Achtung, Nazi!--One Year Later
Douglas Herman
2004-05-06 16:00
One year after I wrote the controversial, much reprinted column Achtung! Are We the New Nazis?, how much has changed? Have things gotten better or worse in Iraq for "liberating" US troops and the so-called liberated Iraqi people? Sadly, the much-ballyhooed liberation has become the brutal occupation we critics always predicted it would become. But warhawks have now gone from cheerleaders of war...
Hollywood Invasion!
Douglas Herman
2004-05-03 16:00
Does the Pentagon--the Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs, Rummie, Wolfie--ever watch war movies? I'm sure they do, but wouldn't it be truly worthwhile if our leaders left the theatre with a view of the Bigger Picture? With that idea in mind, I suggest three very good Hollywood war movies that offer the astute moviegoer (and war planner) all the things he should look for in a war film: action,...
Jesus Tortured! News at Eleven!
Douglas Herman
2004-05-02 16:00
"Forgive them father, for they know not what they do."
A coalition of the willing tortured Jesus Christ, it was reported yesterday.
A loose coalition of civilian contractors, powerful Judeocons and jackbooted Christian thugs followed a weekend of torture with the murder of an alleged, innocent political prisoner. Denied a fair trial and falsely imprisoned--according to a few of his followers--...
Black Walls, Barricades and Tombs
Douglas Herman
2004-05-02 16:00
Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon. ~ Henry David Thoreau
Young soldiers are the blunt instruments of sinister, fraudulent or failed government policy....
Pat Tillman, Meet Max and Lutz
Douglas Herman
2004-04-26 16:00
Pat Tillman died for our sins. Like Custer and Jesus, Tillman, the former National Football League star who volunteered to serve in Afghanistan, went to his death for failed, fraudulent government policies. In case you missed the last few days of tributes, Tillman, 27, was the best and brightest, a man with everything to live for, sent to die by the worst and most cynical of men, for cruel and...
No One Knows the Spam I've Seen
Douglas Herman
2004-04-26 16:00
Two questions: Who sends this crap and how do we get Ashcroft off his ass to stop it? While I may not believe in most forms of censorship, it would be nice to have the ability to resend the e-mail spam and badly spelled porno blasts back to the morons who sent it, with a double dose of their own dreck. Remember when we were naive enough to think we could simply reply to Heather the porno girl or...
Buy Gold--Before They Sell Out
Douglas Herman
2004-04-19 16:00
Money. Neither a solid nor a liquid but a vaporous gas--impossible for rich or poor and even most economists to grasp--money remains an illusion. Ask yourself: why is the printed paper money in your purse or wallet worth so much more than the newsprint in the trash? Is it human faith or a fabulous con job that makes paper money retain the value that all governments give it?
US paper dollars...
The Osama Recruiters
Douglas Herman
2004-04-18 16:00
"I think that some heads should roll over Iraq," said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni. "I've been called a traitor and a turncoat for mentioning these things."
Everywhere you look, recruiting offices have been set up to enlist fanatics and loyal followers of Osama Bin Ladin. The success rate is difficult to determine, but new recruits flock to the Al Qaida cause in increasing numbers....
"I Wouldn"t Wear That Shirt If I Was You"
Douglas Herman
2004-04-13 16:00
He didn't look like one of the regular security guards. Dressed in black, like the teenager he confronted, he appeared about 30 years of age. Crew cut and tanned, he sternly chided the kid and his pal in the main room of Broward County Library, here in Florida, and for a while I observed.
"I wouldn't wear that tee shirt if I was you," he said. From behind I inspected the black cotton tee worn...
Footsoldier: The Achilles Heel in America"s Quest for Empire
Douglas Herman
2004-04-11 16:00
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. ~ Sun-Tzu, The Art of War
We were always the good guys in old Hollywood movies. We were always the unselfish defenders of freedom,...
Dear Mr. President: Step Down
Douglas Herman
2004-04-08 16:00
Harry Truman once said: "The buck stops here." Truman acknowledged that the office of the presidency bore the ultimate responsibility--or blame--for whatever political disaster befell the nation. Remember your words, sir, of approximately ten months ago: "Mission Accomplished"? As I recall, you seemed to strut and gloat with personal pride on the deck of that aircraft...
The Star and the Swastika
Douglas Herman
2004-04-04 16:00
Symbols are decorative propaganda. Artful designs that entangle minds, the colorful symbols, flags and insignias of nation-states conceal a broad swath of crimes. Some flags mimic the double cross of pirate lore or the pagan pentagram, while others weave from humble beginnings into an entire tapestry of sinister patterns and officially sanctioned felonies.
Consider Israel. When did the Star of...
Ten Ways to End War
Douglas Herman
2004-03-28 16:00
(1) The foremost way to end war is to declare yourself to be a No War Zone. When powerful nations attempt to control the airspace above weaker nations, they declare a policy of No-Fly Zones, which reduces the subject nation to subservient status. Powerful governments attempt to do the same to each individual citizen whenever they can. If a state can control the airspace within the mind, dissent...
What Will You Do When They Come for You?
Douglas Herman
2004-03-18 17:00
"Wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is true, I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run 'amok' against society; but I preferred that society should run 'amok' against me, it being the desperate party." ~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden...
A Tale of Two Heroines: Rachel Corrie & Jessica Lynch
Douglas Herman
2004-03-11 17:00
Life is a series of little deaths followed by a larger, final death. What we do in the interim, how we handle that portion of our adversity--those little deaths--determines how we handle that larger finality. Dignity and courage along the way makes the departure easier, as a few examples show.
A friend sent me a bookmark with this epitaph of Jackie Robinson:
"A life is not important except...
Shock & Awe One Year Later: The Awful Shock of Reality
Douglas Herman
2004-03-02 17:00
Where have all the flowers gone? What has become of all the heady predictions of garland-strewn, victory parades in downtown Baghdad one year after the war began? The toppled bronze statue, a media event staged to celebrate the toppling of Saddam Hussein, signaled an end to one phase of the war'The Shock and Awe quick strike phase'and the beginning of the long, hard slog of military occupation....
Ass, Bass & Gas--All Coming to Pass
Douglas Herman
2004-02-23 17:00
You've seen them before, especially if you live in the Midwest or Southern states. The bumper sticker--Ass, Bass & Gas--an impudent allegiance to a trilogy of needs or pleasures, is usually displayed next to Old Glory, the Star & Bars or the "Proud To be An American" bumpersticker. Not inconsistent with the patriotic slogans, ABG just about sums up the American Dream for a sizable segment...
Bone Collectors Buoyant for 2004
Douglas Herman
2004-02-15 17:00
Whichever way you roll the dice, they come up snake eyes. They win and you lose. What were the odds that TWO Yale grads and TWO Bonesmen would be vying for the position of president in 2004? Yale University, coincidentally, was the site of the old O.S.S., forerunner of The CIA and for the last forty years--not coincidentally--almost ALL victorious presidential candidates (aside from that Nobel...
A Return to the Scene of the Crime
Douglas Herman
2004-01-20 17:00
The real power structures are always the invisible ones behind the visible sovereign powers.' ~ Buckminster Fuller
Who benefited most by the death of JFK? Who had the most to gain 'in terms of wealth and power' by the death of Kennedy? Forty years after that professional killing, with four decades of evidence, the answer is clear. In October 1963, one month before his death, Kennedy wrote...
Did the War Party Kill Chandra Levy?
Douglas Herman
2004-01-04 17:00
Gary Condit sues tabloids for $209 million'recent CNN news item
It was the Black Dahlia Case without the nude body. But unlike that sensational and still unsolved Hollywood murder case, the unsolved Chandra Levy case probably has more sinister undertones than we shall ever be permitted to know.
Gary Condit never killed Chandra Levy. Something bigger than both of them killed her. One year after...
Michael Savage, 9/11 and the Future Destruction of Washington, D.C.
Douglas Herman
2003-12-18 17:00
Mark 13:1-2 And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples said unto him: Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings! And Jesus answering said unto him: see these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
Michael Savage is an interesting fellow. Like Saul knocked from his horse on the road to Damascus and given the name Paul...
We Had to Destroy the Village to Save It
Douglas Herman
2003-12-03 17:00
Due to the increasing comparison of the Iraq war to Vietnam , the time has come to brush off the old Orwellian phrases and see how they fit the war in Iraq . Quagmire, 'a soft, wet area of low lying land that sinks underfoot,' was an apropos metaphor for our catastrophic involvement in the river deltas and rain forests of Vietnam . Perhaps our American pundits and wordsmiths--William Safire...
Nightmare on Elm; Dark Day in Dealey
Douglas Herman
2003-11-13 17:00
No matter what you might think of the Kennedy Assassination, whether you believe one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone or that a conspiracy brutally killed the president, the fact remains that a shift in America 's perception of itself occurred soon after November 22, 1963 . A subtle mistrust of the government began to fester, compounded eventually by the war in Vietnam , Watergate , Iran /...
Soldier: Just Say No, I Won't Go
Douglas Herman
2003-10-28 17:00
A phony war, a dangerous assignment, a complaisant nation. And I was caught in the middle. Tough being a teenage male during the largest build-up since Pearl Harbor , during the escalation of Vietnam in 1968. Tougher still not being comfortable with the choices and options. You see, I graduated from high school that year and, being an average student without much family means and the draft...
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