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I who am I? Born at the pinnacle of American prosperity to parents raised during the last great depression. I was the youngest child of the youngest children born almost between the generations and that in fact clouds and obscures who it is that I am really.
Given a front row seat for the generation of the 1960's I lived in Chicago in 1960. My father was a Democratic precinct captain, my mother an election judge. His father had been a Union organizer and had been beaten and jailed for his efforts. His first time in jail was for punching a Ku Klux Klansman during a parade in the 1930's. I never felt as if I was raised in a family of activists but seeing it print makes me think, yes. That is a part of who I am.
We find ourselves today living in a world treed by the hounds of madness, a complicit media covering contrite parties. Multilevel media, giving more access to communication yet stunting actual communication. More noise, less voice, more sound less music, more law less justice, more medicine less life.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 5, 2010 Give it to Me Straight, Doc. Will I Ever Work Again?
Our politicians have mobilized to do the only thing they seem capable of doing anymore, organize a spin campaign. President Obama went on the road back in February to push his jobs plan to take $30 billion in TARP funds and give it to small community banks to increase lending to small business. There you have it, a broad-spectrum jobs program from the biggest banks right down to the smallest banks and nobody will be left out.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 2, 2009 From Haymarket to Ludlow from Harlen to Matewan from Mother Jones to You
So what does May Day mean to you? Probably nothing, maybe you've got a job, maybe a real good one and you're only concerned with your own look out. So you don't want me jostling your bed cause you sleep good at night. I used to sleep good at night too. Then by the moonlight I began to wonder why it is that there is always money to help big business and never enough money to help the workers?
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 25, 2020 The Kids are All Right
He's a no good dirty long hair! Probably on drugs flying higher than a kite! Okay, you got me, but I turned out all right. As Hunter Thompson said, "Multiple felon perhaps but still a decent person." Today it's lazy no-good Millennial or Gen X er.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, September 17, 2010 Walk a Mile in My Shoes
I used to drive new cars and I had a 1965 Mustang with a "K" code motor and a four speed top loader transmission in the garage but now I walk every where I need to go. I traded the pony car for start up capital for a business and for a year or so the business did well and I thought I was living the American dream.
SHARE Thursday, June 25, 2020 Shattered
When you try and foist the idea that you are somehow perfect or smarter than the average bear and it blows up in your face. Then it has to be someone's fault. When the five-year plan is four years behind schedule and the collective farms have failed it has to be someone's fault.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, April 24, 2020 That Little Country Church
It was a weird amalgamation protesting in the streets. Rednecks, militia types, anti-vaxers, Bible thumpers, new world order conspiracy theorists and a general assortment of low intelligence Fox News voters. Simultaneously discovering the unfairness of their quarantine grabbing up their rifles and bullet proof vests and headed for downtown.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 17, 2019 Radio Nazi
Now, this next product was well"you just can't even make this sh*t up even though somebody did. "Is your home ready in the event of an EMP?" The most common cause for an Electromagnetic pulse event is a nuclear explosion. What they are selling is a giant tin foil hat for your house. Protect your home and your electronic devices. Yep, where would you be if you lost Mad Max's cell number.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 4, 2011 The Flowers of Madness
I wonder if this is how the average American felt in 1860 or 1931? The rest of the story is inevitable and predictable and shameful. This is no less than our own raid on Harper's Ferry and from here there is no turning back. I had begun to write a story filled with inglorious facts and figures about the economy but I canned it. It told a story alright, but it didn't say nothing really,
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 6, 2011 The History of the 2012 Presidential Campaign
In 2008 Barack Obama came from out of nowhere and was presented to the American public as a strong principled, decent man. Complete with his own log cabin story of being a community organizer, Barack slew Goliath and now he wants to save America from the evil Republicans. He was presented to the American public as a great reformer and a champion for the middle class. Get it? Holy Bandersnatch Batman!
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 8, 2011 Two Visions
Can Capitalism be saved from itself? Will the phoenix rise from its own ashes again only to circle again above the injured looking for to select more innocent victims? With rumors of benevolence, whispers of appetite with the bared teeth of a carnivore.
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 9, 2010 Lost Children
As we entered the new century I watched as any plausible belief in Democratic government disappeared under faux judicial robes that explained away their ruling as "just this once." A tragedy worthy of Shakespeare, a government worthy of Stalin,
SHARE Sunday, April 24, 2011 Paint it Black
If we consider what Machiavelli is trying to tell us across the centuries then we can begin to understand all that is going on around us today. If you sought to destroy a free society you would first stifle incomes of its workers. Poor people working longer hours and earning less money have little time to organize resistance.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 27, 2010 I Am Just a Dreamer and You are Just a Dream
Most people today wouldn't know a true liberal if we hit them in the ass with a bass fiddle. Most people fail to realize that it's not the picture, it's the frame. Someone like Glen Beck gets a national broadcast and someone like Noam Chomsky couldn't buy his way onto the air. It's not just Fox, it's across the board;
SHARE Friday, December 23, 2011 All the Way Home
We were headed for Panama City Beach Florida, the redneck Riviera. Back in the days when it was still fun, back before the Real Estate developers got a hold of it and paved it over with condominiums and shopping malls. In the early1970's it was a near endless chain of little mom and pop hotels broken only by the Snakatorium,
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 6, 2010 The Death of Party
When Ms. Solis was asked if, due to the poor job numbers, perhaps the economy needed a government public works project, the answer was a firm "No." Her plan and the President's plan to solve the unemployment crisis is "tax credits" and "creating a sound business environment." Those are indisputably core Republican positions. Let the free market work to solve all the problems and help business and all will be well.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 3, 2009 God is With Us
Tom Lehrer, one of the first satirical, political song writers, once penned a song entitled "National Brotherhood Week." The song went, "Oh, the black folks hate the white folks and the white folks hate the black folks and the Indians hate the Mexicans and everybody hates the Jews." Funny, because it is was so true.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 14, 2019 Just Not Worth It
This is a President who has withdrawn the US from the Paris Climate Accords. A nuclear arms treaty and treaty with Iran. A President who has gone out of his way to insult and demean our major allies while he is cozying up to third word dictators and somehow Ms. Pelosi is worried about divisive.
SHARE Wednesday, February 4, 2009 The Evil Dr. Phil
Our own nocturnal Dr. Phil is a Nosferatu, hiding in the shadows and working for the darker powers with an agenda of helping the few at the expense of the many. Perhaps it is not bricks that we need to combat him but wooden stakes, and failing that perhaps the morning sunshine to prevent him from returning to his dark resting place.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 2, 2011 They Don't Even Try to Hide it Anymore
On the cover of this weeks Time Magazine is a photoshopped picture of Barack Obama standing next to Ronald Reagan. Reagan has his arm around Obama's shoulder as Obama gushes a smile like he's meeting Frank Sinatra. The lead story in this mainstream magazine is "Why Obama, hearts Reagan and What He's Learned From Him."