Charley Reese

When someone asked me recently what movies I had seen, I had to reply honestly: Looney Tunes, Home on the Range, Shrek, Brother Bear, and Peter Pan. One of my grandsons has just reached the age where he enjoys movies, and I love to take him. Hearing him laugh is one of the great pleasures … Continue reading “A Sense of Wonder”

We would do better if, instead of being sheep and complacently accepting the words of politicians as edicts from God, we were like children who always ask that innocent question, “Why?” Over and over we hear the statement “The United States cannot afford to fail in Iraq.” Even John Kerry says that. Well, why? What … Continue reading “Better to Be Children”

If you have any sense of justice, do not allow the United States government to make scapegoats out of a few enlisted people at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. That, of course, is exactly what Washington has in mind, and it has already begun the process. When this story first broke, I said it … Continue reading “End Self-Delusion”

Where I grew up, the code of the hills says (among many other things) to never talk a bigger game than you are prepared to play. The United States has done this twice in Iraq and now has egg on its face that no amount of Washington spin can clean off. Example No. 1 is … Continue reading “Big Talk”

It’s ironic that at a time when the whole world is disgusted by pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused by thugs and sluts in American uniforms, an American doctor in Germany reports that Thomas Hamill was reasonably well-treated by his Iraqi kidnappers. A bullet wound received at the time of Hamill’s capture had been treated … Continue reading “Ironic Difference”

If you step back a moment and think about it, you will realize that you are constantly being propagandized to approve of war – not just the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but war generically. We should resist. War is killing, maiming and disfiguring human beings. It is so disgusting and horrible in reality that … Continue reading “War Propaganda”

President George W. Bush has said he hasn’t made any mistakes. I can think of lots of mistakes he’s made. He failed to prevent the attacks on Sept. 11. Say what you will, those attacks occurred on his watch and are his responsibility. The Aug. 6 memo the CIA prepared for him would have told … Continue reading “Lots of Mistakes”

Here’s another bit of evidence that when the United States condones the bloody ways of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Americans pay for it with their blood. I never saw this reported in the mainstream media, but libertarian Justin Raimondo quotes a group that claims credit for the murder and mutilation of four American mercenaries … Continue reading “The Bloody Cost”

Americans, instead of acting like sheep, ought to start thinking of a peaceful world and how we might attain it. It is possible. The benefits of peace would be enormous. The conflict currently being used to sustain America’s vast empire (more than 700 foreign military bases and intelligence installations) and its attendant military-industrial complex is … Continue reading “Peace Is Possible”

The basic flaw in the neoconservative ideology is that democracy cannot be imposed on other people at the point of a gun. Furthermore, if neoconservatives came from an American tradition rather than a Trotskyite tradition, they would understand that America itself is not a democracy. Benjamin Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Convention and a lady … Continue reading “The Basic Flaw in Neoconservatism”