Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Medals Of Gold

Commentary By Ron Beasley



I grew up on anti war songs in the 60s and we've had dammed few of them when we've needed them recently. They don't get the play they got in the 60s and early 70's but they are out there and here is a good one.




Of course the anti war songs of the 60's may have been a bit more subtle;





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  1. John BallardJune 23, 2010 at 11:46 PM

    Great finds, Ron. I have a hard time listening to the old music of the Sixties without getting emotional. Only lately did I learn that Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind has been around longer than the Sixties, having been first popularized by Marlene Dietrich.
    (You Tube is an intoxicating place. I tripped over a version by Maryla Radowicz, a popular contemporary Polish singer about our age.)
    The biggest difference between the Vietnam Era and now was the draft. Like all my peers I was opposed to the draft when I was drafted in 1965, but since then I have changed my mind. The celebrated "all volunteer" military has resulted in the kind of cowboy attitude described in the Rolling Stone article and "civilian oversight" has become a hollow platitude. Difficult subordinates made me a better manager, not those who faithfully followed instructions. Likewise, military commanders would behave differently and be more effective if some of their subordinates were not as enthusiastic as they about waging war. McChrystal and his inner circle illustrate the point vividly.
    No one was ever conscripted to any branch of service but the Army. The other branches have always been "all volunteer" even with the draft in place because more young men wanted to avoid (they thought) becoming cannon fodder. If the draft were now in place the body bags and flag-draped coffins would carry a very different message. Even those who "volunteered" would be remembered differently and the war in Asia would be a lot less popular.

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