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Patrick Walker is co-founder of Revolt Against Plutocracy (RAP) and the Bernie or Bust movement it spawned. Before that, he cut his activist teeth with the anti-fracking and Occupy Scranton PA movements.
No longer with RAP, he wields his pen and his activist network to wage holy war for climate justice. Hoping to help build a counterculture of revolt, he also writes quirky, highly literate song lyrics for the rising indie band God's Comics.
A happily married man for over 10 years, Patrick has lost his beloved wife Ginger to colon cancer. He resides with his ineffably charming Sheltie dog Jasmine in East Amherst, NY.
(146 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 18, 2014 Frankly, Koch Brothers Deserve the Death Penalty
For success, a climate-action Tea Party demands consciousness-raising, even by SHOCKING people out of accepting an intolerable status quo if necessary. If we really were a nation of just laws justly enforced, criminals against humanity like the Koch brothers would be facing CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, or some suitably dire sanction fitting their crime--which, in the case of financing climate-change denial, is worse than genocide.
(39 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 14, 2017 Let's Hunt Neoliberals to Political Extinction (Part 1 of 2)
Peaceful revolutions, fought with ballots not bullets, must still overthrow oppressive political enemies. Sanders' Democratic campaign, sabotaged from the get-go by pro-Clinton neoliberals, exposed Democratic Party neoliberals as progressives' oppressive enemies. Yet Bernie hesitates to name them, fearing for party unity. Our transpartisan movement doesn't, seeking to make neoliberal the damning new political "N-word."
(23 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 23, 2013 Obama's Real Legacy: Savior of Corporate Fascism
A bold assertion that--in wake of the deep disrepute Bush and Co. brought to corporate fascism--Obama may find his real legacy in proving its savior. Also, a clever (and I hope, insightful)analyis of Obama's timing, speculating that he's starting to show signs of open fascism (and hence normalize it) for an event where it will be needed most--his almost guaranteed, wildly irresponsible approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.
(26 comments) SHARE Friday, February 28, 2014 Fascism without Totalitarianism: America's Present Plight
Challenged by commenters on my recent articles, I here justify using "fascism" to name our present U.S. plight. What's possibly original here is my distinguishing "fascism" from "totalitarianism"; our failure to distinguish the two, I argue, blinds us from seeing we actually live under a form of fascism, even without TOTAL government control. But I see HOPE in our living under MERE fascism: enough freedom left to fight back.
(10 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 6, 2015 Climate Judge Hansen "Profiles" Clinton's Democrat Criminals
World-renowned climatologist James Hansen has just described adopting the U.S. policy of long-term commitment to fracking as "screwing your children and grandchildren." Yet Democrats' presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton endorses precisely such a policy, having pushed hard for global fracking as Secretary of State. So doesn't that make the legions of Democratic politicians who've endorsed her "climate criminals"?
(16 comments) SHARE Monday, March 23, 2015 Hillary Sings Pop: "Talked to Stiglitz for Nothing (I Want My TPP)"
How does Hillary Clinton deserve credit with progressives for consulting Nobel laureate progressive economist Joseph Stiglitz--when she secretly adores the REGRESSIVE Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Stiglitz himself authoritatively denounces? Inquiring minds want to know. And activist ones want to stop her from getting away with. This article should please both.
(81 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 20, 2014 Thom Hartmann's Insane Political Strategy: Whitewashing Cancerous Democrats
Today's Russians frequently say Marx was right in everything he said about capitalism, and wrong in everything he said about communism. Thom Hartmann's recent popular OpEdNews article is similar: penetratingly insightful in everything it says about Republicans, but MISLEADINGLY IRRESPONSIBLE in everything it OMITS to say about Democrats. I here seek to correct his DANGEROUS imbalance.
(12 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 11, 2014 Piketty, Meet Orwell: Why Modern Oligarchy MUST Turn Fascist
Though an essay of ideas, this op-ed is really NEWS. I'm the first writer I know of to publicly argue that Orwell is the other side of Piketty--that only logical conclusion to the encroaching global oligarchy Piketty portrays is Orwell's nightmare vision of "a boot stamping on a human face forever." It's all a question of legitimacy--and sadly, our U.S. oligarchy retains enough supporters to carry out its fascist designs.
(71 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 6, 2020 "You Felt the Bern, Now Feel the Finger": Vote Biden 2020
Here's a novel, passionate case for lesser-evil voting you won't read anywhere else. Taking seriously the premise that today's U.S. is a failed state--with the disgusting electoral "choice" facing us as evidence--it draws the logical conclusion that we must choose the president under whom it will be safest to revolt. So, we must "choke back our vomit" and vote for Biden, recruiting for revolt via unfeigned, vocal disgust.
(67 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 23, 2015 Revolt Against Plutocracy: Grassroots Revolution Isn't Just BS
Bernie Sanders has called for political revolution--HERE IT IS. Identifying the same enemy Bernie does, we call it "Revolt Against Plutocracy." Bernie's revolution (not really his but OURS--& long overdue) will perhaps surprise him, since we DON'T identify "his" revolution with his campaign, which we leave him free to conduct brilliantly, while we (for reasons we explain in detail here) take the revolution into our own hands.
(24 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 30, 2014 Godly Denialists Won't Be Raptured from Climate Hell
A timely--and sobering--reflection on the freak TWO-INCH(!) snowstorm that paralyzed Atlanta in the light of both the more frequent extreme weather triggered by climate change and Bible Belt climate-change denial. The take-home message: climate Armageddon won't descend all at once, but the road there will be littered with devastating human suffering. Unless we read the enigmatic climate handwriting on the wall and REPENT.
(16 comments) SHARE Monday, December 22, 2014 Pitchforks against Plutocracy: Needed Radicalism for the Mainstream
As a preliminary to building the Pitchforks against Plutocracy movement I've been sketching, I here offer a list of 16 talking points about the prospective movement. They're best seen as a rhetorical strategy to radicalize a rather "white bread" mainstream about the political EMERGENCY our nation--and world--are facing. An emergency caused, at its root, by plutocratic rule.
(25 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 7, 2014 "Occupy for Bernie" Could Literally Rewrite History
Here's an article of grandiose ambitions; it seeks to create--at least on paper, until grassroots supporters make it REAL--a much-needed reincarnation of Occupy Wall Street from thin air. Read here how "Occupy for Bernie" is not only Occupy's best way forward--but the key to a corrective rewrite of history totally vindicating the movement. And exposing the illegitimacy of the police state that crushed it.
(24 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 30, 2017 Third Parties' Only Hope: A New Anti-Duopoly Occupy
This is Part 1 of a hard-hitting two-part series arguing that the REAL resistance to Donald Trump must take the form of a new anti-duopoly Occupy movement. Here, I argue that political third parties have a unique opportunity to become viable--but that their doing so depends on an Occupy-style movement proclaiming the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of BOTH major parties. Part 2 will explain HOW we can launch Occupy 2.0. Series: The REAL Trump Resistance: An Anti-Duopoly Occupy (2 Articles, 5794 views)
(15 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 26, 2014 Right-Wing Gun Nuts—Our Tame Second Amendment Lapdogs
Likely, the most thoughtful, radical article on the Second Amendment you'll ever read. I raise the question why, if the right wing will never invoke it against pretty plain instances of tyranny--and moreover, would side with the tyrants against left-wing patriots who tried to invoke it over, say, tyrannical government climate policy, we still have it on our books. It only allows tyranny's rightist lapdogs to block gun control.
(15 comments) SHARE Monday, January 5, 2015 The "Mengele Act": How TPP Fast Tracks Political Mass Castration
No lover of democracy can hate the Trans-Pacific Partnership enough. While the reasons to detest TPP--and above all TPP fast track--are abundant, no prior article has captured its full loathsomeness by pinpointing its deep political significance. Nothing short, that is, of rapidly streamlining the slow, ongoing political castration of the U.S. public. Metaphorically speaking, a project worthy of Dr. Mengele.
(30 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 5, 2015 Liz Declines Presidency, Officially Joins Ruling Hypocrisy
On the "Today" show, Elizabeth Warren made it clearer than ever she has no intention of running for president. More importantly, she made it clear she doesn't DESERVE to be president, by using that interview to carry water for Hillary Clinton--a Democratic "Bilderberg," bound hand and foot to global plutocrats, who PRETENDS to favor Warren's economic populism. This article offers effective punishment for Warren's hypocrisy.
(19 comments) SHARE Monday, February 27, 2017 Progressive or Bust's Provocative Meme Assaults Liberals' Hypocrisy
The Progressive or Bust movement recently published a provocative, thought-provoking new meme--one that compares progressives' treatment by neoliberals in the Democratic Party to the double standard racist whites used against whites in the Jim Crow South. Unsurprisingly, because the meme so forcefully challenges their worldview, Democratic Party liberals were quick to brand it inappropriate and racist. Here's my response.
(26 comments) SHARE Friday, May 5, 2017 An Umbrella Narrative--and Party--for the Progressive Resistance
Part 2 of the series "Successful Marketing for Political Revolutionaries," this article is the fullest and frankest article I know of related to the needed messaging and marketing for a viable third party. Though longer than I'd have liked, it compensates by really swinging for the fences--making a passionate appeal to the actual activist movers and shakers now working to create a viable third party. Series: Successful Marketing for Political Revolutionaries (2 Articles, 5186 views)
(19 comments) SHARE Friday, June 2, 2017 Resist the Duopoly--Because Judas's Party Can't Defeat Trump's
This is the second and final part of my call-to-arms series, "The REAL Trump Resistance: An Anti-Duopoly Occupy." Given the importance I attach to its message, it's written to be understood on its own. But for still deeper understanding--especially for supporters of third parties--please read Part 1. Series: The REAL Trump Resistance: An Anti-Duopoly Occupy (2 Articles, 5794 views)
(59 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 18, 2014 Rejecting Clinton for Warren Is Climate's ONLY Hope
With this article, I officially drop my push for Sanders as president in favor of Elizabeth Warren, who's now dropped hints she might run. While Bernie remains as deserving as ever, any political realist knows that Warren, as Democrats' rising superstar--and potential first woman president to boot--is far more electable. This article logically argues why Naomi Klein's followers URGENTLY need to demand Warren's candidacy.
(11 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 19, 2015 Clinton's Updated Tammany Hall--Destroying Democracy AND Climate Too
If climate catastrophe leaves a civilization for historians to write in, they may someday lament how the world's biggest news story was irresponsibly flubbed by mainstream's willed failure to connect the dots: Hillary's Clinton's political machine is foisting on us a candidate provably unqualified, by policies and character, to address our planet's climate emergency. Fearing that, I try to "be the media" in this 3-part series. Series: Climate's Deadliest HIDDEN Enemy: The Clinton Political Machine (2 Articles, 4745 views)
(134 comments) SHARE Monday, February 16, 2015 Progressive Hammer: We'd Rather Be a Hammer than Hillary's Nail
Facing grim prospects from a Clinton presidency, ALL progressives should fear that Democrats' Warren wing is a "paper tiger," impotent in the face of party control by Clinton and her oligarch donors. If Warren (like her colleague Bernie Sanders) really wants backing by a movement capable of standing up to Dems' corporatists, that movement must show utter ferocity toward Clinton. Thus the Progressive Hammer campaign.
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 10, 2017 Fighting the McResistance: Exposing Democrats' "Good Cop" as Judas
In this two-part series, "Fighting the McResistance--for Climate's Sake," I make the compelling argument that Democrats' shallow, astroturf "McResistance" to Trump must be overthrown by a grassroots, anti-duopoly, Occupy-style movement. Namely, that the likely alternative is climate Armageddon. In this Part 1 piece, I argue that Democrats' patented ploy of playing Good Cop to Republicans' Bad Cop amounts to playing Judas. Series: Fighting the McResistance--for Climate's Sake (2 Articles, 4955 views)
(22 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 31, 2015 Bernie vs. Hillary Is Really a "Clash of Civilizations"
Clinton's propaganda machine pretends that she's an acceptable substitute for Bernie Sanders and that Sanders supporters should simply vote for her if she's nominated. That's utterly inconsistent with Bernie's view that "business as usual" (which Clinton clearly embodies) is so bad we need a political revolution. Here I try to foment that revolution by arguing that Bernie vs. Hillary is really a "clash of civilization.
(14 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 30, 2017 The Progressive Resistance: "Woke" on Politics, Comatose on Marketing
As a progressive activist, Bernie or Bust pledge co-creator, I've been both thrilled by the emergence of a principled progressive resistance under Trump and dismayed by the ineffective, scattershot messaging of that resistance. In a two-part series, "Successful Marketing for Political Revolutionaries," I offer both my criticisms and my constructive suggestions to a resistance on whose success the fate of humanity may depend. Series: Successful Marketing for Political Revolutionaries (2 Articles, 5186 views)
(15 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 5, 2017 Let's EVOLVE from the Duopoly's Neoliberal Swamp
In a recent popular OEN article, "Let's Hunt Neoliberals to Political Extinction," I sketched a potential successor to the headline-making Bernie or Bust movement I co-founded. The proposed transpartisan movement, touted as "Bernie or Bust on steroids," would GENERALIZE the BoB strategy from Bernie vs. Hillary to progressives vs. neoliberals. Well, the Progressive or Bust successor is now REAL, and I proudly unveil it here.
(40 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 16, 2019 Venezuelan Coup Democrats Vomit on Green New Deal
Connecting important dots, this timely piece argues that no Democrats supporting Trump's indefensible, imperialist coup should be considered sincere supporters of a Green New Deal. And that two of our time's most important movements--Sunrise and the Poor People's Campaign--will fatally undermine their credibility and missions by not denouncing the Venezuelan coup, leaving planet-saving leftists no viable path forward.
(15 comments) SHARE Monday, June 19, 2017 Climate Judases: Three Ways Democrats Betray Humanity
This is Part 2 of my two-part series "Fighting the McResistance--for Climate's Sake," in which I argue that leaving Democrats' astroturf "McResistance" in charge of the anti-Trump resistance movement will be a CATASTROPHE for our climate. While Part 2 is written to be understood on its own, readers will grasp it even better if acquainted with the "Good Cop as Judas" argument I made in Part 1. Series: Fighting the McResistance--for Climate's Sake (2 Articles, 4955 views)
(13 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 10, 2015 Warren Spinelessly Coddles Clinton, Distances Sanders
Principled and backboned in direct confrontations with Wall Street, Liz Warren and Democrats' Warren wing turn spineless jellyfish about criticizing or pressuring Wall Street heartthrob Hillary Clinton. It's so bad, you'd swear the rumored "Clinton mafia" had threatened to rub out Warren's grandkids. Progressives MUST take notice--and show zero tolerance for Warren's unprincipled coddling of Clinton and coldness to Sanders.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, May 17, 2013 Barack Obama--and the Sick, Twisted Dynamic of Racism
Perhaps the edgiest progressive political analysis you'll ever see published, a scathing--and penetrating analysis of the deep evil (a "vampire's kiss") that happened when Barack Obama met his "fairy godmother" Penny Pritzker. Little "bad language," but CERTAINLY for adults only ...
(18 comments) SHARE Monday, January 16, 2017 Let's Hunt Neoliberals to Political Extinction (Part 2 of 2)
Peaceful revolutions, fought with ballots not bullets, most still overthrow oppressive political enemies. In Part 2 of my popular OEN article, I explain the necessity, for successful political revolution, of building a transpartisan movement based on identifying neoliberal Democrats as those enemies, naming specific Democrat neoliberals, and refusing to vote for either them or the cowardly politicians who enable them.
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, August 16, 2019 Exploiting Russiagate Coma, Democrats Raped Climate Movement
A ringing wake-up call to a climate movement rendered comatose by the conventional corporate media propaganda story of Russiagate, this piece identifies with greater insight than any other I know the immense harm Democrats' Russiagate narrative has done the climate movement. Unless the climate movement becomes as outraged as if Democrats had RAPED it, little hope remains for the US climate movement achieving anything useful.
(80 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 26, 2015 Bernie's No Sheepdog--Provided His Supporters Aren't Sheep
Supporters of Bernie Sanders' presidential run as a Democrat are probably insufficiently aware of the very real danger he could be made Hillary Clinton's "sheepdog," handing her progressive rhetoric and underserved votes from disgruntled progressives who loyally support him. To stave this off, Sanders progressives who grasp the need for political revolution--which Clinton's as fit to bring as Marie Antoinette--must ORGANIZE.
(120 comments) SHARE Monday, December 29, 2014 Will Progressives Look a Gift Pope in the Mouth?
Pope Francis, with an upcoming encyclical on climate change, is a godsend to progressives and climate activists alike. And his shift in the Catholic Church's moral emphasis toward the "social gospel" dovetails splendidly with Democrats' "Warren wing" shift away from identity politics and back to the economic justice emphasis of the New Deal. Savvy progressives must now seek to mend fences with Francis's HUGE flock.
(14 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 16, 2013 "Democracy Unchained"--Blueprint for a Revitalized Occupy
Perhaps my most important--and ambitious--OEN article proposes a new but logical reincarnation of the OWS movement, Democracy Unchained, that aims to make Occupy's ideal of a society for everyone, not just the 1%, a political reality. Just as Occupy focused its criticisms on the 1% and corporatocracy, Democracy Unchained attacks the corrupt Democrat-Republican duopoly that maintains corporatocracy. D.U.'s strategy's included
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, August 21, 2017 It's Party Time on the Titanic--and Screw the Slobs in Steerage
An article of staggering ambition, this piece seeks to provoke creation of a movement that could literally save civilization. How? By making the policy corruption of our two major parties by Wall Street and "War Street" interests--a policy course that amounts to "partying on the Titanic"--the central focus of our political discourse.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 31, 2018 Russiagate: Democrats' Giant Middle Finger to Climate Justice
Other articles have rightly called out Russiagate as a lying narrative, a cover story for Democrats excusing electoral losses and dodging reform, and a diversion from vastly more important issues. This unique piece does more: it pinpoints Russiagate as the foremost enemy of the climate justice narrative. Further, it argues that all stakeholders in climate justice must unite to overthrow a lie that menaces human survival.
(12 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 13, 2016 Revolution IS Possible--by Leftists Stiffening Sanderistas' Spines
This is the follow-up to my previous, provocative piece "Can't Hillary Haters All Just Get Along?" While I've written this essay--in light of its possible historical importance--to work well as a standalone piece, I encourage readers to at least skim my previous article so as to better catch my drift in this urgent call to leftist unity based on relentless repudiation of Hillary Clinton.
(25 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 30, 2015 Bernie Excites Progressive Passion; Hillary, Our Vomit Reflex
The 2016 Democratic presidential race is not a normal one, and should not be treated as such. Any election pitting Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton is a WATERSHED one, and Democrats ignore that fact at their extreme peril. But the watershed value of Bernie's candidacy will be realized only if progressives ORGANIZE around the common ground of passion for what Bernie--and sheer disgust for what Hillary--represents.
(13 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 15, 2016 Why Bernie Sanders Should Stay in the Race--and How He Can Win
By joining forces with the Green Party's Jill Stein, the Vermont senator would pose a formidable independent challenge to both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, two of the major parties' most unpopular candidates in recent history.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 29, 2015 Wake Up Zombie, Kick Up a Big Stink!
If climate catastrophe leaves a civilization for historians to write in, they may someday lament how the world's biggest news story was irresponsibly flubbed by mainstream's willed failure to connect the dots: Hillary's Clinton's political machine is foisting on us a candidate provably unqualified, by policies and character, to address our planet's climate emergency. Fearing that, I try to "be the media" in this 3-part series. Series: Climate's Deadliest HIDDEN Enemy: The Clinton Political Machine (2 Articles, 4745 views)
(11 comments) SHARE Monday, July 1, 2013 Obama's Turning Progressives into Model Fascist Citizens
Citing my alarming experience of circulating a petition defending Ed Snowden's right to political asylum on supposedly "progressive" Facebook pages, I point out precisely how close Obama's government is to the monarchical tyranny OPPOSED by our Founders. Or, based on its more modern tools of tyranny, to fascism. And I above all point out the sheer scariness of Obama's turning Democrat "progressives" to model fascist citizens.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, July 5, 2013 Calling Obamaheads "Progressives" Out-Orwells Orwell
I here argue that the term "progressive" could play a vital role in today's U.S. political discourse, deriving historically from a homegrown populist pro-democracy and anti-corporate movement that was pragmatic in its approach and free of the scary ideological character represented by many foreign-born "isms." Obama supporters' Orwellian theft of this honorable term is a fascist-style language perversion we need to resist.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, February 24, 2014 Spineless “Vichy Democrats†Will Abet Fascist Pipeline Crackdown
The Keystone XL pipeline is perhaps America's most important CIVIL RIGHTS issue. Say what? Yes, with no intended slight to crucial issues like racial profiling or voter exclusion, Keystone XL may be more important. Why? Because ALL civil rights causes demand an atmosphere where dissent, freedom of assembly, and even CD are honored. If Obama OKs the pipeline, repression of CD will BRUTALLY chill all dissent. Will Dems OK this?
(18 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 11, 2015 Petition Implores Warren Wing: "Show Us the Bernie"
Bernie Sanders probably needs endorsement by Elizabeth Warren and Congressional progressives to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite Bernie's staggering superiority in progressive 'street creds' to Hillary Clinton, endorsements have been nonexistent, suggesting intimidation by Dems' corporatist leadership. Our "Show Us the Bernie" campaign, focused on a forceful new petition, seeks to turn the tables.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 15, 2013 Hillary Clinton: Democrats' Second Straight Trojan Horse
In Obama, we've already witnessed a Democratic Party Trojan horse. To wit, a member of a politically correct oppressed minority who'll put on a good show, based on that group membership, of representing the interests of the oppressed--increasingly, most Americans. But who will, based on oppressed-group cloaking, be a far more effectively tool of plutocrat designs. Hillary, I warn here and after, is another such Trojan horse.
(19 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 5, 2014 Essence of U.S. Fascism: Crippling Dissent vs. Planned ATROCITIES
Eureka, I've nailed it!--here's a brief, convincing "executive summary" of why America's now a fascist nation. However free daily life now seems, we're systematically crippling the dissent DESPERATELY needed to break the grip of propaganda paving the way for ATROCITIES. This is the central, deeply pernicious feature of fascism today's United States shares with ALL historic fascist regimes.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 2, 2014 Police State Populism: The Absurd Lipstick on Hillary's Capitalist Pig
Despite focusing on Hillary Clinton, this article IMPORTANTLY follows up my attempt to build an Occupy for Bernie movement. Indirectly, it's a near-manifesto for that movement, sharpening its focus to not merely electing Bernie Sanders, but to making his outspoken candidacy the ideal pretext for popular revolt against the lethal hypocrisy of U.S. public discourse. As embodied by Hillary--who merits a lipsticked-pig mascot.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 22, 2015 Hillary's "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing" Political Speech
In a political era laden with ironies, perhaps the biggest is Hillary Clinton's political speech being largely financed by HEDGE funds. While her "populist" words on money in politics were a textbook case of lawyerly hedging, her craven failure to reject TPP--while feigning concern--was an act of "gallantly chickening out" worthy of Monty Python's Brave Sir Robin. "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing" political speech at its best!
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, October 20, 2014 Democrats' Deadly Electoral Disease: "Deep State Bullshit"
I NEVER expected my previous OEN article, "THIS Changes Everything: Bernie as Dems' New FDR," to parent a whole SERIES. But some brainstorming--fueled by warm reader response--soon evolved a full-blown political strategy. My sunshiny "Bernie as Dems' new FDR" vision was the motivational WHY; the rest of my series is the strategic HOW. Here, I diagnose "what's rotten in Demmark"--the daunting party hurdle Bernie must clear. Series: Bernie's Donkeys: Rebranding Democrats as Sanders' Party (3 Articles, 5165 views)
(34 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 11, 2020 "Lesser of Two ENEMIES" Perfectly Describes Biden
I try to solve a conundrum Glenn Greenwald poses in response to Noam Chomsky. Namely, how do we vote for lesser-evil Democrats while derailing their smug ploy to EXTORT our votes by merely "not being Trump"? Series: Tracts for Our Times (9 Articles, 12943 views)
(11 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 12, 2015 Hillary's a "Bold Progressive"? Has Anyone Warned Her Donors?
It's a twenty-first century electoral miracle! Let Wall Street oligarchs dictate the candidate (Hillary), and "Bold Progressives" will supply her principles and policies. Holy cognitive dissonance, Batman!
(19 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 14, 2016 Bernie Is Leftists' Divinely Appointed "Hitman"
If democracy is to survive, political activists must take out a "hit" on today's Democratic Party--the chief U.S. obstacle to much-needed political revolution. Fortunately, fate has conspired in having Bernie Sanders, wittingly or unwittingly the best potential "hitman" against today's corrupt Democrats, run for president in that party. And has conspired even more in having ham-handed Hillary Clinton and DWS abet his "hit."
(32 comments) SHARE Friday, February 27, 2015 Liz Should Make Hillary Pay Tribute--like Denouncing TPP
With great power comes great responsibility. Like, in Liz Warren's case, the responsibility to use her enormous political leverage to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As in, say, making Hillary Clinton's denouncing the TPP the price of her continuing support. Though largely humorous, this article is dead serious in its plea for readers to contact Warren and pressure her to "exact TPP tribute" from Clinton.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, January 11, 2019 Referendum 2020: A Green New Deal vs. Racist, Classist Climate Genocide
Facing Democrat leadership's obstinate opposition to their climate-saving agenda, Green New Deal supporters may need a "nuclear option" to shame them into line. How about this: the Sunrise Movement and its allies backing whichever Democrat presidential hopeful makes the 2020 election a referendum between a Green New Deal and Republicans' racist, social Darwinist climate genocide? Read and watch establishment heads explode!
(23 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 14, 2014 The Logic of Emergency: Strategy for a Climate Tea Party
WARNING: If you're not (a) open-minded and (b) deeply focused on saving the climate, do NOT read this article. Being my strategy for a climate-action Tea Party, it's simply unsparing in trampling the pet convictions of all for whom saving the climate isn't their guiding concern. But if it's YOURS--and so you'll read without bias--I'm eager to hear your reactions and critiques.
(30 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 27, 2019 Forum Perversion: Why Progressive Media Should BAN Climate-Troll Comments
Highly controversial--and more philosophical than my typical political article--this piece makes a compelling case for why climate-change-denying comments should be BANNED from political articles in progressive/leftist publications. Damning them as "forum perversion," it paves the way for arguing that if such defenses of pseudoscience are allowed, a flood of comments from the Flat Earth Society should be allowed too.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, February 2, 2015 Will Warren Play Useful Idiot for Frack-Queen Clinton?
This article is vehicle for an URGENT MoveOn petition, found at the end. For busy activists seeking just an "executive summary" of why you should sign, read the first boldface section. But if you're seeking the best analysis I've seen of Liz Warren's standing among Democrats, please read the rest. It strongly argues why, without potent popular pressure, historians will vilify Warren as Clinton's useful idiot.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, August 5, 2013 If Manning Deserves Life, Bush Deserves Torture and Death
Few current issues are hotter for Americans committed to justice than securing deserved leniency for Bradley Manning. And I find no firmer ground for pressing Manning's case than Obama's unconscionable differential leniency toward George W. Bush and his war-criminal mob. If Manning deserves life, Bush deserves torture and death. Also, a "Pardon for Manning, Justice for Bush" movement would usefully reignite class-war issues.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 22, 2018 Russiagate vs. Climate Genocide: How Democrats Cover Up Trump's Worst Crime
A hard-hitting piece exploring how Democrats, for fear of raising policy topics embarrassing to their own party leadership, have refused to discuss issues that would paint Republicans in not merely a negative, but a criminally insane light. Foremost of these is Trump's openly conducted, beyond-genocidal climate policy, which Democrats have reprehensibly covered up under perhaps unprovable Russia collusion charges.
(15 comments) SHARE Friday, December 5, 2014 Blue or Green Pitchforks?--It's All Up to Liz Warren
An IMPORTANT article, sketching the prospect of a populist "Pitchfork Movement" that brings plutocracy to its knees. But above all, this article sketches that movement's relationship to Liz Warren, provisionally trusting her to live up to the high cause she's publicly embraced, but ready in a heartbeat to cast her off as a Judas if her only role is to save Democrats' undeserved credibility.
(37 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 22, 2019 Climate Enemy Biden: The Extinction Rebellion's Top Recruiter
This piece analyzes Joe Biden's presidential candidacy from a highly original angle: the extreme menace he poses to the Green New Deal and effective climate action. And perhaps the greater menace is not Biden's own deeply inadequate climate policy, but the considerable danger of him losing to climate terrorist Donald Trump. Indeed, the climate peril of Biden's nomination is the best reason to join Extinction Rebellion NOW.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 19, 2013 Is McKibben Ready for Hillary? The Climate Sure as Hell Isn't
Since Bill McKibben has begun to sing a saner tune on Obama's climate negligence (or perhaps better, treachery), I relent and acknowledge him for the climate hero he is. BUT we must keep up the pressure on McKibben, for he's one of the few climate activists with a large enough following to make climate action possible. He must NOW get more political--and above all, stab a lethal electoral knife through climate vampire Hillary.
(61 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 10, 2020 "Shithole Election 2020": Choosing the Lesser Tyranny
This article details--and justifies--the type of no-holds-barred rhetoric needed to resist Joe Biden AFTER voting for him. But what's more, in making the arguments justifying that rhetoric, it's probably--starting with its title--the most brutally honest analysis of the 2020 U.S. election you'll ever read. Series: Tracts for Our Times (9 Articles, 12943 views)
(23 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 20, 2020 The New Satyagraha: Progressives' Leverage under LOTE
As the theoretical explanation and justification for what resistance under Biden MUST look like to succeed, this is probably my most important piece. It might seem really "outside the box," but given the stakes (saving civilization) and the long odds (successfully pressuring Democrats AFTER electing them), it seems just what the doctor (Dr. King, a deep admirer of Gandhi?) ordered. Series: Tracts for Our Times (9 Articles, 12943 views)
(34 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 2, 2020 Greenwald's Bombshell, the GND, and Democrat Extortion
I wrote this UNPLANNED piece in a hurry, seeking to exploit the timeliness of Glenn Greenwald's brilliant reporting on a new U.S. "pandemic"--one of suicidal despair. Here I take Greenwald's insight one step further, explaining how he unwittingly makes the best imaginable case for a peaceful Green New Deal. Series: Tracts for Our Times (9 Articles, 12943 views)
(36 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 30, 2014 Life Beyond Bullsh*t: Of Bernie and Blackmail
As noted in the previous piece in this OEN series ("Democrats' Deadly Electoral Disease: Deep State Bullshit"), bullsh*t is now the chief component of U.S. political discourse. Specifically, bullsh*t policies and policy talk dictated--to BOTH parties--by our sinister shadow government, the Deep State. With our climate crisis menacing human survival, "it's time to take the bullsh*t by the horns"-- by a BLACKMAIL pledge. Series: Bernie's Donkeys: Rebranding Democrats as Sanders' Party (3 Articles, 5165 views)
(135 comments) SHARE Monday, June 2, 2014 The Left's Dangerous, Self-Defeating Lie: Democrats = Republicans
The political left has, in recent years, compiled a regrettable history of shooting itself in the foot. If we wish to end that pattern and strategize successfully, we must see reality as it is--and above all, avoid basing our strategy on LIES, like saying "Democrats are the same as Republicans." While FAR from perfect, they're simply NOT, and failing to see this may stymie strategic exploitation of REAL fissures among Dems.
(20 comments) SHARE Monday, May 13, 2019 Announcing Bernie or Bust 2.0: Electoral Warriors for the Green New Deal
While classified as an op-ed because of its heavy opinion component, this important article is also NEWS. The original Bernie or Bust, which provoked the hostile attention of major establishment critics like Bill Maher and Paul Krugman (and coverage in Rolling Stone), was clearly newsworthy. Its timely revival--to save the Green New Deal from dangerous establishment enemies like Joe Biden--should be front-page news.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 13, 2014 Pitchforks against Plutocracy: CONSCIOUSLY Waging the Class War to Win
Here it is, folks: my FULL rationale for building a peaceful but aggressive "Pitchforks against Plutocracy" movement--a COMPREHENSIVE quest to win the class war, whose uniqueness lies in pursuing REALISTIC "brainiac" electoral strategies (and protest and civil disobedience at need). A group smart and flexible enough to draw inspiration from BOTH anti-Christian democrat Thomas Paine AND genius Christian democrat Blaise Pascal.
(10 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 2, 2019 Climate Terrorism: The Politically Farsighted Way to Impeach Trump
This article makes a highly original--and, needless to say, controversial--case not just for impeaching Trump, but for impeaching him on grounds of climate terrorism. While I can only hope against hope my piece will make as revolutionary a splash, my best analogy here is Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," whose timely, sensible ideas--amidst oligarch-controlled public opinion--seemed unthinkable heresy until he laid out the case.
(11 comments) SHARE Monday, October 13, 2014 THIS Changes Everything: Bernie as Dems' New FDR
As Naomi Klein memorably demonstrates in "This Changes Everything," a better world--or global apocalypse--IS truly possible. But the price of that better world is a RADICAL transformation of our societies and economy. I here propose a political roadmap to the beginnings of that better world: Democrats--led by Bernie Sanders, their new FDR-- seizing overthrow of Citizens United as their "killer" 2016 issue. Series: Bernie's Donkeys: Rebranding Democrats as Sanders' Party (3 Articles, 5165 views)
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 4, 2017 Weaponized Truth: The Indispensable Movement's Key to Success
An article I didn't planned to write, this eloquent defense of the Indispensable Movement's "verbal revolution" against critics is perhaps my most potent ever. Fans of political satire--and of the Kama Sutra--will especially relish my delicious political usage of the euphemism "mouth Congress."
(23 comments) SHARE Friday, October 26, 2018 How the Rats Revolt: "Ratting Out" Democrats' Electoral Extortion
This article, part of a two-part series, involves fresh thinking--perhaps revolutionary thinking--on a perennial problem for the left. Namely, how to approach the problem of lesser-evil voting. If the "Rats' Revolt" suggested by Ralph Nader and and embraced by Chris Hedges is willing to embrace my revolt strategy, our movement could be the sword that severs the divisive and paralyzing lesser-evil voting dilemma. Series: Slashing the Gordian Knot of Lesser-Evil Voting (2 Articles, 3221 views)
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, July 22, 2019 The Bipartisan BIG LIE: Trump's Climate Genocide Is Normal
This piece highlights a shocking truth: that US citizens live daily in the presence of a "big lie" as outrageous and dangerous as any told by Hitler and Goebbels. Namely, that Trump's assault on an imperiled climate is normal policy we can pass over in silence rather than an unprecedented crime against humanity. Unlike the Nazis' "big lie," this one is perpetrated by deafening bipartisan silence and not constant repetition.
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 16, 2018 Today's Poor People's Campaign: Too Important Not to Criticize
The current revival of Martin Luther King's Poor People's Campaign is by light-years the most important movement in American politics--the first prospect for a REAL resistance attacking the corrupt system that gave us Trump. But to succeed, it's crucial that today's PPC stay true to the radical, truthtelling heritage of Dr. King. Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report recently published an important critique of PPC; I continue it.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 3, 2018 Ratting Out Chuck Schumer, Democrats' Low-Profile Teflon Don
This tactical follow-up to my piece on the message and strategy has it all! No cow is too sacred here, not even Bernie Sanders or the Poor People's Campaign. But all my satire and outraged criticism is in a great, desperate cause: to fight EFFECTIVELY for climate justice before it's too late--for human civilization. Series: Slashing the Gordian Knot of Lesser-Evil Voting (2 Articles, 3221 views)
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 18, 2018 Political Dynamite: Poor People's Campaign and the Movement for a People's Party
Combining MLK's resurrected Poor People's Campaign with the political strategy of the Movement for a People's Party could result in political dynamite--peacefully exploding a two-party system (and above all, a Democratic Party) that has served progressives badly.
(17 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 28, 2015 "Madam Predator": Will Bernie's Sheep Morph into Hillary's Wolves?
Hillary Clinton is a proven supporter of PREDATORY plutocratic interests, be they military, surveillance, financial, or fossil fuel. Should Bernie Sanders lose the Democratic nomination to Clinton, many of his supporters will, by behaving "sheepishly," will knowingly succumb to perhaps the biggest bait-and-switch in human history: sheep electing wolves. Backing Sanders' campaign with Hedges-style moral revolt can stop that.
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, August 14, 2020 Facing Glenn Greenwald's Daunting Challenge: Leverage under LOTE
A timely follow-up to my last piece explaining the HUGE advantages of branding Biden "the lesser of two ENEMIES," this article explains why we must split the difference on LOTE voting between Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky, voting for Biden but making up the leverage lost by yielding our votes with unprecedented "fighting words." Series: Tracts for Our Times (9 Articles, 12943 views)
(16 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 12, 2013 News Buried by "Idiot Wars": Unchecked Globalization WILL Destroy Us
A follow-up to my recent popular article, "Obamaheads--like Extreme Right--Are Useful Idiots for Corporatocracy," this piece identifies the BIG STORY that our two major parties' angry "idiot wars" are driving off the front page. Namely, their criminal abdication of the responsibility to manage economic globalization, and the guaranteed "race to the bottom" that means for us and our environment.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 22, 2013 Of Cincinnatus and Mary Poppins: Why Sanders Must Be President
For real, across-the-board progressives--the type who DEMAND climate action, Bernie Sanders is our Cincinnatus. That is, a truly rare pol personally unambitious for highest office, but willing to take it if the common good demands. But lacking the Roman Senate's dictatorial mandate, he is importantly, an ELECTABLE Cincinnatus. Why? Because he, like Mary Poppins, offers the populist sugar to make the climate medicine go down.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 15, 2015 Sanders Correctly Rattles Sabers--at the Climate Change Enemy
If climate catastrophe leaves a civilization for historians to write in, they may someday lament how the world's biggest news story was irresponsibly flubbed by mainstream's willed failure to connect the dots: Hillary's Clinton's political machine is foisting on us a candidate provably unqualified, by policies and character, to address our planet's climate emergency. Fearing that, I try to "be the media" in this 3-part series.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 28, 2013 Only Climate-Action Tea Party Can Reform Dems
Eric Zuesse, in a highly popular OEN article, recently reported the IMPORTANT news of Elizabeth Warren's first pro-climate action. But Zuesse's framing of that action as climate change heroism, rather than a hopeful first sign (especially given the climate irresponsibility of Warren's Democratic Party) strike me as very irrational--wishful thinking based on his touting progressive Democrats. Realists want a climate Tea Party.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, December 11, 2015 Bill Scher: Hillary's Dangerous Climate Spin Doctor
My new, deeply provocative OEN piece is a passionate rebuttal of a Common Dreams article whose spin doctoring angered and disturbed me. How? By citing a "world-changing choice" on climate between Sanders and Clinton but then sweeping away a huge body of expert evidence favoring Sanders, and even hinting the need for climate "pragmatism" favors Clinton. Perhaps my best--and most passionate--piece of political analysis.
(15 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 26, 2020 The Staff of Satyagraha: A Movement of Movements
An exercise in "visionary radical realism," this piece lays out a bold, unprecedented sketch for how America's major movements can escape their "issue silos" and unite in a common effort to effectively press their demands. It justifies their need for such a common truth-telling "satyagraha" movement by their facing the common enemy of a relentless political and media propaganda machine shielding Biden and Democrats. Series: Tracts for Our Times (9 Articles, 12943 views)
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 4, 2013 Obamaheads--like Extreme Right--Are Useful Idiots for Corporatocracy
A scathing analysis of how "useful idiots" of both the Republican and Democrat stripe dominate the news with their mutually hateful "idiot wars," keeping the far more important story or corporation domination off its rightful place on the front page. Also stresses how much liberal idolaters of faux-progressive Obama block political progress as much as the "right-wingnuts" they vilify.
(23 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 17, 2015 Can't Warren Read the "Dubyas" on Clinton's Wall?
Can't Warren read the "Dubyas" on Hillary's wall? Like, say, waging war, warming the planet, coddling Wall Street, and sabotaging Warren? If Warren, full knowing Hillary's history and donors, can't play rational prophet and read the sinister wall prophecy Hillary's moving finger is tracing, a united movement of activists must jump in and read it for her. As if reading her the riot act--with a stern pledge to reject Hillary.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 27, 2017 Meet Swampzilla: Indispensable's Duopoly-Killing "Monster" Meme
This is Part 1 of a two-part series, "The Indispensable Movement Can Revolutionize Political Discourse." Part 1 introduces and explains Swampzilla, our movement's crucial meme vilifying our slimy and dangerous "Republocrat" duopoly. Part 2, titled "Indispensable Chic: The Hip Lingo of Grassroots Revolution," provides a sampler of the cool, catchy verbal weapons we've forged to discredit our "Republocrat" enemies. Series: The Indispensable Movement Can Revolutionize Political Discourse (1 Articles, 1446 views)
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 25, 2014 "Bold Progressive" Masochists Kiss Hillary's Shiny Boot
Though focusing on a question of political principle, this article is, in its own way, a striking piece of INVESTIGATIVE journalism. Written in reaction to an e-mail from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (aka "Bold Progressives"), it exposes the masochistic contradiction at the core of "progressive" politics: proclaiming marital fidelity to Liz Warren's principles, while secretly enthralled to "dominatrix" Clinton.
(18 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 15, 2020 Joe Biden Is God's Chosen--Target for Revolt!
Just as the nineteenth century Oxford Movement--above all Catholic saint John Henry Newman--composed the influential, historically important religious "Tracts for Our Times," I now feel I (without having planned it) am doing the same thing politically. Though short, this particular tract is deeply important, since it plumbs the depths of my motivating political faith. Series: Tracts for Our Times (9 Articles, 12943 views)
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 27, 2013 "Climate Hawk" Obama Is Really Fracking's Bird of Prey
In considering Obama's recent climate speech, I take issue with leading climate-change blogger Joe Romm over whether Obama IS a "climate-change hawk" or instead a psychopathic "bird of prey" who relentlessly promotes the humanly unjustified and environmentally dangerous--indeed, probably deadly--process of fracking.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 6, 2019 Hijacking the Impeachment Debate--for Climate's Sake
Unusual--in that it's content consists largely of an action proposal originally intended for United Church of Christ climate activists and an e-mail I sent to Noam Chomsky--this article is an urgent call for climate activists to hijack the current debate over Trump's impeachment. A debate where Democrats' chosen impeachment charge is a subtle form of propaganda trivializing both ecocide and humanity's climate emergency.
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 16, 2016 To Funnyman Maher, Climate-Fracking Corruption Is One Big Joke
As co-founder of Revolt Against Plutocracy and the Bernie or Bust movement our pledge spawned, I'm furious with Bill Maher. But NOT, as readers, might suspect, for his joke at our movement's expense--the best free publicity our growing movement could ever imagine. No, I'm enraged at the segment where that joke appears, which buries Clinton's corruption by money--and the climate danger it poses--beneath juvenile potty jokes.
(21 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 8, 2015 In 2014 Elections, Dems Weren't Punished Enough
Any good progressive knows that when Americans elect today's Republicans, it's a national exercise in self-punishment. And of course, Democrats--especially "centrist" ones--are only too glad to tell us that. This article challenges those centrists--and Andrew Schmookler's recent popular OEN piece--asserting that rather than wringing hands over electoral losses, Dems should be searching souls over HOW evil their party now is.
(9 comments) SHARE Monday, December 1, 2014 Leftists, Awake! Warren's Our WEDGE to "Permanent Revolution"
As a potential first woman president preaching a subversive economic message, Elizabeth Warren offers a historic opportunity to the Left--perhaps our wedge to fomenting "permanent revolution." Since economics is the key to everything, this is a case of trusting NOT the messenger, but the latent subversiveness of the message. If Leftists fail to seize this historic opportunity, we richly deserve our "Born to Lose" tattoo.
(18 comments) SHARE Monday, July 30, 2018 Climate Genocide: Why the Poor People's Campaign Should Demand Trump's Impeachment
Probably the most important activist piece I've written: one calling for the Poor People's Campaign to use its movement clout to demand Donald Trump's impeachment. And for a better reason than anyone else has offered: for his planned climate genocide--above all, his planned racist, classist genocide of poor people of color. Unlike Russiagate, impeaching Trump for climate genocide will deter Pence from ecocidal policies.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 20, 2020 Democrats' "Resistance" Has Sabotaged Proper HATRED of Trump
Years ago, my OEN article, "Frankly, Koch Brothers Deserve the Death Penalty", resonated deeply with readers and became by far my most popular OEN piece. Now--in VASTLY more desperate political circumstances--I've written an oh-so-timely piece that I feel, in my soul-of-souls, deserves an even better fate. PLEASE read this purposely apocalyptic call to arms, SHARE it widely, and vote accordingly!
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 17, 2015 Whitewashing Hillary--By "Redwashing" Progressive Critics
This article attempts to coin a possibly viral new word--in fact, a potentially potent new weapon in fighting Hillary Clinton's propaganda machine. That word is "redwashing," and means the practice of smearing Clinton's progressive critics--and possibly even "disappearing" them from public view--by treating all critiques of and opposition to Hillary Clinton as originating with Republicans. Blame the act and use this term!
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 25, 2014 Citizens United: NOT about Speech, but Its Perversion--Propaganda
Here's a truly novel--and perhaps more deeply penetrating--critique of Citizens United. My RADICAL argument focuses not on the Court's confused notions that corporations are people or that dollars equal speech, but on the debased NATURE of the speech those dollars go to buy. That "speech" is mass PROPAGANDA, and the twentieth century's worst horrors should have taught us how incompatible such "speech" is with frail democracy.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 10, 2013 WARNING: Why Fossil Fuels Are Necessarily Fascist Fuels
Perhaps my most passionate--and chilling--article, I wrote this piece in a white heat after reflecting on Josh Fox's must-see documentary, "Gasland 2." My conclusion is that the modern fossil-fuel industry is by its inner logic fascist, and its being greedily embraced by our fascist-leaning government makes it likely the leading edge of "jackboot in your face" U.S. fascism. And of dissenters being "Othered" as ecoterrorists.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 16, 2018 Schumer vs. the Climate: Manchin's Criminally Insane Promotion
Here's a timely indictment of Chuck Schumer for the climate crime of promoting fossil fuel puppet Joe Manchin to the role of head Democrat on a powerful Senate energy committee. Beyond that, this piece is a ringing call to arms to the gutsy "superheroes" of the Sunrise Movement, in whose face Schumer just had the rashly foolish audacity to spit by promoting Manchin.
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Announcing Biden's Worst Nightmare: the "Justified Outrage" Movement
The exciting climax of my "Tracts for Our Times" series--naming the mysterious movement I've been sketching all along and unraveling the mystery of such a SEEMINGLY bizarre strategy as "vulgar satyagraha."
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 1, 2013 Obama Is "White Power" Tool--of Carpetbaggers, Not of KKK
In a provocative application of history that's a radical shift of perspective from my previous OEN article, which came down pretty hard on political "rednecks," I point out that, like these tragic poor Southern whites after the Civil War, we are all prey to political "carpetbaggers," who exploit the erosion of proper government after a "civil war" to make it the tool of their predatory self-enrichment.
(12 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 4, 2014 Liz Warren's Litmus Test: Support the Climate Protection Act
I mean, in an upcoming article, to sketch out a full-blown strategy for a climate-action Tea Party. But first, I had a suggested first action for that climate Tea Party TOO IMPORTANT not to share immediately: let's make support for the Sanders-Boxer Climate Protection Act a climate-action litmus test for Liz Warren (and for ALL Democrats). And for Eric Zuesse, who dared depict COSPONSOR Bernie Sanders as "all talk" on climate.
(29 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 7, 2013 Obamaheads, Be Decent Enough to Call Yourself Centrist Democrats
My shortest but perhaps most incisive OEN article, this one points out the real harm resulting from Obamaheads' Orwellian usurpation of the word "progressive." Not only are many voters deceived but, what's worse, genuine progressives--the pro-democracy left--have others steal their own most effective rallying banner and are thereby crowded out and marginalized. I offer "centrist Democrats" as an honest alternative for Obamans.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, December 30, 2013 Sabotaging Climate Struggle--Eric Zuesse as Neville Chamberlain
I started this as a follow-up to my OEN article unveiling the concept of a climate-action Tea Party as the desperate, essential weapon to reform Dems' gravely irresponsible climate policy. I meant to lay out a complete battle strategy for that climate-action Tea Party. But in light of new evidence, I first must expose Eric Zuesse as the Neville Chamberlain who'd seduce us from battling Dems on their climate treachery at all.
(20 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 28, 2014 "Lesser of Two Evils" Voting: Progressives' Most URGENT Debate
No strategic question seems more urgent for progressives than the validity and usefulness of "lesser of two evils" voting. I here attempt a badly needed honest appraisal of the LOTE question--and arrive at a novel solution involving BOTH LOTE voting and peaceful street revolt. And I drop a hint--to be pursued in future articles--about the nature and aims of that revolt. CLUE: It's called "Occupy for Bernie."
(19 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 2, 2018 Peace Activists' Best Hope? The Sunrise CLIMATE Movement
This piece makes the case that the best path forward for peace activists is-paradoxically-- to support the Sunrise CLIMATE movement and bring out the peace agenda latent in its call for a Green New Deal.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, January 23, 2015 After Obama's Phony SOTU, Let's Force Warren to Prove She's REAL
This article is vehicle for an URGENT petition, sponsored by Pitchforks Against Plutocracy. After the arrant phoniness of Obama's State of the Union address, we must test whether there's ANYTHING worth supporting about Democrats; if there is, it lies in Democrats' Warren wing. If Warren won't stop supporting Hillary Clinton, we'll KNOW Democrats are phony and must seek other means than Dems for resisting "Republofascism."
(17 comments) SHARE Monday, August 10, 2015 "Exploiting" Bernie to Dynamite Democrats' Fault Lines
If leftists want political power anytime soon, their best bet is to support Bernie Sanders. But NOT uncritically, and NOT in the conventional way of voting for the Democratic nominee should Bernie lose the nomination. CounterPunch editors Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank wrote pooh-poohing Bernie's candidacy based on thinking "inside the Bernie box." They generously let me rebut them with two pieces at CP. Here's piece #2.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 1, 2014 A Killer Progressive Strategy: "Primary-Only Democrats"
Due to climate change, the very fate of human civilization depends on progressives gaining control of government. A daunting task in U.S. politics, since progressives are represented scarcely at all. Here's a RADICAL strategy proposal for increasing progressive power that I, for one, have never heard anyone else suggest.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 6, 2013 Perfect Symbol for Green Party: A Patiently Boiling Frog
A typically scathing (for those who know me as author) denunciation of the Green Party, predominantly on target in its views, for a standoffish political self-righteousness that never seeks to recruit--or, more importantly, cooperate with--fellow progressives, whether Democrats of progressive independents.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, June 10, 2019 Seriously Want a Green New Deal? Demand Trump's Climate-Based Impeachment
Forcefully following up my controversial piece arguing for Trump's impeachment for climate terrorism, I here launch a bigger discussion: the crucial political advantages impeaching Trump for his beyond-criminal offers Green New Deal movement activists. I focus here on one incontestable advantage: willingness to impeach Trump for climate terrorism is an almost infallible CURRENT litmus test for serious GND support.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 14, 2014 Republicans' Unconscious Ideology: God Is a Sadistic Prick
Here I explore the possible basis of Republicans' heartless social ideology--that behind their social and political beliefs is a God not of Jesus but of the Protestant ethic, who is NOT a loving Father, but a sadistic Cosmic Prick. And therefore unworthy of worship. If the Left took religion seriously enough to question the religious validity of Republicans' God, we might undermine the harsh ideology this God supports.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 17, 2013 Progressives Must Face Their Shameful Political Goiters
In religion, there's no path forward for sinners who haven't acknowledged and repented of their sins. Similarly, I see no path forward for progressives without acknowledgment of Democrats' reprehensible role in rubber-stamping Bush's Iraq war. Or, if we need a more recent inexcusable sin, of the support debater Obama shamelessly, irresponsibly gave a potential Romney war in Iran. Proving the deep dangers of selective memory.
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2016 No Reforming Democrats: Leftist Dogma or Scientific Fact?
The harder Left, which does NOT support Bernie Sanders, is relying on virtual religious dogma to deny the legitimate possibility that Bernie CAN perform a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party. But even if one remains skeptical of that possibility (as I myself am), the Left is overlooking the ideal chance to organize Sanders supporters for political revolution Revolt Against Plutocracy now provides. Let's get leftists IN!
(20 comments) SHARE Monday, February 1, 2016 Can't Hillary Haters All Just Get Along? (Part 1)
The Political Left in the US hasn't been able to demonstrate the remotest unity in decades. Maybe generations.
Perhaps it is Hillary Clinton herself that can achieve what has been thought impossible.
Unity through shared hatred? Series: Can't Hillary Haters All Just Get Along? (1 Articles, 1151 views)
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 2, 2014 Keystone XL Pipeline: the Act of Tyranny Gun Nuts Love
An urgent plea for leftists and environmentalists--with truth and religion on their side--to match the propaganda-fueled "passionate intensity" of right-wing gun nuts, America's model fascist citizens. Especially in regard to stopping approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, for if it's built and civil disobedience occurs, our "oiligarch's" gun-toting lapdogs will show their teeth, at least by supporting its brutal put-down.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 8, 2014 The Methane Stench of Today's Corrupt Democrats
Despite not being Republicans, Democrats are hardly innocent. In fact, they're part and parcel of the endemic corruption of U.S. government by Big Money, as amply documented by such diverse experts as legal scholar Lessig, economist Piketty, and political scientists Gilens and Page. But worst of all, corruption by fossil-fuel interests has made Democrats "climate Eichmanns" who may condemn our species to the "gas ovens."
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 24, 2013 Fossil Fuels + Security State = Perfect Fascist Storm
In advocating a new mass movement to counter our corrupt Democrat-Republican duopoly, I've long promoted a wiser Occupy movement that includes an electoral strategy and demands. Though acting on the single demand of purging Big Money's undue influence would be great for nonpartisan unity, I try to show here why two dire instances of undue influence--fossil fuels and the security state--need taming for democracy's sake.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 24, 2016 Won't Leftists Profit from Berniacs' Desperation?
Bernie Sanders has had shocking success in rising from relative unknown to contender status. But given the staggering initial odds against him, he may have simply run out of time in his efforts to educate voters in the night-and-day difference between his revolution and Clinton's money-corrupted foot-dragging. Uniting "Berniacs" and Sanders-skeptical leftists in categorically refusing Clinton may be revolution's only hope.
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 21, 2016 Sistah Hillary's "Blackface" and Identity Dems' Blaxploitation
This piece was written in savage indignation after Hillary Clinton's sleazy Sunday debate performance, where she duly honored MLK's pigmentation while trampling his principles. Beyond calling her out, it radically critiques Democrats' abuse of identity politics to keep blacks on the party plantation so Dems can go about Job #1 of serving Mammon.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, January 24, 2014 Die, Kochs, Die!—Here’s Why I Stirred That (Pol) Pot
Here, I more deeply justify the case I began making in my provocative, widely read OEN article, "Frankly, Kochs Deserve the Death Penalty." Of particular importance here is that the vastly wealthy hold their power and privilege ONLY as part of an implied social contract, and that their betrayals of that contract should be visited with the severest criminal penalties. ESPECIALLY when many right-wingers worship them as gods.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, September 16, 2013 Let's Leverage War Outrage--to Stop TPP from Colonizing Us
Syrian war was perhaps deviously concocted to distract us from something FAR more sinister: Congress's intent to fast-track the horrific Trans-Pacific Partnership. But distraction value aside, the war and TPP are linked as "Intolerable Acts": perhaps graver attempts to exploit Americans as second-class colonial citizens than the ones that mobilized our founders' revolution. Let's leverage widespread war outrage to end the TPP.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 29, 2020 Tyrant Trump Is the 2nd Amendment's Covert Hell-Spawned Enemy
A controversial piece, proportionate in daring to the threat of fascism facing us. I argue that if the 2nd Amendment has ANY (dubiously) claimed value as a tyranny deterrent, CONDITIONALLY threatening to assassinate Trump must be legally protected free speech. Which puts Trump supporters in a horrid bind, since to defend "2A", they must also defend anti-Trump speech they hate. Making Trump a big covert danger to the 2A cause! Series: Tracts for Our Times (9 Articles, 12943 views)
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, May 6, 2013 350.org and Pipeline: Bill M. Needs 12-Step Obama Rehab Program
Another scathing Patrick Walker exercise in iconoclasm, this time skewering 350.org's Bill McKibben for his masochist support of Obama in the face of evidence screaming that Obama intends to approve the Keystone XL pipeline
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, June 10, 2013 "Homeboy Security"--the Foundation of Uncle Tom's White House
With the rash of recent NSA scandals--and more soon to come--I think it's important to properly understand what's motivating the growing tyranny and overreach by NSA, by Homeland Security, and by Obama generally. As I deem Obama the Uncle-Tomming savior of corporate fascism, his political need to don jackboots should be clear. Here, I consider his personal, psychological need to do so.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, December 6, 2013 Will Billionaire Omidyar Save His Soul--Or Just Corrupt Greenwald's?
In an evident desire to "fight fire with fire" and pit billionaire dollars favoring free speech and truthful pro-democracy journalism against the vast billionaire dollars already thwarting it, top-notch investigative journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill have joined forces with eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. I argue that the sheer moral vileness of being a billionaire should make us distrustful.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Dr. Pitchfork: Or How I Learned to Stop Losing and Love Voter Extortion
Fans of the classic dark comedy Dr. Strangelove know it concerned learning to stop worrying and love the bomb--as in A- or H-bomb. Arguing from an original, extended analogy with economics, I here conclude that to reform our rigged "duopoly" market, we must learn to love the "nuclear bomb" of political extortion, as launched by a minority--albeit sizable--of "movement of movements" voters. Thereby improving policy "supply."
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 29, 2013 WMDs Justify All-out War--Against Obama and DINO Democrats!
As Obama plots a trumped-up "humanitarian" war in Syria worthy of George W. Bush, it's time for progressives--by which I mean America's genuine political Left--to stand up and say we've had enough. We urgently need to declare a war of own against Obama and his style of DINO (Democrat In Name Only) Democrats. In fact, as I argue in this article, the very survival of America's genuine Left may depend on it.
(40 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 14, 2013 To Save the Democratic Party, We Must Risk Destroying It
A desperate plea that in our desperate circumstances--cicumstances CONFIRMED desperately by the popularity of alarmist writers on OpEdNews--we must risk splitting (and thereby possibly destroying) the Democratic Party for the sake of at last giving REAL progressive values a voice in our government. Before it's too late!
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 14, 2019 Green New Deal "Climate Kids" Should Hijack the Impeachment Conversation
Forged in the fire--sharpened by heated arguments with critics of my climate impeachment scheme--this piece is my comprehensive strategic case explaining why impeaching Trump for his climate crimes may be the key to saving the Green New Deal, and thereby civilization itself. All fans of the GND--especially heroic young climate activists--have a vital interest in reading my passionate arguments here.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 9, 2014 Democracy Heads, VOLDEMORT Tails: The High-Stakes Keystone Coin Toss
A new, truly radical way of looking at the Keystone XL pipeline decision: not just the climate and civil rights are at stake, but democracy's future itself. The consequences of building the pipeline are so evil and demoralizing--and the process and propaganda supporting its construction so corrupt--that its approval will be like the triumph of Lord Voldemort, and kill the hope and moral energy democracy needs to survive.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 11, 2013 Radicalizing the Mainstream: Pragmatism versus PRIGmatism
Following up on my rather snide, snarky article about the Green Party, I provide its deeper strategic justification: that the political solutions that have always worked best in troubled times have always involved PRAGMATISM--adopting as much of radical ideas and institutions as the political climate would allow. In a sense, "radicalizing the mainstream." I contrast this with "PRIGmatism"--insistence on purist political dogma.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 23, 2013 Totally Purple Partnership: The Lethal Bipartisanship behind TPP
My last OEN article promoted a revitalized Occupy movement--called Democracy Unchained--that targets the corrupt Democrat-Republican duopoly. This article provides some incentive by exposing one of the worst instances of that corrupt duopoly at work--the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In fact, the TPP should have us angrily, rebelliously opposing the Totally Purple Partnership, the harmonious, pro-corporate blend of Red and Blue.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 30, 2014 In Our Illegitimate System, Will Democrats Remain BASTARDS?
Piketty changes everything. As do other hard-core academic studies like his, demonstrating irrefutably that our political system is in the iron grip of oligarchs--and therefore ILLEGITIMATE. Today's Democratic Party is clearly a constituent part of that system--and therefore itself illegitimate. The key question--even for humanity itself--is whether Democrats will remain bastards. We the People mustn't allow them to.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 11, 2014 With a Planet to Save, Let's Elect a Uterus!
Martin Luther King's REAL dream--which our pols and press conspire to make us forget--is that ALL people should be judged not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character. Liberals' failure to apply King's true vision to Barack Obama was an EPIC fail and, given his Biblical universalism, he would presumably wish us to apply the same "character" standard to Hillary Clinton. But will we just "vote uterus"?
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 11, 2013 If Obama REALLY Values Transparency, Let's Debate Fracking and Keystone XL
Recent revelations of massive NSA spying and DOJ attacks on the press--along with Obama's continued attacks on whistleblowers--have caused legal scholars to brand his administration one of the LEAST transparent ever. If he'd like to redeem his credibility, let him perform one of the greatest services to transparency imaginable: sponsor nationally televised debates on the gravely important issues of fracking and Keystone XL.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 13, 2014 Modeling Climate Revolt: My Reply to Rep. Grayson's Contribution Plea
I just e-mailed the letter that's the main body of this article to Rep. Alan Grayson in reply to a latter from Rep. Grayson urgently requesting funding to overcome the Koch brothers' early, well-funded attack ads. While I strongly desire Rep. Grayson's reelection, as he's a rising progressive star, I even more strongly desire Obama's rejection of Keystone XL, and in this ELECTION YEAR, we'd be fools not to apply voter muscle.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, June 3, 2013 "44" Is NOT "42"--the Tragic Inevitability of Uncle Tom's White House
A fervent critic of Obama, I was deeply provoked by Robert Parry's interesting--but in my view misapplied--comparison of Obama to the heroic Jackie Robinson in his OEN article "42 and 44." I contend that the proper comparison is a purely speculative one: a consideration of the overwhelming pressures Robinson would have faced NOT as a player, but if he'd been 1st black baseball commissioner after major (lucrative) scandals.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, August 10, 2015 We're NOT Sandernistas: Reinventing the Wheels of Bernie's Bandwagon
If leftists want political power anytime soon, their best bet is to support Bernie Sanders. But NOT uncritically, and NOT in the conventional way of voting for the Democratic nominee should Bernie lose the nomination. CounterPunch editors Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank wrote pooh-poohing Bernie's candidacy based on thinking "inside the Bernie box." They generously let me rebut them with two pieces at CP. Here's the first.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 8, 2013 The Dangers of Liberals' Repressed Reptilian Brains
A supremely daring dissection of standard PC liberals' unacknowledged primitive unconscious motives for accepting the most unprogressive poliicies, whether from Bush or, more especially, from Barack Obama.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 29, 2013 With Second Amendment Dead, We Need CHARACTER Assassination
Justifying the provocative, morally abusive language of my previous OEN articles, I point out that character assassination--of the same sort that brought down Boss Tweed but using powerful modern media--should be our weapon of choice when the Second Amendment remedy of ACTUAL assassination or armed revolt is now, due to modern weaponry, far too dangerous to risk.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 14, 2013 What about a Blue-Green Revolt Movement?
Faced with burgeoning fascism that excludes progressives' desperately needed voice, we progressives need to build a "big tent" revolt that combines the passionate "movement" aspect of Occupy with a real--and menacing--electoral presence. I offer here a new proposal, a Blue-Green Revolt movement that lets Greens and progressive Dems keep their identity while still collaborating, and offers Dems VERY flexible pressure tactics.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 25, 2013 Against Duopoly's "Twin Towers," Democracy's ONLY Defense Is Full-Court Press
Using an analogy derived from pro basketball, I point out that the "Twin Towers" of the Democratic and Republican parties have become such dominant, relentless players for their corporate owners against the "people's team" that only the political equivalent of a basketball full-court press--a mass movement like Occupy but with a political strategy can "get the ball out of their hands" and hope to defeat them.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 18, 2013 Let's Treat Mainstream Pols as Guilty Till Proven Innocent
This VERY practical article follows up my earlier OEN piece proposing a "Democracy Unchained" successor to Occupy--expressly targeting the corporate-corrupted Democrat-Republican duopoly. This article reveals how that movement would enforce a "guilty till proven innocent" strategy: namely, by having participants pledge NEVER to vote for a mainstream pol--Republican or Democrat--unless that pol gets explicit movement approval.