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Philip A Farruggio is an activist leader, free lance columnist and small businessman. He is blue collar from birth, as both his dad and grandad were Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. Philip has a BA from Brooklyn College ( class of ' 74 ) in Speech & Theater.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 12, 2020 The ' DemonCrats' Gift to Trump
The DemonCrats, through their MSNBC and CNN minions, made sure that the public saw Sanders as not a ' Relief' but rather a radical threat to our nation's wellbeing. They got all their ' dreaming of glory' stooges in the Senate and Congress to first run for president to dilute the field as an affront to Sanders , the front runner for 2020. When that was not working well they ' circled the wagons' around Lunchbox Joe
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, March 12, 2018 Conspiracy of Silence
As terrible as those days were in the late 60s, at least there was hope that this insane empire be curbed and pulled back. Sadly, today it seems as if most of our 20 somethings and their parents do not even know what is going down. The Conspiracy of Silence is winning!
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 25, 2017 Season of the Rich
As New Year 2018 is before us, we are truly in a ' Season of the RICH'. One need not be an accountant or financial whiz to know that this so called ' Tax Reform Bill ' is a super-rich man's gift to the super rich.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 5, 2017 The Silence of the (Empire's) Lambs
What is the solution to this mess? This writer plans to once again get out on the street corners of my town in a weekly peaceful protest.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, September 1, 2017 Hurricane Wars
To this writer my experience with FEMA had been a sick joke. After the hurricane destroyed our home, and we had to live elsewhere for over FIVE months, we begged FEMA to help us.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 1, 2017 And Empires Die
And Empires Die
'Nothing ever seems to last, everybody changes oh so fast,
promises made promises lost and pride is kept at any cost,
And flowers die, and children cry, and lonely people carry on.'
(Palermo& Farruggio 1970)
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 16, 2017 "In Trump We Trust"... With Monster Bombs
Doesn't it remind you of what our Vietnam era military tried to do against the Viet Cong, what with all their tunnel systems? Did it do anything at all? You should know the answer: "NO!" The more we 'Shock and Awed' the VC, the more they kept on growing. We tried everything at our disposal at the time.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 12, 2017 2017 Amerika: A New Reich
...the movers and shakers of this Military Industrial Empire are even shrewder than the Nazi gang. What they did, successfully too, was create and maintain a 'Two Party, One Party' system. They made sure that the two parties, as is the case in the UK, seem to be at each other's throats... and they are on some issues.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 11, 2017 The Drug War on Us... Through Painkillers!
They gave him OxyContin for his pain....Having a jackass so called ' MD ' like Gottlieb in charge is the same as the 'Fox guarding the henhouse.'
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 2, 2017 "It's My Party...
"It's My Party...And I'll cry if I want to" was a song sung by Leslie Gore in 1965. How apropos it is now to describe our political situation in 21st Century Amerika.
SHARE Monday, February 20, 2017 Inherit the Hypocrisy
Watching Inherit The Wind should allow you to see how rigid and foolish many of our fellow citizens still are. Just yesterday our new president had a rally in Melbourne, Florida. The first plan in his agenda was for his wife to lead the mob in prayer.
SHARE Monday, February 13, 2017 Let Them Eat Gadgets...
There is something magical when two complete strangers look each other in the eye and actually communicate! If those of us who wish to see real and viable political and economic change occur do not go back to face to face verbal contact...
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 24, 2017 Forty Plus Years Later & Nothing Changes
It was the Recession of 1974 and I was looking for a job. I went thru the Sunday Times Classifieds each and every week looking for perhaps some sort of management opportunity. Before I knew it I was hired by a linen service company.....
SHARE Saturday, January 7, 2017 One Evening in '88 on a Flight to Phoenix
Reading about the current controversy over the U.S. abstaining on the Security Council's Israeli settlement resolution, it brought a memory back to this writer. First off, a little about this writer if I may....
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 19, 2016 Love that Dirty Water... and Dirty Wars!
Get out on the street corners of your towns and cities to demand drastic cuts in the military spending, an end to our unnecessary bases worldwide, and bringing back both our military personnel and sanity to our foreign policy!
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 30, 2016 21st Century Amerika, A Reality Show
If anyone took the time out and viewed the recent Presidential (so called) debate, one would realize how reality television has merged with politics. Mel Brooks or Woody Allen could not come close to capturing the absurdity of it all. Making sure that the two 'third party' presidential candidates were not allowed to participate, this charade of intelligent concern for issues became a farce.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 9, 2016 Good Cops/ Bad Cops
All baby boomers who lived in cities will remember the 'cop on the beat'. He was the guy the neighborhood knew and usually trusted. He chased the punks off of the corner and made sure the Mom and Pop stores were secure at night...Good Cop! Most likely he came from a neighborhood not so far from our own, similar to ours in many ways.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, September 2, 2016 They Want Kaepernick to go Kaput!
The masters of this Empire will always work to polarize us working stiffs with fake rhetoric and shallow arguments. You know, like during the Vietnam phony so called 'War', whenever we protested it here came the same harangue: "America, love it or leave it! Or, " if you don't like it here why don't you go and live in Russia?"
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 27, 2016 Wag the Donkey
End the two party monopoly con job:
The Green Party has a platform that clearly surpasses Sanders' platform by a progressive mile!
Those out there calling themselves "principled conservatives" would best vote Libertarian.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 23, 2016 The Man in the Bathtub
The 1930s were a rough time for all who labored... Or sought work. The ranks of the unemployed were so great that companies offered wages as low as possible to prospective employees. The smell of strife filled the factories and warehouses and offices throughout New York City.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 13, 2016 Dog Days of Summer '66- Innocence Ended
The summer of ' 66 saw us oblivious to the world around us. We played ball in the mornings, went to the beach or hung out. We had the girls from our block to flirt with, plenty of spending money for malted milks, Egg Creams or Lime Rickey's at Miller's Luncheonette on Avenue U. Most of us had part time jobs doing deliveries in the neighborhood, either at the p
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 9, 2016 I'm Mad as Hell!
News, what news? What you actually get is the mindset that 'Amerika' is either Republican or Democrat, or 'Red State or Blue State'.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 4, 2016 Dancing With the Beast
On May 9th, 1970, in the predawn hours, President Richard Nixon decided to visit students protesting the Vietnam War at the Lincoln Memorial...Then from the crowd a young woman asked Nixon, "Why don't you stop the war...You can't, can you?"
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 24, 2016 One Trick Pony
Sometimes we need to ride those One Trick Ponies until we can't anymore.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Brave, Yes... Heroes, NO!
What makes someone a hero? All those yellow ribbons saying "Support Our Troops", glorification of war, and propaganda about our "brave warrior heroes " should never hide the truth.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 16, 2016 Obama: Serving Two Masters
"No man can serve two masters, for then he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon."
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 13, 2016 Banana Republic Amerika
We have become a nation that is more laughable than any Woody Allen satire ( here ). With a compliant sellout media in place 27/7, the suckers are fed this total "He said she said" distraction until the 1st week in November.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 12, 2016 Empires Always Deny Political Reform
We cannot reform or realign the Democratic Party or Britain's Labor Party! Bernie and Jeremy made the usual "ghastly error" of thinking it can be done.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 21, 2015 The Sad, Sad Karma of Empire
When the victors of WW1 ,including the quickly dying British Empire and the up and coming American one, chose to push the Versailles Diktat on Germany... the seeds for radical government were planted there. The Third Reich was the bad karma to the nth degree , resulting from the overbearing decisions at Versailles.
(10 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 6, 2014 The Dinosaur from the Sixties
What kind of country do we now inhabit? Where I live, a small city of 60,000, there is absolutely nothing reminiscent of the world I once knew. This town is one of boxstores, strip malls, third rate mass transit (duh, like hardly any), and subdivisions where few even know one another, let alone socialize that much. Even the suburbia of my youth offered more than this" yet they tell us we have evolved in this 21st century...
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 23, 2013 Onward Back to Feudalism!
We need to look at better and more viable ways to house our citizens. Why not have local towns and cities buy up the rental properties and charge the tenants a fairer price? On top of that and this is key,have the local governments that would own the rental properties offer the tenants a deal:
SHARE Wednesday, October 17, 2012 This Hypocrisy Called American Justice
Last night's second presidential debate AKA town hall meeting was one more round of hypocrisy at the highest levels. Little if nothing was even discussed about:
Afghanistan, our maintenance of over 850 bases in over 100 countries, how drastic military cuts could solve many of our state and city budget shortfalls
(11 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 31, 2009 Both Heaven & Earth Are Watching
Why is it such a torture to get people to recognize torture? Is it because we are just too spoiled/weak/willfully blind? We all need to watch the excellent documentary "Torturing Democracy" shown last Friday on Bill Moyers' Journel. It is difficult to watch, but who said democracy was supposed to be easy.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 9, 2007 The Big Sleep
So,we have a holiday season for some ( not I )with terrible financial strain for many Americans.Layoffs, foreclosures,dead soldiers,dead civilians,cuts in services,higher gasoline prices...and still many of you out there remain asleep and apathetic.And if I hear one more time that it is 'hopeless,'well,as Mayor Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City stated in his stirring speech recently:"Silence Is Complicity." Wake up, America!
SHARE Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Divided We Fall
Where in the hell are the rest of the over 75% of you out there who agree with we on those street corners? What is it going to take to get you to drive over and stand with us? How many more Bettys and Jeans have to be scared off by the 25% of our country? Folks, go to your libraries and take out Orwell's 1984. We are living it now!!!!
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 6, 2007 Humpty Dumpty Americans
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall... Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.." Well, there you have it. My America, the place I grew up in and loved so very much for so long..... is in its final days of empire.
SHARE Saturday, July 21, 2007 The Fault, Dear Brutus...
When those honkers and wavers lose their vehicles or lose their jobs, or pensions, or homes..... or whatever it takes to put them under the financial 8 ball..... then maybe my friends and I will not stand so alone on those street corners. Will it also be too late? Probably. Who knows.
The fault, dear Brutus is not in the stars, but in ourselves.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 4, 2007 Feeding the Beast
America will go down the tubes,both spiritually,economically and culturally,through the terror of pragmatism.When we discuss a transportation bond issue or other such topics,pragmatism is welcomed. When,however,we are dealing in death, destruction,torture,habeas corpus and fascism,the only thing we have at the end of the day,when the lights go out, is our principles.Hope can spring eternal if more Americans stand up and...
SHARE Sunday, April 29, 2007 Running out of Options
We are truly running out of options here in this great land of ours. Whether it be in our personal lives, or our public ones, there really is only one alternative for survival: The Truth. Stop looking for leaders, folks. Start becoming one!
SHARE Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Dumbness and Denial
When one reads Michelle Goldberg's new book "Kingdom Come ",it is shocking. Shocking in the sense that those of us not in fundamentalist religious sects never know what really goes on within those walls.It seems that the Republican far right has married the Christian far right.Now,we are not talking about just speaking in tongues or awaiting the rapture.We are referring to an extremist position on progressive philosophy.
SHARE Friday, April 6, 2007 Righteous Anger
It's Easter.... Passover. Time for love and forgiveness and all those wonderful precepts. I buy that. I believe... truly I do. Yet, another part of me knows that love and forgiveness are not absolutes to be followed like some robotic exercise. No, as my dear friend Linda taught me, the Buddhists say " Friendly and assertive ".
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 22, 2007 The Wall of Silence
This writer has stood, each and every Tuesday at rush hour, for over 30 months , on the same street corner in Port Orange, Florida, in protest to this Iraq debacle. It comes to about 112 Tuesdays on that corner, sign and megaphone in hand. When one is doing the same thing in public for that long of a time, one senses a great deal...
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 11, 2007 None So Blind...
Stop and get yourselves a copy of the March 9-11 USA Today.Front page,far right headline:" Kids Face cutbacks in health coverage...Money running out in 14 states."Federal funding shortfalls are now threatening the nationally funded Children's Health Insurance Program in almost all of our 50 states.Since one must assume that you Soccer Moms and Nascar Dads are not (yet)poor enough to be on Medicaid,this program is for your kids
SHARE Wednesday, February 28, 2007 While Rome Burns
It sure is interesting. Of the slew of candidates and wannabee candidates running for the grand prize of President, how many really ' talk the talk', let alone ' walk the walk' ? How many of them have to worry about making another mortgage or rent payment, or health insurance premium? Do they really care that property and water taxes, along with other local fees, are going sky high?
SHARE Tuesday, February 6, 2007 One Time Rights
I am changing my voter registration from Democrat to Independent. Enough is enough! Watching the Senate yesterday reiterated what I already knew to be true: we have a " One Party with Two Wings " system here in America. Factoring out Senators Feingold and Sanders, along with a handful of progressive Representatives, the US Congress is a joke! On top of that, these folks seem to have lost all sense of reality...
SHARE Wednesday, January 24, 2007 The Puppet Show
Many of the very people that you and I elected to thwart and confront these liars were popping up and down like marionettes throughout the speech. Nancy Pelosi,the'leader of the pack', should have reflected before such behavior.Nancy,what if? What if your daughter,the documentary movie maker, had been a reservist? What if she was in her 2nd or 3rd redeployment in Iraq? Would you still be applauding this man?
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 18, 2007 Silence IS Betrayal
what of the overwhelming majority of those Americans who do
not support this mess in Iraq, and never did? When will they finally understand
what Rev. King and Eli Wiesel meant? We are reaching the first stage of a
critical mass of events.... the street corners are still mostly empty. Silence
is betrayal.
SHARE Sunday, January 14, 2007 Pogo Meets Chicken Little
Look up the word serf in your dictionary. That is what most of us have become, when you strip away the layers of the consumer society onion. Serfs! Bowing and scraping to the wealthy who control our paychecks, our politics...Chicken Little, you were finally right on. The sky is falling. And Pogo, you too were correct. " We have met the enemy... and he is us!"
SHARE Sunday, December 31, 2006 Happy New Year... The Clock is Ticking
we need not wait for things
to reach the critical mass they assuredly will, economically and socially.
All it takes is for those who agree with our dissent to park their cars,
walk over and stand with us. Here in my town, its simply one hour a week.
Wouldn't that be a great start to this new year?
SHARE Saturday, December 2, 2006 Deja Vu Depression Blues
Today is an anniversary of sorts for me.With my dad recently passed on,I alone shall remember this date.For it was 65 years ago,to the day,that my
grandfather,a man I never would meet, took his life.Now suicide is a terrible thing and a lonely act, no matter what the cause.Economic induced suicide is so much more powerful. What does that mean? How deep can such an act linger in the hearts and minds of those left behind?
SHARE Saturday, November 18, 2006 Garage Sale
Let's hope that fairly soon we see the growth of free speech and free assembly, before our leaders garage sale it to the highest bidder. " Silence in the face of tyranny gives it license."
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 15, 2006 Orphans
Simply put, according to our dictionary an orphan is " A child whose parents are dead." So it is for we who call ourselves progressive minded ; we have been orphaned by the political process. This recent election has trumpeted our dilemma, loud and clear. No longer can some of us have the illusion that the Democratic party is our parental watchdog. No, to we progressives, and even our purist neighbors, the true conservatives,
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 16, 2006 The Freedom of Truth
Many ' true believers' of the sweet hereafter follow a simple premise: " What is not of love is not of God". Nicely put. Those of us who walk this secular laden path of life ( with spirit guiding us) believe that " Without truth there can be no freedom ".
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 29, 2006 ONE TIME RIGHTS
This planet had always seen upheaval, whether by natural or man made means. Wars and injustices were but a part of the blueprint of reality. Not that the heavens wished this upon us; no, on the contrary, our cosmic elders had high hopes for mankind. Yet, they instilled in us the power of free will; thus the battle within each and every one of us between the ego and the spirit. Ego was winning, once again.
SHARE Wednesday, April 26, 2006 Better Late Than Never
John Kerry gave a speech last Saturday in Boston, whereupon he came out unequivocally against the attack and occupation ( AKA WAR) of Iraq.