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I’m an Iraq war veteran, though I very rarely tell people that. Partly because I never kicked in any doors or anything - I had about the cushiest of war zone duties possible, although being in Kirkuk in 2006-2007 meant lots of random mo[r]tar/recycled rocket attacks and stuff. But the other reason I never tell anyone about it is the reaction, like everything about me being there was unambiguously positive.

Which brings me back to the idea of mandatory reverence around the flag, Memorial Day, July 4, etc… [I]t makes me angry when people are just unable to have two thoughts in their head at once - that we should be respectful of those who do the things no one else really wants to do, like kill people, and that sometimes, just maybe, the stuff we ask them to do is terrible…

Maybe it’s that I grew up in a world run by Baby Boomers (I’m 30), who seem especially incapable of understanding nuance of any sort, but it seems that most people who “fly the flag” and “support the troops” subscribe to this uncompromising approach to patriotism. I don’t know how exactly to fold some self-reflection into these holidays, but I think it would sure help those of us who see a lot more gray in the things we’ve done.

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"Poverty is not simply having no money — it is isolation, vulnerability, humiliation and mistrust. It is not being able to differentiate between employers and exploiters and abusers. It is contempt for the simplistic illusion of meritocracy — the idea that what we get is what we work for. It is knowing that your mother, with her arthritic joints and her maddening insomnia and her post-traumatic stress disordered heart, goes to work until two in the morning waiting tables for less than minimum wage, or pushes a janitor’s cart and cleans the shit-filled toilets of polished professionals. It is entering a room full of people and seeing not only individual people, but violent systems and stark divisions. It is the violence of untreated mental illness exacerbated by the fact that reality, from some vantage points, really does resemble a psychotic nightmare. It is the violence of abuse and assault which is ignored or minimized by police officers, social services, and courts of law. Poverty is conflict. And for poor kids lucky enough to have the chance to “move up,” it is the conflict between remaining oppressed or collaborating with the oppressor."

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The vast majority of the green advice you’ll read? It’s irrelevant. There are four primary activities that dump carbon into the atmosphere: traveling from place to place, keeping buildings at pleasant temperatures, creating electricity, and raising animals for meat.

The rest of the green living pantheon—bamboo utensils, composting, eating local, reclaimed wood tables, organic cotton sheets—are nice gestures. And they often have other benefits: they might keep chemicals out of the water or provide a livelihood for local farmers. Many are also better than the alternatives they’re replacing. But when it comes to tackling climate change—not only the most dangerous environmental issue the world faces, but also a looming human rights problem—choosing these green products can only make a tiny difference.

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"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."

"Union organizers say one of the greatest challenges they face is that many workers don’t want to admit they’re workers because someday they may be rich and signing a union card would be an admission that good fortune will never strike, but if you point out the health benefits of organizing and of bringing down the gap between the rich and poor by signing a union card, you will literally be saving millions of lives, the equivalent of winning the war on heart disease. … ORGANIZE OR DIE. These people all see the need to focus on organizing given the lowest unionization rates in history that we have today. I think for of us in the USA, at least as far as our health is concerned, we must Organize or Die."

"No, you can’t deny women their basic rights and pretend it’s about your ‘religious freedom.’ If you don’t like birth control, don’t use it. Religious freedom doesn’t mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs."