Archive for the ‘Geopolitics’ Category

Facing the Future

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

  I compiled my thoughts on the primary challenges the United States faces in the coming decade, and ways to overcome them, here: http://www.hackneys.com/docs/facingthefuture.pdf The primary focus in this collection is on domestic challenges, although some geopolitical issues are addressed. .

Intro to Geopolitics – Public Opinion

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

  Following is a good overview of a current geopolitical situation from Stratfor, a public domain intelligence analysis firm. If you are interested in the particular issue and region at hand, Israel / Palestinians / rising Turkey / etc., you will probably find it of value. However, its true worth lies in some pearls of geopolitical wisdom, some ...

Elia Kazan’s America

Monday, May 31st, 2010

  As part of our effort to reintegrate into American society and its culture, we’re spending part of our summer in the air conditioned retreat of the Paramount, a faithfully restored theater originally built in 1915 to host vaudeville as the Majestic and transformed in 1930 into a Baroque Revival movie ...

What We Can Afford

Monday, March 29th, 2010

During America’s brief tenure atop the world’s pecking order between the end of WWII and the beginning of the current era, the country enjoyed an unprecedented run of prosperity and abundance. The country was so successful while producing copious wealth and endless opportunity, it could afford to take on costs ...

A Perfect Storm

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

  “…our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.  Now we are … testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” – Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address ******* The United States ...

Buying Boxes

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

In the post Show Me Your Budget, I addressed the U.S. federal budget via an illustration that used proportionally sized boxes to reflect spending priorities. What I didn’t cover was how we pay for those boxes, both the overall box of the entire budget, as well as its constituent departments ...

Intro to Geopolitics – Buffer States

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

For those who consider most of my posts relating to geopolitics too arcane, I offer the following: Source: comics.com Strip: Pearls Before Swine by by Stephan Pastis

They Still Can’t

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

This post is available as a PDF file here: http://www.hackneys.com/docs/theystillcant.pdf 30 December 2009 In August of 2002 I endured a personal challenge. At the time, I was sitting on a bar stool at a friend’s house in my Iowa home town listening to a classmate prattle on about 9/11 and all of ...

My World View

Monday, December 21st, 2009

This essay is available in PDF form here: http://www.hackneys.com/docs/myworldview.pdf   “Your world view is, well, wrong.” Those were the last words I ever heard from a guy I’d been friends with for more than 30 years. That was back in late 2004. At the time, I was sitting in Beijing, China, and had recently ...

Thoughts on Obama’s Peace Prize Speech

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

U.S. President Barack Obama presented his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway, earlier today. The headline you will read in the mass media regarding the speech will likely be some variation of “Obama defends US wars as he accepts peace prize.” The press will be doing its self-anointed job of ...