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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Sunday, September 11, 2011

Jingoism and 911 ten years latter

Commentary By Ron Beasley



Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy.  In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests. Colloquially, it refers to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others � an extreme type of nationalism.



Yes that's what the 911 anniversay memorials have become.  The memorial celebrations I witnessed on the TV box today were more about saber rattling than remembering those who lost their lives.  More about revenge than honoring those brave people who gave up their lives to save others. 


I have sympathy for those who lost loved ones but I too have lost loved ones, two friends and a cousin who died because their insurance companies refused to authorize diagagnostic tests until it was too late,  but at some point you have to move on.  Yes, over 3,000 people lost their lives that day but many more than that lose their lives every year as the result of air pollution - drunk drivers, and the list goes on.  Over 6,000 of America's finest have lost their lives fighting unwinable wars that were spawned by 911 and by all indication that number will continue to grow for years.



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3 comments:

  1. Bill H.September 11, 2011 at 6:04 PM

    I was seriously appalled when, following a moving rendition of "Taps," the crowd at an NFL football game began a chant of "USA, USA, USA." Fortunately, and to my immense satisfaction, it gained little momentum and died out quickly.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jerry E. StephensSeptember 13, 2011 at 1:13 AM

    What more can be said. Amen! Thank you, Ron.

    ReplyDelete
  3. JRSeptember 13, 2011 at 2:59 PM

    Yes... there are more threats to America than terrorism.

    ReplyDelete

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