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Saturday, February 11, 2012
I Am Spartacus!
(4 comments) Right-winger Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" was not the first or even the best movie about men who would rather die on their feet than live on their knees. And Kirk Douglas's "Spartacus" (and the Starz series as well) say a lot more about how the One Percent would like us to live under their heel. They want to destroy our worth as human beings, and then treat us as slaves. I say thee, Nay!

Monday, January 23, 2012
Built on Shifting Sands
(1 comments) Modern conservatism is a house, built on shifting sands. Its sole moral basis is "I've got mine, and I'll kill you if you try to take the smallest crumb." It lives by Burke's Vindication of Natural Society, which asserts that the sole purpose of the rest of us is to serve the rich. Is that with or with out gravy?

Friday, January 6, 2012
Responsibility and Respect
(3 comments) The conservatives continually cry out fro the Occupy Movement to act "responsibly," but without the respect that must go with it, democracy is impossible. The Athenians knew that 2500 years ago, but their Ayn Rands and Koch Brothers, Socrates and Critias, ignored it even then. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Thursday, December 29, 2011
Let's Sit This One Out
(7 comments) The three words at the start of our Constitution--We the People--make it a revolutionary document every bit as much as it is a legal one. Lincoln recognized that fact when he stated that we had the Constitutional right to change our Government, or the Revolutionary one to overthrow it. With one-half of our nation at 200% or less of poverty, the One Percenters had better take note.

Thursday, December 15, 2011
Friend of the Devil-A Rock and Roll Epistle
(1 comments) There can be no doubt that America is going to Hell in a hand basket. I would rather be a Friend of the Devil than any of those sanctimonious bastards in the GOP who have done nothing while one third of our nation has fallen into poverty, myself included.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Apology
(5 comments) The Arab Spring. Wisconsin against Walkerism. Occupy Wall Street. The people are rising against their oppressors around the world, and the wolves are scared. Keep it peaceful, persevere, and we will win. Regrettably, not without cost.

Saturday, November 5, 2011
Simple As A-B-C
(1 comments) Sometimes, the biggest arguments between the left and the right is an intentional misunderstanding by the right about the terms we use, including democracy. Neither the word republic or democracy is used in relation to the national government in our Constitution, and as Jefferson pointed out, democracy is the purest form of a republic, though not practicable above the size of a township.

Sunday, October 16, 2011
Occupying Our Time
(3 comments) The Occupy Wall street is spreading faster than kudzu in hot weather. The big complaint from the media is that it seemingly has no purpose. Well let me suggest one: broad enough to include one of the 1100+ groups here in the U.S. plus all of those we are beginning to see sprouting up abroad. The restoration of human dignity for the 99% of us who aren't millionaires.

Thursday, September 29, 2011
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
(6 comments) Liberty, Equality and Fraternity (Brotherhood) were the watchwords of France's Revolution 222 years ago. They are words we Americans need to remember as this election year approaches. There is a class war, and you and I, the people who that bloody elitist Ayn Rand and her ilk had the unmitigated temerity to call "parasites" are losing to the real parasites, Edmund Burkes idle rich.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Dignitas
(7 comments) The biggest casualty in the war on the middle and working class has been millions of American's dignity. In the military, one of the first parts of breaking you down to be a good soldier is robbing you of any sense of dignity you might have. The difference is, the military then builds you back up with a new sense of dignity tied to your membership in the military. The ownership class wants it to remain destroyed.

Friday, August 26, 2011
Mayday! Mayday!
(6 comments) The reality is that there is no cause for fear of our deficit NOW! If and only if we continue with the high level of unemployment that we are currently experiencing, the two budget draining wars, and the Bush era tax cuts ar we in trouble. No, this is about finishing off the middle class that scared the oligarchs to death in the '60's and '70's, the middle class established by FDR and his Democratic successors. Screw them.

Thursday, August 11, 2011
Working Class Hero-A Rock and Roll Epistle
(1 comments) Does the recent debt ceiling compromise make you feel like a used Kleenex? If you think it is bad for you, my fellow Boomers, how do you think the younger generation feels who placed so much hope in Obama, and now feel betrayed by the system. We cannot permit this generation to fall into nihilistic apathy. We must teach them to have hope, even when they are betrayed, because the real power comes from them.

Thursday, August 11, 2011
A "Cute" Depression is an Ugly Thing
(8 comments) Depression is a word that describes both one of the most common and debilitating character disorders in psychiatry, and one of the two worst economic disasters that can happen to a nation. Neither can be solved by "just get over it," or "tough it through," in spite of what conservatives think. Nor can they be fixed with simple one size fits all solutions: the problems underlying them are much too complex. America has both.

Saturday, July 23, 2011
Dumb and Dumbest
(13 comments) If Obama is simply the populist stalking horse for Wall Street and the "banksters," we are screwed beyond all hope of salvation without a rising of the American people in a general strike. But as a person who suffers type III bipolar disorder, I have to hope we are not that far gone...Yet. The alternative is too horrible to imagine.

Friday, July 22, 2011
Teach Your Children--A Rock and Roll Epistle
(5 comments) It takes a community, to paraphrase Hillary, to raise a child in a free society. A child in a free society is not an automaton or drone, who meekly accepts his lot. He is a fearless being who believes his government should be more afraid of the people than the people are of the government. He is not impressed by wealth, position, or power; rather honesty, honor and conscience.

Saturday, July 9, 2011
Revolution-A Rock and Roll Epistle
(4 comments) One of the resources I attempt to bring to my readers is putting together a number of articles I have seen in a coherent form to make a point. This is one of those. It points out how Wal-Mart is representative of all the corporations trying to crush the middle class, why the destruction of the unions have long been the first priority in destroying FDR's New Deal, and why we should emulate our revolutionary founders.

Friday, June 24, 2011
Submitted for Your Consideration
(1 comments) Sometimes you are shocked in your reading, and sometimes you shock your friends when you tell them what you read. Karl Marx is proving himself a prophet in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, written in 1844. He describes much of the detereoration of America's working and middle classes as if he were reading today's headlines. It was very nearly a Depends moment, it scared me so much.

Thursday, June 2, 2011
Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense
(9 comments) I am tired of the followers of Ayn Rand using her so-called Objectivist philosophy to justify their being hateful, uncaring bastards to the rest of humanity. At a time like this, one must pullout the big guns to demonstrate how Un-American her philosophy is. In the Hagiology of American political thought, there is no bigger gun than Thomas Jefferson, although I admit it's like using a nuke to kill a gnat.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Four Horsemen of Calumny
(1 comments) Being a Republican used to be respectable, back when Margaret Chase Smith was Senator from Maine. Of course in those days, conservatives weren't so stupid as to equate socialism and Stalinism. Only extreme reactionaries like Joe McCarthy and Ayn Rand did that. The American people were too smart to fall for such crap. Unfortunately, our educational system and media has declined since then.

Friday, May 6, 2011
Contra Rand
(3 comments) I was asked by a conservative friend if I wished to see the movie "Atlas Shrugged." I told him no: I had no desire to economically support a cause which I felt was at the root of America's problems. The amphetamine addicted, serial killer infatuated, history deficient, borderline sociopathic writer of fiction has convinced millions of people (mostly in the U.S.) that "she has the answer." In a pig's eye.

Saturday, April 23, 2011
Work is a Four Letter Word
(1 comments) Only two professions have it right: musicians and athletes. When they go to "work," they go to play. The modern workplace has so burdened us with neurotic worry and guilt that we are scared to blow our noses without permission. And for what? Jobs that are about as personally rewarding and secure as a Roman galley slave's. It is time for the American worker to reassert his freedom in the workplace against the oligarchs.

Thursday, March 31, 2011
Safecracking
(1 comments) One of the constant refrains that I hear is "What good does it do to write the truth, if no one listens?" I think the greatest source of mental deafness is the lack of a good bulls**t filter, and time. The purpose of my articles is to give people a Reader's Digest condensed version of the facts, and what I believe they mean. The Purpose of this article is to help them build their own BS filter.

Saturday, March 12, 2011
Channeling Our Inner Hulk
(13 comments) The assault on our Constitutional rights by the plutocrats like the Koch Brothers and their lap dogs like Scott Walker,have exposed the truth for any American not wearing a blindfold to see. I believe that what the Koch and Coors brothers, Richard Mellon Scaife, Rupert Murdoch, and the rest of the plutocratic elite have undertaken constitutes sedition, if not high treason. It is time for us to fight back while we can.

Monday, February 28, 2011
The Communist Takeover of America
(22 comments) Scott Walker's attack on Wisconsin's public employees is but the latest round of attacks by the oligarchs against organized labor, that started with the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. If you don't believe me, Read Congressman Hartley's comments on what his purpose was in putting forth the bill. The time has come for the American People to say not just "No!," but hell No!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The Ghost of Ancient Hellas
(3 comments) When you are looking for answers to today's problems, a short detour into the past can be very useful. Aristotle's Politics is still a useful touchstone in an era of instant world-wide communications, and civilization destroying nuclear weapons. The "democracy" he feared was rule by the rabble/poor, just as he feared oligarchy or rule by the rich. A storng, vibrant middle class underpinned the best form of government.

Friday, February 4, 2011
Walking Like the Egyptians
(2 comments) The same villians lie at the heart of Egypt's revolt that lies at the heart of America's economic problems: the greed of the World's banksters, and their utter indifference to the plight of their fellow man. Tunisia and Egypt remind us of our populist and revolutionary heritage, and prove that you don't need guns to overthrow your oppressors. May God bless and watch over us all.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Crime and Punishment
(5 comments) "Equal Protection under the Law," guaranteed by the XIVth Amendment, has become as big of a joke as Chief Justice Marshall's "government of laws, not of men," in Marbury v. Madison. The Bush Administration is skating on every thing from violations of the Hatch Act to crimes against humanity, and it appears that Wall St. will never pay for their crimes. Time for us to follow our European brethren's lead. General Strike May 1st!

Friday, January 21, 2011
Morality and Capitalism
(6 comments) I originally wrote this article in Spring 2005, but due to its length, could not find anyone to publish it. It was only when my late friend Roy Murtishaw introduced me to OpEdNews that I found an outlet for my longer missives. With President Obama's latest adoption of Republican talking points (regulations are holding up the recovery, I fear that what I said about Bush can be applied to Obama.

Friday, December 24, 2010
War-A Rock and Roll Epistle
(1 comments) "War (Huh, yeah),What is it good for? Absolutely nothing (Uh-huh, yeah)" So sang the late Edwin Starr in 1970, covering a song Barry Gordy was afraid to let the Temptations release. It reached Number One, and earned Starr Best Male R&B Vocal at the Grammys. If there were any real justice in the world, it would have earned him a Medal of Freedom, and a ticker tape parade down Broadway.

Thursday, December 16, 2010
Off Center
(3 comments) Thirty years of supply side economics has failed, just as it did during the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties. A realistic unemployment rate is 17%, a realistic poverty rate is 19% (BLS, Census Bureau). Trying to give workers a 2% break on FICA taxes is an attack to destroy Social Security, just as extending the tax cuts for the upper 2% of the population is. It is time for the richest Americans to pay their fair share.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Regress of Grievances
(4 comments) In case you hadn't noticed, the Re-Publicans want to place the recovery from the current recession on those it is hitting the hardest: the poor, the Working, and the middle classes. If tax cuts helped an economy, almost ten years of the Bush Tax cuts should have us living like kings. Instead the National Debt is $8 trillion higher and the unemployment rate has doubled

Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Avalon
(11 comments) The unsolved murder of President Kennedy is about to pay off for those responsible for that crime. Our nation stands within the shadow of an oligarchic corporate state, where the rich have all the power and all the rights, and the rest of us have the pain and responsibility. It is not too late to change course even in this dark hour; we simply have to work harder than the plutocrat's wealth.

Thursday, November 11, 2010
The Tenth
(3 comments) The Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution is without a doubt the most misunderstood Amendment in the Constitution. Unlike what so many on the Reactionary Right think,it is not a cure-all for what they see as abuses against their liberties by the Federal Government. In fact, if the past is prologue, giving power to the states will mean fewer rights and less power for the individual American,not more.

Monday, November 1, 2010
Heavy Horses-A Rock-and-Roll Epistle
(1 comments) The rank and file of the Tea Party needs to question its underlying assumptions before Tuesday. What the Plutocrats like Karl Rove and the Chamber of Commerce are really offering is not a return to some halcyon past that never was, but rather a dog eat dog, neolithic world where everyone who is not a multimillionaire ($3M+) is screwed.we need a return to the days of FDR's New Deal,where the ripooff artists went to jail.

Friday, October 8, 2010
The Last Time-A Rock and Roll Epistle
(6 comments) My article "They're Foxed in the Head," elicited a lot of commentary, mostly asking why they should vote for the Democrats? It's quite simple: they are still a political party; the Re-Publicans are a Revolutionary Party, working directly for the corporate elite, and the Tea Party are their shock troops every much as the Red Guard was Mao's.

Friday, October 1, 2010
The Devil You Say
(3 comments) Let us imagine for a moment that the beliefs of the Religious Right are not wrong in terms of what is going to happen, but how? What if their focus on who the Antichrist is should be directed at someone they trust, like, Glen Beck for example, rather than Barrack Obama? What if the Devil, feeling he could not be stopped, left a note in a half mad blogger's e-mail, bragging about his plan? The following is the result.

Saturday, September 25, 2010
They're Foxed In the Head
(13 comments) Fox News (or as I prefer to call them Faux News) are more than just the propaganda arm of the GOP. They are actually the propaganda arm of the oligarchic plutocrats for whom the GOP is the primary political arm. We must all go out in November and vote for the Democrats, even if we must wear a gas mask to the polls. The Democrats at least will respond to public pressure,which is more than you can say about the Re-Publicans.

Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Daft-Heartless Act
(8 comments) The Taft-Hartley Act is to the American Labor Movement what the Fugitive Slave Act was to slavery. One of its authors--Fred A. Hartley--admitted in print that this was the first step to overturning FDR's New Deal. The Re-publicans are within sight of the Congressman's wet dream: a subservient and defenseless labor force who'll take what crumbs the rich will give them. the Democrats are our last worst hope.

Sunday, September 5, 2010
War Pigs-A Rock and Roll Epistle
(11 comments) We have not withdrawn from Iraq: in truth, we have barely holstered our weapon. We cannot afford to have ourselves committed in more than a hundred countries around the globe to maintain a commercial empire. It is time we learn to live within our mean, beginning with our foreign policy, and that means our military. It is time to break the hold that the military-industrial complex has had on the USA for sixty plus years.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Right is Wrong
(4 comments) Hierarchy or not hierarchy: that is the question? Whether to suffer throught the immorality of the pseudo-aristoi as Jefferson named them, or to take arms against a sea of insipid rich folk, and by opposing, end them. It is an end devoutly to be sought. Someone should have reminded Paris Hilton that cocaine is nature's way of telling you you have too much money.

Sunday, August 29, 2010
Street Fighting Man--A Rock and Roll Epistle
(3 comments) The Big Lie perpetrated for two centuries is that a Republic (and its child representative democracy) and laissez faire capitalism are the twin horses pulling a free society. How can this be when laissez faire capitalism has none of the institutional checks and balances that a republic--according to Adams, Jefferson, and Madison--require. The invisible hand of Smith is too easily bound by selfishness to serve this purpose.

Monday, August 23, 2010
I Will Fear No Evil
(2 comments) Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, "All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive." I pity the lot of them.

Sunday, August 22, 2010
A Terrible History
(1 comments) We have to ask ourselves a simple question: in the murder of President Kennedy, is it really necessary to find a "silver bullet" to break open the case, or do we have sufficient information already to accomplish this task. I think we know enough, or very nearly enough, to figure out who the primary players were and why.

Sunday, August 22, 2010
Quo Vadis
(1 comments) The Tea Party movement continues its hue and cry against President Obama and Health care reform, seemingly unaware that the real threat to their freedom lies in the hands and hearts of those who are providing them with financial support. The ghost of JFK warns us that we are much closer than five steps from tyranny, and if we do not hang together, we will surely hang seperately.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Feinting Spell
(4 comments) The laws of unintended consequences again loom large in our sight, as proponents of the abolition or modification of the Fourteenth Amendment Cry havoc! Their real target is our rights to privacy, collective bargaining, and protection from abuse by law enforcement, all of which disappear with Equal Protection and Due Process if the Fourteenth disappears. Roe v. Wade, Mapp v. Ohio, Miranda v. Arizona, POOF! go away.

Saturday, July 31, 2010
Losing My Religion--A Rock and Roll Epistle
(1 comments) We must always be careful what we put our "faith" into, our deepest and most profound belief. The works of man are never in the long term stand up to long term trial, and in the end, we will always be disappointed when we place any real faith there. Real faith is a cycle of faith-doubt-and reaffirmation of faith, and untested faith is not faith at all: it is idolatry. The Tea Party would do well to remember this fact...

Friday, July 16, 2010
The Nuremberg Defense
(2 comments) Where does personal responsibility end, and collective responsibility begin? How much are we responsible if the system gives us no choice other than conform or suffer and die. If we do not commit a wrongful act, but are aware of its commission--even peripherally--what degree of responsiblility do we bear in letting the world know?

Saturday, July 10, 2010
D-I-V-O-R-C-E; Dems vs Organized Labor
(8 comments) The way President Obama and most of the rest of the Democratic Party has been treating organized labor has an equivalent in the non-political world: spousal abuse. The Dems had better wake up or discover that their "spouse" has taken the kids and left.

Thursday, July 1, 2010
To Our Children's Children's Children (A Rock and Roll Epistle)
(1 comments) Any solution proposed by either party that does not take into account the long term well-being and advancement of our nation's children, deserves to be thrown immediately into the dust bin of history.

Sunday, June 13, 2010
The Year of the Jubilee
(3 comments) The Tea Party Movement gets away with the most outrageous acts simply because they are white conservatives. If ACORN or the NAACP tried an armed march on the outskirts of Washington D.C.--spouting vicious rhetoric against the government in general, and a white President in particular--with AK-47's, M-16's and handguns, Fox News, Limbaugh and the rest would be screaming "Communist insurrection." The double standard must stop.

Saturday, June 12, 2010
Nowhere Man: A Rock and Roll Epistle
(1 comments) One of the things which drives me most crazy are the people who think that there is nothing that they can do about the current state of affairs in this country. For Heaven's sake, go talk to a neighbor, call a talk show, contribute to a candidate who most closely mirrors your point of view, even if he has no chance of being elected. To do nothing makes your fears silf fulfilling prophecies.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Not Breaking A League
(1 comments) I had thought we had settled the matter of secession in 1865. Apparently, I was wrong. I generally oppose the death penalty, but would make an exception with secessionists, following Andy Jackson's suggestion of hanging them from every tree between here and the coast.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Against the Corporate State
(4 comments) The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico proves two things things. You can't trust the large, multinational corporations, and even governments are helpless before their power UNLESS THE PEOPLE RAISE HOLY HELL! I think we are past due.

Monday, April 19, 2010
The Children of Cain
(38 comments) The fear of conservatives has become palpable since the election of Barack Obama. Yet most of their fear arises from their own inability to adapt to circumstances. As the old Zen master said. "The might oak is uprooted in the typhoon, while the bamboo bends, avoiding destruction."

Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Courage and Effort
The Health Care Reform Act of 2010 can be the first halting step to overthrowing the the tyranny of the American plutocracy, but only if we are willing to keep unrelenting pressure upon the Congress and the President, in this election year to provide a public option, regulate the insurance industry at the Federal level, and end the antitrust examption. This will require both courage and effort.

Saturday, March 13, 2010
Bomb Power: A Review of Garry Wills Newest Book
Garry Wills's newest book Bomb Power is a short terrific read on the relationship between the Presidency and the National Security State since 1945. If you would like a basic idea of what is going on, without the political grandstanding, I strongly suggest that you read this book.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Great Enemy of the Truth
(42 comments) All of those who insist on the lone assassin theory in the murder of President Kennedy, are entirely dependent on the "magic bullet" theory in order to justify their claim that a single assassin committed the deed. This miraculous bullet went through JFK causing only a small tear in the trachea, and a small (2") bruise on the upper right lung; it did so while tumbling through some 300 degrees of arc in his body. Yeah, right.

Friday, February 19, 2010
Into a Thousand Pieces
(10 comments) The conspiracy that killed JFK eats at my soul, and has for thirty-five years. Two of our three branches of government say it is a conspiracy in which elements of the third branch might have been complicit. The set-up for the assassination and cover-up afterwards says that elements of the Executive Branch were up to their necks in it. They wanted someone more pliant to their goals in the White House than JFK, like LBJ.

Thursday, February 4, 2010
Pacem in Terra
(2 comments) Conservatism's greatest problem is that it will hold onto the past, even if it is dragging them and all that they love beneath the waves. They lay claim to a love for freedom, but only if certain conditions are met: no sex, no drugs, no rock and roll, no reading literature that might make you question the government or big business, no system of national healthcare for every citizen. The time has come to use our mind for us.

Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Uncomfortable Absence of Safety
(1 comments) The recent botched attempt to bring down an airliner landing in Detroit has once again focused the American People's attention on Islamic terrorists. All of the Jihadists in the world do not worry me as much as the home-grown variety, such as the people who killed Alan Berg and Dr. George Tiller. The jihadists will not bring down our republic, the Scott Roeders can. Something must be done, about them, and their enablers.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Five to One (A Rock and Roll Epistle)
The ideals of the 1960s weren't wrong, we simply failed to persevere. As Elvis Costello once sang, "What's so wrong with peace, love and understanding?" The major advantage of the Right over the Left is that the Right is willing to put up with years of disappointment to achieve their ends; the Left, in Jim Morrison's words, "Wants the world and we want it...NOW!" It is time to prove we can outlast the right in a just cause

Saturday, December 19, 2009
Forcing Their Hand
(3 comments) If the Democrats do not stand up with Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, and the rest of us, they do not deserve to retain power in the Congress next November.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Morality, Rights and Health Care
FDR was correct on January 11, 1944, when he said that you cannot guarantee the political rights we enjoy under our Constitution, unless you guarantee the social and economic rights that make them possible. The Lord Chancellor of England pointed out in 1762, "necessitous men are not free men." They will do what they have to in order to survive. It is time that we insure that they don't have to sell their liberty to do so.

Thursday, December 10, 2009
A Policy of Annihilation
(2 comments) Hawkeye Pierce in TV's M*A*S*H once said (paraphrasing), "War isn't hell. War is war, and hell is hell, and of the two, war is worse. Who's in hell? People who deserve to be there. Who's in war? Mostly innocents who have nothing to do with the war." Like Hawkeye, I'm tired of innocent men, women, and children paying for the greed of the powerful.

Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Social Element of Social Capitalism
"Women and children first!" cried the Titanic's Captain as she prepared for her final, fatal plunge. In our modern world, I believe that how we treat children and the opposite sex is a direct reflection of how we react to different and diverse peoples and ideas. There are few if any supporters of the ERA in the KKK; we need to examine the basis for this truth.

Friday, November 13, 2009
Batting the Hornet's Nest
(2 comments) Iconoclasts of the world unite! The Congress needs to deliver a word of warning to the Supreme Court, concerning interference with campaign finance reform laws. Article III, Section 2, paragraph 2 of the Constitution permits the Congress to place limits on those cases that the Supreme Court may hear. Congress, not unelected justices, should decide the limits on campaign finance.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Social Capitalism
(3 comments) We must find an alternative to laissez faire capitalism and state socialism: a middle road that, while it does not satisfy anyone completely, is not overly onerous to the vast majority of the American people. This is my very generalized overview of such a system, that I call social capitalism, to differentiate from anti-social, laissez faire capitalism.

Saturday, November 7, 2009
Racing to the Bottom
(3 comments) Bigotry exists among people of every race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, level of education, and economic class. It can even occur within those boundaries. the only certain cure is awareness of the inclination in ourselves, and opposition to it in others.

Sunday, October 25, 2009
Racing to the Bottom
We must consider not only racism, but every other form of bigotry and prejudice when we speak of America's future. Race, religion, class, sexual orientation, wealth, education: all of these and more deserve our attention when we our considering how to deal with the unthinking hatred that permeates so much of our lives.

Sunday, October 4, 2009
Like Band Aids for Chest Wounds
(8 comments) Our current health care system in this country is broken beyond remedy or repair. If we permit the current health insurance reform initative to become law without a strong public option-meaning the ability to buy into Medicare-it is morally equivalent to putting a Band Aid on a sucking chest wound.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Hysterical Fantasy
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion—not their own facts. Pat Buchanan showed such an utter disdain for the facts in his article "Did Hitler Want Peace?" that I believe he should receive a retroactive "F" for every history course he took from elementary school on. As that is impossible, I believe he should go on every broadcast and cable news show and apologize to all of the veterans of World War II, living and dead.

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Teacher's Pet
The authoritarian Right and their GOP stupidity machine lackeys force me at times to turn articles into dissertations, because I do not know how well informed my audience is in the social sciences since Reagan & Co. placed them somewhere between recess and lunch in terms of relevance. The talk of secession makes me assume the worst, and rouses the spirit of Andy Jackson in me to go and hang a few gentlemen.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009
How Much Is Enough
(2 comments) We have seen the wealthiest one percent of our nation's population double their percentage of the nation's total wealth in the last thirty years, while most American's disposable income has been shrinking as healthcare and housing costs have gone through the roof. This concentration of wealth is due--as it always has been in America--to war profiteering:in this case the Cold War and War on Terror. Enough is Enough.

Friday, August 14, 2009
Incompetent at Every Level
(1 comments) In the legendary words of Popeye the Sailor, "That's all I can stands. cuz I can't stands no more." The hateful crap that is running out of the far right hate machine about national health care,President Obama, liberals and progressives makes me want to scream! Enough of your lies, half truths,speculations, and deceptions! I am sick and tired of your paranoia, your selfishness, and the fanaticism, you reactionary poltroons.

Friday, August 7, 2009
The Hope For Audacity
How can you have "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," in our modern society without guaranteed access to healthcare? The answer is you can't. When Jefferson wrote the Declaration, medicine was more mumbo jumbo than science. Now its proper and early use all but guarantees you a longer and healthier lifetime. Healthcare is by extension a "positive" right, emulating from those inalienable rights.

Sunday, July 26, 2009
First Do No Harm
(2 comments) The libertarian ideal has detoured down a dark twisted path since its inception by John Stuart Mill. It has become a creature that I suspect that Mill would not only not recognize, but openly repudiate.

Monday, July 6, 2009
An Opening Manifesto
Without responsibility, there is no true freedom. Without responsibility to others, there is no true freedom from others. Without responsibility for others, there can be no freedom for ourselves.

Friday, May 22, 2009
No Crisis of Conscience
(3 comments) Why are we even discussing prosecuting torturers? Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall.

Monday, April 27, 2009
The Cult of the Individual
(7 comments) "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few--or the one." Thus spoke St. Spock of Vulcan in 1982's "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." For the last 25 years, we have fled away from this ideal, even when it was in our best interest to follow it, following the teaching of the Apostate Gekko "Greed is good." It is time to redress the balance between the many and the few, while we still have a country.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Risking It All
When we consider risk in business, we should consider not only the investors who only risk their money, but the people who risk their lives and livelihood everyday. To do otherwise establishes a group of haves and have nots in our minds, even if we deny it with our lips and in our hearts.

Saturday, March 14, 2009
The Zen of Politics
The ability to overcome those things which have ruled and ruined our existence is as important for the institutions of humanity as it is for individuals. Enlightenment is rarely achieved by accident, and is really only appreciated when it includes hard work. This is as true of politicians and political parties as it is of you and I. So I ask a simpe Zen koan: if a politician doesn't take a bribe, does anyone notice?

Saturday, February 28, 2009
The Tao of Government
(14 comments) Assume nothing and embrace the beginner's mind. Mao the dialectic materialist was wrong, power comes not from the barrel of a gun, but from our belief in its existence. Although the expression of power maybe very real, without the strength of our belief in it, government would fall like a house of cards.

Thursday, January 29, 2009
Madness
(4 comments) This article was originally published at OnLineJournal.com, in December of 2004, shortly after Dubya's re-election. Since it is no longer in their archives, I am republishing it here. While it is a bit dated, I bring it back to remind everyone that one victory does not mean the end of the war. Note my comment about coming economic troubles in the 22nd paragraph. I have modified and edited the piece to make it more readable.

Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Forty Percent Solution
(12 comments) President Obama needs to remember two Presidents on his Inaugural Day: Lincoln and Kennedy. Lincoln in his first annual message to Congress reminded all of us that without the worker, the capitalist's wealth could never exist. Kennedy reminded us in his Inaugural Address that if we did not help the poor, the rich could expect no safety.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Uriah's Curse
Humanity has been cursed with venal, selfish monarchs, consuls, high priests, presidents, and prime ministers since civilization first arose from neolithic farming communities. In the past, the worst of these miscreants were cast down by the people they governed and punished with exile and execution. It is imperative that our leaders now be held accountable, as a warning to future tyrants.

Thursday, November 6, 2008
Waging Slavery
One of the major components of slavery is having no realistic course of action. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it is also the handmaiden of enforced collaboration, even against your own long term self interest.

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Socialist Graces
(2 comments) The long term political health of the nation is dependent not just on who we elect, but keeping ourselves informed about what is going on and using a critical view of history to determine the possible outcome of our actions. We can no longer afford labels that pigeonhole our opinions into a limited range of possible actions.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Taxing the System
There is a difference between the Law and Justice; between what is equal and what is fair. America's tax system is neither just or fair. Let's do something about it.

Friday, September 19, 2008
Illuminating Dichotomies
The choice is self-interest or fairness in this election. Thirty years of self-interest has doubled the wealth of the top 1%, and left the middle class gasping for breath. "Greed is good?" Bullshit!

Monday, September 1, 2008
The Presumption of Buggy Whips
(4 comments) Arguing for more drilling for energy is about as effective in the long term as voting a subsidy for buggy whip manufactuers a century ago. We have, thanks to Reagan and the oil lobby, lost thirty years in our race for energy independence. the future is now!

Monday, January 28, 2008
Fealty
Mike Huckabee needs to learn from history, especially the religious wars of the Reformation, and the Council of Nicaea where what was God's was literally rendered unto Caesar.

Saturday, November 24, 2007
The Caesar Factor
(2 comments) Conservatives have lied about the actions and motivations of progressives since the time of Athens and Rome. It is time to begin looking at history with a more jaundiced eye, and from the perspective of the Caesar Factor: that fear and jealousy motivate the conservatives far more than avarice and anger motivate progressives.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Through the Past Darkly
The oligarchic reactioaries have always relied on violence and intimidation to maintain their control. John F. Kennedy and Gaius Julius Caesar were both victims of the plutocrats lust for power. We must resist their evil, or face oppression.

Sunday, August 19, 2007
Disgust and Distrust
(5 comments) If you believe anything George W. Bush and Company say, other than they want more power, then you are a fool.

Friday, July 27, 2007
Rights, Powers, Privileges, and Responsibilities
The Declaration of Independence is a moral document, written not only to establish a new nation, but also to establish a basis for human rights and self-governance. We need to remember the courage of the Founders in this time, when we are challenged by the most immoral and repressive administration in our history.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Democracy and Republic
(4 comments) I am tired of the misrepresentation of our democracy by conservatives and libertarians. The type of democracy the Founders warned us against was a direct democracy, where the people voted on every law, much like the referendum system here in Colorado. We need to "rectify the language," as Confucius is purported to have said, and take caution with the meanings of the words we use.

Saturday, June 16, 2007
Choosing the Hardest Thing
(10 comments) It is easier to do evil than it is to do good; but it is easier to do good than it is to undo evil. Fear and expediency are crippliing the body politic, and our gaovernments reputation both at home and abroad. We must rediscover the courage of our Founding Fathers, and take back our country before it is too late.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Stalingrad On The Euphrates
(3 comments) Asymmetric warfare and George Bush's ego are destroying the American Army in Iraq as surely as Marshal Zhukov's tanks and Hitler's ego wrecked the German Wehrmacht at Stalingrad. We must bring our troops home now, before our Army is destroyed.

Thursday, April 26, 2007
Polarization
(8 comments) It is time to stop the corpratists from playing us off one against the other. They started class warfare in 1981, and are on the verge of destroying the middle class. It is time for us find an answer between socialism and capitalism, and ram it down their throats.

Friday, March 9, 2007
My Fairy Godmother Part2
First time I've been rejected by OpEdNews for the original of this article. And what is worse, I deserved it. Note to self: do not get overly involved in characterization. This is the second part of My Fairy Godmother (Pt 1 was in early February). This time Marge and I discuss election reform and corporations.

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