Category Archives: U.S. history

Thoughts for Armistice Day 2022

The Washington Post reports variously today that the U.S. government is either “privately encouraging” or more actively “pushing” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to reconsider his stance against negotiating with Russia so long as Vladimir Putin remains President. The more deeply reported of those accounts, the “privately encouraging” one, is sourced to “people close to the … Continue reading Thoughts for Armistice Day 2022

Two-piece swimsuits and the trivialization of nuclear terror

On August 6, 1945, the U.S. Air Force dropped a single atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb had the explosive power of some 15,000 tons of TNT. It ignited a fire- and wind-storm that destroyed everything in the city except a few unusually sturdy structures and released plumes of radiation that … Continue reading Two-piece swimsuits and the trivialization of nuclear terror

Quakers and settler colonialism before William Penn

Last week, I wrote three blog posts about the involvement of Quakers in various phases of the White-supremacist settler-colonial project here in Turtle Island (the United States.) But all those phases were after the allocation by England’s King Charles II of a huge chunk of land in Turtle Island to the Quaker William Penn, which … Continue reading Quakers and settler colonialism before William Penn

White settlers with “good intentions”

Earlier this week, I wrote about some of the activities undertaken by the Indian Affairs Committee of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting (BYM) of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers.) Amazingly, that committee has been in continuous– or sometimes, possibly a bit sporadic?– operation since 1795 CE. In that blog post, I interrogated the commonly voiced … Continue reading White settlers with “good intentions”

Baltimore Quakers & westward expansion in the early United States

On Monday, I wrote about the involvement of Quakers in William Penn’s settler-colonial project in Turtle Island in the 17th century CE. Now, I want to fast-forward to the early 19th century CE, and start looking at the involvement of Baltimore Quakers in various stages of the ongoing westward expansion of the project, which was … Continue reading Baltimore Quakers & westward expansion in the early United States

My January Syndrome strikes again…

On Friday, I sent out an “institutional” email blast on behalf of Just World Educational, the non-profit educational org that I founded in late 2015 and have headed ever since. That email/newsletter took me much longer than usual to write, hampered as I am by the eye problem that first struck me in early November… … Continue reading My January Syndrome strikes again…

UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers

Bill the spouse and I have been lucky enough to get away from Washington DC for a few days, to enjoy the relatively bucolic charms of our former stomping-grounds in Charlottesville, Va. Today, we walked over to the Memorial for Enslaved Laborers that the University of Virginia opened on its famed “Grounds” recently. It is … Continue reading UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers

The British genocides against Australian First Nations

I’ve been researching and thinking a lot about the forms of settler colonialism unleashed and maintained by “White” European nations– mainly, my own people-of-birth, the British– against people of color in many parts of the world. At times, doing this research– reading these accounts, seeing and trying to understand these pictures– makes me deeply, deeply … Continue reading The British genocides against Australian First Nations

“White” European domination of the world screeches to an end

Last week, I had the pleasure of conversing with Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr, on the  “World After Covid” webinar series that Just World Educational has been running. Freeman, you may remember, was the man notably removed from consideration as Barack Obama’s first Director of National Intelligence because the pro-Israel lobby wanted to ensure that … Continue reading “White” European domination of the world screeches to an end

Powerful new testimonies from Black American veterans of the corporate media

The sustained outpouring of #BlackLivesMatter and related pro-justice activism right across the United States has been pushing important– and in most cases, long-overdue– change at many levels. One level is that of “high-end corporate media”, where just in the past week I have read three very moving essays by Black-American writers  who have seemingly felt … Continue reading Powerful new testimonies from Black American veterans of the corporate media