Rarely has the Biblical phrase, “Jesus wept,” been sadder or more appropriate. Christ said to suffer the children to…
I started writing for TomDispatch, a remarkable contrarian site founded and edited by Tom Engelhardt, a fine editor/writer and even finer gentleman, in October 2007. My first article was on the Petraeus surge and how President Bush and his administration were hiding behind the absurdly bemedaled and beribboned uniform of that general. Tom Engelhardt’s generous…
My wife and I recently visited the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Mass. At the shrine, there’s a simple, moving, memorial to the Sandy Hook children (see photo above). Rarely has the Biblical phrase, “Jesus wept,” been sadder or more appropriate. And the people said, See how much He loved them. Message?…
The Contrary Perspective 