My father used to say that the history of a time can’t be written until all the bodies are buried. There’s definitely something to that, and the little bits that do peek out often reveal the shape of an underlying mass of buried secrets. It’s enough to turn you into a conspiracy theorist.
Happy July 4th, American imperialists!
Reporting “truth” is a trickier problem than we might think. [stderr] Our interpretations are subtly, or unsubtly, adjusted by the reporters’ selection of words.
WARNING: War, Death, Sam Harris
WARNING: LONG
The US talks a lot about non-proliferation, and regularly joins with the world community to levy sanctions on nations that are not complying with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran and North Korea being prime examples of countries that have had a great deal of pressure (in the case of North Korea, the population has been starved) against their nuclear ambitions.
There’s a fellow on Twitter who somehow came across my path, claiming that the Japanese are playing victim regarding the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima. This moves me to want to offer a refuter for those who encounter such idiocy. It’s probably not complete – feel free to tell me what to add.
Racial segregation has probably done more to shape American cities than any other factor. The Guardian [guard] has a thoughtful and very deep article about the structural effects of inequality on some cities – including Baltimore, Maryland, where I grew up.
Just lean over there and hit the “rewind” button for a second; take us back to… July 2016.
If you ever find yourself believing that America is or was ever great, you can cure it with a dose of Howard Zinn. It won’t take much, but sometimes it aches going down. If you don’t have any Zinn handy, you can substitute Chomsky.
I’m just going to quote large chunks from this piece by The Guardian [guard] and not add much commentary of my own; it’d be redundant.