Robert C. Koehler
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound is now available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
Articles by this author
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Views Thursday, May 16, 2019 War's Unanswered Questions “Over these last few years, given the wars it has waged and the international treaties it has arbitrarily reneged on, the U.S. government perfectly fits its own definition of a rogue state.” — Arundhati Roy You have the world’s largest military, you’re going to use it, right? Donald Trump and his... Read more |
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Views Friday, May 10, 2019 What's Next: War With Venezuela? Mix a little socialism in with the oil and war may be unavoidable. Thus, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo , talking about Venezuela: “The president has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent. Military action is possible. If that’s what’s required, that’s what the United States will do.” He goes... Read more |
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Views Sunday, May 05, 2019 Nonviolence or Nonexistence The day before he died, Martin Luther King said these words at a packed church in Memphis: “Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. Now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world, it is nonviolence or nonexistence... Read more |
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Views Friday, April 19, 2019 Hell Mixed With Futility Oh, the normalcy of militarism! Our annual financial hemorrhage to this complex menagerie of institutions — from the Pentagon to Homeland Security to the Nuclear Security Administration to the CIA and its secret expenditures — must not be seriously questioned in the corridors of Congress, even... Read more |
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Views Friday, April 05, 2019 Marianne Williamson: Challenging the Status Quo in 2020 Reparations for slavery? Upending militarism and waging peace? Taking climate change seriously? Getting carbon out of the atmosphere and fossil fuel money out of the EPA? Valuing healing over punishment in our disastrous criminal justice system? Ending mass incarceration? Bringing all this up—and... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 28, 2019 Our Wounded Planet Should we save the planet or kill the enemy? Perhaps no question more succinctly separates the past from the future, or so it occurred to me after I read Rebecca Solnit’s stunning observation in a recent essay: that the mass murders in Christchurch, N.Z. on March 15 occurred on the same day, and in... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 21, 2019 Putting Our Better Angels to Work in the Wake of Christchurch Nationalists—white or otherwise—need “invasions” on a regular basis in order to stay revved up and equal to the cause. Thus: “We are experiencing an invasion on a level never seen before in history,” the New Zealand killer (whose name I will not mention, honoring the precedent set by the country’s... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 14, 2019 Artificial Morality Artificial Intelligence is one thing. Artificial morality is another. It may sound something like this: “First, we believe in the strong defense of the United States and we want the people who defend it to have access to the nation’s best technology, including from Microsoft.” The words are those... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 07, 2019 Re-Inhabiting Planet Earth “I believe that for a moment I thought the explosion might set fire to the atmosphere and thus finish the Earth, even though I knew that this was not possible.” These words of Manhattan Project physicist Emilio Segre , quoted by Richard Rhodes in his book The Making of the Atomic Bomb , refer to... Read more |
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Views Thursday, February 28, 2019 The Squirming Buddha The world hemorrhages. Refugees flow from its wounds. Is there a way to be innocent of this? People are washed ashore. They die of suffocation in humanity-stuffed trucks. They flee war and politics; they flee starvation. And finally, we don’t even have sufficient air for them to breathe. For words... Read more |