May 27 2008
With all due respect to those who serve in the armed forces, we owe it to them to ask hard questions about the sacrifices demanded of them and their families.
It’s fine and good and perfectly appropriate for us to honor our dead, but if we allow ourselves to be whipped into a patriotic frenzy every time some yahoo waves a flag it can serve to legitimize the military enterprise – and that is the point I wish to make. The military enterprise is not legitimate.
May 22 2008
As the United States prepares to remember its war dead on Memorial Day, some veterans who want to remember their fallen comrades with a wish for peace are being barred from participating in official events.
Two chapters of Veterans for Peace, one in Washington state and one in Washingtgon, D.C., have been banned from parades.
In both cases,VFP was told it could not participate because the organization is “too political.” That is the same reason that others have given for barring Veterans for Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War from Veterans Day parades and activities.
What is particularly sad is that those who exclude them are often veterans themselves, with some misguided sense of patriotism.
Dec 13 2007
Canada is vilified in the US as a country with high taxes. Sure they have universal health insurance, but look how much they pay in taxes!! Not like here in the good ol’ US of A.!
Right?
Actually, maybe not. According to a recent study from the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, Paying Taxes 2008: A global picture, Canada ranks 99th out of 178 for total tax rate. (Top-ranked are low-tax havens like Vanatu, the Maldives and the United Arab Emirates; bottom-ranked are a number of sub-Saharan countries where taxes actually exceed 100% of commercial profits – ouch.)
Canada at 99th beats out the US at 102nd.