Category: Power and Ideology

Birds of a Feather

From Matt Taibbi’s article today at Substack–Which brings us back to Cheney. All those things Trump is rumored to be, Dick Cheney actually is. That’s why it’s so significant that he appeared on the floor…

Dear Daisy Zamora

(After Reading Riverbed of Memory) I admit itI am filled with guiltWe didn’t do enough back in the 80sWhen the Reaganites were determinedTo crush the RevolutionTrue, you might say, the Sandinistas were far from perfectBut…

Beyond This Week’s News

My friend Andrew Wimmer shared the following provocative view from economist Michael Hudson… The current Democratic impasse shows that no progress can be made without changing the institutional structure of American politics. It seems that…

The Plan

My friend Andrew Wimmer’s comment on the above: Of course they have. It was never “on the table.” It’s not a shame, it’s the plan.

Why Did All Those People Die?

W. D. Ehrhart, The Madness of It All: Essays on War, Literature, and American Life [2002] This is a collection of the Vietnam veteran and poet’s prose pieces up till 9.11.  Some are quite short…

A Letter from 2005

April 6, 2005 Dear Andrew, I recently finished a small book by Edward Said, Humanism and Democratic Criticism, and it made me think of many conversations we’ve had over the past couple of years. So…

An Honest Man: Smedley Butler

Marine General Smedley Butler, in a 1933 speech: “I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in…

Making an Impression

Ilan Pappe,  The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Oneworld Publications, 2007 This is a profound meditation on truth, unpalatable as it will be for many supporters of an expansionist Israel.  Pappe cuts through the decades of Nakba…

This, That, and the Other

1. An excerpt from my 2015 novel, Dear Layla/Welcome to Palestine: Corporate Citizen/1 (Products/2) Some things changed and some didn’t on September 11 It shocked and angered us To see products we had built to…