38 Articles

Saturday, November 7, 2009
Racing to the Bottom
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.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007
My Fairy Godmother Part 1
It is always interesting when my fairy godmother shows up, asking if I have another wish for her to fulfill. This time I had a doozy.

Friday, January 26, 2007
Sleight of Hand
(4 comments) Can the XXVth Amendment to the Constitution be used to remove a president who's obviously mentally disabled?

Saturday, January 6, 2007
Ave Atque Vale
The death of Gerald Ford has brought most of our nation into a state of mourning. We should always mourn the passing of every human being, but we must also remember that President Ford was responsible for many of our nation's current political problems.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006
National Insecurity Blanket
The realtionship between corporate imperialism, illegal immigrats, and destruction of U.S. middle class.

Monday, February 27, 2006
Delusional State of the Nation
At the edge of a precipice, you can dig in your heels or jump. However, before you make your choice, make sure you are not deluding yourself about what is going on.