John Baker’s Blog

On AlterNet, David Michael Green, professor of political science at Hofstra University, examines some aspects of American Foreign Policy and asks, If America Loves Peace So Much, Why Are We Always At War?
Maybe we can detect America’s dislike for war in another metric, say military spending. Oops. Turns out that’s going to be a bit [...]

Extract from a speech by Heinrich Himmler, to Schutzstaffel (SS) officers at Poznan on the 4th October,1943:
In the months that have gone by since we met in June 1942 many of our comrades were killed, giving their lives for Germany and the Fuhrer. In the first rank - and I ask you to rise in [...]

It weren’t me I don’t ‘member being there. No sir.
This’s not how I’d do and I never left this place to do nothing. Not me. I’d sure ‘member something like that. I’m not going down for something like that. I’m clean in this respect.
Permission to speak, sir?
Some other guy might’ve but I wasn’t the one [...]

How much are we allowed to know about those we love?
Joseph’s crippling post-traumatic stress comes from an incident that happened during his time in the army in Ireland. The event itself may not have been traumatic to another soldier. Someone was killed, but only during the normal course of duty. There was no bomb involved, [...]