As the Pulitzer Prize winning historian John Dower tells the story so well about Japan and the United States, states that move towards war often demonize each other’s leaders and whole societies in order to stir and consolidate public opinion and steel their citizens for big sacrifices ahead.
The New America Foundation American Strategy Program will host a meeting tomorrow with the guy the White House should have advising George W. Bush on a new track to take to salvage America’s position in the Middle East.
Sidney Blumenthal holds forth on yet another (regrettably believable) Cheney-esque insult to Americans in his effort to whitewash and propagandize his place in U.S. history.
During the Revolutionary War and during the founding years of the United States, many states required “loyalty oaths” to be sworn by those who joined a state militia.
Just a quickie. I heard a rumor recently and have subsequently confirmed through White House sources that the administration is gearing up to get serious again about charting out a new course on Israel/Palestine.
George Soros has published a significant truth-telling article in the Boston Globe this morning, “Blinded by a Concept,” about some of the shortcomings of America’s foreign policy and Israel’s mistakes in its recent incursions into Lebanon and Gaza.
Want a lesson in real democracy — as the founding fathers meant it? Watch this video clip of Keith Olbermann taking on the administration and Donald Rumsfeld in the most compelling oratory I have heard in some time.
Chris Nelson who writes the bloggish “Nelson Report“, rarely posted on the internet and just packed with great analysis and often good gossip, has a good report on Iran tonight. I post this in full with his permission.
I was up recently visiting Swallow Falls State Park in Maryland — which claims to have one of the oldest unharvested spruce and hemlock forests in the region. Quite a beautiful place.
Barney Frank gets it. His Boston Globe piece this morning, “Afghanistan Ignored,” reinforces a point I tried to make long ago — those who have opposed Joe Lieberman’s continued tenure are “not anti-war.” Rather, they are “anti-Iraq War.
