No Leader

Items of Interest, 20 September 2011

Andrew Kern, The Place of Logic and the Place of Philosophy

Holy Resurrection Monastery: Latest on the Movie

NPR: In The Obama White House, A Crisis Of 'Confidence'

Community Policing, Afghan-Style by by Kelley B. Vlahos

A documentary in the works: Farmlandia

Thoughts on a Sustainable Human Ecosystem

Slow is the New Black: Why Slow Money is the Next Best Thing IMHO

Karen De Coster reviews Paleo Comfort Food

TV:
The two strongest competitors on the most recent episode of Hell's Kitchen made it to the finals. Good!

Music:
Chant Cafe: ATHLETA PATRIAE A Tribute to Professor László Dobszay (1935-2011)
Handel and Hayden Society adds four years contract with Harry Christophers
Music for Henry V the House of Lancaster
Alamire: Sample John Taverner: Imperatrix inferni

Identity and the National Military

Watching the ridge line

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Neil Nunez from San Pedro, Calif., of Task Force Black Knight, Co. A, 3-66th Armor Reg., 172nd Inf. Bde., watches the ridge line behind the platoon to make sure that no one is following them near the village of Sar Howza, Paktika province, Afghanistan, Aug. 10, 2011. U.S. Army Photo by Spc. Jacob Kohrs

Begun on June 8.

Adding some more thoughts to the footnote in this post. Nothing really new here, I've written bits and pieces elsewhere, but google search for the blog does not seem to be working. (Problem with the browser?)

Are those serving in the national military, especially the lifers, prone to accepting the "proposition nation" as what explains what it means to be American? The lack of roots or ties to their home community and to their host communities (the civilian community surrounding their base), the mobility that is necessitated by transfers and change in assignments would be contributing factors in the weakening of identity. Given the way units are manned, they are from all over the country, probably lacking a cohesive regional or state identity.

How about ethnic identity? Is this strong, within the military? Some would claim that it is not, but it depends on the unit and the specialty. There may be more racial integration within combat units than within support units, because of the demands of combat. The bonds of affection based on the brotherhood of arms and what soldiers do for one another are primary.

The institutional culture of the military appears to dominates everything else, as there is very little participation in local culture. (Particularly in the South? A disdain of the natives as backwards and uneducated seems to be common.) The military cannot but take Americans as they are, and they are mostly consumers of mass entertainment. Base life does very little to change this.

Lacking a local or regional identity, what are they left with except a national identity? It's the only constant despite all of their moving and changes of personnel. It does seem that most of those who are in the military (at least those in combat arms) are Republicans, embracing small-government conservatism, fiscal conservatism, and defense and upholding of the Constitution-- but this is all compatible with the proposition nation.

The U.S. Army is not like the National Guard in this respect. But even the National Guard is affected by the mobility of its members. How much loyalty to the state is there among NG members? I have read that most of those serving in the military are from the South. Is this true especially of combat units in the Army? How do the demographics differ among the various branches of the U.S. military?


Something of interest to Sarge?
A former Lt. Colonel in SF is running for Congress in Virginia.

Gen. David H. Petraeus retirement

U.S. Army General David H. Petraeus reviews troops at his retirement ceremony and Armed Forces Farewell, Joint Base Meyer-Henderson Hall, Va., August 31, 2011. Petraeus is retiring after a 37-year career to become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Released)

Items of Interest, 29 April 2011

I enjoyed the following:
Jason Peters, Let's Build a Dumber Planet

Other links:
Ray McGovern, Petraeus at CIA
G. I. Wilson, USMC Ret., Careerism and Psychopathy in the US Military
Norman Solomon, Time to Close California's Nuclear Plants
Charles Davis, Is Ron Paul More Progressive Than Obama?
Gareth Porter, The Torture Mill
Ralph Nader, Chernobyl 25 Years Later

Time to wake up: Days of abundant resources and falling prices are over forever
Jeremy Grantham, The Oil Drum

The Oil Crunch
by Catalyst Online Edition (updated with interview excerpts) (EB)

Cornerstones of a Rooted Economy by Robin Broad, John Cavanagh

Economic Resilience #4. Resilience-building businesses and industries
Joanne Poyourow, Transition US

Live webchat with Asher Miller, Bart Anderson and Richard Heinberg - transcript
by Staff

Archeology not agriculture teaches good farming
Gene Logsdon, The Contrary Farmer Blog

What Exactly Does Fair Trade Mean? by Leah Douglas

Gareth Porter, Deferring to Petraeus

Counterpunch

Despite evidence that the Taliban insurgency had grown significantly in 2010, the U.S. intelligence community failed to revise its estimate for Taliban forces as part of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan in December.


That unusual decision was in deference to Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S.-NATO forces in Afghanistan, who did not want any official estimate of the insurgency's strength that would contradict his claims of success by Special Operations Forces in reducing the capabilities of the Taliban in 2010.

Gareth Porter on the Sunnis and the Surge

Turning Iraq Into a "Good War"

Items of Interest, 16 August 2010

Kirkpatrick Sale, "To the Size of States There Is a Limit": Measurements for the Success of Secession (via The Ohio Republic)

Oz Conservative: Delusions of gender?

Theodore Dalrymple, Our Binge Drinking Culture is a Living Hell for Everyone

Counterpunch:
Franklin C. Spinney, How the Defense Industry is Hosing Obama and the Taxpayer ... Again
Paul Craig Roberts, The Ecstasy of Empire
Jayne Lyn Stahl, Petraeus Speaks
Ralph Nader, Hopes Dimming
Gareth Porter, Top Israeli Generals and Intel Officials Oppose Striking Iran
Shamus Cooke, Is Obama Playing With Nuclear Fire?
Daniel Robelo, Mexico Considers Legalizing Drugs
David Michael Green, Losing It at the White House

Gen. Petraeus's COIN suggestions

The document, in pdf format. (Link from Kelley Vlahos's Papa Petreaus lays it on thick.)

Items of Interest, 2 July 2010

Life After RC: Questions about Apostolic Schools and Thoughts on the Legion's future
Dawn Eden, The Holy Ghost in the Machine: Amidst the Legion Crisis, a Sign of Providence

NLM: Review of "Heaven and Earth in Little Space: The Re-Enchantment of Liturgy"

Daniel Larison, Stuck In The Past

CHT: Obama Regime pushes for Three Mass Amnesties

Mark Sisson, How to Improve Your Sleep Posture

Defense Review: Latest-Variant Smith & Wesson (S&W) M&P Tactical AR (AR-15) Rifle/Carbine/SBRs for Special Operations Forces (SOF) Displayed at SOFIC 2010: Ambidextrous Controls!

Asia Times:
'Surge' smoke follows Petraeus to Afpak
As General David Petraeus, the mainstream US media's new armored Messiah, takes command in Afghanistan, the myth of his "successful surge" in Iraq could not but linger. Anyone who buys the Pentagon's spin and believes the same conquest will happen in the Pashtun south and southeast of Afghanistan must have smoked Hindu Kush's finest. - Pepe Escobar

Counter-insurgency down for the count
The United States' Afghanistan strategy isn't working, which raises several key questions. Why does President Barack Obama fire a failing general but cling to his failing war policy? And if nothing much is working, why does it still go on non-stop? It's because Afghanistan has become an ill-oiled war machine generating ever-more incentives for almost everyone involved - except ordinary Afghans. - Ann Jones

Counterpunch:
Vijay Prashad, A Disaster Foretold: BP, Obama and the Gulf
Ralph Nader, Tyranny of the Merchant Class
John Stanton, General Petraeus' Magic Bag

Items of Interest, 29 June 2010

Laura Wood, Twilight: Emotional Porn for Women
Wlmer, Women Leaving their Husbands for Vampires

Asia Times:
Petraeus circles two camps
With General Stanley McChrystal out of the picture in Afghanistan, pressure is growing on US President Barack Obama to move up his July 2011 troop withdrawal timetable and get behind a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. Voices calling for an open-ended military commitment are equally strident. Incoming General David Petraeus is soon to reveal how he will weave his way between the two camps. - Jim Lobe

Obama risks all on flip of a COIN
General David Petraeus, US President Barack Obama's new commander in Afghanistan, is the "guru" of the counter-insurgency (COIN) cult. Petraeus' policy demands a decade-long war, involving nation-building, waged village by village, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars and countless casualties. That simply doesn't square with troops supposedly due to start leaving Afghanistan next summer. - Robert Dreyfuss

Energy Bulletin:
Live dangerously: 10 easy steps (original)

Shannon Hayes, Yes! Magazine

When I first released Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, I was advised to make a list of “easy steps for becoming a radical homemaker” as part of my publicity outreach materials. My shoulders slumped at the very thought: Three years of research about the social, economic, and ecological significance of homemaking, and I had to reduce it to 10 easy tips? I didn’t see a to-do list as a viable route to a dramatic shift in thinking, beliefs, and behaviors.

Items of Interest, 28 June 2010

A review of the LWRCI M6A2 in Guns & Ammo.

The Prisoner of Gen. Petraeus by Patrick J. Buchanan

Zenit:
Pope's Homily at Vespers for Sts. Peter and Paul
"The Church Is an Immense Force of Renewal in the World"

Papal Address to Orthodox Delegation
"Your Presence ... Brings Great Gladness to the Hearts of Us All"

Asia Times:
Macau chief Chui talks the talk
In his first six months in office, Macau chief executive Fernando Chui Sai-on has said all the right things - from promising new public housing units to protecting local workers from imported labor. But many in Macau wonder when his actions will begin to match his good intentions. - Muhammad Cohen

Truly detached from war (original)
The newest American form of war, drones, captures perfectly a larger detachment from the wars the United States fights. This is not just the separation by thousands of kilometers of pilots from the battlefields on which they shoot their missiles, but the very detachment of the American public from the conflicts they send their army (and a vast corps of for-profit private contractors) out to fight. - Tom Engelhardt

Energy Bulletin:
Wine, local food, and local resilience, Part 4 (original)

Don Plummer, The Trillium Patch

In this series’ previous post, we discussed making wine at home as a possible solution to wine availability in an age of declining cheap energy. In this the final post of this series, we will discuss in some detail the advantages of home grape growing and wine making. Along the way, we’ll mention organic viticulture methods and briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of specific grape varieties that might be considered for a home vineyard.

Robert Dreyfuss, Mesmerized by COIN

Items of Interest, 25 June 2010

Zenit:
What to Do About Pornography (Part 2)
Papal Address to Aid Agencies for Eastern Churches
"We All Desire ... Stable Peace and Solid Coexistence"

Asia News:
Pope: peace in the Middle East grows out of respect for human rights and religious freedom
Receiving the assembly of Roaco, Benedict XVI renewed his appeal to the leaders of nations to fight all forms of discrimination "in a concrete way". Christians in the region must seek, despite violence and difficulties, to remain "where they are born."

Hu Jintao to defend yuan at G20
The Chinese president agrees to greater flexibility for the yuan, but for hawks in Congress, it is not enough. Hu is in Canada where he will meet Obama. For the US leader, changes in China’s currency policy are a first step, “but it’s too early to tell.”

Counterpunch:
Winslow T. Wheeler, General Petraeus and His Senate Vassals
Michael Hudson, Europe's Fiscal Dystopia: the "New Austerity" Road
Ralph Nader, Losing It at the Airport Checkpoint
David Rosen, The New Abortion Wars
Anthony DiMaggio, No Repeal of Whaling Ban: US Says It's a Major Loss--For Whales!
Adam Engel, The System and the Drug War
Patrick Bond, What South Africa Really Lost at the World Cup
Charles R. Larson, No Room With a View

Energy Bulletin:
Less is more (original)
Joanne Poyourow, Transition US

Within the body of Transition movement literature, I don't often see references to the Simple Living or Voluntary Simplicity movement. Perhaps the Voluntary Simplicity movement is less active in the places that Transition founders Rob and Naresh have lived. Perhaps it is because at its origins, Voluntary Simplicity focused more on individual choices and individual changes than on community-centric and societal-transformation ones. I can only speculate.

Acres and pains (original)

Gene Logsdon, Organic to Be

There is a delightfully droll old book by that name lamenting the ways that nature humbles and humiliates farmers every step of the way from planting to harvest. I have been a victim of nature’s whims (my whims really) this spring and I’ve got the acres and the aches to prove it.

The doomer's curse (original)

Mickey Foley, Riding the Rubicon

This is the Doomer's Curse: to wallow in despair, to sneer at the happiness of others, to revel in schadenfreude and to believe that he has humanity's best interests at heart. The Doomer honestly thinks that a universal depression (in the emotional sense) would lay the foundation for a better world, but this belief is rooted in his own selfishness, not in a rational socioeconomic analysis.

The Trillium Patch: wine, local food, and local resilience, part 3 (original)

Don Plummer, The Trillium Patch

Gene Logsdon writes that his inspiration for home wine making is not the large industrial-scale wineries of California or the commercial cellars of Europe, both of which produce high-quality wines, but the back yards of German and Italian immigrants in American cities from the late 1800s through much of the 20th century. They would make wine out of “everything from rhubarb to dandelions, but especially Concord and Delaware grapes” (Logsdon 78). I believe Logsdon has observed something valuable and useful that will allow the production of quality wines to continue in eastern North America after cheap energy is no longer available. I want to explore this idea here in Part 3.

Related Links:
Cecile Andrews
Less is More Simplicity with Cecile Andrews
New Society Publishers, Google Books

Porn No More
Pornography Addiction Recovery and Support

COIN still the order of the day.

US President Barack Obama, General David Petraeus, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates (R) make their way through the Colonnade for Obama to make a statement in the Rose Garden June 23, 2010 at the White House in Washington, DC. Obama announced the resignation of Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal and named Petraeus as his replacement. (Getty/Daylife)

(L-R)US General David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, US Vice President Joe Biden, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen make their way through the Colonnade for a statement by US President Barack Obama in the Rose Garden June 23, 2010 at the White House in Washington, DC. Obama announced the resignation of Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal and named Petraeus as his replacement. (Getty/Daylife)

WASHINGTON - JUNE 23: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) makes a statement as (L-R) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, Vice President Joseph Biden, Commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates listen in the Rose Garden of the White House June 23, 2010 in Washington, DC. Obama has named Gen. Petraeus to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as top commander of the U.S. Force in Afghanistan, after an article quoting Gen. McChrystal disparaging the Obama Administration was published in Rolling Stone magazine. (Getty/Daylife)

WASHINGTON - JUNE 23: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) announces his decision to put U.S. Army Gen. David Petreaus (R) in charge of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan with Vice President Joe Biden (L) in the Rose Garden of the White House June 23, 2010 in Washington, DC. Obama accepted the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal after a Rolling Stone magazine article quoted Gen. McChrystal disparaging Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other leaders in the administration. (Getty/Daylife)

U.S. President Barack Obama announces that Gen. David Petraeus will replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as his top commander in Afghanistan while in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, June 23, 2010. (Reuters/Daylife)

WASHINGTON - JUNE 23: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen (R) and Commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus (L) leave after U.S. President Barack Obama (C) made a statement in the Rose Garden of the White House June 23, 2010 in Washington, DC. Obama has named Gen. Petraeus to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as top commander of the U.S. Force in Afghanistan, after an article quoting Gen. McChrystal disparaging the Obama Administration was published in Rolling Stone magazine. (Getty/Daylife)

From earlier that morning:





US commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal (C) arrives at the White House in Washington,DC on June 23, 2010. President Barack Obama is to confront his top commander in Afghanistan amid speculation that the four-star US general might be fired for disparaging remarks in a magazine article. (Getty/Daylife)