Shooting War: a graphic novel by Anthony Lappe and Dan Goldman. The 11-chapter first act has been lauded in
Rolling Stone,
Wired and
The Village Voice. It's 2011: President McCain is fighting for political survival, America is stuck in Iraq, and there's another oil embargo. 'Vlogger' and indie icon Jimmy Burns happens to catch a terrorist attack in NYC on his web cam, making him the new face of wartime journalism.
posted by spaltavian
on Oct 1, 2006 -
36 comments
Yesterday, the Arar Commission released their
report on the handling of the Maher Arar case, previously mentioned
here or
here. The findings are
widely reported; Canada is
self-flagellating for being complicit in the United States'
abduction and torture of a Canadian citizen. As President Bush goes to Congress to
lobby for the legal authority to abduct and torture anyone without a trial, Arar should consider himself lucky: although Canada didn't help him out for a year, the Canadian government and news media were aware of and interested in his confinement, which likely saved him from the worst tortures. As a famous legal scholar
commented some 240 years ago, "To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by
secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government."
posted by jellicle
on Sep 19, 2006 -
102 comments
Nebraska has the only unicameral, non-partisan legislature in the United States. Created by constitutional amendment in 1935, Nebraska's legislature gained brief influence as a model of legislative politics after the
"one man, one vote" Supreme Court rulings in the mid-60s. Many states had not reapportioned their districts for years,
creating an imbalance in state and national legislative politics.
The Supreme Court ruling which sparked the brief campaign for unicameral legislatures.
posted by Captaintripps
on Nov 7, 2005 -
31 comments
Is the US broken beyond repair? Columnist Peggy Noonan asks some disturbing questions about the US and its future. Have the wheels come off the trolley and are we headed off the tracks. Can anyone put us back on the tracks or is it too late? A very thought provoking article.
posted by waltb555
on Oct 28, 2005 -
117 comments
Since the US is the systemic centre of the global capitalist system, the shift to militarism is having global effects, some obvious, some insidious... While the US is the leading state in the international system, it is ensnared in webs of dependence of its own making: US patterns of consumption and living standards, while helping to maintain Asian economic activity, require the absorption of ever larger volumes of world savings, currently 80%. Over time this will prove unsustainable... Since there is no transnational political authority to halt or reverse the disintegrative trend, we are sliding towards disorder. United States: the slide to disorder Also by Philip S. Golub:
United States: inventing demons &
My country, ’tis of thee
posted by y2karl
on Jul 15, 2005 -
28 comments
How "Real ID" Act will affect you [CNET]
Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service.
posted by dand
on May 6, 2005 -
94 comments
Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798 - 2004 This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past US military ventures abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted. The listing often contains references, especially from 1980 forward, to continuing military deployments especially US military participation in multinational operations associated with NATO or the United Nations. Most of these post-1980 instances are summaries based on Presidential reports to Congress related to the War Powers Resolution. A comprehensive commentary regarding any of the instances listed is not undertaken here.
posted by Postroad
on Apr 29, 2005 -
28 comments
The argument I make in my book is that what I describe as the new American militarism arises as an unintended consequence of the reaction to the Vietnam War and more broadly, to the sixties... If some people think that the sixties constituted a revolution, that revolution produced a counterrevolution, launched by a variety of groups that had one thing in common: they saw revival of American military power, institutions, and values as the antidote to everything that in their minds had gone wrong. None of these groups — the neoconservatives, large numbers of Protestant evangelicals, politicians like Ronald Reagan, the so-called defense intellectuals, and the officer corps — set out saying, “Militarism is a good idea.” But I argue that this is what we’ve ended up with: a sense of what military power can do, a sort of deference to the military, and an attribution of virtue to the men and women who serve in uniform. Together this constitutes such a pernicious and distorted attitude toward military affairs that it qualifies as militarism. An interview with Andrew Bacevich, international relations professor and former Army colonel, and author of
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War--and here is a
review. Recently by Bacevich:
We Aren't Fighting to Win Anymore - U.S. troops in Iraq are only trying to buy time.
posted by y2karl
on Feb 21, 2005 -
37 comments
Documents: U.S. condoned Iraq oil smuggling Documents obtained by CNN reveal the United States knew about, and even condoned, embargo-breaking oil sales by Saddam Hussein's regime, and did so to shore up alliances with Iraq's neighbors.
The oil trade with countries such as Turkey and Jordan appears to have been an open secret inside the U.S. government and the United Nations for years.
posted by Postroad
on Feb 3, 2005 -
28 comments
A Nation of Faith and Religious Illiterates The sociologist Peter Berger once remarked that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. Not anymore. With a Jesus lover in the Oval Office and a faith-based party in control of both houses of Congress, the United States is undeniably a nation of believers ruled by the same.
posted by Postroad
on Jan 19, 2005 -
30 comments
Only about 350 of the original 400 structures designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright are still standing. As of last week, that number has
decreased by one. The demolition of the 1916
W.S. Carr house in Grand Beach, Michigan was the first Wright building in over 30 years to be demolished. Mark another loss to the heritage of U.S. Modernism.
posted by ScottUltra
on Nov 16, 2004 -
12 comments
Onward Christian soldiers or the Divided States of America "In the wee small hours of November 3 2004,
"a new country appeared on the map of the modern world: the DSA, the Divided States of America." But is this really
anything new? In his novel "Sybal"or "The Two Nations" Benjaman Disraeli described the England of his day and said that it comprised not one but "two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws." Out of the divisions of Watergate and the Vietnam war the modern American Right Wing built it self up from the ashes of the Nixon downfall and the party has labored for the past 30 years to
build a powerful and united party with the help of of its very own homegrown
American mullahs. And of course, no one has been better at surfing this Republican wave than the
Bush family. And for the right wing the
revolution has just started.
posted by thedailygrowl
on Nov 5, 2004 -
71 comments
The United States has lost Iraq. "Even Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former general who stays in touch with the Joint Chiefs, has acknowledged [the insurgents winning] privately to friends in recent weeks. The insurgents have effectively created a reign of terror throughout the country, killing thousands, driving Iraqi elites and technocrats into exile and scaring foreigners out."
posted by four panels
on Oct 31, 2004 -
29 comments
John Edwards: "No military draft if Democrats win" - which comes as a relief to me today as my own son turns eighteen. However, as it stands, the
Selective Service System has been ramping up its ability to begin a draft as early as Spring 2005, especially a possibility should Congressional Bills
S. 89 and
H.R. 163, known as the "
Universal National Service Act of 2003" pass in the House and Senate. Many people who have been in the military feel a draft would actually
degrade the quality of our military forces. Nonetheless, this time around, a draft would include men and women. And the Selective Service is also looking for a few good people to
become a Selective Service System Local Board Member, one of the tasks of which is to guarantee
"
that each CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR is properly CLASSIFIED, PLACED, and
MONITORED."(emphasis added)
posted by jackspace
on Sep 15, 2004 -
61 comments
Banned weapons and WMD parts were shipped out of Iraq after the US forces took power according to the UN. At least thats the best I can make of this article. Does this really say that the UN is upset at us for shipping out of Iraq the exact things they previously said were not in Iraq?
posted by soulhuntre
on Sep 7, 2004 -
73 comments
State Blogs As a companion to the
Blogs around the world project, Oscar Jr. posted the Blogs around the US project. His point/focus being blogs that focus on the US states in which they reside. All of this as a lead up to
Big Sky Blog. A blog by Montanans, about Montana,
a project of our own davidmsc.
(Whoops, USAfilter. Miguel's gonna be pissed ...)
posted by Wulfgar!
on Aug 25, 2004 -
10 comments
Jesus Boots perfected! NYT: In the last 150 years, Americans have patented about 100 water-walking inventions. The first, in 1858, was by H. R. Rowlands, who lived in Boston, not far from where Mr. Rosen resides, in Newton, Mass. Most of the subsequent patents, Mr. Rosen said, are iterations of that same idea. "Unfortunately," Mr. Rosen observed, "none of them actually work."
posted by skallas
on Aug 3, 2004 -
13 comments
Backyard Third World
John F. Kennedy saw it and pronounced it a shame on our nation. Lyndon B. Johnson tried to change it. The "compassionate conservatives" have exacerbated it. I wanted to share it with you. Isn't it time for real change? Hasn't the exploitation of this place and these people gone on long enough?
posted by nofundy
on Jul 26, 2004 -
34 comments
Poll Shows Growing Arab Rancor at U.S. Arab views of the United States, shaped largely by the Iraq war and a post-Sept. 11 climate of fear, have worsened in the past two years to such an extent that in Egypt -- an important ally in the region -- nearly 100 percent of the population now holds an unfavorable opinion of the country, according to two polls due out today... More within
posted by y2karl
on Jul 24, 2004 -
126 comments
The 27 rationales... There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but a graduate student in Chicago found and tracked 27 different rationales used to justify the war in Iraq.
Gathering over 1500 statements from the Bush cabinet, US senators, and from news stories, Largio even throws in some time series graphs in appendices, so you can see which rationales were hot, and which were not from Sept 2001 to October 2002.
posted by jasper411
on May 13, 2004 -
16 comments
The battle the US wants to provoke Make no mistake: this is not the "civil war" that Washington has been predicting will break out between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. Rather, it is a war provoked by the US occupation authority and waged by its forces against the growing number of Shia who support Moqtada al-Sadr (by Naomi Klein in Baghdad).
posted by acrobat
on Apr 6, 2004 -
49 comments
Bush calls for same-sex marriage-ban amendment Pres. Bush called for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage today, blaming "activist judges", the Massachusettes Supreme Court, and the mayor of San Francisco, among others, for attempting "to change the most fundamental institution of civilization."
How this call for an amendment plays out
remains to be seen, but Bush is taking a strong stance on this issue, in what some see as another 'big headline' proposal during the election season. What will this mean for the civil rights of homosexuals in this country? And how will voters react in November?
posted by nyukid
on Feb 24, 2004 -
377 comments
On the night of April 27th, 1805,
US Marine Lt. Presley O'Bannon
led a ragtag army of Greek, Arab and Berber mercenaries in a desperate charge
into the teeth of the fortifications of
Derna, Tripoli
(now Libya). The
defenders inexplicably turned and ran, leaving behind loaded cannons which,
turned around, secured victory for the US in its first land battle in the old
world.
In recognition of his bravery, Lt. O'Bannon was given a
sword by Hamet
Karamanli.
William
Eaton
(no, the other
William Eaton
) had led O'Bannon,
six other US Marines, and the five hundred odd mercenaries across six hundred
miles of North African desert in order to replace the usurping
Pasha
of Tripoli, Yusef, with the rightful heir, his pro-American older brother
Hamet.
Shortly after the battle, Yusef reached a peace with Col. Tobias Lear, the
American Consul to Tripoli, and hostilities between the US and Tripoli ceased. Eaton, O'Bannon, and
Hamet Karamanli, along with the Marines and most of the Greeks, departed
aboard American warships, leaving the Muslim mercenaries behind in Derna.
Unpaid.
posted by hob
on Jan 7, 2004 -
11 comments
1.26 million people killed every year on the road or from subsequent injuries...
..
Four Qld road deaths in 5 hours. 42,815 people died in 2002 in automobile crashes in the United States. Shouldn't these facts give us the resolve to explore a better solution to our transportation needs? I do not see the national debate that these deaths would evoke if the cause was different. Why are we numb to this?
posted by JohnR
on Nov 24, 2003 -
76 comments
A flood of red ink This time the turnaround will be much tougher. There will be no “peace dividend” from the end of the cold war (indeed, the pressure on military spending may continue to increase). America is unlikely to see another stockmarket bubble, with its surge in tax revenues. As baby-boomers retire, the pressure from entitlement spending will be more acute. Set against this background, the path back to a sustainable fiscal policy will be extremely painful, even without any dramatic fiscal crisis. Long after Dubya is back on his ranch, Americans will be trying to recover from the mess he created.
posted by y2karl
on Nov 6, 2003 -
35 comments
U.S. May Expand Access To Endangered Species. With this year being the 30th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, the Bush Administration is considering proposals that
"would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries."
posted by Stynxno
on Oct 11, 2003 -
50 comments
