J. Arthur Bloom is the blog's editor, opinion editor of the Daily Caller, and an occasional contributor to the Umlaut. He was formerly associate editor of the American Conservative and a music reviewer at Tiny Mix Tapes, and graduated from William and Mary in 2011. He lives in Washington, DC, and can be found, far too often, on Twitter.
My latest at TheDC is about the libertarian-realist convergence, why it scares the neocons, and how the Koch brothers are more anti-war than the Center for American Progress:
There’s something sublimely Machiavellian in the fact that the Kochs and those funded by them are more anti-war than the Center for American Progress. The right-wing billionaire might have a lot of pull, but the thing he’s pulling on is aliberal hegemony, though it’s comprised of neoconservatives and liberal hawks. The insurgencies we support usually talk about things like democracy and human rights; left-wing values, not right-wing ones — we take down autocrats and make the world safe for gay rights and democracy. And if you’re part of the permanent revolution, you better obey the party rules.
Read the speech here. Everyone should read his books too, especially this one on American secession movements. Here’s the piece I wrote about the movie he wrote.
The first one is out now, please share with your friends, along with a little explanation of what the blog is. I hope to send them out weekly, certainly no more frequently than that.
I’m enlisted on the road,
I’m almost done traveling,
Enlisted on the road.
I’m bound to go where Jesus is,
My soul shall ascend where Jesus is,
To enjoy the peaceful home of rest.
I’m bound to go where Jesus is,
And be there forever blest.
It’s a mighty rocky road,
I’m almost done traveling,
A mighty rocky road,
I’m bound to go where Jesus is.
I’ve a Father on the road,
He’s almost done traveling,
A Father on the road.
He’s bound to go where Jesus is,
His soul shall ascend where Jesus is,
To enjoy the peaceful home of rest.
He’s bound to go where Jesus is,
And be there forever blest.
The Obama administration is abandoning plans to treat the OHA as a tribe, but is apparently still planning to screw over sovereignty supporters:
Because of the overwhelming numbers of testifiers throughout Hawai`i as well as the US that stated they were against the DOI proposed plans, both in person at the hearings and online, the US Department of Interior itself has decided not to issue any new rules or re-recognition.
However, because those few who would stand to benefit directly from such a move have lobbied the White House intensely, the Obama administration will instead either issue an executive policy statement (as was done in Alaska) federally recognizing the Native Hawaiian roll, or they will instruct the DOI to issue an administrative policy that the Obama administration will then support.
Either of these actions are actually worse than any DOI rule making.
This yet to be announced policy statement will empower OHA and the Roll Commission to form a governing entity that will be rubber stamped with no oversight or advance public input whatsoever.
Bill Kauffman’s speech at LPAC this year (read the whole thing). I called Campaign for Liberty yesterday to get on their case for taking so long to put the speech on YouTube. Hopefully it’ll be up soon, I’ll post it here when it is:
Under the Hillary Clintons and the bevy of squawking Republican chickenhawks, America is never to be a country at peace. We would live out our lives in a bleak future of endless war, endless mobilization, in a regimented and increasingly paranoid nation on red alert. Peace, to our mandarins, is unthinkable. An America that is small, that is modest, that is humble, that speaks in a dizzingly beautiful variety of accents: unthinkable.
That nightmare bears no resemblance to the country that is in my heart and in my eyes. Their empire isn’t a country at all—it’s the cold projection of military might, of political influence—it’s the enemy, above all, of the real America, the Little America, the America that plays the unheard music.
I am a patriot. And I love my country. And this country is only healthy insofar as its little pieces are healthy. Lowell, Massachusetts. Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Batavia, New York. Red Cloud, Nebraska. Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I saw the distinct identity—the meaning—of my own place fading and that’s why I raised my voice.
That’s why hundreds of thousands—millions—of Americans from the Gulfstream waters to the Redwood forests are raising their voices. We refuse to lose our country.
Speak, act, even vote, if that’s your thing, for place. For peace. For the possibility of a life that is not lived in the dark shadow of perpetual war and crony capitalist oligarchy but rather in the reviving sunlight of liberty, of community, of home.
