"the sky is still that same unbelievable blue..."
Will you ever forget what that looked like?
Bruce Springsteen has been with me through many of the most painful and difficult, as well as bittersweet and beautiful, times of my life. Since I was a feshman in college, for decades, like an old friend I never met Bruce has been there to help me find my way. From the irresistable attractions of freedom, girls and cars, to the painful paradoxes of hardship and cruelty in the land of plenty, to the agonizing marathon of trying to sustain love and keep true to yourself, to growing older and facing changes you haven't chosen, to the spectacular horrors and routine heroism of 9-11 and Iraq, Bruce was always there before me, thinking his way through some of the hardest and most wonderful parts of this life. There are lots of musicians and storytellers that I can appreciate on one level or another, but Bruce keeps on telling the story of my life before I even realize what it is. And on top of all that, he fucking rocks. PAF is not generally given to hero worship; but if I could choose someone to buy a beer and say thanks for making my life a little clearer, a little better: Bruce.
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Anti anti-fascists scanning the ether for signs of dissent, disloyalty, and defeatism.
Occasional thoughts about political life in 21st century America
Anti anti-fascists scanning the ether for signs of dissent, disloyalty, and defeatism.
Premature Anti-Fascist
Returning to America from the Spanish Civil War, veterans of the International Brigades who fought against Franco in the republican cause were said to have been branded as Premature Anti-Fascists. That is, they opposed fascism before World War II, before everyone was supposed to oppose fascism, and therefore were likely to be communist subversives, presumptively disloyal because they fought the fascists too soon. Whether the US government actually used the term itself is now contested by anti-communist historians (although it would be difficult to deny the actual persecution of communists and dissidents in 20th century America). I use it for the name of my blog because, in my darker moments, I worry about the proto-fascist tendencies I see at work in America and because, whether the US government or the Brigadists themselves invented the term, it seems to me a bittersweet badge of honor. For more on the Lincolns, see Peter Carroll, The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
What Price Empire?
PAF recommends for News:
PAF's Book List: Some Recommendations
- Walter Hixson, The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and US Foreign Policy
- James Carroll, House of War: The Pentagon and the disastrous rise of American Power
- James William Gibson, Warrior Dreams: Violence and Manhood in post-Vietnam America
- H. Bruce Franklin, MIA: Mythmaking in America
- Jerry Lembke, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam
- Susan Faludi, The Terror Dream
- Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism
- David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism
- Larry Everest, Oil, Power, and Empire
- Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow
- Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris
- Thomas Ricks, Fiasco
- Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis
- Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone
- Gary Dorrien, Imperial Designs
- Malise Ruthven, A Fury for God
- Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack
- Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion
- Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America