My wife, Carol, and I have created these posters in the last nine months. I usually came up with the concept and text, but she did all of the hard work with the graphics. Enjoy! Free to share, copy, or distribute in any way you like. Please share widely!
A Realistic and Achievable Fix for the Electoral College
Almost every thoughtful citizen has realized by now that the current structure of the Electoral College is no longer really necessary or functional. Sadly, most of the proposals to correct the problem would require constitutional amendments or would be easy to defeat on constitutional grounds. They would either abolish the college or render it irrelevant—a... Continue Reading →
Withered Now: Dead-End for the GOP
This is first of two essays in which I discuss the way forward for both Republican and Democratic Parties. Part 1. Recently one of my readers suggested that I discuss what I think both major parties should do to address racism and other problems facing the US. I’m not sure that is quite the right... Continue Reading →
Vote! A Final Plea for Sanity and Liberty
Since 2015, I have often written to warn about the dangers inherent in a Trump Presidency. I will not repeat all my previous arguments here today. We are past that. Some people have criticized Democrats like me for being against Trump so fiercely and so early. In my case, the reason for that was simple:... Continue Reading →
Our Pandemic Angels*: A Note on Re-opening Schools Too Soon
I think some basic truths need to be faced squarely as we struggle with how to keep our schools open in the midst of a lethal pandemic. Before I begin, I should make my position quite clear: I am not a parent. My experience with children is partly from my own memories and partly from... Continue Reading →
Trump’s Tulsa Travesty
It seems like a lifetime, but it was only two weeks ago that Trump conducted his travesty in Tulsa. In a recent post about “America’s Great Evasion” I pointed out that America’s “frontier experience” had helped create in our nation a tendency to: “view groups of people that we deemed ‘others’ as fair game for... Continue Reading →
“The Great Evasion,” Building Community, and Masking
Frontier Con-Man In a previous post (On Radicalism, “Civil Disobedience”, and the “Anti-Lockdown” Protesters), I mentioned my old history professor, William Appleman Williams. Williams was a member of “antifa” (that is, a decorated executive officer in the US Pacific fleet during WWII). I believe he also marched with MLK and was targeted by Senator Joe... Continue Reading →
The State of the Ship
The helmsman of the ship of stateDrunk on power, at his wheel pratesOf terror, evil, and bad menWhile his servile followers "ahem" Surrogates note every lame botched wordBroken syntax, the absurdAnd loyally his words transmuteInto a fine bold stance that sounds astute War isn't war but reconstructionJustice is equal to obstructionTorture doesn't bring one shameIf... Continue Reading →
America as a “Battlespace”: A Note on Traumatic Stress in the Age of Trump
I have noticed a strange thing in the last few years. I used to know and play a lot of protest songs—mostly civil rights and anti-war songs. More and more often I find I can’t play and sing these songs without becoming extremely emotional. It is like a wave of grief just rises up and... Continue Reading →
The Dubious Myth of the “Unprecedented” Trump
The Emperor and His Guard Of course, in many simplistic ways Trump really is "unprecedented." We have never seen any president act in such bizarre and dangerous ways. On the other hand, the rather glib overuse of this word "unprecedented" masks a much more deeply entrenched problem. The word “unprecedented” has basically become a mere... Continue Reading →
Mind-Cast 