David Blight On The Civil War In American Memory, Part 1

David Blight On The Civil War In American Memory, Part 2

David Blight On The Civil War In American Memory, Part 3

It Was Satire, Donald. Satire.

Judy Henske

Obray Ramsey

Donald Trump's First 100 Days In Office

Lester Bangs

Nature Transformed

Emerson, Thoreau, and the Hudson River School.

Louis Armstrong

Appalachia Revisited

Kicking them while they're down.

Bruce Springsteen Covers The Easybeats

When They Finally Arrive...

I'll have just one question:



"What took you so long?"

The Logic Of Terrorism: Partial Lessons From The Great War

War between the Great Powers was much talked about in the first decade of the twentieth century, by politicians, writers, novelists, and philosophers. Yet the nature of a European war, as opposed to a colonial venture, was little understood. What was known were the many swift forays by superior forces against distant, feeble foes, the victory of machine guns against spears, of massive naval guns against antique cannon. However frightening those conflicts could be for those who took part in them, the general public at home had little sense of anything terrible. [Emphasis Added].

~ Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History (1994), 1.

One of the keys to maintaining perpetual war (and perpetual profit to the war profiteers) is to make sure that you prosecute your wars at a safe distance from the homeland. In the 1960s, the Pentagon was reasonably sure that Vietnam was a safe bet, owing to its size, relatively underdeveloped society, and distance from the U.S. For reasons that are still unclear, however, the usually supine and war-promoting media (war profiteers themselves) did not cooperate. Perhaps they discovered a large, untapped market that held anti-war sentiments--the rising bubble of the Baby Boom. Whatever the reason, by the 1991 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon had made certain to turn the Fourth Estate into their willing propaganda arm once more. Neither party has ever looked back.

Those who engage in acts of terror on foreign soil perceive the insulation of the general public of the countries responsible for perpetual war from its horrors; quite logically, they attempt to bring that war "home" to that ignorant general public. What they fail to appreciate, however, is that the Pentagon is in charge of the media-delivered narrative--a narrative in which a disconnect is carefully maintained between terrorist atrocities and their war-without-end. Holding only one end of the stick, those who desire to "educate" benighted foreign publics are incapable of breaking that stick. And with each act of terror they play into the hands of the war-mongers and profiteers.

The so-called Great War took place when the war-mongers and profiteers of Europe turned upon each other in a frenzy to divide the spoils of more than a century's worth of imperialist conquest. Something of a similar nature will have to occur before the present victims of the Pentagon's perpetual wars will find much in the way of relief.

Miles

Grateful Dead - Sugaree 3/26/1988

Grandpa Bob Tells An Old Familiar Tale

With musical accompaniment.

HAL 9000

Livin' In The USA

How's everybody feeling today?

Damn Yankees

This is the first novel I ever read that wasn't assigned in school. It is a morality tale for baseball fans. I read it when I was in third or fourth grade. The racy parts of the book completely escaped my notice then. In fact, I had no memory of racy parts at all until I re-read the book in my 40's. Far from titillating, however, I found them jejune at best. It's not a great book but as it was the first "big" book I ever read on my own it retains a hold upon my affections. And any book about baseball is a book about the reason that America was invented. That, in itself, makes it worth considering.

Hunger In The Heartland