WELCOME TO 2016 – WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO COUNT THE BODIES?

It harms the spirit to think that the 2016 presidential election has distilled our collective vision to a choice between a war hawk who will assuredly leave a trail of black, brown, olive and yellow limp bodies — as well as a few white Slavic ones — across four continents, and another candidate where there’s […]

SUNDAY SMACK: THE DRAFT AND PRESIDENTS

This week’s Sunday Smack covers war, and asks a simple question: If the United States reinstated the military draft, would Americans change the way they vote for presidents? song currently stuck in my head: “girls and boys” – prince

SUNDAY SMACK: PRESIDENT OBAMA — WAR MACHINE?

This week’s Sunday Smack explores President Barack Obama’s war record. As the New York Times notes, President Barack Obama is on track to have managed one or more overseas conflicts every single day of his two-term White House tenure, which will set a new record for the amount of time any US President has led […]

SUNDAY SMACK: WHY DO ONLY FEW PEOPLE KNOW THE REAL MLK?

” …Some respectable Negro leaders who are more concerned about being invited to the White House then invited to the cause of justice … ” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech in Cleveland, OH, April 28, 1967 For a while, I’ve been writing about the Martin Luther King Jr. no one mentions. An MLK […]

REMEMBERING 12/7/1941

This Pearl Harbor memorial photo came from the Mid-Hudson News. Military veterans tossed a wreath into the Hudson River in Newburgh, NY in recognition of America’s 9/11 of that time. The was published in 2012 …

THE US HELPED TO CREATE THE ‘REFUGEE’

Since Americans want to debate whether or not the country should accept refugees from the current Middle East wars, let’s bring up a topic which is astonishingly missing from these discussions … … Like how America helped to create this refugee crisis! In America’s attempt to reshape the Middle East through proxy wars or outright […]

THE ONE PERCENT LOVES ICON-CHASERS

This recycled simmer-boil-simmer debate about whether to destroy, honor or moth-ball the Confederate flag reminds me of Americans’ drug-like habit of chasing icons and fighting over labels—undoubtedly violence-supporting icons which are emotionally powerful, but have no real power. I’ll get back to that thought in a moment, but allow me to throw a large slice […]

THE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN CLOSED – BUT THERE’S WORSE NEWS.

This government shutdown is pretty friggin’ amazing in that I’ve never seen such dysfunctional behavior in large organizations. But what’s more amazing to me is how America is on its way to completing a 16-year journey to nowhere. 16…years. That’s a lot of time when you consider the rest of the world is not […]

WARNING – MCCAIN’S THINKING AGAIN

My initial dilemma was whether or not I should write about Senator John McCain’s latest bout of tangential erraticism, better known at the moment as his recent Pravda.ru op ed response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s NY Times article. My subsequent decision point was to decide how much time to spend on my response. Hint: I’m […]

IRAN – THE TABLE, THE BULLET, OR BOTH?

How many adults you know will respond favorably to a request you make that’s been packaged with a threat? How many adults will feel insulted, and likely not listen to anything else you have to say? World leaders aren’t much different from the rest of us humans. Think about what went through the […]