Getting us out of Voidstan (oops Afghanistan)

By John Freivalds

Minneapolis Star Tribune

In 1801 Founding Father Thomas Jefferson and our third President said this in his inaugural address: :” the US should consider its military alliances to be temporary arrangements of convenience and should freely abandon or revers them as indicated by the national interest.” Neither President Bush, Obama or Trump paid any attention to him and continued the US support of Afghanistan. Forget all that stuff about ‘staying the course”, “strategic posture” et.al. None of them wanted to look bad and weak in our supercharged political environment. President Biden didn’t buy into those fears and is taking Jefferson’s sage advice.

Local View: It's not un-American to show your papers

By John Freivalds

Published 7/30/21

Duluth News Tribune

Radical conservatives and their pundits are claiming the U.S. could become like an East-German communist police state if we must carry proof that we have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Snarky police in black leather jackets will come to our doors in the middle of the night, commanding, “Show me your papers!” That’s the fear being spread.

Are the Taliban Really That Much Different From Us?

The Rise (and Respectability) of Fragile Masculinity in the US

Trump supporters gestured to U.S. Capitol Police in the hallway outside of the Senate chamber at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6. Doug Jensen, an Iowa man at center, was jailed early Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021 on federal charges, including trespassing and disorderly conduct counts, for his alleged role in the Capitol riot.

Published July 12^th, 2021

By John Freivalds

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Recent news reports have been full of stories about the vicious, male-oriented Taliban on the verge of taking power in Afghanistan. The Taliban exert their masculinity-on-steroids by having full beards, carrying heavy weapons and relegating women to a subservient role. Historical facts, science, democracy, shaving and public education are a no-go. We bask in the thought that we Americans are nothing like that.

June 14, 1941: Latvia’s Day of Infamy

Russian tanks entering Rîga 1940.

By John Freivalds

Published 6/11/2020

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Every country recognizes its day of infamy. The United States recalls President Franklin Roosevelt’s words that December 7, 1941 was a day of infamy for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor killing thousands. Latvia, whose democracy was ended by the Soviet invasion a year earlier, had its first day of infamy when the Stalin’s Soviet troops rounded up and deported 15,000 Latvian citizens to concentration camps in Siberia. On June 14^th their names will be aired over Latvian media and thus remembered.

The Dating Game: Dates That Define America

By John Freivalds

Published 5/9/2021

Roanoke Times

A dating game is now raging across America as to which dates better define America. Conservatives say it is 1776, the declaration of independence from England. African Americans say it is held by 1619 when the first slave ships put ashore from Africa.

Furthermore, conservatives referring to the “1619 curriculum” should not be taught that America never did any evil things “for to do so otherwise would be divisive.” Yeah sure, slavery was not divisive nor the civil war that it caused.

But I have listed some other dates which defend today’s America.