TFR

http://www.alicejamesbooks.org/here_bullet.html

Here, Bullet by Brian Turner

If reason cannot move Americans’ minds, then poetry has to.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/01/16/antiwar/

“A real antiwar movement would end our Iraq disaster.”

Gary Kamiya is lucid, as always. His characterization of the Democrats’ response to Bush’s surge expresses just why I am not a Democrat (nor a Republican, for that matter).

http://www.wordyard.com/2007/01/11/cambodia-option/

Bush exercises the Cambodia option in Iraq

Scott Rosenberg has chills go up and down his spine, witnessing America’s Indochina history seemingly repeat itself in Mesopotamia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/opinion/20070111_BUSHSPEECH_GRAPHIC.html

Bush’s Iraq Plan Between the Lines

Extraordinary analysis (in both content and form) by Anthony Cordesman at the NY Times. This is absolutely required reading for today, as it promotes critical thinking of the highest order—the consequences are immediate, dire, and deep.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200701u/troop-surge

The Atlantic

Any comment on contemporary politics and culture by James Fallows is always notable. As usual, he’s convincing; and I have no doubt his analysis will be spot-on again.

http://nymag.com/news/imperialcity/26014/index.html

New York Magazine

A brief, but lucidly argued article on “how the middle class is getting screwed.” And meanwhile, the working class reels in desperation, barely able to stay afloat.

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/01/08/fascism/

Salon.com

An interview with Chris Hedges, mapping almost perfectly to what I’ve been feeling/suspecting all this time, about the Christianist right wing in the country.

First of all, I need to thank Quad for giving me this space on his server, and using his amazing design/layout, which I feel can be truly productive for me.

Thank you, Quad! And please forgive me for being so impatient. ;p But I think you understand why.

For anyone who has faithfully read the free radical all these years, you know how I’ve acquired an edge about America, American culture, America’s polity. An edge of fear, really… I fear what this country is becoming, or has become.

I’ve spoken out, to be sure, but have often felt a solitary voice in the wilderness. I know that’s not true, though. I know how many friends and family of mine feel, how they resonate with what I have had to say or observe.

And yet clearly, that kind of shared sentiment isn’t enough. That’s not going to be nearly enough to thwart societal forces now arrayed against enlightened civilization. I know this is a sweeping claim, but I aim to help provide a coherent voice with which to define the reality we all face. Note: “to help provide” … which means, being involved in a grassroots, communitarian, effort. Not an individualistic, Quixotic, one.

This weblog is only one node among many (I hope!), in this effort.

The reality of American society and culture’s evolving is a complex one, to be sure, but through this weblog I hope to provide a coherent voice describing and framing that reality. And to provide a platform on which other clear-thinking people might speak out.

Next: a non-ideological stance.

You do want to change the world, right? (Or at the very least, the United States of America, by perhaps being its President one day.) I always thought that a valuable, valiant sentiment. An honorable one, particularly in this day and age of political apathy and the disingenuousness of the typical American persona. <– I have no idea what the latter part of that sentence means; I’m just typing in fill-text. ::chuckle::

Let me be your first critic, then… towards the goal of holding you to honesty, transparency, and compassion.

(in “progress”)