March 21

 Too early to see the current weather outside. It's supposed to be warmer today and over the next several days.

On the news/talk shows this morning they featured a new book on the John Birch Society and how it continues to influence politics. My first thought was "what's old is new again." Ideas keep coming back dressed a little differently. Nativism and anti-immigrant popped up in the 1830s and again in a more genteel form in the debates of the 1890s. Anti-government sentiments popped up from the colonial period on especially when the offending government was far removed from the people governed whether England's monarchy or Washington's Federals. Everything old is new again with the pig wearing a different shade of lipstick.

I saw a headline I didn't pursue that Israel says the Palestinians aren't "a real people." I didn't follow up because it is an old play--erase the opponent. Putin has tried to do the same by claiming that Ukrainians don't really exist--they are simply deluded Russians. I am sure the English thought the same way about the rebellious colonials. Look up the controversy over impressment of American sailors after the Revolution ended.

William Astore writes about the costs of maintaining the military we have built. His accounting also demonstrates what we lose by making the choices we have made in terms of housing for the homeless, power for those houses, schools in which to educate our young, and other infrastructure that would benefit us as a society and as individuals. And I question whether it has made us or the world safer.