12 Mar, 2022
Life goes on, right?
I had a breakthrough yesterday — and I don’t mean metaphorically. Wars rage, countless humans suffer, the rich get richer, life goes on. I still have my morning coffee. But not yesterday.
4 Mar, 2022
The frailty of peace in the midst of war
The frailty of peace in the midst of war by Robert C. Koehler 857 words Prior to any analysis of...
24 Feb, 2022
Creating peace means changing the world??
Only threat, pain and inflicted hell preserve peace, right? Get the bad guy! Russia: bad. If it invades Ukraine, such a “voluntary war of aggression,” according to David Leonhardt of the New York Times, “would be a sign that Putin believed that Pax Americana was over and that the U.S., the European Union and their allies had become too weak to exact painful consequences.”
17 Feb, 2022
Afghanistan on the brink of disaster??
Gay rights, women’s rights — in reality, these are a nuisance to many U.S. conservatives, but purporting to protect these rights on the other side of the world is a great excuse to play war. And you don’t need bombs to play.
11 Feb, 2022
The court of ecological awareness??
Pssst . . . here’s a little secret. Don’t tell anyone, OK? It might cause trouble. In recent years, there have been more than a thousand lawsuits filed around the world — including a few in the United States — challenging corporate or governmental negligence about climate change and ecosystem damage.
3 Feb, 2022
Ukraine and the nuclear paradox??
Somewhere out there in the geopolitical wilderness of Eastern Europe, two powerful beasts stalk each other. One of them is good. One of them is evil. The future of all life on this planet is at stake...
27 Jan, 2022
Jim Crow wails in anguish
"“The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” Even if Mitch McConnell’s viral gaffe last week is as innocent as he claims it to be, the stench of something deep ..."
19 Jan, 2022
A citizen of the world (still) speaks
I decided to honor Martin Luther King Day this year by reading — and trying to absorb, more fully than ever before — the entirety (nearly 7,000 words) of the iconic speech he gave at Riverside Church a year to the day before his assassination...
14 Jan, 2022
Untangling ourselves from the dark side
Guess what? I direct the following insight to, among others, the U.S. Congress, which annually and without comment, with only a few objectors, passes a trillion-dollar (and growing) military budget, by far the largest such budget on Planet Earth...
6 Jan, 2022
The myth of the good war
The myth of the good war by Robert C. Koehler 987 words Published in: LA Progressive, Augusta Free Press, Black...
3 Jan, 2022
Poisoning ourselves with war
War spews hell in all directions. Just ask the guys at Talon Anvil, a secret U.S. “strike cell” recently exposed by the New York Times as a unit with a reputation...
23 Dec, 2021
Do we dare stop being afraid of ourselves?
What’s your story?
We tell stories, which evolve into myths — and myths are what hold us together. They create the collective entity known as the human race.
9 Dec, 2021
Mass murder: New victims, same old questions
Mass murder: New victims, same old questions by Robert C. Koehler 873 words Four students dead, six more, plus a teacher,...
2 Dec, 2021
Our shackled planet
“Protecting the border” is essentially the same thing as protecting your own property, right? You’ve got to protect it from invaders, thieves — lawless jerks who want what you have...
25 Nov, 2021
Reclaiming a lost sense of community
“It” amounted to this: It was Wednesday afternoon, I had finished my column early and walked out to my car, parked in the alley behind my house...