James Fallows
James Fallows
James Mackenzie Fallowsis an American writer and journalist. He has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly for many years. His work has also appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and The American Prospect, among others. He is a former editor of U.S. News & World Report, and as President Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter for two years was the youngest person ever to hold that job...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth2 August 1949
CountryUnited States of America
decade disaster guided people public war
For a decade or more after the Vietnam war, the people who had guided the U.S. to disaster decently shrank from the public stage.
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As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a 'war of choice' whose costs we are still paying.
real war years
It is not widely known that, ever since the end of the Korean War, the United States has spent essentially the same amount of money on defense, in real terms, every single year.
war people vietnam
For a decade or more after the Vietnam war, the people who had guided the U.S. to disaster decently shrank from the public stage.
war wealth tease
The amazing thing about Trump is that he is so completely predictable. Hillary Clinton knows that if she teases him about either his wealth, his taxes, the women who are coming after him or his preposterous claims of being against the Iraq war, he cannot resist.
against conclude divided forces grievances honestly limits military obvious offset power since war
The limits of our military power must be obvious to all, and domestically we are divided as we have not been since Vietnam. So what should we do now? Can we think honestly about those with grievances against the U.S.? Can we think how to conclude the war in Iraq, how to offset the forces of extremism?
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The technology of nonstop news and the Internet means that allegations that would have been carefully checked out a generation ago no longer are. We now have a 24-hour-a-day news cycle. News gets used up very quickly and there's a constant hunger for new tidbits.
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When I was living in China, I learned to make things hyper-explicit because often they were being read by people whose command of English kept them from picking up what I thought were obvious signals.
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No real-world human being brings to the U.S. presidency the range of attributes necessary for full success in the job.
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The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan [...] Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel.
two google afar
I have relentlessly beat the drum for Google's 'two-step' authentication systems for Gmail and other services, which radically reduce the likelihood that your account can be hacked from afar.
boston phoenix people
I seem to be one of the few people in journalism who never worked or wrote for the 'Boston Phoenix.' I certainly read and admired it, and feel the same general malaise at news that it is gone.
differences choices needs
No one ever really 'learns' from history, because choices never present themselves in exactly the same way, and because you can always choose similarities and differences to fit current needs.
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Over the eons I've been a fan of, and sucker for, each latest automated system to 'simplify' and 'bring order to' my life. Very early on this led me to the beautiful-and-doomed Lotus Agenda for my DOS computers, and Actioneer for the early Palm.