Philip Weiss – Clinton’s ‘infatuation with war’ and neoconservatism stirs misgivings on the left

As the Democratic convention approaches and Hillary Clinton tries to win over, or finesse, the progressive anti-war component of her base, many writers are expressing misgivings about her foreign policy. Not that they are Trump supporters; but they worry about being left out in the cold in a Clinton administration studded with neoconservatives. Here are three new takes on the …

Andrew J. Bacevich – On Building Armies (and Watching Them Fail)

First came Fallujah, then Mosul, and later Ramadi in Iraq.  Now, there is Kunduz, a provincial capital in northern Afghanistan.  In all four places, the same story has played out: in cities that newspaper reporters like to call “strategically important,” security forces trained and equipped by the U.S. military at great expense simply folded, abandoning their posts (and much of their U.S.-supplied weaponry) without even …

How Psychedelics Might Transform the Human Mind and Lead Humanity Towards Intellectual and Artistic Heights

The idea of a Psychedelic Renaissance — as captured in the title of Ben Sessa’s book The Psychedelic Renaissance — is growing in the health professions, and as a Feb. 9, 2015, article in The New Yorker phrased it, current clinical research is “part of a renaissance of psychedelic research,” so we see the phrase is catching on in the general culture too. To …