297 Articles

Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Seeking Peace of Mind Amidst Insecurity
Like most people, I generally rely upon my own little "personal empire" to feel safe and comfortable in my life. The way my own "empire" is deteriorating these days --I can't sell my house, my financial assets are losing value-- has led me to ask if there's some place within myself where that good feeling can be found despite the tough times.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Barack, You've Lost Your Way
(5 comments) Here's a message to Barack Obama from one who's believed in him: Don't forget the nature of the force that's brought you to within reach of the presidency. For you, the costs of opportunistic positioning far exceed any political benefits.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
In Defense of (Some) Pornography
(5 comments) In an ideal world of undamaged people, would there be some forms of intensely sexually arousing media that would play a role in people's lives? I believe so.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
America's Dangerous Imbalance of Power
(4 comments) Back in the 50s and 60s, America had what the economist Galbrait called "countervailing" powers: labor, business, and government all seeking to shape the nation. In recent decades, labor has withered and business has used its power to seize increasing control of government. Unchecked corporatist power has brought us to the threshold of fascism. Obama represents an opportunity to create a new countervailing power.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Obama Should Challenge McCain to a "National Security Match-Up"
(3 comments) Conventional wisdom would have it that John McCain is better eqipped to deal with that "3 AM phone call" than Barack Obama. I doubt it. There's a way these would-be presidents can be tested before our very eyes. By challenging McCain to such a "national security match-up" as I describe here, Obama can benefit whether McCain accepts the challenge or declines it.

Sunday, June 8, 2008
Presidential Simulations: An Idea I Will Use in a Piece Here on Tuesday
There's a way that Americans can find out a lot more about how our would-be presidents would respond to one of those famous 3 AM phone calls. This piece describes that way, and lays the foundation for a major idea I will post here on Tuesday.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The Hillary Matter: It Is All Part of the Same Spititual Struggle in America Today
(1 comments) The ongoing Clinton effort to undermine Obama is not a side-show, but is an integral part of the overall struggle that the rise of the Bushite forces has made central in the America of our times. The forces of darkness form a pattern in our times, and the Clinton's are carriers of this darkness, just as those bitten by a rabid dog become themselves rabid. For Obama, each battle is not just a challenge, but also an opportunity.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Obama's Present Weakness: Some Thoughts
Obama has been hamstrung by Hillary's assault: fighting back risked alienating her voters, not fighting has left him weakened. He's chosen to coast to the finish line, which tonight he will limp across. Did he have a better option? Can he, as the post-Hillary phase now dawns, quickly re-ignite what gave him strength in the first place? And what does this inglorious end reveal about the defects of the Democratic electorate?

Thursday, May 29, 2008
Here's How Obama Should Challenge John McCain
(5 comments) In a recent speech,Obama neatly tied McCain to Bush. Here's a way he can up the ante on that approach: it's a way that will help make the terrain on which the campaign is fought one that is dangerous for John McCain and advantageous for Barack Obama.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Chill Out about Hillary?
(6 comments) A reader suggested that I should "chill out" in my critique of how Hillary Clinton has been conducting her campaign for the past several months. Here's why I think what's need is, on the contrary, for all Democrats to heat up about it.

Monday, May 26, 2008
Our Political Discourse is Plagued with Unfair Attacks
(1 comments) I recently defended Reverend Hageefrom something unfair and unreasonable I discern in the recent attacks on him. It's not because I like Hagee, which I don't, but because I care about reason and fairness, and deplore the degraded, muddle-headed state of our political discourse.

Thursday, May 8, 2008
I, Too, Have Been Damaged by the Evil Bushite Forces
(22 comments) A person's traumatic confrontation with evil tends to leave on that person an imprint of evil's pattern. A few days ago I suggested that was true of Hillary Clinton, who has emulated some of the fascists' tricks. I observe myself also becoming --albeit in a different sense-- more like the forces I detest.

Monday, May 5, 2008
What Happened to Hillary at the Level of the Spirit
(2 comments) Hillary endured in the 90s a most savage and dirty assault from the gathering Bushite forces. Emerging from that experience with a greater allegiance to prevailing than to goodness, Hillary was less concerned about rescuing American politics from darkness than about learning the lesson from the dark forces about how power can be dishonorably won.

Sunday, May 4, 2008
The Electability Question: Some Information, Some Thoughts
The political futures markets believe Hillary more likely to win in November if gets the nomination than Obama if he does. Here are thoughts on how they could be right and how they could be wrong.

Saturday, May 3, 2008
Making the Race One about Spiritual Transformation
(4 comments) It is the yearning of many Americans for a fundamental change in the spirit of power in America that has brought Obama to where he is. For the wave behind Obama to grow, he must intensify and modify that message to resonate with new constituencies that are not so easily in touch with that longing.

Thursday, May 1, 2008
Our Long National Nightmare: Thoughts about Now and 1974
(3 comments) Gerald Ford thought THAT was long!? Gerald Ford thought THAT was nightmarish?

Thursday, May 1, 2008
"Long National Nightmare" is What Obama Should Be Talking About
(5 comments) The force that has borne Obama this far is the force of the yearning of millions of Americans for a fundamental change in the spirit that governs political power in America. The heart of Obama's campaign strategy must be to stoke the fires of that yearning, and to find ways of helping new constituencies contact their inner knowing of how dark the spirit of power in America has lately been.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Here's How Obama Should Deal with the *Debate* Issue
(1 comments) There's a way for Obama to deal with this debate challenge from Hillary that can transform the dynamic of this nomination process to his advantage, and to the advantage of the Democratic Party.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008
It's Time for John Edwards to Get Off the Fence and Help End This Fiasco
(14 comments) The best way for John Edwards to advance his issues and to serve America's underserved common people is to take action now to persuade the voters of Indiana to end this damaging nominating process-- a process whose most likely effect is to increase the chances of another four years of plutocratic Republican rule.

Friday, April 18, 2008
Dear Barack: Non Carborundum Illegitimatum
(5 comments) I hope you can keep that light of yours burning bright despite all the efforts of the forces of darkness to bury that light in their toxic sludge.

Thursday, March 27, 2008
What I Intuit the Reverend Wright Business Is Fundamentally About
Deep in America's soul, there is an image that evokes great fear, quite possibly growing out of guilt: it is image of the angry black man.

Monday, March 24, 2008
The Assignment Now (As I See It)
(12 comments) Here is the task at hand: to issue a challenge to the American people to see rightly what this presidential choice is and to choose right.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The "Grist for the Mill" Strategy
(1 comments) Yesterday's speech on race in America should serve as a template for how Obama should conduct the heart of his campaign for the forseeable future, perhaps all the way until the election in November.

Saturday, March 15, 2008
Evil and Wholeness-- Resolving an Apparent Contradiction
(1 comments) In this latest of my SEEING THINGS WHOLE seriess I ask: If Evil is to be understood as the operation of vast interconnected patterns working through the human system over the generations, how is that to be squared with the idea that Wholeness is profoundly connected with the Good?

Friday, March 14, 2008
How to Deal With the Darkness: The Key Question Facing Obama
Obama's indirect approach to our darkness --alluding to it glancingly while holding up the light-- worked beautifully for the early phase of his campaign. Perhaps now, while the darkness is coming after him, he'll need a different approach.

Thursday, March 13, 2008
David Spangler and Me on "Winning at All Costs"
(2 comments) Not just for our destructive leaders, but also for a great many Americans, the "low-road" has become "the road" because of a belief in "winning at all costs." This is not just a problem, it is an issue that just cries out for Obama to make into an overarching campaign theme, embracing not just campaign tactics, but unjustified wars, torture, usurpation of power, and exploitation of the people for the rich and mighty.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
What Hillary Has Now Revealed About Herself
(1 comments) Hillary has lately shown us that on the central historical challenge of this particular historical moment in America --lifting us out of the dark mire into which the Bushite regime has degraded the nation-- Hillary Clinton is not on the right side.

Monday, March 10, 2008
Evil is Not a Good Loser
(1 comments) Evil has had a field day in America, these recent years, and it is not going to yield to goodness without doing EVERYTHING it can to hold onto its dominance. Evil holds nothing higher than feeding its insatiable hungers for more –the greed for more wealth, the lust for more power, the jollies it gets in its twisted way from dominating and destroying. Now we'll see how well Obama, under attack, can combat these forces.

Monday, March 10, 2008
Evil is Not a Good Loser
(1 comments) Evil has had a field day in America, these recent years, and it is not going to yield to goodness without doing EVERYTHING it can to hold onto its dominance. Evil holds nothing higher than feeding its insatiable hungers for more –the greed for more wealth, the lust for more power, the jollies it gets in its twisted way from dominating and destroying. Now we'll see how well Obama, under attack, can combat these forces.

Sunday, March 9, 2008
Metaphor and Reality
(2 comments) We use an expression like "strike when the iron is hot" in a great variety of situations. In this latest installment of my SEEING THINGS WHOLE series, I ask: Are the relationships and patterns suggested by the way we use such metaphors REAL?

Thursday, March 6, 2008
Here's How Obama Should Fight Back
(6 comments) Yes, Obama should get tougher on his opponents. But not in the "old politics" way, but only in the way that reinforces his case for the "new politics" he's offering the country.

Monday, March 3, 2008
If I Could Ask Obama One Question
(1 comments) Here's what I'd ask him. And here is what I hope would be the truth, and what I hope would not be.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Caring for Future Generations
(2 comments) In this installment of my SEEING THINGS WHOLE series, I ask: in American political discourse, have we not ceased to talk about what kind of country we're building for future generations? And if so, what accounts for this lack of concern for --and connection with-- our descendants?

Sunday, February 24, 2008
An Interesting Instance of Contagion
(3 comments) My SEEING THINGS WHOLE series explores the ways in which our world is densely interwoven with patterns and connections. "Contagion" is one of the processes by which such interconnections are made. Here's an interesting instance.

Thursday, February 21, 2008
Obama's "Inspiration" vs. Clinton's "Solutions"
Inspiration is not only a legitimate message. It's the indispensable element for creating the only force that can reclaim America from its present darkness.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
A Pattern in My Life (Part II)
My own experience suggests to me that it when people contact the Whole that they become transformed, energized, devoted to something beyond themselves-- and thus also more capable of combatting the forces of destruction. In this perspective, my current series SEEING THINGS WHOLE is not a distraction from the mission of fighting the fascist threat in America today but is a way of laying the foundations for that struggle.

Monday, February 18, 2008
Gambling on Obama is Our Safest Bet
(3 comments) In normal times, the "safe" bet on conventional leadership may be prudent. But America is no in deep peril, and steady-as-you-go is a recipe for disaster. What America desperately needs is TRANSFORMATIONAL leadership, and of the three candidates who now might become the next president, only one MIGHT give America that kind of leadership. Going for that chance is the best chance America now has.

Friday, February 15, 2008
Obama Is Not Naive About Power
(10 comments) Do you wonder if Obama may not understand how power works in the world? Wonder no more. Here's strong reason to believe he understands power far more deeply than most.

Monday, February 11, 2008
A Pattern in My Life (Part I)
Is the attempt at SEEING THINGS WHOLE a distraction from the pressing business of healing our troubled world? A pattern in my own life suggests that on the contrary, there is something gained from contacting WHOLENESS that empowers us for dealing with the wounds and the evils that afflict our world.

Thursday, February 7, 2008
The Wholeness of Nature
(5 comments) In this latest installment of my SEEING THINGS WHOLE series, I describe an intense experience of seeing a wholeness beyond the individual pieces of a forest growing around me. And I connect that experience with what is known, or believed, about a Wholeness embodied in the earth's living systems.

Saturday, February 2, 2008
Why I'm for Obama: Only He Can Shift the Correlation of Forces
(10 comments) Even if both Hillary and Oback would (largely) try to serve the Good as president, only Obama could shift the correlation of forces that now so limits the Good America is capable of accomplishing. Only a leader in whom the American people are willing to recognize moral authority is capable of re-empowering the people.

Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Zeitgeist as Evidence of Subtle Patterns and Connections
Here's another suggestive glimpse into how the elements of a cultural system interwoven together in ways deeper, more subtle, more intricate, more organic, than most of us generally imagine. Looking into the phenomenon of the Zeitgeist --"the spirit of the times"-- is one of the ways of SEEING THINGS WHOLE.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Justice as the Antidote to Power
In this latest in my SEEING THINGS WHOLE series, I describe that virtue in social arrangements that strives to achieve the Wholeness that, since the beginnings of civilization, the workings of power have tended to subvert: namely, that man-made virtue called "Justice."

Saturday, January 26, 2008
"So Did Jesse Jackson": Clinton's Tactics Backfire in South Carolina
(8 comments) My intuition here tells me the shape of the future of the Democratic race is now visible. And on this particular situation, my intuition about what's just happened has been on target, as tonight's great victory for Obama in South Carolina has just shown.

Thursday, January 24, 2008
Dimensions of Wholeness (from the PARABLE OF THE TRIBES)
Wholeness is an essential property of the systems that life has created on earth in its four billion years of development. Here --as part of my SEEING THINGS WHOLE series-- I present a way of conceptualizing two life-serving dimensions of that wholeness.

Monday, January 21, 2008
Order vs. Chaos in the Flow of Events
(1 comments) In this latest installment of my SEEING THINGS WHOLE series, I look at a couple of the levels of the question: how much of wholeness --of order, and of a web of patterns and connections-- is to be found in the flow of events?

Thursday, January 17, 2008
No Man is an Island
(5 comments) In this latest installment of SEEING THINGS WHOLE, the focus is on the famous lines of John Donne. Donne asserts a deep wholeness to humanity --"every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main"-- and thereby raises some important questions: is he talking about the way things factually ARE, or about how he thinks we should FEEL them to be?

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Patterns of Thought
I'm attempting in this opening set of SEEING THINGS WHOLE postings to lay out --through illustration-- a number of the many DIMENSIONS OF INTERCONNECTION. This one has to do with how the patterns instilled in human minds by culture and experience tend to recapitulate themselves from one realm of endeavor to another.

Sunday, January 13, 2008
Connections Through Time
(1 comments) Here's the second installment of my new project, SEEING THINGS WHOLE. In this one, I offer an illustration of how patterns in the human system endure through time.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Weak and Strong Paths to Victory
(4 comments) In this, the final installment of a series --"What Is Spiritually Wrong with America?"-- first begun here several weeks ago, I ponder what the implications may be of the weaknesses shown by the American body politic for what might realistically be the best way for the nation to prevail over Bushite fascism.

Sunday, January 6, 2008
SEEING THINGS WHOLE: Launching a New Project
(3 comments) There is nothing more important, or more rewarding, than attending to the vast and profound interconnectedness of things. It's important intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

Monday, December 31, 2007
A Fighter: What the Dems Most Need in a Presidential Candidate
(16 comments) The year now ending was disappointing-- particularly in how unwilling or unable the Democrats in Congress were to fight. Even if the Bushite face-cards leave office, the forces behind them will remain, which means that they will still need to be fought. And that, in turn, means that the main thing we need in a Democratic standard bearer in the coming election, and then from the Oval Office, is a effective and willing fighter

Saturday, December 29, 2007
What is This "Cowardly Act" Bit About?
(11 comments) On Thursday, President Bush made a public statement about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto condemning "this cowardly act." There are a lot of terrible things one can say about someone who perpetrated such an act. But how can one describe as "cowardly" a man who, aside from carrying out an assassination, deliberately blows himself to pieces? Yet this word is almost always used for such crimes. Why is that?

Thursday, December 27, 2007
Patterns of Weakness
Continuing my "What is Spiritually Wrong with America" series, I reflect here on the failures of vision and of courage of the Democrats in the face of the Bushite evil, and on the strange pattern of poking the beast but avoiding outright confrontation.

Saturday, December 22, 2007
The Flaws in Two of the Arguments of the Climate "Skeptics"
(2 comments) "Skeptics" --real and pretend-- argue 1) that we don't know with certainty what's happening to the climate, and 2) that even if the planet is warming, we don't know that it is caused by human activity. Therefore, they say, we ought not make sacrifices to change our ways to address the threat of climate change. Neither argument holds water.

Thursday, December 20, 2007
The Loss of the Ideal, the Failure of the Heroic
(5 comments) When a culture stops investing energy into an image of the human ideal, one of the consequences is that its members stop training themselves to be heroes. This is what has happened to America, especially to liberal America. And that is part of why our representatives have proven weak, cowardly, and ineffectual in the face of the Bushite evil.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Shrinking from the Necessary Battle
(3 comments) I begin here a series on the theme, "What is Spiritually Wrong With America?" The presenting symptom is the failure of the American body politic to stand up to the evils of Bushite fascism.

Thursday, December 13, 2007
The Muddle-Through Scenario
While there are some dark possibilities that can be envisioned for America's future, in the wake of this criminal Bushite regime, another scenario --not very satisfying but a lot less dark-- seems to me more likely. It's the "Muddle-Through" Scenario.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Power and Corruption: Just What Is Their Relationship?
(3 comments) The famous idea that "power corrupts" only captures a small piece of this deep and important relationship.

Thursday, December 6, 2007
What Bothers Me About the "Issue" of Romney's Mormonism
(2 comments) Here's one more instance in which a great many supposed "patriots" show an ignorance of --or an indifference to-- the essential nature of the American constitutional democracy our Founders were attempting to create.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The Put Up or Shut Up Challenge
In this final installment of my series on "What Should Be Happening Now," I suggest a strategy with which the Democrats --whose job it is now to thoroughly strip this Bushite presidency of all its authority and respect-- can turn to their advantage the counter-attacks from the Bushites that are sure to come.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Honoring the Presidency Requires Dishonoring this President
(8 comments) The American people need to be helped to understand that when a president disgraces and violates his office, he's not entitled to the authority and respect Americans usually grant their presidents. Indeed, to honor the office, we Americans are obliged to treat this president as the travesty and abomination that he is.

Friday, November 16, 2007
Get Off My Plane!
Here's an emotionally gratifying image that popped into my mind.

Thursday, November 15, 2007
The "What Kind of Man Could Do This?" Dramatization
In this latest installment of my "What Should Be Happening Now," I present one piece of the very large picture of Bushite evil. It's a small piece, but it reveals something quite basic and dark about this president.

Thursday, November 15, 2007
KARL ROVE TO BECOME NEWSWEEK CONTRIBUTOR: DISGRACEFUL!
(1 comments) News Flash: Newsweek gives platform to the American Goebbels. Is there no limit to the disgrace our media have become?

Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Dog that Didn't Bark: The Story I'd Like Bill Moyers to Cover
(3 comments) Why have the mainstream corporate media devoted FAR less time to the massive pattern of Bushite crimes than did their predecessors to the lesser crimes of Watergate, and given them but a tiny fraction of the attention than they did to a president's sexual indiscretion a decade ago? Why have the media served a lawless president more than the citizenry? Here's a huge story Bill Moyers, a journalist with integrity, could cover.

Sunday, November 11, 2007
Attack Iran, Get Impeached: An Idea from Ken Mayers
(6 comments) Here's a good approach to tying Bush's hands from dragging America, and the world, into yet another disaster.

Thursday, November 8, 2007
When Your Champions Run From the Field Rather than Fight
This is the further elaboration of the framework I'm calling, "What Should Be Happening Now." This addition deals with the disappointing reality that those upon whom we are forced to depend to fight this fight are, instead, backing away from the necessary confrontation.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007
What Should Be Happening Now: The Opening Statement
The key tto wresting power from the Bushites is to expose their dark doings so thoroughly that the regime is completely stripped of all authority. Stripped of such authority, this president could more readily be defeated on all the specific issues. It is that --not the continued domination of the nation's course by this disgraceful presidency-- that should be happening now.

Monday, November 5, 2007
How Congress Should Deal with the Iran Issue
(5 comments) Congress should say: "It would be unconstitutional for the president to initiate hostilities with Iran without congressional approval. It would also be folly for us Americans to leave such a decision to a group that has blundered so badly in making such decisions in the past." Both the constitutional argument and the pragmatic argument expose the terrible defects of this regime: its lawlessness and its incompetence.

Saturday, November 3, 2007
Feinstein and Shumer Are Dangerously Wrong
(12 comments) What's at stake here is not the man, Mukasey, but something much bigger. It's a matter of answering the question, "Will the attorney general's office be an agent of the rule of law or an agent of its subversion?" And by how we answer that question, we answer too the question, "What kind of nation are we?" These two Senators either don't understand or don't care enough about these vital stakes.

Monday, October 29, 2007
OK, Don't Run, Al Gore; But Do Speak Out!
(9 comments) The words of the Awakened Fringe are generally ignored by America's complacent and complicit body politic. But there is one person whose voice that could break through that wall. And here's how he could --and should-- proceed.

Saturday, October 27, 2007
When Bush Accuses the Dems of "Wasting Time"
(9 comments) Virtually every Bushite attack on their opponents, virtually every issue that is contested between the regime and its critics, is an opportunity to expose the crimes and lies and moral bankruptcy of this regime. It's a matter, in each case, of finding the right strategy to turn the energy of the confrontation into a weapon to discredit the Bushite regime in the eyes of the American people. Here's one example.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007
A True Patriot Watches A Perfect Anti-Democracy Storm Reach Full Fury
(10 comments) This is the danger our Founders sought to equip us to meet: the rise of a lawless, tyrannical president. But America has failed to meet this vital challenge. The people have failed to rise up in their millions. The free press has failed to tell this major story. And now we see the Congress has failed to rise up to fight these criminals.

Friday, October 19, 2007
A Many-Dimensional Look at America
(2 comments) Here's a gateway into a radio conversation that I strongly commend to your attention. The conversation is between me and Craig Barnes, Santa Fe political commentator, lawyer, playwright, etc., an interview for the website "America Deceived." The twists and turns of our exchange comprise a holistic view of what's now happening in the American cultural system. It can be heard on-line or downloaded as a podcast.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
What's the NASCAR-Bushite Connection?
People who go for NASCAR apparently overlap considerably with people who support Bush. Is there any reason for this at a deep level, or is this just an artifact of, say, geography? Is the spirit of NASCAR connected in any meaningful way with the spirit of this regime? In a spirit of seeking comprehension, not mere denigration, I invite your insights.

Thursday, October 11, 2007
John Wayne as an American Archetypal Figure
(3 comments) The characters John Wayne played on the screen both embodied an already-existing American archetype, and helped to define and strengthen it. It's a figure over which Americans tend to polarize along right-left lines. Here's an invitation to help bridge that divide: what is the nature of that archetype and what in it is worthy of appreciation and what warrants criticism?

Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Explaining the Weakness of the Dems in Spiritual Terms
(18 comments) Just as "you can't beat somebody with nobody," when it comes to explaining the way the Democrats are still getting rolled by this lame-duck, unpopular administration, "you can't beat some spirit with no spirit." The spirit of the Bushites may be evil, but it's something. It is the liberals lack of spirit that makes them weak and afraid.

Friday, October 5, 2007
The Biology (or Is It?) of Political Orientation
(2 comments) Research shows that liberals are more likely to notice evidence that something has changed than are conservatives, and that there are even differences between the two groups in terms of activity in relevant parts of the brain. The researchers offer the idea that this difference is hard-wired. But it seems more likely to me that it's learned.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007
The Betrayal of the Disabled NFL Veterans
(5 comments) Here's a story that suggests that the NFL stiffs its disabled former players. (It suggests that the Players Union is serving the league at the expense of the players it supposedly represents.) Does this story tell us something important about the spirit of our times in America?

Monday, October 1, 2007
Exploring the Spirit(s) of Our Times
(5 comments) The poltical process seems to have stalled. The failure of America --Democrats, media, public-- to respond adequately to the challenge of this dark Bushite regime is to be understood, I suggest, in terms of a "spiritual" failure. It is to that level --what I'm calling the spiritual level-- that I am now turning. And it is to realms of American culture other than politics that I am now directing my attention.

Monday, September 24, 2007
Imagine Living in a Time When Things Are Moving in a Good Direction
A passage from Goethe prompts me to reflect on how different his time was from ours. He describes the trend toward greater "humanism" --compassion, tolerance, idealism-- coming to infuse the society around him, in its various dimensions. How different from the trend in our time, when darker spirits have ascended in power.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007
An Alternative to Impeachment
(23 comments) It does not appear that Congress will impeach these Bushite thugs, as it should. But here's a proposal for another approach that might accomplish at least some of the same purposes.

Thursday, August 23, 2007
Tappers and Listeners: A Relevant Challenge from a Book Entitled "Made to Stick"
(1 comments) Here's a vivid illustration of how the attempt to communicate can be subverted by the "Curse of Knowledge." It poses a challege that we --who know in detail the lies and crimes of this Bushite regime-- might usefully contemplate.

Monday, August 20, 2007
The Bushite Era as a Re-Enactment of the American Civil War
(6 comments) I find it interesting and illuminating to think of these Bushite times as being a re-enactment of the American Civil War. In both eras, the South has displayed its vulnerabilities at the level of moral vision.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Bush and Rove: Collaborators in the Theater of the Moral Lie
(1 comments) If evil were to take over America, it would have to do it with a smiling face and postures of righteousness. As Karl Rove --perhaps the most pernicious figure in the political history of the United States-- announces his departure from the White House, we do well to look at how he and the destructive president he has served and used collaborated to deceive America with their phony postures of false righteousness.

Thursday, August 9, 2007
You Swore on the Bible: What an Oath Means
(4 comments) An oath is more than an ordinary promise. It is an unequivocal commitment. To break it is a crime against God, inviting damnation. Everyone in Congress has sworn an oath to defend the Constitution. Well...?

Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Hey, Media! You Should Be Putting the Impeachment Story Front and Center
(4 comments) The Founders put freedom of the press into the Constitution for precisely moments like these, when the people need help in protecting their freedom. But you --the big media-- continue to shirk your responsibility by not covering the urgent question of impeachment. Where --oh media-- is your patriotism?

Saturday, August 4, 2007
The Dems Disheartening Cave to Bush on FISA
(8 comments) Lies are still trumping truth. Fear is still defeating reason. Political self-protection is still taking precedence over the defense of the Constitution.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007
A Way of Seeing Dick Cheney for What He Is
The man has shown a life-long interest in being as close as possible to the summit of power. That, in itself, is no indictment of the man. But now, in the ugly picture of what he wanted to DO with that power, we can see the dark spirit that drives him.

Thursday, July 19, 2007
Organize to Push Congress Toward Impeachment
(10 comments) The recent actions of the Bushite regime have made it clear, like never before, just what a people's movement must do. Only when the public sentiment for impeachment manifests itself in an undeniable and impassioned DEMAND that our elected representatives honor their oath of office will the Congress and the media treat impeachment as they should: not as a partisan power struggle but as a sacred duty. Here's a way forward.

Monday, July 16, 2007
Impeachment: The Time Has Come!
(28 comments) Till now, I've disagreed with the notion that Congress should proceed full-out with the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. Fine for people like us to call for it, fine for a few fringe elected officials to introduce measures that go nowhere. But a mistake for the Democratic Congress as a whole to make impeachment their main business. Now it's different. Now's the time for that ultimate showdown. Here's why.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007
The Commutation: The Latest in a String of Scandals
One corrupt and lawless act leads to another-- a kind of vertical integration of scandal. If the American people and their elected representatives allow the perpetrators of this assault on the rule of law to escape the appropriate consequences, that would be the biggest scandal of all.

Thursday, June 28, 2007
Hope May Spring Eternal, But It Also Has Its Dry Spells
My sense of hopefulness has not fared too well lately.

Monday, June 25, 2007
Do We Not All Want This?
(15 comments) Do the disagreements among factions on the left prevent us from uniting behind a commond political message? Some --those attached to continual disputation-- say yes. But I say that's wrong. Do we not all agree on these important statements?

Thursday, June 14, 2007
The Evil and the Good, the Power and the People: Part 2
Liberals tend to blame the power system for what's wrong. Conservatives tend to blame the people. So what does that make me?

Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The Evil and the Good, the Power and the People: An Exchange
(1 comments) To what extent is the present crisis in America to be understood as a function of the basic nature of "the American power system" as a whole? And to what extent should it be seen as due to the failure of the American people to be sufficiently vigilant in protecting their system from corruptions?

Wednesday, June 6, 2007
The World 50 Years Hence
I hope for great things. I can't say that I EXPECT them. But history surprises not only on the downside, as we have lately seen, but also on the upside.

Friday, May 25, 2007
Why Didn't You Stand Your Ground, Mr. Carter?
(10 comments) Former President, Jimmy Carter, spoke the plain truth but then, two days later, he backed down. I ask him: Why did you back down and thereby squander the opportunity to teach the American people an important truth about this disastrous regime?

Friday, May 11, 2007
The Limits of Outrage-- Part II
(2 comments) Nuclear weapons have changed many things. But the challenge of maintaining the peace remains substantially the same. The leaders of great powers still need to possess various strengths, among which are some of the virtues of the warrior. That does not mean, of course, that a nation needs its leaders to possess the vices of bullies and thugs like Bush and Cheney. The virtuous warrior is not a war-monger.

Thursday, May 10, 2007
The Limits of Outrage --Part I
(7 comments) How should we think about the way Americans like their leaders to possess the toughness and skill of a good warrior? This is one of those complex, two-sided issues on which people in our polarized nation tend to seize upon one side and just ignore the other. The reality is that there are both crazy and wise aspects of this aspect of American consciousness.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007
The Difference Between Bush and Blair
(3 comments) The poll numbers from Great Britain show that Blair will be remembered most for Iraq. But they also show that most Britons think that on the whole he has been a good prime minister. That will not be the case when Bush leaves office, and there's a good reason for the difference.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007
How Does the Moral Order of the World Work?
(9 comments) The religions and the foundational philosophies of Western civilization try to claim too much about the moral order of the human system. But there IS a moral order --in which virtue tends to be its own reward, and sin its own punishment-- but that moral order is just rather incomplete and thus not entirely reliable.

Sunday, May 6, 2007
The Pathological State of America's Broadcast Journalism: Thoughts From Greenwald, Others, and Me
Here are a few glimpses into the problems with our current journalistic culture, and indeed with American culture more generally.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007
This, Pat Robertson, Is How a Nation Gets Punished for Its Sins
(2 comments) You're right, Pat, that nations pay a price for their sins. But you're wrong about how the moral order works.

Monday, April 30, 2007
Winners and Losers in America: An Observation, A Question, A Hypothesis
(1 comments) Something has shifted in American culture. That's what's suggested by comparing the game shows of the 1950s with such blockbuster successes as SURVIVOR, THE APPRENTICE, and AMERICAN IDOL. It's worth asking: what does the change at the level of popular culture tell us about deeper changes in American society and in the experience of the American people?

Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Fear Factor V: The Better Way of Closing the Fear Gap (Or, How the Left Can Help Heal the Right)
However much we can reduce the level of fear --among that part of the American public who, out of their fearfulness, have been supporters of the Bushite regime-- will help to heal America.

Monday, April 23, 2007
What My Mother Taught Me About Elitism and Human Value
(1 comments) When asked lately if I am elitist, what came to my mind is what my mother taught me about people and their value, and how she taught it.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The Road from FDR to GWB: Reflections After Visiting the Memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the Mall
(1 comments) Want to see what "downhill" looks like?

Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Presidential Simulations: A Better Basis for Choosing Our Leaders
(2 comments) Here's a way we can really learn something substantial about the men and women who want to be president.

Monday, April 16, 2007
Fear Factor III: Fear as the Instrument for Debasing a People's Consciousness
Considering the effects of Fear on how people think, it's no wonder that the cultivation and manipulation of Fear is one of the major tools by which Evil forces achieve their purposes in the world.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007
It's Time to Name It: Dems Should Now Call the Bushites the Liars That They Are
(1 comments) The Democrats are understandably wary of the Bushite propaganda campaigns, by which the Iraqi disaster might be dishonestly pinned on the Congress for not giving Bush a blank check. It's time to attack the Bushite deceptions head on, to discredit in the eyes of the public everything that comes from this lying White House.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Fear Factor II: A Worldview Pervaded By Fear
It is not coincidence that a regime that rules by manipulating and exploiting FEAR in the people finds its support predominantly on the traditionalist right-wing part of the American public.

Monday, April 9, 2007
Fear Factor I: A Few General Thoughts on Fear in the Human Sphere
(5 comments) While fear is sometimes necessary, in Bushite America fear has been exploited to the detriment of the nation. Here I begin a series on the problem of fear in America today.

Thursday, March 22, 2007
Why I'm Less Afraid Now
(8 comments) The times remain dangerous. But the efforts of evil forces to take over America are failing, at least for this Bushite round.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Our Relationship With Our Imperfect World: Part III– How Crisis Defines the Possibilities for Transformation
(2 comments) There is a chance that America can use this Bushite crisis as an opportunity for national transformation and renewal. While such transformation is not possible in EVERY area, it IS possible with respect to those dimensions of our polity with which a substantial proportion of the American people recognize that the nation is now in crisis.

Monday, March 19, 2007
"Bogus Arguments": Report on the Radio Show
(6 comments) Can there be constructive dialogue with the true-believer Bushite supporters. My recent experience on the radio in Virginia makes me doubtful. At least it does not seem that I --whose approach has to do with logic and reason and evidence-- have anything in my repertoire that penetrates the trance state.

Friday, March 16, 2007
Gonzalez's Head on a Platter: Some Thoughts about Power and the Corporate Press
The fall of Gonzalez will me a major signal of the collapse of Bushite power. Our craven press sucks up to power. So I predict that as Gonzalez falls, we'll see a shift in how the media report on the regime. A welcome shift-- but also a sign of the media system's lack of integrity.

Friday, March 16, 2007
When Loyalty Is Not a Virtue: A Glimpse into Bush's Amoral World
The new scandal of Alberto Gonzalez and the politicization of the American system of justice is a reminder of how the idea loyalty, with the Bushites, is not part of a moral system. It is, rather, a symptom of a fundamentally amoral worldview in which power is really the only value.

Thursday, March 15, 2007
The Ethic of the Market and the Erosion of Moral Values: One More Lesson from the the Coulter Disgrace
Someone like Ann Coulter being given a huge megaphone by our corporate media is indicative of one of the forces that have degraded America's moral culture. Among the forces that have eroded the idea that it is important to distinguish between right desire and wrong desire, one of them is the ethic of the market plcace. According to that ethic, whatever sells is --by definition-- good.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007
The Shamelessness of Ann Coulter and the Shame of the Right
What is shameful about Ann Coulter is not so much that her conduct is atrocious and vicious and fundamentally dishonest. That simply proves that there are terrible people in the world, which is not any great revelation. What is most shameful is that there are important and powerful parts of our world that grant her so high a status and so prominent a platform.

Thursday, March 8, 2007
Follow the Pressure: Some Questions About the U.S. Attorney Firings
(2 comments) Deep Throat told Woodward, "Follow the money." When it comes to this developing scandal about the unprecedented political purge of the U.S. Attorneys, who apparently resisted pressures to politicize their conduct of their office, the operative word for the investigation should be: Follow the Pressure.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Our Relationship With Our Imperfect World: Part I-- Acknowledging the Good in the Imperfect
We who are fighting the dark Bushite forces ought to give some thought to how much our task is to repair the damage the Bushites have done and how much is to effect fundamental and long-standing characteristics of American civilization. Two points in this installment: the imperfect can still be, in important ways, the good; and those who seek change should recognize "the persistence of culture."

Monday, March 5, 2007
Mutual Contempt: A Portrait of Polarized America
(7 comments) What do you think happens to a country like ours when it's divided into two polarized camps that see each other in terms of such mutual contempt?

Thursday, March 1, 2007
Mis-Trust on Anti-Trust
A couple of big mergers have been announced lately. Who can believe that the present U.S. government will look out for the public interest?

Wednesday, February 28, 2007
An American "Ground Hog Day"
(1 comments) I'd love to see a film that shows Americans as a nation --like the Bill Murray character in the film GROUNDHOG DAY-- compelled to relive a stretch of time (say, the last six years) until they learn what must be learned and can then redo it right.

Monday, February 26, 2007
It's Got to Be Gore: Part V-- What Gore Should Do
(1 comments) Here's how Gore should proceed, whether he wants to run or not. Either way, he's well positioned to tell America what it needs to hear.

Thursday, February 22, 2007
Bogus Arguments: My Next Radio Show in Bush Country
(7 comments) Here are four bogus arguments the Bushites are using to manipulate the public and prevent Americans and their representatives from meaningful deliberation about our real choices in Iraq. I plan to try to persuade the conservative radio listeners of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley that their leaders' arguments are just a smokescreen for protecting themselves from the consequences of their failed policy.

Monday, February 19, 2007
It's Got to Be Gore-- Part IV: The Essential Quality that Makes Gore the Leader for These Times
(9 comments) What differentiates Gore from the alternatives --more than his experience and his demonstrated capability-- is a kind of high dedication, a kind of moral seriousness, rarely found in prominent politicians (or, for that matter, in people generally).

Monday, February 19, 2007
Is Al Gore a Man of VIsion: An Exchange
(8 comments) There are two reasons that Gore's failure to recognize how evil the Bushite gang was, back in 2000, does not contradict the idea that Gore might well be the man of vision to whom America should now turn.

Monday, February 19, 2007
Envision Possibilities
We should know that we do not know when it comes to the question "what's possible" when it's asked in an extraordinary time.

Sunday, February 18, 2007
A Brilliant Military Strategist on Why Counter-Insurgency in Iraq is Futile
(4 comments) Edward Luttwak argues that counter-insurgency warfare, like that the U.S. is trying to conduct in Iraq, is inherently futile. For that reason, he asserts that the Iraq mission was doomed from the start. He almost persuades me, but for one judgment he makes I do not share.

Saturday, February 17, 2007
Pelosi Warns the President on Iran-- Good, But She Should Up the Ante
(2 comments) Pelosi says Bush has no authority to initiate war against Iran. Here's what she should say to make this shot across the bow more impressive.

Friday, February 16, 2007
It's Got to Be Gore: Part III-- There's No Adequate Alternative
(1 comments) This historical moment makes it essential that we be as sure as possible of getting leadership adequate to the task ahead. None of the alternatives to Gore are nearly so good a bet for us as he is. This is no time for gambling, as too much is at stake.

Thursday, February 15, 2007
The Growth of Corporate Power: A Crucial Element Behind the Rise of Bushite Fascism
(8 comments) Here's a nice piece of background regarding the decades-long campaign of corporate America to roll back the advance of progressive values. First it gave us reactionary politics, and now --with the rise of the Bushite power-- it has led America into fascism.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Who Is To Be Believed: The Anti-Bushite Blogosphere or the World's Financial Markets?
(3 comments) Is a US attack on Iran likely anytime soon? Read the anti-Bushite Blogosphere, and the answer would seem to be Yes. Look at the world's financial markets, and the answer would seem to be No. How is this sharp divergence of views to be explained?

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
It's Got to Be Gore: Part II– What Does it Make Sense to Hope For?
(13 comments) Is it unreasonable to think that, with great leadership, America might be able to reverse some of the destructive socio-political trends of our times? Are such hopes the equivalent of seeking to put the toothpaste back into the tube? Is the basic course of history more or less inevitable? I don't think so.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
It's Got to Be Gore: Part II– What Does it Make Sense to Hope For?
(13 comments) Is it unreasonable to think that, with great leadership, America might be able to reverse some of the destructive socio-political trends of our times? Are such hopes the equivalent of seeking to put the toothpaste back into the tube? Is the basic course of history more or less inevitable? I don't think so.

Monday, February 12, 2007
It's Got to Be Gore: Part I– The Challenge Facing the Next President
(3 comments) In this first of a series, I lay out what I believe is the historicaly momentous challenge facing the next leadership for America: to teach Americans about the meaning of this dark Bushite episode in our history, and to begin to repair the damage these dark forces have done to America and to the world.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Try This at Home: Getting in Touch with the Meaning of Torture
(1 comments) Lately, I've found myself experiencing a kind of terror that brings home the reality of some of the terrible things the Bushites have been doing in our name.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007
You're Doubtful About America's Moral Degradation? Did You See Those Super Bowl Ads?
(6 comments) Judging from the creative decisions a variety of ad agencies made for how to sell to American men during the Super Bowl, American men delight in violence, and don't mind if it's spiced with sadism and a dash of sociopathy. Do you suppose that might connect with America having become a society where a bunch of thugs can come to power?

Monday, February 5, 2007
How Congress Can Speed the Downfall of the Bushites
(7 comments) Having watched how Congress eventually brought down Nixon during Watergate, I feel more confident now that the Bushite regime is heading toward its downfall. It won't happen as quickly or decisively as we would wish, because the politicians are like a flock of birds, figuring out on the wing where they're going. But the dynamic of the regime's defeat is now unfolding. And here's an idea on how to speed it along.

Thursday, February 1, 2007
Thoughts Regarding "The Great Decider"
(8 comments) Bush's declaration that he is "the Decider" says volumes about the basic incompatibility between his concept of power and the ideals of American democracy. Between "Decider" and "Dictator" there are deep kinships.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tie the President's Hands Regarding Making War on Iran
It's time for Congress to show that the power delegated to it "to declare war" means something. If it doesn't mean the right to decide whether to initiate non-emergency conflict with another sovereign nation, what does it mean? And if it shouldn't be exercised to prevent a presidency that's demonstrated most blatantly its incompetence and untrustworthiness in war-making, when should it be excercised?

Tuesday, January 30, 2007
On Polarization and the Moral Pathologies of America: Two Thoughts
(1 comments) At the root of America's problems is the polarization that has developed in the culture at large, creating two opposing camps that go to battle against each other wielding their half-truths as if they were the whole truth. This is the larger context that the Bushite forces have exploited to come to power. Here I offer two thoughts about this problem of polarization and the means by which it must be overcome.

Monday, January 29, 2007
We've Seen How This Cowboy Movie Ends
(6 comments) GW Bush has long since clued us in that his drama is an old Western. And with his insistence on having a showdown with Congress on his war-making, he's shown that he's a character of a kind the fan of cowboy movies has seen many times before. It's a character that always ends up sprawled in the dust.

Friday, January 26, 2007
How the Press Should Press People Who Make Statements Like Guiliani's
(1 comments) When politicians talk about "success" or "victory" in Iraq, the media really ought to ask some challenging questions. Americans need to know what are genuine options and what are merely a means of obfuscating the real situation.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007
What's With that Stubborn One-Third of the American Public?
(5 comments) I've started to wonder if perhaps we ought not take at face value what that 1/3 who say they "approve" of this presidency tell the pollsters.

Monday, January 22, 2007
How to Cope with the Bushites' "Who Lost Iraq?" Game
(9 comments) Chickens are coming home to roost. It's important that they roost where they belong. The Bushites are evidently willing to sacrifice lives and treasure to have the blame for their disaster fall on someone else. It's important that these efforts to pass off the Old Maid card of this Bushite failure be defeated. Here are some thoughts on how to thwart this dishonest and irresponsible Bushite game.

Friday, January 19, 2007
Are you Interested in Winning, or Only in Grand Postures? A response to One of Those Gung-Ho Lefties with an Apparent Co
(23 comments) There's good reason to wonder about some people on the left: do they really care about the consequences of actions, or is it all about the purity and nobility of the postures and declarations we get to make on the road to defeat?

Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Are the Bushites Bringing on Impeachment? A Speculation
(1 comments) The conduct of the Bushites on the war may lead Congress to impeach NOT because it finds the crimes so unacceptable but because it's the only way to stop them from compounding the disaster of their ill-conceived war-making.

Monday, January 15, 2007
Know When to Hold 'Em, When to Fold 'Em
Why is it that, in America, a course of action that is regarded as folly in virtually every other comparable endeavor is seen as virtue and wisdom in war?

Saturday, January 13, 2007
The Oil Companies' Disinformation on Global Warming
Corporate hacks try to muzzle congressional critics who are calling them on their immoral attempt to pad their profits at the expense of the future of the planet.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Understanding Israeli Motives
(9 comments) There's a part of the left that disables itself by construing all the world's problems as simple matters of the good guys against the bad guys, with those who have power almost always cast as the bad guys. This over-simplification of the world, removing moral ambigiuties, is manifest in how much of the left regards Israel and its motives.

Monday, January 8, 2007
Message to a Conservative Christian About the Homosexual Morality Issue
(12 comments) A traditionalist Christian has observed that the gays he has known have good character, other than their homosexuality which he condemns as immoral. Here I invite this gentleman to follow the evidence of his own observation to its logical conclusion, even if that means questioning a source he may regard as unquestionable.

Friday, January 5, 2007
New Scandal, New Opportunities: A Possible Strategic Opening for the Democrats
This latest "signing statement," which is also the latest manifestation of the lawlessness of the Bushite regime, provides a possible strategic opening to begin to flesh out, in a way compelling to the American people, the central truth of our times: a lawless bunch of fascist gangsters have been running America, and their power needs to be checked and wrested from them.

Thursday, January 4, 2007
Bush's Surge: An Interpretation that Connects it with the Regime's Deep Darkness
(5 comments) Bush is reportedly about to announce an Iraq policy that seems sure to fail: the same policy that's failed, only more of it. Why this destructive exercise in futility? Here's the answer I propose.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Can't You See? Crucial Differences Too Many on the Left Seem to Miss
(18 comments) It's true, a lot of Democrats voted in 2002, with the Bushites, to authorize the use of force in Iraq. What's a mystery is why it is that so many on the left --out of some shallow understanding of human beings, perhaps, or of the world of politics-- simply ASSUME that means that the actions of those Dems were no different from those of the Bushites who wanted this war.

Monday, January 1, 2007
Our Next President Needs to Be Well-Seasoned
(21 comments) The challenge in the international sphere that will face the next president will be of great difficulty and of enormous importance. America's next leader needs, therefore, to be someone with deep understanding of the workings of international affairs.

Friday, December 29, 2006
Abusive Families and the Pattern of Fascism
(4 comments) One can see how patterns of brokenness are transmitted --in both directions-- between the levels of the family and of the polity.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Sequel to the "Good Will Toward Men" Essay
Some additional thoughts about how recent experience (especially witnessing the acquiescence of so many Americans in the Bushite evil) has shaken my faith in --and damaged my feelings about-- my fellow human beings.

Saturday, December 23, 2006
Why "Good Will Toward Men" Has Become More of a Challenge for Me: My Christmas Thoughts
(4 comments) What I've seen the last few years from my countrymen has wounded me in a way that's made it harder for me to feel open-hearted toward humankind generally. I prefer the way I used to feel, and hope I'll heal enough to feel that way again.

Thursday, December 21, 2006
Evil and the Oval Office: A Spiritual, but also Naturalistic, Perspective on the Bushite Regime
(5 comments) I don't believe in Satan, but I can see that evil acts in an opportunistic fashion. And what greater target could evil choose in the entire world than to occupy the highest place of power in the one nation whose might is unmatched on this earth?

Monday, December 18, 2006
Reason and Emotion in the Anti-Bushite Movement, Or, Hey Democrat-hating Lefties, Get Real
(45 comments) It's good to envision the IDEAL. But those so angry about how the world falls short of the ideal that they ignore the POSSIBLE do not serve the ideal well. We can see this problem in how many among the what should be the Democrats' base reject and denigrate and weaken the very instrument that, though flawed, is the best too available for defeating the evils of this Bushite regime.

Saturday, December 16, 2006
The Mind of the Breadbaker *
And suddenly I understood: The minds of those who conceived this process of turning grain into bread had themselves been cultivated by generations of experience turning earth into crops of food to eat. What I saw was this: the baker of bread is farming, and what he is growing is yeast.

Friday, December 15, 2006
Disagreement about Zbig: Acknowledging the Problem of Power
(2 comments) Some people find it easy to condemn pretty much everyone who has ever wielded American power. I wonder what would happen if some of those people were compelled to go beyond such criticism and actually take on the responsibility of trying to survive in an intersocietal system that has been in a Hobbsean state of war since the first kingdoms arose in Mesopotamia more than 5000 years ago.

Thursday, December 14, 2006
Let Things Ripen Some on Impeachment: Patience Will Be Rewarded
Sometimes the best way to reap the desired fruit is not to yank at it forcefully but to let things ripen till it practically falls into one's hand of its own accord.

Monday, December 11, 2006
The Pro-Life Position on Climate Change
One can surely judge the godliness –or lack of it-of any political leadership by the attitude it brings to the needs of life. The issue of climate change is one where we as a people show whether or not we will recognize the sacredness life and act to preserve the wholeness of the systems of life on earth.

Saturday, December 9, 2006
Glued to the Tube for Zbig: A Fantasy of a Hearing the Democrats Should Convene
Here's perhaps the ideal witness to explain to America just how profound has been the damage to the American position in the world inflicted by the recklessness and incompetence of the Bush administration.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006
The Good News Implied in Feingold's Decision Not to Run
Feingold's announcement, released so quickly after the midterm elections, may tell us less about what the Wisconsin Senator will NOT do in 2008 than about what he WILL do in 2007.

Monday, December 4, 2006
The Democrats and the Anti-Bushite Movement: How This Important Alliance Should Work
(7 comments) For the achievement of the vital goals of defeating the Bushites and repairing the damage they have done to America, the Democrats in Congress and the anti-Bushite movement are natural allies. And how well both sides of this alliance manage their relationship, and perform their complementary roles, will be one important determinant of how successfully this task is accomplished.

Saturday, December 2, 2006
Stranger in a Familiar Land: The Introduction to My Book, *The Illusion of Choice*
(1 comments) The market economy is a powerful mechanism that both grants us many blessings and takes our society in directions that we would not choose.

Thursday, November 30, 2006
Discussion Question: What is the Condition of America's Electoral System?
In the mid-term elections of 2006, the American democracy apparently accomplished something that many thought might no longer be possible: it achieved the peaceful transfer of meaningful power from the Bushite Republican Party to the opposition. How much does the evidence of this election justify our being optimistic about the power of the electorate to determine our collective destiny?

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Traditionalists' Muddled Thinking About God and the Good: A Bit of Philosophy
Many adherents to traditional religion make the mistake of believing that their religion frees them of the moral responsibility of making their own judgments about what is good.

Monday, November 27, 2006
When Failure is Better than Success: What Americans, and the World, Owe to the Disaster in Iraq
(1 comments) As terrible as the debacle has been in Iraq, imagine what the situation would be if this Bushite venture into "preventive war" had succeeded. Where would American democracy be if our "war-time president" still enjoyed the popularity of his "Mission Accomplished" moment? And where would these Bushite imperialists have taken their lust for power next, had their conquest of Iraq indeed been a cakewalk?

Thursday, November 23, 2006
Riane Eisler on How the Progressives Forfeited on the Family Values Issue: The Case of the Equal Rights Amendment
Thanksgiving seems a fitting time to think about "family values," and about Dr. Eisler's argument that progressives have paid too little attention to the politics of whether our values lay the groundwork for raising authoritarian and militaristic citizens or citizens committed to democratic equality and compassion.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
McCain: Still Waiting to Hear a True Note
John McCain, who once seemed like a man with integrity, continues his journey on the Double-talk Express.

Monday, November 20, 2006
The Dems' First Step on Iraq: The Kind of Hearings We Need
(3 comments) Concerning Iraq, the Democrats must address two goals simultaneously: 1) helping move American policy toward Iraq in the right direction; 2) and making sure that the Bushites cannnot foist political responsibility for their failure in Iraq onto the Democrats. Here's how it can be done.

Friday, November 17, 2006
Vignettes of the State of Culture
(1 comments) It is said that the universe can be seen in a teaspoon. Likewise, the corruption of American society can be seen in a few small scenes.

Thursday, November 16, 2006
Our Pathways Into Deep Meaning: A Vision of Wholeness
Before my seeing the threat to America from the evil of the Bushite forces, I was engaged in a much lovelier exploration. A spiritual breakthrough had given me an insight into a deep truth that our most meaningful experiences point us toward. In this piece, I share my experience, and what I inferred from what I then saw.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006
None of the Above
(9 comments) Some thoughts in response to an article appearing on Google News entitled, "Obama vs. Clinton vs. Kerry in '08?"

Monday, November 13, 2006
Waging Battle, Building Peace: The Paradox Confronting the Democrats
The Democrats face a paradox, in that they need simultaneously to continue to battle to defeat the Bushites and, as part of overcoming the imprint of the destructive Bushite forces, they also need to build a basis for more peace and more consensus and not just more strife. This two-sided challenge has implications regarding what kind of issues and measures that the Democrats should take up and enact.

Thursday, November 9, 2006
The Dems' New Power: Investigative Hearings Done Right
(1 comments) We have won this important battle. We would be foolish to proceed without regard to the additional battles to come. In this piece, I offer an idea about how that applies to the matter of investigative hearings. And I ask readers to help propose, based on the strategy I propose, what the Dems should hold hearings about, and how those hearings should be presented to the American public.

Tuesday, November 7, 2006
The Criterion for Victory Today
(3 comments) THe New York Times says some Democratic leaders worry that too high expectations may lead to disappointment. But the criterion for what constitutes victory today is simple, and crystal clear.

Monday, November 6, 2006
The Fault Lies Not in Our Stars ("Luckless Nation") But in Ourselves (the American People)
(7 comments) An article in NEWSWEEK declares that, with this Bush presidency, America's famous luck ran out. But that misses an essential feature of these dark times, the part that is not about "bad luck" but about "character is destiny." These dark forces could not have risen to power but for their exploitation of the degradation of America's national character. With tomorrow's election, the American people can begin their repentance.

Saturday, November 4, 2006
Moral Exo-Skeletons and Endo-Skeletons: A Key Divide in the American Body Politic
To understand what's been going on in America's culture wars, it's important to recognize that the different sides tend to utilize different moral structures to maintain moral order.

Wednesday, November 1, 2006
GOP Nonsense: Fighting Them Over There So We Don't Have to Fight them Here at Home
(1 comments) Seemingly intelligent people buy this ridiculous Bushite propaganda. But even on the face of it, this Republican slogan is palpable nonsense. The war in Iraq has increased our enemies' choices of how to injure the United States, and taken away American options on how to defend ourselves. That a slogan like this could work points to a void where citizens' critical thinking skills ought to be.

Monday, October 30, 2006
This Time --Unlike the Other Time Evil Wrought Havoc on America-- There will be No Romanticizing the Story
(2 comments) Only once before in history have evil forces controlled the destiny of America. That time, America found a way to romanticize the results. This time, there will likely be no way to see it but as a time of stain and disgrace on the nation's story.

Thursday, October 26, 2006
THe "Prophetic Social Movement": Then and Now
It turns out that our movement has been less about awakening the Bushites than I thought, and more about keeping the fire --of outrage, of determination, of moral truth-- burning in the movement itself.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
The Democrat Could be Daisy Duck and It Would Still Be Important to Vote for Her
What is at stake in this election is far less the specifics of any particular office-holder than it is which party will be a majority in the House-- because that could be the difference between our being able to stop this presidency, that's dismantling our constitutional democracy, and our continuing to have a Congress that is simply his accomplice.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
How the Nature of Families in a Society Connects with the Nature of Its Politics (Second Installment of Riane Eisler In
Riane Eisler expands on how regressive political forces rely upon a particular way of conceiving how families should be structured: "the push for 'Traditional family values' in the U.S. – not coincidentally – is a centerpiece of the rightist-fundamentalist political alliance."

Monday, October 23, 2006
Disreputable Push-Polling Comes to New Mexico's First Congressional District
"Under the guise of asking people's opinions," I said to the man on the telephone, "you're just trying to poison their minds against a particular candidate. It's sleazy and its dishonest."

Thursday, October 19, 2006
"Would Americans Really Be So Superficial?"
Why did it take this Mark Foley scandal, with its sexual dimension, to get the attention of the American people?

Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Political Importance of 'Family Values': An Interview with Riane Eisler (First Round)
Eminent social thinker, Riane Eisler, believes that progressives have made a grave error in relinquishing the issue of family values to the right wing or, as she terms them, the "regressives."

Monday, October 16, 2006
Can this Bushite Era Become an Innoculation Against Such Evils in the Future?
(1 comments) William Rivers Pitt, in an otherwise fine article, worries that the Bushites have provided future American would-be tyrants with a blueprint on how to do it. I think there are reasons to believe that the Bushite pattern can function not as a blueprint but as an innoculation against the recurrence of the such evils in the future.

Friday, October 13, 2006
Discussion Question: What's the Best Reasonably Realistic Scenario for the Next Six Years?
(3 comments) It is valuable to keep our eyes not only on the evils around us but also on the alternative future that we are struggling to bring to realization. Offer your most desirable "history" of the period 2007-2013-- not mere pipedreams; not prayers for miracles. Things that really could happen.

Thursday, October 12, 2006
Confirmation of the Peripheral Role of the Theocratic Element in this Bushite Regime
(3 comments) A new book makes clear that the religious part of the Bushite coalition has been not its true driving force but rather a "mark" to be conned.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006
The Predator State
(8 comments) A variety of statistics indicate an ongoing assault on the people of America by a relative handful of the rich and mighty. A recent essay by James K. Galbraith helps illuminate the nature of the corrupt regime that's arisen to bring about this plunder and injustice.

Monday, October 9, 2006
From Idealism to This! A Baby-Boomer Laments How the Future Ain't What it Used to Be
(5 comments) The American leadership that deeply disillsioned us youthful idealists in the sixties looks downright good --human, at least-- compared with the inhuman regime that rules us now. The earlier flawed leaders dealt a blow to our idealism; these Bushites would disappoint even a grim realist.

Friday, October 6, 2006
Two Looks into the Spirit of Things
(2 comments) Thoughts from Ursula Le Guin on partial truths and larger patterns. And poll results on how different groups of Americans hold different images of the deity. Reflections on the state of America.

Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Get a Grip, America! It's Dangerous for a People to be Ruled By Fear
(3 comments) Here's one piece of the puzzle of how the Bush regime has been able to destroy so much of what's best about America. Even before these fear-mongers came to power, we've been a people ready to panic. How did we ever get to be a nation of such scardey cats?

Tuesday, October 3, 2006
The Tragedy of the Good Soldier
The moral habits of the military culture --which emphasizes loyalty and obedience-- equipped Colin Powell badly for being Secretary of State to this dishonest and blundering president. The price of being the "good soldier" has been high --both for Powell's reputation and, more importantly, for America and the world.

Monday, October 2, 2006
Discussion Question: How Should We Judge the Threat from Radical Islam?
(1 comments) Is there a threat? How seriously should it be taken? How would a wise and good U.S. government deal with it? It goes without saying that America's right wing cannot be trusted to answer these questions well. But there are reasons to wonder whether the left can either.

Friday, September 29, 2006
Thoughts on the Spiritual Condition of America's Leftward Half
(7 comments) Following up on a previous discussion question, here are some of my own thoughts. In particular, while the right side of America is in thrall to a spirituality ruled by evil, the left side has lost the spiritual awakening that arose in the late 60s and 70s. Emblematic of that is STAR WARS saga, in which between the first three films and these most recent three, a profound loss of soul is evident. Big picture in miniature.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006
The "Newsweek Cover" Story
(2 comments) In case you haven't seen it elsewhere, here it is in words. NEWSWEEK's covers around the world tell a story that would be shocking, if we didn't already know that the corporate media are loath to tell the American people that the Emperor has no clothes.

Monday, September 25, 2006
Discussion Question: Why This Desire to Torture, Anyway?
(9 comments) The U.S. military (and others) have determined that torture does not yield reliable information. So why do the Bushites insist so strongly on their having the right to engage in such horrific, disreputable practices?

Friday, September 22, 2006
Discussion Question: How Should the Democrats Deal with These Fraudulent Republican Measures on the Bushite Crimes?
(2 comments) The Republicans in Congress seem to have been enacting a fraud, posing as if they're standing up to this president to rein in his abuses. If that's so, and if the main goal right now should be to wrest power from the Bushites in the upcoming elections, what should the Democrats DO, politically, about this Republican enabling of the Bushite crimes?

Thursday, September 21, 2006
A Discussion Question: What Kind of Sacred Pri