January 2014

The Heritage IS Hate!

2016-12-28T21:37:56+00:00January 31st, 2014|Culture|

Originally published (in a superior layout) on Medium.

This is a story about rednecks, the Confederate flag, and the time everyone thought my school was going to get shot up. It’s all true and I wish it wasn’t.

Chances are you feel a couple different things when you see this particular flag on display.

Historically, it exists as an artifact of America’s divided past. In the modern day, it stands as a symbol of choice for the nation’s political fringe. Above all else, it’s a reminder that certain groups of people were once beaten, hunted, and dehumanized, all because of the color of their skin. They suffered these wrongs beneath the banner of the Confederate Flag.

Of course, make these points in certain parts of the country (the parts I’m from) and you’re liable to be shouted down. “Heritage, not Hate!” the cries of protest go. There is a strong and enduring counternarrative that the flag is just that — a flag — easily divorced from its racist roots and screed.

This argument is also bullshit. To disentangle it, let’s start from the beginning. (more…)

March 2013

Iraq

2016-12-28T21:37:57+00:00March 20th, 2013|Defense|

Originally published March 20, 2013

I was in the 8th grade, riding back from an oboe lesson, when President Bush crackled on the radio and declared the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I wasn’t sure why we were going to war. I didn’t know the first thing about Iraq and I certainly couldn’t find it on a map.

Over the next few days, I caught daily glimpses of the CNN feed over Baghdad, after lunch and before Algebra. American airpower made for beautiful pyrotechnics; I remember hoping those buildings were deserted. The campaign from the air was followed by a brilliant campaign of maneuver – Saddam Hussein’s army crumpled in five weeks.

Iraqi Freedom wasn’t really over, of course. By late high school – 05-07 – American servicemen were dying at a rate far exceeding those initial few weeks of invasion. In that period, I discovered politics and became a leftie, using Iraq as a catalyst. I wrote my first op ed about the horrors of the war, citing white phosphorus, American imperialism, and Bush the war criminal. It all seemed very straightforward: black and white, right and wrong.

(more…)

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