tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86813112009-10-09T15:57:02.052-05:00Looking All Over The Past For The FutureHistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125preemptivehindsighthttp://feedburner.google.comThis is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site.tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-24636021814116074312008-03-25T19:39:00.006-05:002008-03-25T20:09:59.554-05:002008-03-25T20:09:59.554-05:00

(Friends keep forwarding schemes to "punish" the oil companies. Every year, it seems, there's another e-mail round-robin urging us to buy no gas on a certain day, to boycott this or that company, to flood Congress with petitions demanding $2/gallon gas... Here's my reply to the latest.)Dear Sally and Friends, Boycotting Exxon/Mobil is certainly not a bad idea. That supercorporation's

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-61150192532552668372008-03-11T10:16:00.006-05:002008-03-11T11:50:53.175-05:002008-03-11T11:50:53.175-05:00

The obvious has been confirmed. So, if I may quote the absolutely necessary Juan Cole, "Now who will tell the US troops who marched into Iraq in 2003 with pictures of the World Trade Towers pinned to their backpacks? Ooops, guys, sorry. You were had by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld." But, of course, it wasn't just the troops who were had. Almost the entire American public, vociferously misinformed by

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-82956943206637036022008-03-10T12:20:00.005-05:002008-03-11T08:32:46.578-05:002008-03-11T08:32:46.578-05:00

When he died late last month, William F. Buckley Jr. had lived long enough to see -- if not to admit -- that the movement he is credited with creating, post-WWII American conservatism, had become a monster.In 1955, when Buckley used his father's money to create the National Review, he claimed to be addressing “disciples of truth, who defend the organic moral order” through a magazine that “stands

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-32671526807340128462007-09-26T16:04:00.000-05:002007-09-27T10:20:52.903-05:002007-09-27T10:20:52.903-05:00

I don't like to use public men's rooms anymore.I'm afraid I'll move my foot the wrong way and someone will mistake me for a Republican.

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1158853534601857792006-09-21T10:13:00.000-05:002006-09-23T09:15:52.886-05:002006-09-23T09:15:52.886-05:00

     Walt Whitman used to write his own reviews of Leaves of Grass, anonymously praising his own transcendent, vigorous style as proof that we had an "American bard at last."     And what can we do but praise such a splendidly American scam? Unabashed in self-praise, stupendous in style, Whitman's auto-reviews also possess two exculpatory virtues: They're arguably necessary (America needed

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1149803388780026832006-06-08T16:38:00.002-05:002006-09-23T10:20:56.016-05:002006-09-23T10:20:56.016-05:00

    By William Craig    The Aggravated PressOMAHA, Neb. (June 7, 2006) - New arrivals to this country urged President Bush to learn English and adopt American values, a spokesman for immigrant workers said yesterday.     The president touted his immigration reform plan at a community center that offers immigrants English classes and business start-up help. However, many in the "illegal"

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1140794900658066852006-02-24T10:09:00.000-05:002006-02-24T10:53:27.506-05:002006-02-24T10:53:27.506-05:00

     I think it's too bad that Dubya is in such trouble on so many fronts that no one recognizes the potential brilliance of his Administration's hand-the-ports-over-to-the-Arabs gambit.     I mean, think about it: Actually securing all our ports and stuff would require the expenditure of real money here at home, where it wouldn't be anywhere near as easy for it to be something-for-nothing

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1129815757702895672005-10-20T08:41:00.000-05:002005-10-21T08:57:46.406-05:002005-10-21T08:57:46.406-05:00

PH readers: A great group of guys in this northern New England 'hood, ranging in their politics from Attila to Tinkerbelle, carries on a sporadic, satirical public-policy debate by e-mail. The resident GOP-right-or-wrong booster -- let's call him "Pete" -- takes perverse delight in admitting GWB's an idiot and many of his policies disasters, yet crowing that GOP rule is a blessing that's here to

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1117055413572140512005-05-25T16:05:00.000-05:002007-11-11T13:08:52.053-05:002007-11-11T13:08:52.053-05:00

If you're concerned about racial profiling, political scare theater and pork-barrel spending at the Border Patrol checkpoint on I-91 in Hartford, Vermont -- 100 miles from the Canadian border -- you're not alone! I've created a new site, StopTheCheckpoint.Com, as a rallying point for a spring/summer 2005 campaign to make sure this bad idea never gets the $9 million the agency seeks to make it

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1117035223460602472005-05-25T10:24:00.000-05:002005-05-25T10:56:21.323-05:002005-05-25T10:56:21.323-05:00

     A lot of people see the filibuster as another antique oddity, like the Electoral College -- or your appendix -- that ought to come out. But there are very important differences between the two. While the Electoral College is a Constitutional glitch that doesn't work as intended and actually discourages democratic participation, the filibuster is a carefully constructed rule that, despite

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1115338979883949572005-05-05T19:16:00.000-05:002005-05-25T10:38:13.243-05:002005-05-25T10:38:13.243-05:00

    OK, I admit it. I've always detested Pat Robertson. After my sister died of AIDS, then-presidential hopeful Pat came to New Hampshire, his campaign rhetoric including the novel ideas that God was using AIDS to punish sinners and that the disease could be spread through the air. I thought of a lot of things I would have liked to do or say to the reverend, but when I met him in the course of my

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1111188829311139402005-03-18T18:19:00.000-05:002005-03-29T16:23:33.190-05:002005-03-29T16:23:33.190-05:00

    It occurred to me --- as I untied my hiking boots in the airport so they could pass through an x-ray machine in order to add yet another layer of spurious safety to the mass illusion known as "Homeland Security" --- that I was fighting the last war.        You know, as in that old axiom of futility, "Generals are always planning to fight the last war"?    In the 1930s, the generals of France

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1110308028606729402005-03-08T13:37:00.000-05:002005-03-08T14:32:23.926-05:002005-03-08T14:32:23.926-05:00

    Pat Bradley of Albany-based WAMC, Northeast Public Radio, reported today on growing opposition to the proposed permanent Border Patrol presence in Hartford, Vt. (see earlier post, ‘The Whiteness Checkpoint’). Here’s a link to an MP3, which includes a soundbite from yours truly.--- HistoryBuff

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1110306463962493972005-03-08T13:25:00.000-05:002005-03-09T08:38:15.746-05:002005-03-09T08:38:15.746-05:00

    Perhaps it was a bad idea for a history buff to approach "The Gates," Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Feb. 12-28 installation in New York's Central Park, by way of Columbus Circle.     The roundabout at the park's southwest corner is, after all, a monument to consequentiality: Atop his 40-foot pillar, Christopher Columbus looks around Manhattan like the guy who made all this possible--- which, in

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1106837955531486702005-01-27T09:26:00.000-05:002005-01-27T20:45:07.990-05:002005-01-27T20:45:07.990-05:00

    American troops invaded Moslem territory "`in order to prevent war.'" They "learned too late" that American actions "had unified the Moslem leaders who had traditionally fought among themselves."     It sounds like a gloss on reluctant admissions by President Bush and Pentagon officials that America's Iraq war has made common cause between "foreign jihadists," Al-Qaeda and diehard Baathists.

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1105985182863071062005-01-17T13:57:00.000-05:002005-03-08T14:16:34.546-05:002005-03-08T14:16:34.546-05:00

(Jan. 19 update: This protest has now appeared in regional papers including the Valley News and Keene (N.H.) Sentinel. Thanks, VN, for permission to use Laura DeCapua's photo! Strong e-mail and letter-to-editors reaction gives hope that people may be ready to challenge "terror war" policy...)    My op-ed on the Border Patrol's checkpoint in Hartford, Vt., appears in The Boston Globe today.

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1105740029442906412005-01-14T16:58:00.000-05:002005-01-31T11:07:30.716-05:002005-01-31T11:07:30.716-05:00

This op-ed originally appeared in the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel and other New England newspapers.    We stood by the hundreds on the river's east bank, boosting our kids so they could see the redcoats march down to the old North Bridge.     April 21, 2004 was as fair a Patriots Day as I can remember in Concord, Mass., where they re-enact the skirmish Ralph Waldo Emerson called "the shot heard round

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1105739814477028082005-01-14T16:53:00.000-05:002005-01-27T16:32:01.686-05:002005-01-27T16:32:01.686-05:00

  Alright, America. It’s time to talk about the “o” word.   No, not that one. I mean the one we really avoid talking about. The one we’ll do shocking things to get. Our most wanton, shameful secret.   Oil.   We need to talk, because all our excuses for invading Iraq have come apart like philanderers’ alibis for motel afternoons. Now it’s time to come clean.   Americans and oil: We’ve got a thing

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8681311.post-1097541004323188382004-10-11T19:25:00.000-05:002005-03-09T12:37:50.020-05:002005-03-09T12:37:50.020-05:00

(An early 2004 letter in response to PoliSciProf's terror-war assessment, which called upon "terror war" analysis from Strategic Forecasting, a hawkish intelligence consulting firm on K St. in D.C.. PoliSci and the Stratfor people were positing that the Iraq invasion was a brilliant anti-terror move that would project American power throughout the Middle East. --- HistoryBuff)In fighting

HistoryBuff (William Craig)http://www.blogger.com/profile/08350136648583011547noreply@blogger.com1