The Best Decision I Have Ever Made

Last month, after ISIS beheaded American journalist James Foley and posted the video on the internet, I decided enough was enough. The parade of bad news was an anchor dragging on my sense of well-being. Besides the turmoil in Iraq and Syria, there was news that more than a thousand Russian troops had moved into the Ukraine, there were protests over the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, and Congress left on summer vacation without addressing global warming or immigration (in fact, this Congress addressed little other than their own reelections). Throughout all this, the cacophony of arguments and counterarguments spewed forth on the television and the internet, never ending, rarely slowing, and devouring such cherished aspects of debate as ‘nuance’ and ‘facts.’ All of this served to foster in me feelings of anger, anxiety, frustration, and even a smattering of despair. This is something that had been building for a long time. Politics is nothing if not a soul-sucking enterprise. It never ends. There is never any resolution to the debates. Increasingly, it has turned into a zero-sum game. One side has to win and the other side has to lose. The greater the pain is for the losing side, the better. Continue reading “The Best Decision I Have Ever Made”

I’m Glad It’s Not My Decision

Ten years ago, the United States started a war against Iraq on false pretenses. The Bush administration lied about and manipulated intelligence to convince the American public that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction (chemical weapons), and was actively trying to attain others (nuclear weapons). What boggles the mind is that, in the runup to that war in 2002-2003, it was transparently obvious to anyone paying attention (or not blinded by the cult of Neoconservatism) that the Bush administration was manufacturing its justifications for war. The result we’ve become all-too familiar with: a protracted war which we did not win, drained the Treasury, and cost the lives of over a hundred thousand people. Continue reading “I’m Glad It’s Not My Decision”