First thing first: If you want to know what is going on in the world, especially the political world, do NOT turn on the boob tube. And that is what it is, a vehicle for boobs. Similar to the world of sports media, if someone is allowed on mainstream television, then they have to be a complete sellout! Easy to[Read More…]

Ironic how so many who say they worship Jesus as their Lord and Savior forget all that he taught: If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. I was watching a[Read More…]

              In a play on words the ‘ US’ in my title can mean the ‘ Us’ being we here in the USA. Get it? You see, what our nation has become is simply one big bordello! Wherever you look you see whores surrounding us working stiffs. I don’t mean the ‘ working girls’  who[Read More…]

Having spent the first 40+ years of my life paying tribute to landlords, this writer knows the crime of it all. I am not referring to the system of ‘ One landlord/One Tenant’ that many of the neighborhoods in baby boomer Brooklyn consisted of. That was in the 50s and 60s of my youth. It made sense as the landlord[Read More…]

Well, this writer may have failed 40 years ago at a standup career. Now I plan to use this new piece as fodder for another attempt to be in front of an audience. Perhaps just in front of a radio audience will suffice. The bottom line is, like the Howard Beale character in Sidney Lumet’s fine film Network, this  Senior[Read More…]

{As a preface to this column, this writer has been an adherent of the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. Thus, I believe wholeheartedly in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and that he was truly  ‘ Anointed with the Christ spirit’.} One Sunday morning I decided to drive to the beach and take a walk along the shore. Using our very[Read More…]

For all those out there like this writer who consider themselves to be socialists, we are like the Jack Nicholson character in Joseph Brooks’ 1997 film As Good As It Gets. Nicholson plays a writer, Melvin Udall, who is suffering from OCD (  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). As he exits from his psychiatrist’s session into the waiting room he addresses the[Read More…]

Ever notice how all those right wing groups of mothers are so concerned about keeping their little kids safe from seeing and hearing what they deem as perverse? As a baby boomer who has learned to be tolerant of differing lifestyles and personal tastes, I can ‘shake my head’ at what I call weird behavior. As one who supports the[Read More…]

I wonder how many of you reading this agree with the above? In order to best fit this narrative you have to be someone who dismisses this current economic, financial and political system. Everywhere I look I see how corporate driven America is owned by the Super Rich. By Super Rich I must categorize it as those who are at[Read More…]

As an informed citizen who has disdain for the Two Party/One Party Scam, I have spun towards the ‘ Lesser of ‘ party if only to save my nation from a fascist assault. Yes, it has always been there staring me in the eyes, but since the Trump swamp it has gone off the radar. This current Republican Party is[Read More…]

Marvin Gaye said it best in his hit song ( written by him) : Whoa, oh, mercy mercy me Oh, things ain’t what they used to be, no no Where did all the blue skies go? Poison is the wind that blows from the North and South and East Whoa mercy, mercy me Oh, things ain’t what they used to[Read More…]

One definition of revelation is: A surprisingly and previously unknown fact, especially one that is made in a dramatic way. This is what many of my fellow working stiffs need to reach: A revelation on how screwed we all have been! Not since the ‘ Gilded Age’ ( 1870s – 1900 approximately) have we seen the Super Rich running roughshod[Read More…]

Let’s cut to the chase OK? All working stiff Americans are living within an empire. As the late President Eisenhower warned, and he should have known because he served it: A Military Industrial Complex. Look around you fellow Americans of most political leanings : the Super Rich control our corporate empire and thus our very lives. The anger we should[Read More…]

   This writer has loved professional football and  baseball  my whole life. Going with my father, little baseball glove in hand, to watch Dem Bums at Ebbets Field in the mid 1950s was such a joy. In those days the players were getting royally screwed by the owners, so much so that most of them needed off season employment to[Read More…]

   An annual tradition, since my childhood, has been to watch the 1951 film classic A Christmas Carol starring Alastair Sim. In the film Ebenezer Scrooge, played by Sim, is taken back by the Ghost of Christmas past to review events in his life. What always brings tears to this writer’s eyes is when Scrooge sees how his former employer[Read More…]

There are less than 1% of Americans who earn over $5 Million per year. They are taxed at the same top rate ( 37%) as those earning approximately $ 600k a year. Sixty years ago the top rate was never under 70%, ditto for the 1970s. Reagan came in and had it lowered to 50% for a few years of[Read More…]

Kudos to Pink Floyd and their 1979 classic ‘ Comfortably Numb’ for inspiring me to write this critique. With the news that it looks like the Democrats will continue to control the Senate ( while most likely losing the House) shouts of joy rang throughout ‘ Blue America’ and ‘ Blue surrounded by Red America’. Justifiably so, whenever a fascist[Read More…]

Allow me to announce my candidacy ahead of the current front man for this empire. Don is three years older than me and light years behind me intellectually and spiritually. His massive popularity gives weight to the adage ( mine actually) that ‘ Bullshit and super riches trump ( no pun intended) truth and justice’. He has the money, the[Read More…]

Well, if you have any sense of the climate of this American culture, you will realize just how far down the rabbit hole we have fallen. As a baby boomer I can look around me and gauge just how ‘ Dumbed down’ the populace is. I am not such a fool that I do not acknowledge that my generation experienced[Read More…]

There has to be a heaven, if only by process of elimination. You see, if there is a hell then there has to be the antidote, heaven. To this writer, who has spent his adult life studying many facets of what many call metaphysics, this trip we are all on is nothing more than a dream. Perhaps we can substitute[Read More…]

One can only empathize with those poor souls on the SW Gulf Coast of Florida who were devastated by this hurricane. Imagine losing your residence, possessions and perhaps your life. Sad is the best word to use. This writer had his family’s own experience with such weather terror, when Hurricane Mathew hit us directly on October 6th, 2016. We had[Read More…]

Did you ever get the strangest feeling while in a crowd of people… some who you actually know, that you are ‘ All Alone’? Before someone reading this dismisses such a feeling as obviously coming from a person suffering from a condition of actual depression, not necessarily folks. In reality, this is most likely the normal reaction from one who[Read More…]

It seems that no matter where one looks nowadays, there is a preponderance of friends and neighbors who call themselves ‘ Good Christians’ and then act the opposite. They need to read what their hero said in his Sermon on the Mount for starters. Or his powerful response to a wealthy follower of his: ” Easier for a camel to[Read More…]

Here’s what cracks me up on right wing European leaders’ anger over refugees flooding their nations. Recently, the fascist head of Hungary, Viktor Orban, gave his address to the CPAC neo fascist conference, you know, the one that Trump and cabal love so much. Orban doesn’t like all those refugees from the Middle East and North Africa inundating his beloved[Read More…]

No, this is not about baseball, though this writer as a youth participated in many squeeze plays. Sometimes they were actually ‘ Suicide Squeezes’, so apropos to this current political climate. No, this is about  millions of us working stiffs who consider ourselves Socialists or Socialist thinkers. Some in the sadly corrupt Democratic Party call themselves ‘ Progressives’ , but…[Read More…]

                 You must see or revisit Norman Jewison’s 1975 film Rollerball, starring James Caan as superstar player Jonathan E. In it, we see a world no longer made up of countries, but of corporations that control every bit of life for the people. There are no longer wars, just a complacent populace who ‘go along to get[Read More…]

They say we are a nation respecting freedom and individual privacy. Well, take a look at this news blip taken from anyone of many news sites: “Public universities in Florida will be required to survey both faculty and students on their political beliefs and viewpoints, with the institutions at risk of losing their funding if the responses are not satisfactory to the state’s[Read More…]

The vagabond who’s rapping at your door Is standing in the clothes that you once wore Strike another match, go start anew And it’s all over now, Baby Blue Those are lyrics from the great Bob Dylan song It’s All Over Now Baby Blue ( 1965). How appropriate they are now in Amerika 2022. We have finally become a damaged[Read More…]

Well, not quite yet. Not so much are we referring to actual witches, rather us Americans who believe in true equality and fairness. This current ultra right wing culture that has seeped into our Supreme Court is terribly dangerous. They have most of the churches throughout this republic ( no play on words) in ‘ Lockstep’ with their mania. Not[Read More…]

You turn on any recent professional sport competition and you see the obscene propaganda. Before the game starts they call out the honor guard ( many times dressed in camouflage) carrying the flag, as they have the singer belt out our anthem. Where is this ‘ War’ that we apparently are in? To this writer the last war our country[Read More…]

Kudos to the fine hit song by War entitled ‘ The World Is a Ghetto’ ( 1972). Again, as with so many other incidents, issues and complications within this empire, can you comprehend that this song, resonating so well now, was written 50 years ago? If anything, we have regressed further down that rabbit hole as I write this. Corporate[Read More…]

Boy, all you hear from both sides of the Two Party/One Party dribble, along with their embedded mainstream media, is how we are a ‘ Democracy’. Then they preach, according to which side of the right wing sphere they inhabit, how ‘ Our democracy is under threat.’ According to the Open Secrets website, the total money spent on Congressional and[Read More…]

This baby boomer can recall watching a NY Giants football game on the boob tube 60 years ago. Towards the end of the game one of the teams called a timeout. The network went to performer Julie London singing a Marlboro cigarette commercial. As the clock reached one minute they broke to the field as the teams were at the[Read More…]

Politically and culturally this baby boomer feels like the odd man out. Each day it compounds itself as no matter where I look is there any rational thinking. Perhaps I am related to Robert Heinlein’s main character in his 1961 novel ‘ Stranger in a Strange Land’, born on Earth and raised on Mars. Methinks perhaps Pluto or somewhere further[Read More…]

Knee deep in the land of the ignorant. Oh boy, talk about ignorance. Where do I begin. Let me start with the great US foreign policy from 2014 until the present. In 2014, the Obama administration, through the right wing Victoria Nugent, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs ( married to Robert Kagan, one of the founders[Read More…]

Still in the land of the ignorant. Ok, where was I? Oh yes, one of the greatest disconnects was the infamous 9/11, 2001. It would take this writer volumes to cover probably the most dastardly American event since the murder of JFK, which opened the door to a Coup de tat that still remains nearly 60 years later. I am[Read More…]

This writer came across a theory while searching the web that relates to weather patterns:  Weather Patterns Reflect Emotional States “In your terms consciousness is wedded with matter, and any of its experiences are physically materialized through that interaction. You do not simply react to the weather. You help form it, even as you breathe the air and then send[Read More…]

Was watching the Alabama vs. Texas A& M football game last night. It was a home game for A& M and the natives were out there in full regalia… or should I say Brown shirts. A& M has this humungous ROTC program, and why not? It is the home of the Bush and son presidential libraries, where the war mongerers[Read More…]

Professor Noam Chomsky was interviewed recently about war and peace. One of the facts that he mentioned, which of course NO ONE in our embedded mainstream media ever reports is this: “ Some background facts may be useful.  According to the major international monitor, SIPRI, “The growth in total [military] spending in 2020 was largely influenced by expenditure patterns in the[Read More…]

Chris Hedges, in his fine book American Fascists ( 2006), quotes from the late philosopher Karl Popper. In his piece The Open Society and Its Enemies Popper gives his views on tolerance vs. the intolerant. Here is a passage that is so relevant today: ” … If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of[Read More…]

In David Oshinsky’s fine biography of Senator Joseph McCarthy ( A Conspiracy so Immense)  we learn of the political climate in the early 1950s concerning the ( supposed ) threat of Communism. What many do not understand about Sen. McCarthy was that he was not the first or the only force in this movement to uncover this ‘ Red Menace’.[Read More…]

If one reads Richard Condon’s 1958 novel The Manchurian Candidate or sees the original film (1962) or  its remake (2004) one would realize my comparison to today’s events. In the novel ( and films ) we see a patrol of US soldiers being captured and then brainwashed by the enemy. The ones who survive this terrible experience are returned home,[Read More…]

If you’re a working stiff with some sense of rhyme or reason, you should feel them near. They come in all shapes and sizes, these predators. For starters we have the ever-present War Sharks. These are the gung ho wave the flag gang, made up of Pentagon sharks and the super rich ( along with their political and media lackeys)[Read More…]

A must see movie for all Americans is ” Inherit the Wind” ( 1960, Stanley Kramer, Director). To those who never saw this film, it accurately portrays the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. The trial of substitute high school teacher John Scopes was for breaking Tennessee’s Butler Act, which forbade the teaching of evolution in state funded schools.[Read More…]

After seeing what some Democrats in Congress wish to adopt by way of taxation of the Super Rich, let me weigh in. The plan put forth by Senator Warren, Rep. Jayapal and Rep. Boyle is to tax 2% of net worth  of $ 50 million to $ one billion per annum, and 3% of net worth over $ one billion[Read More…]

Perhaps it was those bright red MAGA caps or the humongous banners they waved as they marched upon the Capitol building. Perhaps it was the torches carried, so conveniently at night, and the chants of ‘ Blood and Soil’ and ‘ Jews will not replace us’ by those mostly college age young men ( and some women) in Charlottesville Virginia[Read More…]

In Eric Kurlander’s 2017 book Hitler’s Monsters he sums up the whole ‘ Fuehrer Messiah Complex’ in a nutshell: ” In the Nazi version of history and politics, Hitler figured as a redeemer who would save the German nation and lead a godly realm to an ultimate victory over evil, light over darkness. By exploiting the supernatural imaginary, Hitler tied[Read More…]

You tune into the great BOOB and channel surf the ( so called ) News and News Talk shows, and you hear this over and over: We are a DEMOCRACY. The Democratic Party leaning stations love to ram this continually down our throats. The right wing outlets seem to be SO far gone that they don’t even attempt to sell[Read More…]

Coming from Brooklyn, NYC, and having a dad who was both a longshoreman and bookmaker, this writer knows a ‘ thing or two about a thing or two’ concerning the mob. In colloquial terms when someone knows something about an illegal act and keeps his or her mouth shut, they call that D & D or ‘ Deaf and Dumb’.[Read More…]

As of a year ago Wal-Mart’s CEO pay was 1076 times that of their average worker worldwide ( 2.3 million employees). Those workers average $21,952 a year, with little or NO major benefits… sometimes NONE at all! The Nike CEO received 379 times the pay of his  MEDIAN  employees ( $ 29,955 a year), not even the lowest worker. Those[Read More…]

You  know, nations commit sins just as individuals do. Sometimes there is a marriage between individuals and nations that sin as one. This is the case of my dear country, the place of my birth and actually the only country I ever lived in. Being a baby boomer that is a lot of decades to sample the sins of empire…[Read More…]

You might as well turn off that boob tube ASAP. The bull excrement is running wild! Where does one start? Well, let’s go to that sea of new human interest corporate commercials saying how they all ‘ Care about you during this pandemic’. All those nice and decent companies want to see you through this, of course IF you use[Read More…]

In 1966 Crispian St. Peters wrote and sang the hit song ‘ The Pied Piper’. It resonates well in 2020 with this current Snake Oil Salesman: The Pied Piper Crispian St. Peters You With your masquerading, and you Always contemplating what to do In case heaven has found you Can’t you see That it’s all around you So follow me[Read More…]

For this writer there are events and incidents that transcend the usual causes of sadness for many of us. Yes, we all have a myriad of memories of sadness. Perhaps when a loved one or pet becomes ill or passes away. Perhaps when someone we love moves away from us, and we hurt from missing them. My earliest memory of[Read More…]

In September of 1962 James Meredith, a 28 Year old Air Force veteran, and proud black man, enrolled in the segregated University of Mississippi. All hell literally broke loose. In David Talbot’s great look at the Kennedy years, aptly entitled Brothers ( 2007 ), we see how JFK and RFK had to deal with a revise of a Civil War[Read More…]

An interesting film to watch is Gavin Hood’s 2015 Eye in the Sky. It captures the tremendous tension of a joint US/UK drone missile ‘ Kill ‘ mission in Kenya. The movie had to make the targeted terrorist cell look extremely dangerous. The two most dangerous ones were a British citizen working hand in hand with her Al Qaeda type[Read More…]

Sinclair Lewis wrote an important novel in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here. In the fictitious book, based on the threats at the time of fascism taking root in the USA, we see how this virus spread. As with Philip Roth’s 2004 novel The Plot Against America we see how Charles Lindbergh’s leadership in the America First movement of the 1930s[Read More…]

Singer/Songwriter Neil Young wrote the song ‘ Four Dead in Ohio’ for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: Four Dead In Ohio Lyrics Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’. We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drummin’. Four dead in Ohio. Gotta get down to it. Soldiers are gunning us down. Should have been done long ago. What if[Read More…]

John Lennon, prolific as a writer as much as a performer, wrote this: Working Class Hero As soon as you’re born they make you feel small By giving you no time instead of it all Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all A working class hero is something to be A working class hero is something[Read More…]

From the ‘ Book of Revelations’ in the New Testament God sent forth the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ( White Horse, Black Horse, Red Horse and Pale Horse ) or as Ezekiel lists them: ” Sword , Famine, Wild Beasts and Plague”. Well, this NEW set of Four Horsemen are here to represent the utter personal and economic horror[Read More…]

This writer is not one to always single out certain members of our Embedded in Empire mainstream media. To me, they are all sellouts. Why? Well, let’s look at what transpired just last evening on Anderson Cooper’s CNN news talk show. As a preface, we know that Anderson gives to lots of charities, and why shouldn’t this heir to the[Read More…]

The old adage should say : Nothing is certain but death and taxes… and Karma. Karma is as real as it gets. The various holy books made sure to state that ‘ What ye sow so shall ye reap’ AKA ‘ What goes around comes around.’ Karma has many flavors, but the end result is always the same: What one[Read More…]

Shame on YOU. Ok, one need not be a financial genius or economist to know that in 2008-09 Uncle Sam gave away the store to the failing Wall Street banks and investment corporations. We paid for it, you and me working stiff taxpayers, to the tune of well over one trillion US dollars. What did the so called ‘ bailout[Read More…]

  Since we are the only major industrialized nation to have but two political parties with any clout, the corporate masters can control everything… and they do! You have the DemonCrats and of course the RepugnantCans, neither the ‘ Party of FDR’ or ‘ The Party of Lincoln’. Sadly, these two heavyweights ( heavy with plenty of billionaire money behind[Read More…]

Of course, the worst pandemic of the 21st century is out and about us. Italy is now in a ‘lockdown’ state and throughout most of the world people are in a panic mode. And why not? Viruses like this Corona Virus can kill. Yet, in the world of politics there have been, for a long time now, those two other[Read More…]

I just interviewed former World Bank staff member and geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig via telephone at his home in Geneva. Koenig had just returned from South America , a place where he has travelled to many times . One of the issues that he is very passionate about is the agenda by ( so called ) world health and finance[Read More…]

As we in Florida await in our ( hopefully) boarded up and sandbagged homes the arrival of but another deadly storm , one has time to sit and ponder things. This writer lived through a major hurricane assault, when Mathew trampled through Port Orange, Florida in October of 2016. We were lucky while being the unlucky neighbors in our 50[Read More…]