Tom Engelhardt

An editor in publishing for the last 25 years, Tom Engelhardt is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War era, now out in a revised edition with a new preface and afterword, and Mission Unaccomplished, TomDispatch Interviews With American Iconoclasts and Dissenters. He is at present consulting editor for Metropolitan Books, a fellow of the Nation Institute, and a teaching fellow at the journalism school of the University of California, Berkeley. Visit his Web site. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com.

Edward Gibbon at America’s Grave

1. Twin Towers Two years from now the staffs of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker will move into the most haunted building in the world. There, the elite of American celebrity photographers, gossip columnists, and magazine journalists may meet some macabre new muses. Aloft in the upper stories of 1 World Trade Center (where … Continue reading “Edward Gibbon at America’s Grave”

Let’s Cancel 9/11

Let’s bag it. I’m talking about the tenth anniversary ceremonies for 9/11, and everything that goes with them: the solemn reading of the names of the dead, the tolling of bells, the honoring of first responders, the gathering of presidents, the dedication of the new memorial, the moments of silence.  The works. Let’s just can it all.  Shut … Continue reading “Let’s Cancel 9/11”

Taking the Justice Out of the Justice System

Can you even remember the world before 9/11? You know, the one where you weren’t stripped in the airport or body-wanded at the ballpark? It’s as much a lost world as anything Conan Doyle ever imagined. And it seems there’s no turning back. An administration voted into office by a populace tired of George W. … Continue reading “Taking the Justice Out of the Justice System”

The Pentagon’s Spending Spree

China just launched a refitted Ukrainian aircraft carrier from the 1990s on its first test run — and that’s what the only projected “great power” enemy of the U.S. has to offer for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, the U.S. Navy has 11 aircraft carrier task forces to cruise the seven seas and plans … Continue reading “The Pentagon’s Spending Spree”

Uncovering the Military’s Secret Military

In “Getting bin Laden,” Nicholas Schmidle’s New Yorker report on the assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, here’s the money sentence, according to Noah Shachtman of Wired Magazine’s Danger Room blog: “The Abbottabad raid was not DEVGRU’s maiden venture into Pakistan, either. The team had surreptitiously entered the country on ten to … Continue reading “Uncovering the Military’s Secret Military”

Lowering America’s War Ceiling?

By now, it seems as if everybody and his brother has joined the debt-ceiling imbroglio in Washington, perhaps the strangest homespun drama of our time. It’s as if Washington’s leading political players, aided and abetted by the media’s love of the horse race, had eaten LSD-laced brownies, then gone on stage before an audience of … Continue reading “Lowering America’s War Ceiling?”

Ballpark Liturgy: America’s New Civic Religion

Post-9/11, doesn’t it seem as though all American experience is blending into a single experience whose label is "your safety"?  Which means, in practical terms, you get poked, prodded, searched, and surveilled wherever you go. The other day, I went to the ballpark to see my team, the Mets, play the Florida Marlins.  It’s always … Continue reading “Ballpark Liturgy: America’s New Civic Religion”