If you haven’t been following the Disunion series at nytimes.com, you should be.  It is the best thing I’ve read in a long time.

Disunion is a serialized set of articles starting with the election of 1860 and following through on an almost daily basis of what happened 150 years ago in the lead up to the Civil War.   I.e., today’s article on February 16, 2011, is about what happened on February 16, 1861 (and it turns out quite a bit was happening!).

150 years ago today Lincoln was fighting throngs of supporters on his train ride across the North as he made his way to his new home in DC.  Most of the Southern states had already seceded, elected President Davis, and written a constitution.  The country was literally on the precipice and not too many people agreed on the best course of action.

It is a history we rarely see… the minutiae of the Civil War, the politics.

This series is written by a multitude of authors, but I have yet to read one that I did not like.

The only problem is that is it a bit hard to find.  I wish the New York Times would create a dedicated section for Disunion, especially if they plan to run it through the entire war, which I hope they will.  However, right now you must go to

nytimes.com > Opinion > Opinionator blog > find the latest Disunion article

Or, you can Like it on Facebook here and get updates, although Facebook (in my opinion) does a really awful job of showing Liked pages on our news feeds (they want the page owners to buy ads, after which they will show up on your news feed… boo Facebook).

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Bruce Cumings’ The Korean War: A History (July 2010) is worth a read if you’re looking for a quick (288 pages) primer.

The Korean War (1950-1953) is often referred to as the Forgotten War… and for good reason.  There’s not much good to come out of it on the American side (we lost, we helped kill millions of people, we napalmed everyone in sight, etc. etc.), and since they knew that even at the time, reporters were heavily censored while covering it.

The Korean War is one of the deadliest wars in history (ranked 13th here) with estimates of 2.5 million to 3.5 million dead (almost 40,000 American deaths).  And it all happened on a peninsula roughly the size of Utah.

Even more devastating is that this marked the beginning of what we know today as the Military Industrial Complex along with America’s preoccupation with not leaving countries.  This is where Cumings is most successful.

He draws the line that begins with America in Korea and ends with America in Iraq and Afghanistan.  After the end of WWII, the American military took over the South Korean government (USSR took control in the North).  When the military gave governing power back to the Koreans, they made sure that their guy, Syngman Rhee, was President.  Of course, their guy went on to exterminate thousands upon tens of thousands of civilians if there was any inclination that they might be communists.

It was after the Korean War that America’s defense budget ballooned. We decided to maintain an enormous standing army (after all previous wars, the military would shrink to almost less than manageable sizes… including WWII) and military contracts stayed at wartime levels.  This all makes some sense given that this was the true beginning of the Cold War, but it is impossible to read this book and wonder what might have been.

But also, much of Cumings’ writing is weak and he laces many of his well-researched arguments with almost petulant sounding tirades.  At one point he even attacks a random reader from Bethany Beach, Delaware, who made the unfortunate mistake of making a list of his favorite books on the Korean War in Amazon.com’s Listmania! (If one cannot get a point across without referencing Amazon.com’s Listmania! service, then there is something terribly wrong.)

And while I agree with Cumings that North Korea was probably not as evil during the war as the American media would have us believe, Cumings seems to want to absolve North Korea of everything (he doesn’t, but he spends a great deal of energy showing how much nicer the North Koreans were).

Of course, Cumings is trying to make points that have been whitewashed by 60 years of American propaganda.  So, in light of that, a little yelling can be excused.  And there is no excuse for the inhumane treatment of civilians and soldiers by the Republic of Korea and American armies.

Despite being frustrated with Cumings’ writing style, the book is powerful.  This war was dirtier and more awful than anything my generation can imagine, and as Cumings points out, it is probably dirtier and more awful than anything my parent’s generation can imagine (i.e., Vietnam).

You can buy it at Barnes and Noble for $17 (it’s not listed on any of Amazon.com’s Listmania! lists).

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Last week one of my Facebook friends posted an article by Al-Jazeera on Israel’s attempt to turn Jordan into the Palestinian homeland.

I was reading the article while sipping my coffee and enjoying labors of free speech when suddenly I was thrown back to Jack Ass Land when someone left an insanely ignorant and mis-guided message on my friend’s Facebook link about the Palestinians.

So, I responded with what an equally immature and crass comment, which I later deleted upon realizing my churlishness (thank you “Delete” button).

Over the years I’ve been able to systematically shut down most human emotion.  However, I’ve been unsuccessful in two areas: HBO’s The Wire (I still cry when I think about how they did D’Angelo) and Israel/Palestine.

And this is why… from Tablet:

A newly revealed tape of Netanyahu in 2001, being interviewed while he thinks the cameras are off, shows him in a radically different light. In it, Netanyahu dismisses American foreign policy as easy to maneuver, boasts of having derailed the Oslo accords with political trickery, and suggests that the only way to deal with the Palestinians is to “beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it’s unbearable”

I’m not a fan of Netanyahu.  I want peace, I think Obama wants peace… but I do not think Netanyahu wants peace.  I don’t trust him.  And now I’m feeling human emotion!

I’m going to go watch The Wire and cry for a moment.

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General McChrystal may not have been the most politically savvy person in the lot, but at least he had a sense of humor.

In the infamous Rolling Stones article that cost McChrystal his job, it was mentioned that some of his team referred to themselves as Team America…  Team America being the exhaustingly hilarious movie by South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, that mocks everything from American imperialism to authoritarian dictators to Matt Damon.

The Team America in the movie Team America is a group of self-important white people who who bulldoze over everyone and everything (Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids) to “save” the world.

Today, Marc Ambinder posted a picture of the patches that McChrystal’s team had made up!

I’m jealous.

Here’s my favorite scene from Team America when UN Weapons Inspector, Hans Blix, visits Kim Jong Il.  Hans Blix is HILARIOUS.

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It has been an interesting week on the Korean peninsula… with many things happening related to the sinking of the South Korean ship, the Cheonan.

On July 9, the UN Security Council released a statement about the sinking, “condemn[ing]” the attack but not placing the blame on North Korea.  So, no new sanctions on Kim Jong Il.

This statement comes out despite a seemingly exhaustive investigation by South Korea and many international partners that found that the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo.

The North Koreans, who have steadfastly denied the attack, were ecstatic about the UN report, calling it a “great diplomatic victory.”

But then… today we get news that North Korea has released a new propaganda poster with a fist smashing a ship that is eerily similar to… the Cheonan!  The poster says “Ready to crush any attack with a single blow!” (via JoongAng).

I realize this isn’t the first instance of duplicity on the part of North Korea, but given how hard they lobbied the UN to not be blamed for the ship’s sinking, this poster just seems to be in poor taste.  It’s like OJ coming out with his If I Did It book one week after his acquittal (because doing it 10 years later is so much more classy).

Still, some folks in South Korea seem to be a bit skeptical about North Korea’s role.  That’s understandable.  It’s not like I believed everything George Bush said about the 9/11 attacks.  It’s not like I believed what George Bush said about anything.

But hopefully, an international consensus will be reached at some point.  Otherwise South Korea and America will continue to piss off everyone (everyone = China) with their planned military exercises in the Yellow Sea.  (Btw/ what happens in a planned military exercise?)

==

Map of where the Cheonan sank.

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I just finished Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.  I bought this precisely because I wanted a non-sensational account of life in North Korea.  I didn’t want to read about nuclear weapons or labor camps.

In many respects, the handful of people Demick interviews do lead normal lives.  They go to jobs they don’t necessarily like; the parents worry about their kids’ educations; and the kids struggle against the pressures of school, hormones, and parental expectations.

However, the differences are much more stark and unforgettable.

Most of the people interviewed ended up in Seoul by a string of chance events.  They all loved North Korea, and had no long-planted seed to defect.  But at the same time, almost all of them learned within minutes of crossing the Tumen River into China how different their lives would be.

When Dr. Kim defected into China, she came upon a bowl of rice sitting on the ground.  She couldn’t believe it because “she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a bowl of pure white rice.”   Then she heard the dog and realized that “dogs in China ate better than doctors in Korea.”

All of those interviewed lived through the famine of the 90′s that likely killed between 1.0 to 3.0 million people.

Everyone in the book dealt with starvation, and those that lived were ridden with guilt over what they had done to survive.  Mi-ran, a schoolteacher, was never able to erase the images of her starving students and the reasons why she didn’t share her food with them.  Mrs. Song, a doting wife & mother, never forgave herself for her son’s death (this on the heels of her husband’s death the previous year and her mother-in-law’s death two years prior).

Mi-ran later discovered that that the two sisters who remained in North Korea were snatched in the middle in the night and taken to labor camps because she had defected.  And several of the mothers were never able to see their children again.

It goes on and on.  And these are the lives of the “ordinary lives” in North Korea.

I highly recommend this book.

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Ever since I turned 16, I’ve been looking forward to my 30th birthday.  I just wanted to be grown up.  I wanted to skip dating.  I wanted to skip first days of jobs.  I wanted to skip high school and college and land in a time when I would be old enough to like people my own age, and have the freedom to do what I wanted.

30th Birthday Dukk

So today, as I turn over a new decade, I am excited.  But, I am also thankful for the many experiences I was able to have during the last 10 years of my life.

When I got my first job as an organizer for a gubernatorial race in Connecticut, I would have never guessed that it would then take me to the far reaches of Tennessee (places I had never seen, i.e. Wartburg), Oklahoma, New Hampshire, back to Connecticut, and off to Korea.

A lot of it was impossibly difficult (e.g. working with a sociopath who is now in jail, dating people who probably should be in jail, etc.), but I know I was also impossibly lucky to be able to spend time with some really amazing people.

I am so proud that I was able to be a part of so many causes that I believe in… electing a governor (lost), electing a couple of state Senators (won-won), electing a Presidential candidate (lost), campaigning for marriage equality in Connecticut (won), and bidding for universal health care in Connecticut (won — at least part one).

Politically, I think I’ve accomplished all that I can imagine.  And while the allure of politics will probably never die, I’m happy with my current resume.

And now I’m in Korea.  I’m away from politics.  I’m away from family and friends.  I’m 30.  I’m trying to figure things out.

One thing I think I have figured out is that I need to enjoy the present.  I need to stop trying to skip ahead and just enjoy what I have in front of me.  I can’t imagine my life if I had skipped my twenties.

==

And while I could never thank everyone, I did want to mention a few names (randomized by random.org of course) of people who have helped me grow personally, spiritually, and intellectually throughout the last 10 years…

Justine F., Shomari, Karl W., Dr. Atwill., Angie, Sarah R., Amy M., Lynnette G., Anne S., Maureen M., Prof. Hammontree, Dr. Hirschfeld, Anthony G., Tom S., Dave C., Beverley B., Dell, Han, Sarah Rose S., Mom, Carol B., Kate G., John M., Yam, Jerimarie L., Debbie S., Phil S., Emily, Jason M., Charles F., Jim & Gary, Betty G., Johnny R., Ron A., Sarahi, Majune & Big Daddy, Paul W., Lynne, Dan H., Jack, Dad, Annalise S., Bob S., Karen B., Neil F., Jeremy W., Sam S., Dave F.

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Obama has decided to drop the missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.

I didn’t follow this too closely, but I’m a little shocked that they are completely abandoning it.

That being said, it seems like it might be a good thing as no one seemed to actually like the idea (except for Bush).

Also, while I understand the role of the sole-superpower brings great responsibility, I’m not so sure that responsibility should extend to protecting every inch of the world.

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Names of the Dead -- September 2, 2009

One of the pieces I get in my blog reader (almost every day) is the New York Times’ Names of the Dead List.

Every time a US military servicemember dies in the Iraq or Afghanistan War, the Times runs a small piece listing their names, age, rank, hometown, and regiment.

Today’s paper listed the 799th, 800th, and 801st servicemembers to die in the War in Afghanistan.

I don’t learn anything I don’t already know by reading the List, but I do choose to read it because it reminds me that there are real people fighting in these wars.  To just read the political analyses, one would think that everything is done behind closed doors in air conditioned rooms in Washington and Kabul.

Afghanistan is a mess right now — July 2009 used to be the deadliest month of the entire war… but then August came around; just like how 2007 used to be the deadliest year… then it was 2008… and now it’s 2009 with 4 months to go.  And to top it off, they just held a most un-democratic election.

I only hope Obama can make some progress soon.  I do think the additional troops he’s sending will help — even if they’re too few, too late.

===

Check out In the Graveyard of Empires by Seth G. Jones if you’re looking for a good outline of what went wrong in Afghanistan.  It just came out and is very up-to-date.  However, I highly recommend that you also check out Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars about US involvement in Afghanistan from 1979-2001.  To understand what’s going on now, just read what we did in the 1980′s to the Soviets.

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If you live in Connecticut, USA, then you might know that the House (107 – 35) and Senate (23 -12) have both voted to enact universal health care in a bill called SustiNet.  It’s now in the hands of the governor to sign it into law or veto it into oblivion.

So, here’s my video tribute to Madam Rell…

…and in full disclosure, I do work for the Universal Health Care Foundation — but they had no part in the making of this video…

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