July 2020: As the book approaches publication WITHOUT an introduction, I decided to repost this from ten years ago, when it was still under the aegis of UC Press and Chelsea Manning was still imprisoned at Quantico. The book evolved as well, but the themes below whisper from between its pages. It’s been a long timeContinue reading “Notes toward an introduction”
Category Archives: American Revolution
For Constitution Day, a few days late
Or, what our dissenting soldiers might have thought of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. In Philadelphia that September, President Washington joined many signers of the Declaration of Independence to discuss revision of the Articles of Confederation, the document governing the way the country was put together. Many came with ideas: James Madison had drafted a “VirginiaContinue reading “For Constitution Day, a few days late”
No #47traitors here;The Logan Act’s namesake just wanted peace with France
If you’ve been following national politics some, you may have heard, from both the left and the right, people naming the “Logan Act” as a way to penalize those Republican senators who sent a letter to Tehran behind Obama’s back. This isn’t the site for it, so I’ll leave it to Charlie Pierce to explainContinue reading “No #47traitors here;The Logan Act’s namesake just wanted peace with France”
“Canada! Canada! Canada!”
Canada’s long history as a refuge gave young people like Kimberly Rivera, like Joshua Key, like the estimated hundreds still underground, hope that they’d be welcome in the human family, with their struggles respected. Canada deserves its image as a haven, however clouded. And if it yet again embraced its role as a refuge from militarism, we would all be the richer for it, on both sides of the border.
“the poor and Midling will bear the burden”
How early whistleblowers, “white Indians,” and those darn Quakers showed that the newest soldiers weren’t about to lose their rights. Excerpts of my upcoming book.
Revision sneak peek: preview of chapter one
Some longtime observers may note that I changed the tag for one of the book’s themes, leaving Jerry Maguire behind for the less-pop-culture-y War costs. Who pays?
the first lying promise to veterans: outtakes from 1785
When I’m not tracking that moving target, I’m making my last swim through the rest of the book, to tighten the prose and strengthen its themes. Of course, since I’m the one doing it, that latter task means just-a-little-more-research-please — sifting through old files and asking the scholarship for bits that belong in that zig-zagContinue reading “the first lying promise to veterans: outtakes from 1785”
Nashville tea party? Not.
I wake up and the ‘nets are buzzing with a speech last night made in Nashville by that shapeshifter from Alaska (Governor? Talk show host? Avatar?). But another quiet buzz came in a report about another Battle of Nashville, one that was hardly a tea party. Unsurprisingly, it’s from a Fort Campbell-oriented paper, Clarksville Leaf-Courier, aboutContinue reading “Nashville tea party? Not.”
what we write about when we write about war
My current bookshelf is weirdly focused. The collection might seem a bit scary, if you didn’t know I was writing a book. (“What kind of obsessed veteran lives here?”) When you know, some of what’s here might then seem obvious: David Cortright’s Soldiers in Revolt, Kingston’s Veterans of Peace anthology, the trauma stuff ( JonathanContinue reading “what we write about when we write about war”
I Ain't Marching Anymore 