16 June– William Lind writes about the “New Urbanism,” arguing that the right should embrace this movement‘s defense of neighborhoods and face-to-face human interaction.  A profile of Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) “shows that antiwar conservatives can win- for now.” 

Gerald Russello reviews a collection of essays by philosopher Michael Walzer.  As a marxisant leftist associated with the hawkish Journal Dissent, Walzer would seem like the last person one would expect to see praised in this journal of the antiwar right, yet Russello finds much to admire in Walzer’s exploration of the tensions between the claims of community and the right of the individual to self-directed development. 

30 June– Localvores beware!  TAC agrees with you!  At least one of their contributors, John Schwenkler, does; he calls for a new economy of food to be built on a small scale, on the impeccably conservative grounds that “Heavily concentrated industries demand expensive and centralized government.”  Scale agriculture down from world-feeding corporate behemoths to neighborhood-feeding family farms and community gardens, and you can both restore the human scale to life and cut taxes. 

Philip Weiss, of the mondoweiss blog, visits the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee‘s annual conference.  Readers of mondoweiss will wonder why they let him in, but they did, and he had a wonderful time.  “Even a sharp critic like myself of what AIPAC is doing to American policy in the Middle East was frequently moved by the pure loving feeling that surrounds you at every moment.”  Surrounds you, because AIPAC is a lobby that has nothing to do with desire for money: “the AIPACers didn’t come for selfish reasons.  They are devoutly concerned with the lives of people they don’t know, very far away.  Yes, perople with whom they feel tribal kinship.” 

US Senator James Webb (D-VA) documents his opposition to the more bellicose aspects of American foreign policy in the Middle East over the last 25 years.  He quotes a memo he wrote on 7 August 1987 while serving as Ronald Reagan’s navy secretary.  In that memo, he expressed his opposition to the administration’s policy of flying the American flag over Kuwaiti oil tankers, a policy that would lead directly to the first US/ Iraq war three years later.