Memorial Day 2016

Memorial Day is meant for remembering those who died in military service (a worthy commemoration). It's also a holiday that naturally spurs thoughts of civilians killed in war, of living veterans and how they're treated, and how war is discussed in our country. It's only right to pause and remember the dead. And perhaps the best way to honor them the other days of the year is by challenging the belligerati who believe that casually and aggressively endorsing war or torture somehow makes them tough or makes the nation safer. Requiring a high threshold for war shouldn't be a political calculation; it's the position of basic sanity. Unfortunately, saber-rattling insanity is both fashionable and profitable in some circles, and rarely seems to draw the same condemnations that wiser, less bellicose positions do.

This weekend, PBS broadcast a short documentary about The Telling Project, which uses theater to help military veterans talk through their experiences, from losing a limb, to being raped, to PTSD, to contemplating suicide. One of the veterans remarked that 'there's no bigger pacifist than a deployed serviceman.' Rather than letting our national discussions of war be hijacked by the braggadocio of the insecure, the cruel, the calculating and the delusional, we'd benefit from considering the harsh realities of war instead. Rather than letting tough guy (and tough gal) fantasies reign, we should seek out true stories. Rather than letting another bombastic speech from an irresponsible ignoramus dictate the terms of discourse, we should give time to veterans and civilians affected by war, and quietly listen.

Chain of Title

David Dayen, an excellent blogger based in Los Angeles, has a book out, Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud. His Tumblr blog links his articles and appearances (Salon, The Intercept, The Fiscal Times, The New Republic), but if you've read his work over the years, you're aware of the time and effort he's spent covering this subject. A summary:

In the depths of the Great Recession, a cancer nurse, a car dealership worker, and an insurance fraud specialist helped uncover the largest consumer crime in American history—a scandal that implicated dozens of major executives on Wall Street. They called it foreclosure fraud: millions of families were kicked out of their homes based on false evidence by mortgage companies that had no legal right to foreclose.

Lisa Epstein, Michael Redman, and Lynn Szymoniak did not work in government or law enforcement. They had no history of anticorporate activism. Instead they were all foreclosure victims, and while struggling with their shame and isolation they committed a revolutionary act: closely reading their mortgage documents, discovering the deceit behind them, and building a movement to expose it.

The book's website features blurbs from Matt Taibbi, Rick Perlstein and others and links reviews by Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. (The book also won the Studs and Ida Terkel Prize.)

As a first-time author, David Dayen depends on getting the word out and generating early sales. I've ordered the book but haven't read it yet, although I've read plenty of Dayen's other work, and you can check it out yourself through the Tumblr link above. I'm admittedly biased because I know the guy, but if you have the money to spare, ordering a copy is a great way to support a liberal writer and get a good book to boot. (Here are the links for Amazon, Powell's and Barnes & Noble.) He'll be doing book signings in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, New York, Washington, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. If you're on that Facebook thing all the kids are doing, you can get more details from the book's FB page. Thanks.