Nov 29, 2022#ChrisRereads, Day Two: The Case for Cancel Culture#ChrisRereads, Day Two: The Case for Cancel Culture I was excited when I first heard of this book by Ernest Owens, an acclaimed Philly writer and leader in PABJ (the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists). The image above doesn’t show its subtitle: “How This Democratic Tool Works to Liberate Us…Books2 min readBooks2 min read
Nov 28, 2022Chris Re-Reads: A new seriesI’m a fast reader, always have been; in third grade I raced a classmate to be the first to finish H.G. Wells’ Journey to the Center of the Earth. I was also learning to skim, of course. These days, I find myself now surrounded by books I’d meant to review…Chris Re Reads1 min readChris Re Reads1 min read
Published inI Ain’t Marching Anymore·Jun 20, 2022The U.S. Military and White Supremacy: A HistoryI wrote the piece below for ON WATCH, the quarterly magazine of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild. When I was asked to write it, I was a little stunned: “All of it?” It took weeks to write. I hope it’s useful. Above is the song…Military9 min readMilitary9 min read
Feb 27, 2022As Russia Invades Ukraine, Let’s Follow Our Best Instincts, Not Our WorstBy Chris Lombardi Over the past few weeks, with clouds of a Russian invasion of Ukraine gathering on the horizon, thw world’s anti-war organizations settled firmly in their ongoing positions; World Beyond War and Code Pink warned against overreach by the North American Treaty Organization (NATO); . Common Defense exulted…Ukraine5 min readUkraine5 min read
Feb 3, 2022“Make the treaty, Sir! . . . I know your country. I know all classes of people there. They want peace, Sir. They pant for it.”As anniversaries go, February 2 is an equivocal one for American and Mexican history: That date in 1848 was when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ending the U.S. Mexico War and extending the boundaries of the United States west to the Pacific Ocean. As the Howard Zinn Education…Mexican American War8 min readMexican American War8 min read
Published inI Ain’t Marching Anymore·Jan 3, 2022Conscientious objection is the thing with feathers.One of the very last things I accomplished in 2021 was draft a conclusion to that chapter I’ve been co-authoring for the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Peace History. It’s on what first drew me to my book’s topic, and what some people think Ain’t Marching is about: that knotty concept…Chris Lombardi3 min readChris Lombardi3 min read
Dec 6, 2021Reality Winner Comes Out As a Soldier-DissenterLast night’s 60 Minutes segment hit all the notes: Winner’s service, her awards, even her moral injury; “ I was starting to see in the news that our mission had a very high civilian casualty rating,” she told Scott Pelley. Winner was honest about what imprisonment did to her and…60 Minutes3 min read60 Minutes3 min read
Published inI Ain’t Marching Anymore·Oct 25, 2021On Colin PowellI never expected to start my week writing about Colin Powell. I know he meant a lot to a lot of people I respect, which might make the week to come nearly unbearable. It also makes the option of saying nothing feel like cowardice. Powell’s name appears three times in…Colin Powell4 min readColin Powell4 min read
Jul 12, 2021Fragments toward an elegyMy book is dedicated to him: To Ben Lombardi, who learned in the navy that books open up the world. Wish you had lived to see this one in print. He nearly did; we were in pre-production edits on July 12, 2019, the day he took his last breath at…Eulogy3 min readEulogy3 min read
May 15, 2021“The delicacy and fragility of life hit me”: Kyle Toon’s Journey to Conscientious Objection | Center on Conscience & WarWhen Kyle Toon first thought about joining the Army, it felt like morning. In 2009. he was about to graduate from high school in Virginia. The new Obama administration was just getting started, and was promising to do right by the country of Afghanistan. Toon knew his scores on the…Kyle Toon5 min readKyle Toon5 min read
