On Honesty & American Denialism

My sense of the world that you and I live in is that folks want to believe whatever they believe and are very quick to turn away if what someone else has to say disrupts that belief in any way. I can count on my fingers the number of folks I know who consider content more important than tone, and I think when push comes to shove, tone is ultimately critical to them as well - myself included. But I don't think that makes us all equal in this regard. Even the intention of putting content first - at looking through the ephemeris of the message to its core is important. It's a philosophical point of view that I hold dear. I suppose it's a belief I have: That attempting to understand what is true is more important than making everyone feel good to maintain the peace. I don't hold the belief that there is only one truth, however. Understanding what is true is more of a process of eliminating those beliefs that simply cannot be true. That are at odds with reality, insofar as we can actually say with some degree of confidence what some part of reality is. That doesn't mean that I feel the need to require everyone to believe a certain way - but it does mean that I don't respect a person's beliefs that are in conflict with known facts, especially when those facts are readily available to them - that it is a matter of wilful ignorance, not a matter of innocence. I can and often do empathise with people's desire to believe things that are demonstrably untrue, or radically unlikely. And I have a basic empathy and respect for everyone wherever they're coming from even if they're deeply wrong about any number of things - as far as I can tell or know. Again, It's not that I believe I have some special line to "objective" reality - but I don't find that there are that many in my spheres of experience who give a flying tomato for what is true over what they wish or were brought up to believe is true. The point being, I would just like to have more folks who are willing to look for what we can know to be true (or at least not demonstrably false) and have the conversations that flow from that starting point or minimum adherence to reality. A friend recently put it thus - that all truth is human truth - subjective - because at best we approach what is potentially objectively true by continuous refinements - it's an asymptotic relationship. All of science is like this. As a hypothesis is well tested and shown to be predictive and useful it becomes a theory, but theories are still conditional - they can still be modified and over time usually are. Not discarded whole - rather updated or modified to better encompass additional understandings that were poorly or incorrectly handled by the previous incarnation of the theory. Newtonian physics being expanded and deepened and corrected by Einstein's theory of gravity and spacetime. Newtonian physics didn't cease to exist - it's explanatory power didn't end with Einstein's discoveries - rather it was given context and its limits better understood and we achieved through Einstein new insights on how to go beyond those limits (but the new limits are still limits, and I have no doubt that we will come to modify our understand of reality again and have new insights that allow us to understand more deeply than either Newton or Einstein did, continuing the refining process, or the expanding understanding process). Again, my sense of talking with people about politics or social theory is one of constantly running into people's emotionally held beliefs and anger at having those beliefs thrown into question. It's like the reaction of the Catholic Church to Galileo. His ideas upset their beliefs and that was intolerable to them. Not that they were interested in refining their understanding of the world - just that it was upsetting and they wanted the upset to go away. Not, mind you, that I am comparing myself to the genius of Galileo! Rather, that even my meager desire to be truthful and honest and refine my understanding of what is true - to apply science to my own understanding of life as I live it - leads to analogous encounters. I am constantly bombarded by former friends and family who want me to stop questioning their beliefs. I am told that it's how I say it, not what I'm saying. But no matter how nicely I say a thing - I'm still asking them to question their beliefs which is a fundamentally painful experience - and as far as I can tell - that's the real issue. As such, it is impossible to avoid the pain and the backlash (or would you like to point out the scientist who was a greatly beloved member of his or her society and brought about great insights into the world without upsetting folks around him or her?) Learning ugly truths about Hillary when Hillary was our best chance for a female to rise to President of the United States thus far is not going to be welcome news to anyone for whom having a woman hold the highest office in this land is a strongly held desire. Everyone has the ability to do the research - to look a few things up about her - to discover "is she often a good person and in alignment with my personal values or is she often what I consider to be a bad person - out of alignment with what I value and believe others should value?" (Or, perhaps being a moral person is not a virtue for you?) The same is true for Obama. Or democrats as a whole. Or the United States domestic or foreign policy as a whole. These things aren't hidden if you simply look beyond the immediate surrounding veil of surface information. Listening to CBS evening news certainly isn't going to challenge the predominant narrative that America is great. Listening to NPR isn't going to give you one shred of evidence against the righteous democratic and glorious nation of our motherland. Talking to your friends, coworkers, and family - who also only go by these same sources for their information - isn't going to challenge anything you've been taught to believe your entire life by a culture that is intent on having you be a supporting member of its cast. America wants you to see America as a great, good, just, righteous nation. That - is - at - its - core - for its own survival: your allegiance, your faith, your cooperation and participation. And other Americans in power wish to keep their power and so they also work hard at generating this sense of positive messaging about America. Because it makes them powerful. Your allegiance makes them powerful. Whatever America is doing has made them very powerful, so it is insanity to question it. The higher a person is on the economic ladder in America, the more they're going to be a true believer in America - regardless of any objective ethics - because it is working for them very well, or very, very, very well. It is not a failing on my part to ask you to go beyond your inculcation - your programming - your illusions and your jingoism. That push-back, that desire to denounce me, that feeling of anger and unhappiness is a desire to kill the messenger - perhaps it is a sign that I am actually on to something and at that point it is up to you to figure out what is true: Is your understanding more correct or not? Do you have supporting evidence from reasonably neutral, reliable sources, from disparate sources, which bolster your understanding and creates a holistic view of what's going on to give context to my concerns that render them no longer upsetting because in the larger deeper context you know their place and their place is small? Or, are you simply not interested in what is real - what is true - not even interested in approaching reality as best we can - but perhaps your real desire is to be left in peace with the beliefs you were given as a member of society and leave it at that? Stepping outside of the accepted norms of society is scary. It's potentially deadly, it's potentially very bad for your social and economic positions. In fact, it directly means coming to terms with the fact that you and I and everyone we know owes their economic surety to the life's work, sweat and tears of enslaved peoples. A vast cruelty that is hard to imagine in depth and scope. The enslavement of 12.5 million black Africans captured as if they were but animals, all rights stripped, all decency, all empathy, all humanity unilaterally stripped for the immediate benefit of our great great parents - but which almost certainly benefits you and me to this day. Many of my black brothers and sisters speak of reparations. Reparations that they are owed. I agree. America is one giant spoils of crime. Of a genocide of many native peoples who existed here before my European ancestors did, and murdered them en masse. Whether genocide was better or worse then racially based mass slavery is impossible to know, and probably pointless to debate. Both were crimes against humanity. Both were as monstrous as Auschwitz and the other ethnic pogroms of the world. Yet we don't talk about it. Yet I am attacked when I point out that these United States of America exist entirely upon the blood of millions in genocide and in human chattel. When I attack Hillary's record - when I attack Obama's record - when I attack the DNC's record - when I question this nation's goodness and history and righteousness and lack of justice - I am directly asking you to step out of your comfortable lies and illusions that allow you to ignore the reality that all you have exists only because your forefathers stole it or beat humans into creating the conditions under which it was created for them and for you. We Americans owe a debt to the world that in all reasonable conscience we can never repay. How can we un-murder millions of native peoples? How can we un-enslave millions of black people? How can we restore the hundreds of millions of children never born to those people? How can we restore the dignity we robbed? The lives we destroyed through poverty or incarceration? The suffering we administered on people... on humans - on our brothers, our sisters - for our greed? America is one big circle-jerk - one big amalgamation of the children of crime lords arguing about how just and righteous and honorable a people we really are. We have the audacity to claim exceptionalism - a right to stand above international law and ethical norms - to do as we please through might and extortion and war and assassination and global theft - and we claim it's because we are better than the rest of the world. We are just that exceptional a peoples. And folks get angry at me. Americans feel upset by me. They have their feelings hurt by me pointing out that our leaders are all of those things - that if you bother to pay even a little attention to what is actually true - and not the Disney story of America - but the factual record of one Hillary Rodham Clinton - you see all of these crimes and more writ in plain English in our very own public records within OUR lifetimes - contemporary crimes against humanity occurring NOW! Not in some comfortably far off yesteryear, some blameless place remote in years from our existence. But in the here and now and - not even becoming less criminal! Instead, accelerating and becoming more criminal! More heinous, more cruel, more inexcusable while we American citizens argue over which of the insanely unworthy crime lords propped up for our perusal we should have elected as the face of the global war crimes machine. I try - I really try to be gentle. To deliver this information to folks in small bites, in easy to understand pieces backed up by articles by good journalists who've done their homework to bring you and I some insight into the world. But y'all don't listen. Y'all just want to shoot me, the messenger, and gaslight me, and tell me I'm the crazypants, the tinfoil wearing nutjob who will believe any old conspiracy theory. I hereby formally reject that lie. I am - to the very best of my ability - a discerning person who does his honest best at determining whether the information is true, fits the scenery, connects with other information, and genuinely fits the whole. I am also - to the very best of my ability - willing to change my mind when sufficient evidence is found or presented that refutes a point I used to believe. I am willing to refine my hypothesis and theories and learn from my mistakes and work with you if you you're but willing to be brave enough to work with me, unflinchingly honest and in integrity with what is actually to the very best of our ability to understand or uncover to be true. I am looking for allies, friends, brothers, sisters of the faith in honesty, integrity, and virtue of becoming a better people for the greater good of all humanity. If there is any way to restore balance on this planet - I believe that it is to renounce our criminal ways of the past - and to work as TRUE EQUALS with all HUMANs everywhere on this blue marble. It is our spiritual salvation. Our ecological salvation. Our material salvation. Our one true road forward to a time when we can be honest about who we are AND FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT. Please stop participating in the theft by hiding from the ugly truth of human history - especially of American history - and work together to put an end to the violence, the thievery, the gaslighting, and the small-minded self-destructive greed that we are all complicit in by staying silent or by defending the very politicians and political systems - including our police - and military - which continues to execute those same crimes here, there, and almost everywhere around this earth. I'm not claiming to be perfect or know all of the answers. But I am eager to discuss any and all of this with you if you're willing to be intellectually honest with me towards refining an understanding of truth instead of obfuscating it on behalf of fears. We can take responsibility for who we are and where we are and who we owe for that. For me, that must be grounded in honesty. A commitment to the truth and a real process of reconciliation in which we admit that our very way of life as Americans is predicated upon global theft, and we stop it. We. Stop. The. Evil. Machine. Together. First, by simply being willing to realize that this is the situation, and no longer being willing to be a defender of it out of our own shame or fears. We can create a future worth existing in. One that can sustain humanity. But it cannot be one whose foundation is not firmly set in love, integrity, and peace. Please, help.

An Open Letter to Liberals

An open letter to American Liberals:

You're right of course that liberal governments are lesser evil than conservative ones.

I wish that was enough of a common ground that we could genuinely work together in harmony (it's enough for us to work together on limited actions).

I honestly wish it were entirely enough.

But the problem is that I still haven't heard you call out Obama for his war crimes, or for his failures to address police brutality, or any of a very long list of humanitarian failures.

And before you jump in to defend him - he's only Human, he was hog-tied by the GOP congress and on and on - those things are true to some degree, but if he didn't have a (D) after his name those things would not be stopping you from railing against him on those issues.

And my aim isn't to have you criticize Obama for criticism's sake. Rather, it is the underlying ability to distance yourself from the liberal bubble that renders Trump satan, and Obama gabrielle.

And not because Trump needs my protection, or because I hate Obama (I actually like his personal demeanour, his grace, his appreciation for the arts, for how he's handled himself as the international face of America, ... there's a great many things that I admire about Obama)

...but because I need to have allies that are willing to stop trusting the liberal narrative.

...because the liberal narrative (just like the mirror conservative narrative) keeps people ignoring the underlying causes of everything and supporting false leaders and false goals.

Again - this may not be something you're available for? I don't know? People are where they are, and I spent the entire GW Bush years drinking the liberal kool-aid and lambasting the tinfoil hat wearing ninnys that kept telling me then that LEV (lesser evil voting) was wrong, and that both sides R/D were really on team Oligarchy, and etc.

I remember strongly how I reacted to such information - with astonishment, disgust, scorn, amusement, disbelief, and so on. "How can anyone [who isn't absolutely bonkers] believe that Ds and Rs are equivalent IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER?!!!"

And having watched what happened to Barack from '08 to today - what's happened to Bernie over the past two years - and learning much more than I ever wish I knew about Hillary over this past year - has utterly destroyed - obliterated - laid waste to my former liberal beliefs.

Now I laugh at my old self and wonder how I could ever have been so naive?

But see, that's the rub. I wish It didn't matter whether you believed in the liberal narrative or not. But - just as you believe that Trump is very likely to accelerate global warming, usher in the most corporatist government in human history, reinstate the most racist and reactionary conservative laws and policies; I believe that Hillary would do exactly the same in all of the ways that really matter under the surface.

In fact, I am quite certain that a majority of Ds in congress will do the same.

In fact, I am quite certain that all Ds and all Rs are effectively on the same page (due to being compromised by their need for corporate funding to various donors and groups), and that the smoke and mirrors of disagreements are circus for our entertainment and distraction (whether any given senator is savvy enough themselves to realize they're actors in a big farce, or if they're unwittingly so, is quite irrelevant at the end of the day).

The most recent case in point is Corey Booker and the other Ds who voted against Bernie's bill to allow us to import drugs at reduced costs through Canada.

Another is Democrats reappointing Nancy Pelosi as their leader. Another is Democrats failing to run Bernie in the general. Another is Democrats using false stories about Russia to resurrect red-scare McCarthyism (a very ugly page from our history) to distract voters from the unbelievably corrupt and disheartening contents of the emails penned by Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and others in Hillary's election campaign (which included, unethically, the entire DNC machine). Another is Obama's creating a 'Ministry of Truth' in his final days.

The list goes on and on and on.

But liberals - want to keep the current system and elect more Ds to office - on the basis that this is a good thing.  The ills as y'all see it isn't that Democrats have failed the working class utterly over the past 30+ years.  It isn't that their policies have effectively done zero for black rights in that timespan.  It isn't that they're complicit in taking corporate money.  It isn't that they've been caught red handed rigging an entire primary for POTUS.  It's just that there aren't enough of them. :'(

I cannot abide that. I cannot support that.

It's a failed political philosophy - with a world near ready to catch fire and burn out of control possibly eradicating all Human life, irreparably damaging this planet's ecosystem and biosystems, it's gone from bad-policy to extinction-threatening-policy.

I'm tired of watching good friends and family support an evil system - one that bombs 7 nations simultaneously, is the largest arms dealer to the world, has a military 10x the next 10 biggest combined, poisons our inner cities with lead and bacteria, openly lynches black and native peoples publicly and makes excuses for it, etc., etc.

At the core of american liberalism is the acceptance of democrats as our only and best hope.

That's a sickness.

I may not have all of the answers - but I sure as hell know that aiding the cancer is not one of them.

Science vs. Nature

I was just listening to Naomi Klein "This Changes Everything" - and she's talking about "Geo Engineering".

And a lot of parallels strike me between that discussion (is GE a reasonable approach - is there some level at which it is reasonable - what will happen should the world's feedback systems become a serious mess for human survival without it, etc.) and GMOs and the many concerns that they bring up.

I have many friends on both sides of both debates.

I feel like neither side is wrong, so much as both have something important to contribute if the other would just listen.

Naomi Klein's description of seeding the outer atmosphere with sulphur dioxide, and similar to the ocean, and more to seed clouds that we can help control the rain distribution, and so on, and i'm thinking "Hey, this is also the discussion about western medicine and its failures."

I know that my science friends will roll their eyes and dismiss everything that is essentially about creating health without using scientific interventions such as we commonly name "medicine" in the west. Pills mostly, but surgeries as well.

And I'm not saying that western medicine doesn't have its uses - it's amazingly wonderful aspects. On the other hand, I'm seeing my own body and many other people's become a mess with folks trying to figure out how to manage them with pills and surgeries and the medicines tend to be more and more and more. They don't seem to do a good job of ending, but rather one starts a medication to address one imbalance, only to then need another to address a new imbalance, only then to need yet another for another imbalance (each additional imbalance at least contributed to by the previous medications taken).

We all know it's true - we watch those godforsaken ads on TV about some new pill and then for two minutes straight some poor bloke is talking as fast as humanly possibly to squeeze in the endless list of side effects that may be caused by the pill in question.

---

My point, and Naomi Klein's point is that western scientific approaches tend to be very intrusive and dependency-creating.

So once we start with some form of Geo Engineering, we're likely to cause other imbalances (less rainfall in our best food valleys, for example), that then need additional highly intrusive GE interventions to try to manage, that then beget other imbalances.... and the cycle doesn't end until the patient is dead.

Now, yes, for a Human, the patient is always going to die anyway. But for Earth... this is ... a whole different ball game.

Instead of losing one patient, we're talking wiping out the Human race (at a minimum).

---

I'm tempted to wax philosophical here and remind myself that oh-well, if we all die we all die.

But honestly, I'd really rather not be the cause of the death of Earth.

And ultimately - the only reason we have for trying to intervene in all of these already balanced feedback loops we call the biosphere or weather or climate or nature is because we're already interfering viz. carbon emissions.

The solution isn't to ignore the root cause, and find new pills to shove down the patient's throat to manage symptom after symptom, but to address the original cancer - our addiction to carbon fuels.

---

Anyway, all of this has parallels with GMOs Yes, we can engineer various things - but will we ever end up with crops that are more robust in the long term, less energy intensive, etc?

I know my science-y friends are screaming "YES!" - but I'm worried about the unintended - the unforeseen consequences.

It would help enormously if I saw humanity as being responsible when things go wrong - saw us as having good feedback systems in our own societies that dealt with illness - in this case pollution or bad science or what not, but the reality I see is that as humans - our social structures are incredibly bad - awful - miserable at taking responsibility for when things go wrong and even worse at fixing them or addressing the messes they create.

So I am not - NOT - reassured about GMOs, nor about GE, nor about western medicine & pharmaceuticals, despite also seeing that all of these has great potential for good - the good is swamped by our long, long track record for irresponsibility as a species.

And to me, that's the part I need my science friends to become literate about.

Worst News Sources

Sick of the constant gawd-awful McCarthyism, Red-Scare, pro-Clintonista effluent that issues from these sites:

Neoconservative / McCarthyism / red-scare:

Fox
The Economist (might be more neoliberal than neoconservative, the distinction is harder to make these days)

Neoliberal / 3rd-way DNC / DLC / McCarthyism / red-scare:

ABC
CBS
MSN
NBC

NY Times
Washington Post - Funded by the CIA (literally, factually)

Media Matters for America - (see this for example)
Blue Nation in Review[1]
Daily News Bin[1]
Nation in Review[1]
Political News Review
Raw Story
The Daily Beast
The Independent
The Nation
VOX

Statist Propagandist Reporters:

Jeremy Diamond (CNN)

[1] These sites are owned by David Brock as part of Hillary's Super Pac.

High Integrity Journalists and other Sources of Information

Disclaimer: 

No author or journalist or site is ever going to be right or in-integrity 100% of the time, or even have an opinion or take on things you, or I, or others all agree upon.  Sometimes a source has excellent insight on some topics, while being foolish on others.

We are past the point where we can rely on mainstream news outlets or the integrity of well known journalists to be honest or to operate with a great respect for the institution of journalism and news.  Most simply have capitulated to the almighty dollar, or to pleasing a certain segment of their readers.

So it falls on us, each of us individually, to have to claw through this muck and find what is likely true and honest, and what is unlikely to be; and to share with one another what we can reliably trust and warn of what we cannot.

To that end, I am going to curate this post and update it as new information comes to me, and you and others offer constructive feedback on these or other worthy sources.

Please keep in mind that this is relative!  And things change over time, and with regards to the specific topic at hand.  Note: Since I posted this more than a year ago, Matt Taibbi joined the MSM chiore and wrote in favor of russiagate lies, but then about a year later returned to integrity and renounced russiagate as censorship and nonsense.  Jeffrey St. Clair has written similarly neoliberal schmaltz, Amy Goodman has revealed herself and Democracy Now! to be a gatekeeper against the truth of Syria, and a cheerleader for neo-McCarthyism and Russia-gate pablum.

Individuals with significant integrity:

Aaron Maté - Journalist, formerly of the BAR (q.v. below), fantastic voice of reason and insight into anti-racism, USA politics, geopolitical ethics, etc.

Abby Martin - Host of The Empire Files - "cuts through the false Left/Right paradigm set by the establishment & reports the hard facts."

Arundhati Roy - Author - Amazing human being - Social commentary & common sense.

Ben Norton - Independent Journalist and tweeter - Often tweets insightful things about the ongoing shenanigans of USA political theater.

Bill Moyers - Long history of deep reporting on corruption and society.  Gets significant funding from neoliberal groups now, so beware. https://billmoyers.com/

Caitlin Johnstone - Rogue Journalist - 100% citizen funded Australian wordsmith who is fearless and has a deliciously uncompromising way with calling bullshit.  Prolific.

Diana Johnstone - European politics and Western foreign policy. Honest, brave, uncompromising journalist in an often misogynist world.  https://www.unz.com/author/diana-johnstone/

Chris Hedges - Long history of reporting on American hegemony and its death-cult.  Has been inculcated into the trans-cult of late, but is good on other topics. https://www.truthdig.com/author/chris_hedges/

Dahr Jamail - Journalist - Middle east reporting and Global Warming.

Dr. Cornel West - Public figure who often speaks truth and common sense in a corrupt and foolish world. http://www.cornelwest.com/

Eva Bartlett - Independent Middle East Correspondent. Speaks truth about Syria.   https://twitter.com/evakbartlett

Edward Curtin - Independent Journalist - Existentialist, brilliant. http://edwardcurtin.com/

Glen Ford - Black Agenda Report executive editor - fantastic voice of anti-racism and common sense.

Greg Palast - Anti corruption, anti-american-hegemony, etc.

Guy McPherson - Ecologist - Global warming.

Henry Giroux - Social criticism "Critical Education for a Global Democracy"

Howard Zinn - Long history of exposing the fraud of propaganda that is taught in place of the actual history of the USA.

Hiroyuki Hamada - Artist, author, social and political awareness advocate and truth-teller.

John Pilger - Journalist "It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas..."

Keith Harmon Snow  - Independent Journalist - specializes in honesty about Africa, both indigenous and foreign manipulations, war crimes, genocide, psy-ops, business dealings, etc.

Margaret Kimberley - Journalist for Truthout, Black Agenda Report, ... - anti-American hypocrisy and propaganda, social commentary.

Mat Blumenthal - Independent Journalist - exposing the Venezuelan coup for what it is.

Michelle Alexander - Professor - author of "The New Jim Crow" - anti-racism, current affairs.

Morris Berman - Contemporary American Historian - Major critic of Americanism and documentor of the fall of America.

Naomi Klein - Canadian author - Green revolution, socialism, global warming, humanitarian.

Paul Craig Roberts - Blogger - Geopolitics, Economics - gloomy realist.

Pepe Escobar - Brazilian journalist at Asia Times - Geopolitics / economist / analyst.

Rania Khalek - Journalist & Political commentator - Israel-Palestine conflict.

Richard D. Wolf - Professor of Economics - Post capitalist economist / analyst.

Robert Fisk - Writer & journalist - Geopolitics & middle east correspondent for The Independent, based in Beirut.

Robert Parry - Journalist - Consortium News.

Stephen F. Cohen - Professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU - US-Russian Cold War and geopolitical analysis.

Seymour Hersh - Investigative journalist, old school, politics and international affairs.  Broke the My Lai Massacre story from the Vietnam war.

Shaun King - Writer & anti-racist - Senior justice writer for the New York Daily News, and a political commentator for The Young Turks.  Be warned that the young turks is mostly neoliberal garbage.  In fact, Shaun has become more and more of a neoliberalist and cannot be trusted on politics.  His outrage at racism is on-point and, in my opinion, insightful.

Stephen Kinzer - Former Central America correspondent for NY Times - anti CIA, anti American hegemony, etc.

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Author - Anti-racism, contemporary racism, injustice, black American experience, etc.

Teodrose Firke - Independent Journalist - American politics and culture, especially focusing on the lie of two-party politics in America and our need to overcome racism and prejudice and work together as we-the-people against the 1%.  He now has his own website and publishes other independent voices there: https://ghionjournal.com/

The Saker - Blogger - Anti-American-Hegemony, Geopolitics.

Thierry Meyssan - Political consultant, President-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network) - Geopolitics.

Vanessa Beeley - Journalist - Middle east independent correspondent and truth teller.

William Blum - Author, Blogger - US Geopolitics (https://williamblum.org/).

William Engdahl - Author - US Geopolitics.

YahNé Ndgo - Founder and Chief Visionary Officer at Deep Blu Womyn Company - Feminist & anti-racism, youth advocate.

Fairly Trustworthy Sites:

21st Century Wire - Where Vanessa Beeley, Patrick Henningsen, etc. publish real stuff on Syria, and Middle East generally.
Black Agenda Report (BAR) - anti-racism, black consciousness, and a great deal of common sense can be found here.
Common Dreams - Progressive issues, political commentary, etc.
Consortium News - American news, politics, etc.
Counterpunch - Ostensibly progressive but known to be strident and foolish.  Read with caution.
Free Thought Project - Often has excellent articles, but can be quite sensationalistic, and somewhat clickbaity.
Greanville Post - Anti-Imperialist news & commentary.
Guns and Butter - Investigates the relationships among capitalism, militarism and politics.
Land Destroyer Report - Geopolitics
Mint Press News - Progressive issues, political commentary, etc.
Moon of Alabama - Geopolitical analysis and political commentary.
Naked Capitalism - Critical look at capitalisms constant genocide and ecocide.
New Eastern Outlook (NEO) - Fantastic resource for geopolitics and international perspectives.
Radio War Nerd - A podcast by John Dolan, history and real politics.
RT - Formerly "Russia Today" - an international news channel available on internet.
The Duran - Independent reporting.
The Ghion Journal - Independent journalism founded by Teodrose Fikre.  Covers racism, US politics, Zionism, etc.
The Gray Zone - Independent web site with a plethora of top-notch independent journalists covering a wide range of geopolitical stories, including the plight of Palestinians and the current ongoing coup attempt against Maduro and the sovereignty of the Venezuela people.
Truthout - Progressive issues, political commentary, etc.
Wikileaks - 100% real source emails and other secret documents to expose criminality and chicanery in our governments.
Zero Hedge - No-nonsense political insight and criticism.

Special Mention:

Jimmy Dore Comedic Video Blogger on US Progressive Issues
The Sane Progressive - Video Blogger on US Progressive Politics
H. A. Goodman - Video Blogger on US Progressive Politics
Brain Spank - Satirical Blog on US Insanity
Guns and Butter - Pod Cast on Geopolitics, Interviews, Pediphelia, Domestic Politics, all 100%
Lee Camp - Comedian and host of "Redacted Tonight" - a humorous look at the news and world events.

Mixed:

Amy Goodman - Once a stalwart of progressive honest journalism, has become a liar for US aggression and wars in Syria, as well as a gatekeeper regarding global wars of American Hegemony.
Glenn Greenwald - "It's complicated". Arguably manipulated Snowden for his own purposes (receiving quite a few accolades for his efforts from the establishment), and recently has gone on with Amy Goodman to claim that the latest accusation of chemical attacks by Assad against his own folks on the eve of his victory have some merit (essentially repeating statist propaganda that has been twice debunked in previous incidents).
Jeffrey St Clair - Likes to bash on women and Caitlin Johnstone in particular.  A bit of a chauvinist and a fool.
Jeremy Scahill - Gaslights about Syria.
Matt Taibbi - Went full neoliberal apologist earlier in 2017 with russiagate, but has since (early 2018) done a 180 and is now decrying the chilling effects of russiagate hysteria and anti-journalism that "fake news" and other government censorship initiatives are engendering (nice to have him back, for as long as it lasts - he's quite a good writer).

Democracy Now - Along with all of NPR and PBS has become neoliberal and untrustworthy but was once upon a time an excellent source, and for non-war-related and non-politics related things, might still be.
NPR & PBS - State funded neoliberal propaganda outlets.  For fluff pieces may still show the occasional moment of journalistic integrity.
The Guardian - Brit publication that sometimes gets it right.
The Hill - US domestic political reporting with somewhat neoliberal leanings.
The Intercept - British publication with neoliberal leanings, but also has good commentary and reporting.  Better than The Hill, and broader scope.
Truthdig  - Political commentary but with sloppy neoliberalisms amongst more factual or honest reporting.  Often quite sensationalistic.

Specific Books or Publications or Documentaries or etc.:

Howard Zinn - A People's History Of The United States
Elizabeth Kolbert - The Sixth Extinction
Stephen Kinzer - Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
David Talbot - The Devil's Chessboard, Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

Other Lists:

Woke People & Orgs - https://nickvasey.com/woke-people-orgs/

Power Corrupts, but some people never weren't...

I agree with the basic premise that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I wish I could be more on the "Obama was a good man who was corrupted by the system" bandwagon! I really, really do! It would make my life SOOOOOooooo much easier with my family and liberal friends.

But... I cannot. I daresay he was corrupted as a senator - and very likely well before that.

I say that because his very first decisions after winning the general were to hire wall street execs, and lash out at progressives for being too nosey about his administration's early choices and decisions - exactly the opposite of what he said he'd do (run the most open administration in history - nothing like GW).

Pelosi announced that investigations were off the table.

He started the health care negotiations by PUBLICLY walking backwards BEFORE the first CLOSED meetings with Republicans.

It was like he punched me and all progressives squarely in the gut non-stop for the first two years of his administration.

Excuse after excuse about not floating progressive legislation.
Excuses for not using the supermajority he / the Dems had.
Excuses for not even using single payer as a bargaining tool against the rethugs.
Sidestepping racial justice issues.
Actually admonishing POC for not being good boys & girls in the face of various rank racist incidents at the time.
Blaming his / the democrats massive hemorrhaging loss in 2010 on progressives!!!! On the very people he shut out and told to fuck themselves instead of have some sort of rapport with.

No, he was a colossal asshat from day 1. I cannot. I will not. I shall not forget, nor make excuses for the POS of a failure of a human being to do what the fuck he was elected and preached about doing.

He rode a progressive wave of enthusiasm similar to Bernie's - but was FAR less honest about his positions than Bernie was. Bernie may not be ideal, but I honestly believe Bernie believes in the common American.

Obama was an elitist pretending to be a populist - saying just the right things - smiling that big white-toothy smile, and looking damn good on camera with that twinkle in his eye.

I feel fucked by a high-priced hooker that I thought really wanted to be with *me*, not my *money*.

I do respect your opinion...

See, the thing is, we can disagree about what we want, what's best, who we like, what we think may happen under what circumstances.... that's all fair, and nobody can say for certain what is going to be or honestly assert that their preferences are "better" (they may be better for them, or theirs, or under some circumstances, etc.)

But we cannot really disagree for a real length of time about what is actually in existence, or what actually happened, unless there is no evidence whatsoever.

Because facts, truth, reality; these things are real. They're not subject to one's likes and dislikes at the level of changing because of your stance on them. (you are welcome to take whatever stance you wish).

But at the end of the day, we either sent astronauts to the moon, or we did not. Our CIA ousted Salvador Allende in a military coup, or it did not. We are engaged with bombing 7 other nations currently, or we are not (or the number is 6, or 8). These things are not opinions, they are facts that can be proved or disproved.

Americans are currently wildly gullible and unable to have these conversations in a truly honest manner because we have been lied to for generations. We are daily exposed to lies on NPR, or CBS, or MSNBC, or FOX, or Washington Post, or NY Times, or a public address from President Obama, or a rally from Trump, or a shyster on Oprah channel.

And these lies use our prejudices, our biases, our preconceived notions to stroke our egos, to appeal to our wants and desires, to reinforce our fears so that we don't think too hard or long because it is - genuinely - scary and disturbing.

American propaganda is a well-oiled, mature, efficient, seasoned machine of epic proportions with nearly limitless funding. It's adverts are slick, compelling, emotional, and manipulative as hell. As manipulative as our best psychologists and studies have been able to become. We have engineered the world's best device for deceiving and manipulating large numbers of human beings.

But I'm asking you. I am begging you. I am on my hands and knees - please - for yourselves - for your children - for your loved ones - for the future that might yet be - I implore you to become deeply suspect of the US government and all - every - single - thing - it claims to be true.

Precious little that comes out of either political party and their extremely well paid PR firms has more than a fleeting association with reality. It's all there to blow smoke up your derriere. Smoke tuned to just the right texture, temperature, scent as to be most pleasing to you as an individual who believes that part of who you are is a member of a certain identity - a grouping - such as "I am a proud liberal" or "I am a proud American" or "I am a proud Republican"

Such affiliations are - well - we can have that discussion sometime - I eagerly await it. But for now, just know that they're using the connection between who you believe you are - "I am a good person because I am for social justice as are all of my liberal compatriots" to twist your view of the world. To hide from you the evils committed by democrats. To hide from you the evils committed by the American apparatchik. The evils done in the name of business and profits and global trade and international relations.

You, and I, and everyone we know are just a game that they're really, really good at winning.

To turn the tables - we have no choice but to stop playing by their rules, believing their lies, and failing to see how we are literally pawns on their board.

I am not your enemy.

I am not insulting your "intelligence."

I am your friend. I am your brother. I am your comrade. I am asking you to put aside your ego - that false house of cards - long enough to be brutally honest with me - not just about who we are - but about what the world really - in _fact_ - looks like - and why.

And through that, I honestly believe, we have a chance to change things for the better.

Not lie to each other about how it will all be okay.

But really enact changes that cause actual changes in the world for the ultimate betterment of what actual is and will one day actually be. Truth. Indisputable, factual, actual, reality.

The truth can set you free.
Nobody is truly free until everyone is free.

Some lessons from the past...

I'm a beloved and loving husband, a father of two, a software engineer, a self-taught guy who never did get along with institutions of any sort - be they religion, schools, or any other authoritarian top-down system.

I spent my early childhood as a military brat, spending two years in Taiwan, then two more in Wiesbaden Germany, after which my parents divorced, we moved to Albuquerque NM, where I spent the rest of my childhood & teenage years coming of age in a bizarre subculture that has produced some of the most interesting people I know. Alb. had a lot of drugs, parties, rich kids throwing parties in their parents homes when the parents were away - cops showing up, everyone running for the hills. Fist fights were common. Hispanic / White racial tensions were common - with the whites owning & controlling the best parts of the city, and the hispanics and native americans being mostly relegated to the older, more run-down parts. Lots of crime, shootings, alcohol poisoning, meth, LSD, ganja.

Probably because I was a nerd, never fit in socially anywhere really, I've always had an affinity for those who are picked on in the world. I spent a lot of my time in elementary school running from bullies, or being humiliated. Middle school was less physical abuse, but more humiliation. High schools were just a joke which I eventually realized I could just GED my way out.

Computers were my saving grace. I just understood them, and found an easy passion for them - something I could master and then make easier for all people to use. Sadly, they're only marginally easier to use with endless failures to really make them great - just okay enough, and on to the next "shiny" thing.

The past ten years or so I've become a regular FB presence - learning a great deal about systemic racism, the difference between bigotry and systemic racism, and have watched as black/native/mentally ill person after person has been shot or strangled or beaten to death over and over and over.

I've become aware of the endless failures of democrats to seize the day and put their efforts where their mouth is - leading me - and many of you - to realize that they don't walk the walk - they're just blowing hot air up our collective asses. I used to make excuses - I used to know that it was tough fighting the forces of the republicans - I used to understand that approximately 50% of the electorate was of a kind of person that believed that people didn't deserve help - that success was an indication of moral fiber, or maybe a reflection of divine will - that believed to their very core that bad things only happened to bad people (unless it was themselves or a personal relation - and maybe not even then).

I used to laugh and shake my head at those loony folks on FB who claimed that both parties were really two sides of the exact same coin. "Can't you see the massive differences in what they each want?!" "How can you say that those who want to deprive women of choice are the same as those fighting for women's health?!"

But as time has passed - 10 years! - I noticed more and more that given the opportunity - democrats didn't actually fight. They did a few token gestures here and there - but mostly they just waited and waited and then jumped in on something good - a groundswell - and claimed credit for it without ever having risked themselves at all - without ever having really lent a hand at all. LGBTQ - marriage equality - being "People's evidence #1" - with Hillary (as one example amongst myriad other democrats) pushing for DADT, and then switching only after the public momentum was massively on the side of marriage equality.

I've watched as organizations that claim to stand for people have cynically sucked down millions - tens of millions - hundreds of millions in well-intentioned donations to help our fellow brothers and sisters - and then use the money for political influence or personal gains. The Red Cross - for god's sake - taking hundred million plus dollars sent to help Haitians rebuild after that horrific string of earthquakes killed thousands and left many thousands without homes - crumbled and ruined - built three (3) total homes with that money.

I've watched as my fellow self-labeled "democrats" and "liberals" ignored such information and/or actively made excuses. "It's the republicans' fault!" "What can we do, it's just the way the cookie crumbles!" "Na na na na I'm not listening to you crazy-pants because I need to believe in democrats / liberals and what you're saying undermines my faith and makes me feel yucky!"

I've watched as Bernie Sanders - easily the best progressive voice in our federal government - did the insanely unlikely thing of throwing his hat in the ring - and then watching with giddy excitement as Americans - ordinary middle of the road fellow Americans responded to his message of "enough is enough!" - of simple truth - the oligarchs run this nation and both parties have failed the American people utterly.

And then, I watched as those same "democrats" and "liberals" balked at taking a chance on a good human being for the "safety" of a rotten and corrupt one.

I watched them refuse to learn about Bernie. I watched as they rejected facts that exposed Hillary as a syndicated crime boss.

I watched them as they twisted everything to fit their preconceived worldview of "democrats/liberals are the 'good team[tm]"

I was bitter at republicans for cynically manipulating their followers desires and prejudices to gain power and serve the oligarchy - devastating the middle class in America - robbing us of our only real wealth (our homes) - only to watch as the democrats did the same to their liberal followers and those same people fall into the equivalent traps - their prejudices stoked against Trump to fever levels - unable to - or unwilling to - do any self-examination, and honest conversations about Hillary's public and undisputed record from her political history.

This has made me deeply - deeply cynical and angry towards "democrats / liberals".

I have had to rethink my ideas time and again on this journey. I've had to peel back my own defenses, ruthlessly look at some of my biases in a cold hard mirror of honesty - and own my own biases, my own bigotries.

And this isn't a one and done sort of thing. I have to keep on doing this work. I Have to keep on confronting the truth of America as it continues to lynch marginalized peoples - blacks, hispanics, natives, homeless, poor, the mentally ill.

I have to have my beautiful vision of America as a great experiment in democracy - in freedom of choice - of social justice and equality - ripped apart - piece by piece by horrible undeniable piece.

I've had to learn that we've assassinated or overthrown hundreds of lawfully elected democratic leaders all over this world in favor of military juntas and evil dictators that we use as our lap dogs; controlling the natural bounty of these nations - ruthlessly stripping anything of value that we possibly can in exchange for bribing a very very few at the top, and murdering and destroying the livelihoods and literally committing genocide against millions more in the name of American Exceptionalism and Global Hegemony (often euphemized as "Free Trade").

I've watched as democrats and their "liberal" rank and file have promoted and instituted policies that have gutted our once preeminent manufacturing sector - turning our nation from the envy of the world with good paying jobs, job security, and solid benefits into another third-world ghetto full of (righteously) angry and pitiful people - homeless, jobless, destitute, and scrambling to find anything - anything at all - to hold on to to feed themselves or take care of their children.

I've watched as multiple election cycles have come and gone with this undercurrent of a gutted, betrayed, sold-out middle class and working-class in America continued to be - mocked - ignored - despised - sneered at by democrats and their "liberal" followers.

I've watched as an endless parade of political analysts have pointed out this failing in the democrats - only to have most democrats just ignore it - grab on to the themes of "conservatives are to blame!" and "conservatives aren't really even human - they're horrible, hateful people who hate blacks and all immigrants" - while never once being willing themselves to stop this tape - stop listening to this propaganda - this easy othering - this easy excuse for what's going on - this easy avoidance of any personal responsibility at all.

This election cycle I've finally come to realize that liberals are literally the biggest obstacle to social and political progress in this nation.

Those I thought of as noble people who most wanted to help the world for the better are in fact the most insidious at ensuring no change can be made. Bernie robbed in plain view with concrete evidence of wrongdoing (morally, if not technically) - to a resounding - overwhelming - chorus of "meh."

I'm sadder than I know how to be sad.
I'm more worried than I know how to be worried.
I'm angrier than I Know how to be angry.

If my fellow human beings are more wedded to the illusion of goodness - than the reality of it - then I simply do not believe we have any chance of righting this ship.

There are dire - dire warning signs in every direction we're headed:
Global thermonuclear war.
Corptocracy with people as commodities to be used and discarded at whim of profits.
Global warming causing global crop failures and famine and the collapse of civilization with massive die-back of the human race.
Global warming to the extent of 90+ die back of all species - almost absolutely guaranteeing the complete eradication of Homo Sapiens.
Peak oil causing the rapid contraction of the entire global economy - sending every nation on earth into internal strife of proportions none of us has ever even had a nightmare about.

Americans are like the courtiers of King Louis the Sun God. We're all hanging on to the coattails of the royalty and hoping we'll be okay as long as our Kings and Queens of industry continue to be the top dogs of this planet - and we pretend we're "good people" by doing various "good deeds" - but fundamentally failing to be honest about our complicity in a global nightmare from which we derive our sustenance at the suffering of millions of our brothers and sisters - our equals - people who by rights should be our friends - our global neighbors - our kin.

We continue the legacy of slavery by globally impoverishing everyone else so long as we're the "winners" - the future - including our own children - and the millions of children all over this world digging with their bare hands for rare minerals needed for our iPhones or whatever latest geegaw that distracts us and entertains us and lets us explore the exploits of being the pinnacle nation at this time in history. We are #1. We are the best. We are Americans.

If I could cry a tear for every wrong we do in the name of business and American Interests - just on this one day alone - I would exhaust a million bodies of tears. I'd drown my entire community in the salty reality of pain that we inflict - mostly mindlessly - on the less fortunate.

I know that each individual American is trying to be a good person - and very likely believes themselves to be a good person. And I don't mean to detract from the many wonderful deeds people individually do to try to make this world a better place.

But if we cannot stop with the lies - the self-deception - the intellectual dishonesty and squeamishness - we're all - absolutely - on a path to self-annihilation - to global catastrophes - plural.

Every indicator is that we have only a little time left to do something about all of this. Global warming, global famine, global war.

The only silver lining that I am aware of is that matters of the heart - are irreducibly intertwined with matters of the state.

We must - and we can - learn to prioritize the well being of humans over "markets" or "profits" or "nations" or "religions".

We could be a great people - we Humans of Earth. If we'd but let go of our fears of scarcity, our fears of being ordinary - our fears of each other - and embraced our truth of oneness and similarity and frailty and join together to love. All for one, and one for all. It is our only hope.

Namaste.

Americans at a Crossroads

I beg your indulgence.  Who we elect for POTUS, and to congress, may have the most profound impact on all of us in our adult lives of any such election in memory.

These issues are at the core of racism in America.  Hillary is probably not much worse than Barack has been - and there is a lot to admire in both of them.

However, I fear that the Democrat Party is adopting the New Democrat or Third Way positions that Bill Clinton and Tony Blair have been pushing, and I am sure Hillary will push them as well. The establishment seems hell-bent on literally merging the two parties as closely as humanly possible so the Big Money that finances BOTH sides can rely on either to represent THEM before the voters. It scares me, and we HAVE to get Bernie elected if we have ANY chance of turning it around.

Several Supreme court seats will likely be decided by our next POTUS - and those decisions are key to getting real relief measures in place against police violence and targeting of people of color.  We cannot have the supreme court continuing to knock down voter protection laws and helping with gerrymandering.  They must uphold protections for black americans, latinos, asians, and native americans.  And a republican will definitely not shape a SCOTUS that is pro-minorities.  Nor will a republican help mediate a congress that is bought & paid for by the oligarchy - by multinational corporations run by spoiled rich shits who care nothing for you and I.

And Hillary... her best friends are exactly those spoiled rich douche-bags.   Those are "her people."  She's been pushing the New Democrat agenda for many years - and all indications are she will continue to do so as POTUS. Wall street will continue to run amuck without oversight or controls to reign in their worst greedy instincts, and the american worker - especially minorities, will continue to bear the brunt of bailing the fat cats out when the hose the entire economy - or even when they just ruin the company you work for and destroy all of your life's saving and benefits that the company owes you.

Worse - Hillary and any republican is very unlikely to protect Social Security.  We'll see more jobs shipped overseas via the TPP (which she helped write & negotiate), and we'll see more and more domestic jobs become hourly without benefits and paid at below-living-wage.  No retirement, and Social Security benefits becoming weaker and unable to fill the gap.

I honestly think we stand at a cross-roads in America.  There is a growing awareness of #blacklivesmatter.  There is a growing awareness that wall street has no conscience or self-restraint, and that the laws have been watered down to promote irresponsible gambling by CEOs, corporations, and Wall Street that ultimately always comes out of our pockets - our retirements, our health care packages, our social security, our schools, our communities, our roads & bridges.

Although I have a great desire to see a woman elected as our POTUS, Hillary is only a good candidate in the sense that she is a woman and like all of the recent democrats who've run, better-than-a-republican.  But that's a really.... really.... low bar.

I want a woman to run who will fight for all of us.  For America - not just wealthy white america - but all of america - you, me, our children, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, and on and on.

I hate being a damn white guy saying "you should join me" - and on some level I am saying that.  But on another level, I am joining you.  I have been protesting, posting, showing up, marching, and learning about your struggle and making it my struggle - our struggle.  I have always supported people over governments, people over "justice" systems, peace over wars.... I was just ignorant of how racist I and most of the folks I know really were / are.  But I'm working to change who I am, to be a better man, a better white person who genuinely acts on my love of humanity and my unshakable core belief that we are all equal - it is society that creates inequality and suffering for all.

So please - maybe you're tuned out and turned off by American's stupid, stupid and mostly shallow politics.  Maybe everyone you know says Bernie cannot possibly win nationally, and so you "must" vote for Hillary.

But all of the independent polls show that this isn't true.  Bernie beats republicans hands-down, where Hillary does much more poorly against republicans.  And even were she to win - she'll be a business-as-usual candidate - she'll do some small things for black americans and maybe more significant things for women, but mostly she'll do as corporate america and wall street tell her to do (and she'll believe she's doing the right thing the whole time - those are her actual friends and social circles).

But business-as-usual in America is making us sick.

It's destroying our retirements.

It's basically creating indentured servants in loads of 3rd world nations and working people there to death to produce cheap-as-dirt crap for us to consume.

And it's destroying our planet in doing so.

And if we don't take a long, cold, hard look at our priorities and elect the only politician in (my) living memory that has remained uncorrupted and truly dedicated to we-the-people, then I fear a peaceful resolution to our ills may never come again.  America will devolve into real civil strife, and I can only believe that racism and fear of immigrants and minorities will increase ten-fold under those conditions.  We'll see it become more and more popular with mainstream to blame immigrants and people of color and the "culture of laziness" for all of our ills - telling whites that their issues are being caused by you, and latinos, and asians, and native americans.

The less money folks have, the less prosperous this nation becomes, the more desperate people feel - the more willing they are to lash out at others, and the less forgiving and generous they become.

So let us take our chances now, when there are chances to be had, and elect someone who has a truly, demonstrably, consistently, loving heart for all instead of a career politician who is "open to the possibility" of not totally destroying our futures.  That's weak-sauce, and it's not even remotely enough for the coming fight for human rights, human decency, living wage, and a dignified retirement.

Please!  Vote in the primary - #feelthebern

Speak up, for the opposition's hate-speech is only getting louder by the hour

Every now and again - more often these days it seems - you hear someone say that the Democrats are just the same as the Republicans. And in some rather glaring ways it's true. Both, for the most part, are beholden to big money. Corporations, special interests, and the wealthy pave their way into office, election after election. Favors are asked, favors come due. Anyone who thinks different is deluding themselves. Politics is not for the faint of heart.

But I think that this is not enough to excuse us from our moral and ethical duty to stand up for those who need our help, and to oppose those who have clearly lost sight of what government is for: to protect the weak from the powerful, to ensure a fair shake for everyone. And when it comes to humanitarian issues, Democrats are more prone to be on the morally right side of the issue: Equality for Gays & Lesbians. Equality for Women. Equality for Minorities. Equality for "illegal aliens." Democrats are far, far from perfect - and there are many I suspect who run as Democrat just because that's politically expedient, not because they personally cleave to this humanitarian agenda.

However, Republicans don't even pretend to support such lofty goals. Their own party is diametrically opposed to humanitarian goals: equality in all of its forms are not in their platform. The only "equality" they're after is to make themselves personally equal to the richest idealization of themselves that they can be.

It is one thing to strive for social equality, but be forced for political or practical reasons to have to compromise and/or take smaller (as opposed to bigger) steps initially towards the desired goal. It is another entirely to eschew equality, and unabashedly compete entirely for self aggrandizement and greed regardless of the social, economic, and environmental cost to everyone else.

Republicans are fond of cloaking their greed in lots of ways. Pretending that what they do is for "family values", or to uphold "religious scriptures." They're "God fearing" and they're "Capitalists." They're the only "true Americans." They wrap themselves in the American flag, claim a special understanding of the Constitution of the United States (and the mind-set of the founding fathers), and then go on to justify pro-corporate greed, exploitation, unlimited federal and executive powers, and naming Judges to the supreme court who clearly have ideological axes to grind.

For some republicans I can imagine that they're genuinely naive and simple-minded. Bush comes to mind. I believe he honestly believed in what he was doing, and truly thought that he could make a better world by Christianizing and "forcefully democratizing" Iraq at gun-point. I honestly think he thought that our men & women in Iraq would be greeted as "liberators" and that the 2nd Iraq war would be a high-point in US foreign policy for decades to come, his name echoed down through the centuries as a great man.

But for the vast majority of them, I think that they're in it for the money and power.

I have heard various people of late saying that liberal op-eds and articles are "vitriolic - just the same as Rush Limbaugh!" It is a testament to the human mind and human equilibrium that we so want things to be simple, to be peaceful and calm, to be copasetic, that we will get quite angry and belligerent towards those amongst us who are raising the alarm even in quiet, honest, and rational ways.

The fact of the matter is that Rush, Hannity, Palin, et. al., are not going to stop spewing their anger-generating speech anytime soon. Liberals like to just tune that stuff out and pretend it isn't happening, or that it can't really be taken seriously, or that it can't really affect their world. It's just a passing fad, a symptom of media, a craze and it too shall pass.

But I would suggest that it is important to shed our "civil discourse" and start throwing punches, as liberals. Not in order to divide us further. After all, I don't think we could do much to impact that aspect of what's going on right now even if we set out single mindedly and that was our only goal in life, given the volume of vitriolic rhetoric spewed daily by the likes of Fox and their Republican compatriots. I think liberals are hiding their heads in the sand to believe that a divide is not already growing, and growing rapidly. Daily it grows wider and deeper, with Palin exclaiming that "we're just simple folk." - implying that liberals are not like them, that we create overly complex issues where a simple solution would suffice, and that the world really is a simple place and simple thinking is all that is required of anyone to solve the worlds problems (or that there aren't any problems to solve in the first place).

And then you have Rush raging on and on about Obama-is-a-socialist, and making it sound as thought socialism is the same thing as Stalinist- or Maoist Communism, rather than a rational point on a spectrum of political social theory.

The greedy-rich* of this nation have striven for decades to promote the idea that we should earn our keep, that only lazy people have a hard time, that this is a fair nation and anyone with a little "gumption" can succeed.  It is a fallacy, and it breeds indifference and a lack of compassion for those who do struggle. It turns the common man against his peers, against the poor, the weak, the politically disempowered, and keeps the anger pointed away from the wealthy elites who are exploiting the situation, and draining most of this nation's resources and the rewards from the good work that we do for them. They earn the profit while we struggle to make ends meet. And at every turn in this nation's history, it is the wealthy who are exclaiming the unfairness of the system towards them, and undermining the middle class. It's understandable from an a-moral standpoint: if all you're interested in is making yourself richer, then having to pay your workers, or limit the hours that you work them, or pay them more for overtime, or invest in their pensions, or pay for the overhead to keep your factories or offices safe and healthy is a burden. And one that seems (in your highly insulated world) to be wholly gratuitous and unnecessary. "After all," the rich often proclaim, "I provide jobs for a great many people!" And, "If it weren't for me, this economy would collapse and there would be no jobs!"

But these are pathetic half-truths. Without them another could easily fill their shoes (and quite happily). They don't bring much to the table at all, usually, except capital. Yet that capital entitles them to the lions share of the profits of the business. "But we're the ones taking all the big risks - so we deserve the big rewards!" they exclaim! Bullshit! As anyone with eyes and and three functioning brain cells to their name can plainly see, rich people who gamble on a losing proposition are bailed out by the very government that they hold hostage. Rich people don't risk anything much at all. They speculate with their employee's pensions, and when those are wiped out or massively devalued (which happens depressingly regularly), they're not held accountable. Rather, the workers are out of their hard-earned retirements, and tough shit! While those same wealthy folks are insulated from the consequences of their actions, and in many cases, still retain the ill-begotten gains from the many years of such abuses by moving funds from company holdings into personal wealth (which cannot be extracted from them due to the very nature of corporate law once the mishandling has been discovered).

So the inconvenient middle classes and poor are regularly undermined and disempowered by the wealthy, all the while they scream "hardship!" Woe is their million dollar cars, and planes, and boats, and second homes, and vacations, and health insurance policies, and so on. The taxes they pay are "unfair!" or "a burden to competitiveness of this nation!"

What is going on in this nation is a disgrace. It will one day be looked back upon with as much distaste and horror as we feel now when we look back upon the conditions of the middle ages - nay, the dark ages. And because we are all a part of the system that allows this kind of exploitation to continue, we are - each and every one of us - in some part personally responsible for what is happening.

I will also often hear intellectuals try to reason with those on the political right. But I think it is important that we give up our delusions that we're having the same experience that they are. Liberals, Intellectuals, thinkers try to approach a problem and find an ideal, or at least workable, solution. Conservatives, Republicans, Religious people do not approach the world from this perspective.  And more so right now with the strong anti-liberal, anti-intellectual, anti-humanist rhetoric spewing from the many media faucets of the Republican-Corporate money machine.

Liberals are deluding themselves every time they think that we are engaged in a rational conversation with conservatives. A conversation requires that both parties be honestly seeking a real goal to solve the problems at hand. They require some degree of personal and intellectual honesty and integrity. They require that you be willing to listen to and think through as many consequences of a choice as possible, and to weigh a number of choices to find one, or refine ones, until you have something workable (if never entirely perfect). But people of a religious, fundamentalist, conservative foundation don't entirely believe in a rational conversation, don't admit of the power of ones senses to guide them to a reality-based, testable conclusion. For them, magical writings in a book, religious authorities, and traditions hold by far the stronger sway. God will see to the future, and in the meantime "what I can obtain" is their only discernible goal.

This political hell we're in isn't about rational argumentation, or even about reality at all. Rush Limbaugh will continue to spew his vitriol, as will Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, and all of the others. They're not trying to be polite, or to arrive at a well-reasoned conclusion, or to weigh the ongoing and ever-accumulating evidence. They've made their minds up. They know the only possible answer: America is about the power to do whatever I wish whenever I wish and go fuck yourself if you don't like it! This is America: Go Suck It!

They don't believe that they owe anyone anything for this. It is their right - and the right of all red-blooded Americans. God intended it this way. Our dominance in the world proves that we are right, and that God is clearly on our side. And they're not about to compromise anything: compromise is for Sissies! (And Liberals!) They know who to be angry at: those who threaten their way of life - their unfettered greed and use of power: Bleeding-heart Liberals. Intellectuals. Those damn nerds from middle school who were always so much more clever than ever they were, yet so easy to pick on! Those people are all pathetic and sad for those who are picked on because they were picked on too! They're all blubbery pussies bawling at every little one of life's scrapes! Man up! Suck it up and deal with it! This is the real world, and if you can't take it, get out of my country!

These are their attitudes. And their tone of discourse is not civil. It is not rational. It is not honest. It is not helpful. It is not something that we can reason with.

To win the hearts and minds of Joe Plumber, we need to expose the greed, the hypocrisy, the lie in everything they say and do! We need to stand up and say "You're hurting your fellow American! You're throwing out good people onto the streets! Women, children, babies! This?! This is the America you believe in?!"

John Stewart and Steven Colbert are both very polite people (gags notwithstanding). As are the folks on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, etc, for the most part. Niceness and civility isn't the answer. Rational argumentation isn't the answer. We're playing by two totally different standards: rational inquiry vs. emotional pandering and hate-mongering. They're in it to win at all costs, and their goals are to use deceit and rhetorical persuasion to win the hearts and guts of as many folks as possible. Their aim is to shut down people's ability to think, to use emotion and appeals to "woe is us" to shut down rational thought about any of the stuff that is going on in the world today. It is an appeal to the sense that things are not working out for them, and they should be angry (and it's true, they should be), but that it's all the fault of the liberals and illegal aliens! Liberals aren't in touch with the common man. They're all rich (somehow in a way different from Rush & the Republican politicians). Their message is that these folks should be angry! They have a God-given right to the American dream**, and it's being stolen by those Harvard jerks from the East Coast, and by the illegal aliens who are swarming into this nation and taking up all the good American jobs and wasting our hard-earned tax-payer dollars, using up everything and giving nothing back, those lazy good-for-nothin' ILLEGAL aliens!

These are not honest words. They are not open to rational analysis of the facts and honest, clear-headed thinking about the difficult economic, social, political realities of life here, today, in the real world.

If you really believe that they honestly have a point, then I challenge you to have a three minute conversation with a tea party or conservative that doesn't run squarely into entitlement coupled with a sense that they're the minority, they're the ones under siege in this Socialist-Obama'ist-nation. Their brand of self-pity is disgusting, callous, shallow, and deeply self-deluded.

As liberals, we dislike confrontation. Its base and uncouth. It is human nature to feel uncomfortable when we're in the same space with someone who is outwardly angry. It makes us feel awkward, and we want that person to stop being angry - it feels unsafe and scary. But goddamit - WE NEED TO BE ANGRY.

It is NOT OK to pay the CEO fifty, let alone two hundred times as much as the line-worker in his company! It is NOT OK to give tax-breaks to the 0.1% of the populace who already take 73% of the profits! It is NOT TRUE that illegal aliens are responsible for the economic crisis. It was NOT TRUE that there were WMDs to justify our invasion of Iraq (or even that this was the real reason why that administration went to war in the first place). It is NOT OK to throw working Americans out of their homes because of unregulated Republican-greased Wall-Street financial gambling practices that devalued our entire economy! It is not homeless people's fault that they are what they are (nobody in their right mind chooses to live on the street, eat garbage, and talk incoherently to the lamp post).

These things are important. These are morally righteous issues. Having compassion for your fellow man is a virtue. And by sitting by, and being complacent with what's going on around you, you are condoning and abetting these crimes against ourselves. Silence and a refusal to engage these issues at this time is no different than anytime in history when good people just couldn't be bothered or were too afraid to shake the boat and contest the system on behalf of their fellow human beings. And tomorrow it might be your job that is gone, and your house that is at stake. You, and I, and everyone you know has a deep self-interest in addressing these grievances, now, before they get worse.

Those who are illegal aliens in this country have no rights. They are here because conditions where they came from were even more hellish - but that is no excuse to treat them poorly, or to ignore the conditions that we force them to live in here! They do the work that nobody else will do at horrible wages, working stupid-long hours, and under often-times abusive working conditions. They are exploited and have no recourse under our laws so that you may have cheap vegetables for your dinner.

Homeless people starve every day in this nation. These are sick, mentally ill people dieing of malnutrition and simple exposure every single day. But somehow the Republicans are far more concerned about whether a man and another man should be allowed to love each other carnally than they are about any of these facts - these real and actual crimes against their fellow human beings.

The church, that they so earnestly claim is the source of moral wisdom, is far more concerned about avoiding the use of condoms in overpopulated and AIDS-riddled Africa than about the fact that many of their priests are sodomizing children! Conservatives, Republicans, Religious people are the hight of hypocrisy. There is nothing moral, or right, about what they profess or what they do.

Americans are more and more focused on "woe is me: my taxes are too high" while simultaneously collecting their Social Security, Disability pay, Medicare, and every other government program that they can finagle for themselves, but "hey, that's okay, I'm a Real American, not like those illegal aliens and minorities just trying to live off the government doles!"

The entitlement, the I'm the victim mentality, the anger towards the very people who need and deserve our compassion and aid, is wrong! So very, very wrong! It is a moral obscenity!

It is not unreasonable to be angry and to say things, even sharply worded things, that brings attention to this charade, this lie, this vast distortion of the truth by those whose only interest is in greed and power at the total cost of everyone and everything which stands in their way.

Freedom is not the same thing as living without constraints.

Freedom is not the same thing as living without a duty to your fellow man, your community, your nation, the entire world around you.

Right wingers, conservatives, religious folks are the most gullible in our society. They are, by-definition, poorly educated in the sense that they cannot reason very well, due to the fact that religion precludes robust rational thinking skills***. They are the ones that the Rushes, Hannitys, Becks, and Palins prey upon most. They're simple folk, who are indoctrinated from infancy to unquestioningly trust authority. They're provincial and ignorant about the motivations of Fox/Murdoch/The Republican-Corporate money machine. And being Americans - they're soft, insulated from hardship, entitled their whole lives; they're highly susceptible to being told that they deserve everything and it should cost them nothing at all. Sacrifice (other than nationalistic/militaristic in nature) isn't in our public ethos anymore, and hasn't been for a couple of generations. We are experiencing first-hand the consequences of the "me! me! me! generation."

You may not like how I express myself. But my guess is that if you take a minute to really honestly evaluate your own reactions in your heart and your soul, you will be forced to admit that most of your dislike for my expression is due to the content, not the way it is being said. What is happening right now, in this nation, is ugly, wrong, inhumane, and cruel. It is amoral, unconscionable, and hurtful to ourselves, our communities, our future, and our children. By not standing up and saying "NO!", by allowing this all to continue and hide behind the simplistic "Democrats and Republicans are all the same" is, at its very bottom cowardly and disingenuous. By your inaction and complacency, you are creating the space for this to happen.

We must all stand up, do everthing in our power to set things aright - now - while we still have a hope of talking our way out of this rapidly accelerating catastrophe. Otherwise I fear we will be doing so with bullets and blood in the not-too-distant future.

For America cannot stand united if we no longer stand for anything of real value. We have shed almost every moral and ethical value I associated with America growing up, all in just my short lifetime. We no longer stand for Justice and Equality (Habeas-corpus is rendered moot via Extraordinary rendition). We no longer want "...your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses." We no longer fight for the underdog. We are not the land of the free, or the brave, but the bastion of corporate greed and entitlement. We absolutely revel in our ignorance and worship blind faith in authority and religion. This is not the country I grew up loving.

I love the America that would never commit torture. I love the America that strives for social equality. I love the America that shows compassion to its sick and its weak. I love the America that we once represented to the world the hope of a truly egalitarian society where all were born equal, all have the right to the pursuit of happiness, and where justice is applied equally to all.

I do not love, but rather loathe this gutted rotting corpse that is stinking to the far corners of the globe, reeking of moral and ethical hypocrisy and debauchery.

Please help me, if not for yourself, for your neighbor, your mother, your siblings, your children, and do not stay silent any longer. Stand up and be counted. Make your voice heard! We Americans stand for something, and it is not torture, it is not pathetic whinny entitlement. It is justice, honesty, compassion, and genuine equality for all.


* There are rich people who are generous. America has a strong and long-standing tradition of philanthropy. There are many decent people who are wealthy and generous, and who seek to serve the common good in some way. I do not mean those people, but rather the self-serving pricks of the world who think nothing of anyone they figuratively murder in their quest to fulfill their every waking whim.

** American Dream has become twisted into something resembling the idea that we all should get as much as we want without sacrifice. We owe nothing to our neighbors, to our government, to our communities. We deserve everything, and should give nothing in return. It is a mental-masturbation about entitlement and sloth.

*** For a more in-depth analysis of this fact, I encourage you to read any of Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins excellent books on the topic: The End of Faith, and The God Delusion respectively.