Here’s guest blogger Dr. Barry Pascal, ready and willing to celebrate the 237th anniversary of our declared national independence and—fortunately for us—able to clear up a few historical misconceptions about how we got here, and what it’s all about. Alfie.
Tom Diaz & I—My NRA Experience
Picking up from Tuesday’s post, Tom Diaz & I—The 94th & 103rd Congresses, and Now: By far, the strongest impressions left on me by the whole experience came from our interactions with representatives of the NRA and their allies. This is not your father’s organization.
Tom Diaz & I—The 94th & 103rd Congresses, and Now
After I’d read, mostly agreed with, and reviewed Tom Diaz’ The Last Gun (see last Friday’s post), I was curious about his background beneath the usual book blurbs, so I scratched a little deeper.
“The Last Gun:” Gun Violence, the NRA & Its Allies
Suppose we approached the problem of gun violence in America in the same manner as other significant public health hazards—such as, say, passenger vehicle fatalities and injuries—by using data analysis, science, and innovation to make a useful but demonstrably dangerous instrumentality safer?
Reconcile & Repair–Natives, Braceros & Plutocrats
Picking up from last Tuesday: For Native Americans, it’s been complicated—no real apology yet, but their side’s leverage is improving. It’s beyond argument, of course, that this continent’s original owners—a Euro-centered, possession-oriented classification they rejected spiritually—have been done wrong.
Reconcile & Repair–Precedent: Nikkei
Picking up from last Friday: We’ve succeeded at reconciliation and reparations before—for Japanese Americans.
Reconcile & Repair: How?
Picking up from last Tuesday: How could we as a Nation reconcile with people of color for our past actions and what could we do to make it right? Kudos to our re-elected President for celebrating the progress we’ve made since his 16th predecessor and his allies freed the slaves.
Reconciliation?
Lance Armstrong notwithstanding, it is said confession is good for the soul. I attended a remarkable event last Thursday at the Crest Theatre.
Black Patriots Live!
I have some wonderful news to share. In a previous post, amid several I did on the early history of our federal Constitution, I reproduced a draft op-ed piece my former colleague and old friend, Maurice Barboza, wrote on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of its approval in Philadelphia in 1787.
Is the U.S. Senate Obsolete–II?
Picking up from last Friday: Fixing the filibuster: the “Nuclear Option?” Fun Fact: One historian believes that the filibuster originated, not as a deliberate and cherished bulwark against runaway majoritarianism, but as a mistake.