R.I.P. William Blum

Today, I learned that William Blum died.  He was older, so it was to be expected at some point that he would pass on, but he seemed to keep active with his writing until nearly the end.  You can read an obituary about him here.  Generally, he offered a thoughtprovoking perspective on American foreign policy that I found refreshing.  He even contributed to this blog once.  I was trying to publish daily then and started publishing the work of others, and Bill allowed me to reprint an article from his excellent "Anti-Empire Report" enewsletter about The Affordable Care Act a.k.a. Obamacare.  Reading that article years later, it is quite obvious that Bill was quite right in his predictions.  That usually with the case with him.  He preferred a happier republic to a grumpy empire and hoped to influence his fellow Americans into not wasting so many of our taxdollars and soldiers' lives messing around in other countries for little good reason other than benefiting a rich few who are just being greedy anyway.  Sadly, more Osamas than Obamas listened to him, and the American government still does a lot of the same dumb stuff.  Fortunately, without the bravery of folks such as Bill who point out the truth of "The Emperor's New Clothes", it probably would be a lot worse.  He will be missed.