In classical Marxist sociology, (**) 'racism' isn't what it seems on its surface. It's not really about black vs. white...nor about the pseudo-marker of 'race', which is, at best, an artificial distinction---(recall the discussion between Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe in 'Mississippi Burning' where H… Read full post »

Imagine if most of the world rose to the level of America in prosperity and influence...would some still claim an American Exceptionalism?

That is the basis for my detachment from the current idea of American Exceptionalism. We are acting like a spoiled child demanding to be t/… Read full post »

In the last 20 years of the 18th. Century, two revolutions took place which attempted to move nations from their hereditary aristocracies to new paradigms in self-government.
The first, the American, was essentially a handful of colonial upstarts who ran away from home and then started their own for

… Read full post »

When did Republicans co-opt the word "success", as applied to a person's life, and make it synonymous with the word "wealth"? Moreover, I've always resented the right-wing's constant, petulant monkeying with the English language---after all, that's liberal turf. We already gave them cultural guardian… Read full post »

I've been a progressive Independent politically for most of my life and tonight I almost wept from disappointment while watching the media circus and interacting in the Twitter-sphere. I never dreamed that so many irrational, mean-spirited so-called fellow liberals were out there! OMG. Th… Read full post »

I was jogging today, listening to my old Joni Mitchell CD collection on my Walkman and I actually broke down into tears at one point. The memories of those days in the late 60s when I first discovered her music geysered to the surface as I cantered at a brisk pace. I… Read full post »

Nothing delights and astounds me more than the earthly varieties of life and habitat. And just as these two wonders are inseparable, I try not to compartmentalize myself into 'thinking man' and 'feeling man' since I can't really experience one without the other. Moreover, I was just expressing to my… Read full post »

Warning! David Mamet films can cause depression in lab animals., 1 June 2002 Author: Lary9 from IMDb-United States

"I know about homelessness and alcoholism… about shattered dreams and failure. I understand the fears that all adults have about the interconnectedness of s

… Read full post »

~written to The Guardian in the U.K.~

You think you Brits have problems? In America it's a regular wild west show! The electorate is completely under the spell of the Right Wing and the NRA. They believe the 2nd. amendment of our Bill of Rights was written in stone!… Read full post »

When did Republicans co-opt the word "success", as applied to a person's life, and make it synonymous with the word "wealth"? Moreover, I've always resented the right-wing's constant, petulant monkeying with the English language---after all, that's liberal turf. We already gave them cultural guardian… Read full post »

After the 2012 election, Mr. Obama needs to address the nation to frame a clear, courageous "Obama Doctrine" on foreign policy--- What is our role in the world for the new millennium? How do we use our military in the future? Are there limits to the American projection of power?… Read full post »

I had a dream last night that I couldn't make any sense out of...see if you can:

I was trapped in a Superman comic and we were on the planet A-woi in the galaxy Tsewdim where we were fighting the forces of everything-backwards in Bizarro World. There was a politic… Read full post »

*[Responding to Tracy Clark-Flory in 10/29/11 Alternet "Is Porn Ruining Our Sex Lives?"]      http://www.alternet.org/story/152886/is_porn_ruining_our_sex_lives?page=entire      
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*Bravo to Ms. Flory (again) for raising t/… Read full post »

I was thinking about growing up in a 1950s Happy Days culture, in a nominally religious home. We weren't effusively devout. Religious holidays had to coincide with national ones in order to be observed and merit a turkey on the table. It was a huge, heavy, oval-shaped 3-leaf affair that could… Read full post »

It has been a while since I've spent any significant time watching commercial TV, but every year around MLB Playoffs time, I catch up on those products for which Madison Avenue is trying to create demand. Is it just me or is it a little oddly hypocritical that a pharmacologically active… Read full post »

The curse is a real thing. Anyone who ever doubted...anyone who thought it was just an idiosyncratic defense mechanism of long-suffering Red Sox fans can see it clearly now. It's a real thing... since Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees for "No, No Nanette", it lurks down through the… Read full post »

It is common in the affairs of men for a crisis to bring pressure to bear on the fasteners and cabling that hold things together. Bridges and highways, as well as marriages and governments, occasionally fall apart in tough times, revealing flaws within infrastructure that otherwise would not be

… Read full post »

 Elizabeth Warren's thinking isn't really dismissable with a standard, knee-jerk critique: 

"Warren's an ideologue from the left."
There's something about the unvarnished truth that has a timeless, non-partisan hum about it...(like the aura around Galadriel the Fairy Queen in LOTR.) 

Ca… Read full post »

We are in deep trouble as a nation but the problem will never be solved by repairs. We've gone far beyond maintenance. The system needs to be disconnected and finally put out on the curb for bulk trash pick-up day because there will never be an unbroken version of capitalism.

Capitalism… Read full post »

Obama and friends need to wake up and realize that calling tax breaks for the top income earners of the country 'unfair' is not the way to sell the idea of shared sacrifice through tax revenues! Conservatives aren't moved these days by appeals to fairness. It falls upon deaf ears and… Read full post »

[ A reply to a Tennessee op/ed writer re the legislation protecting Creationism discussion in classrooms.]

Mr. Cummings, I believe we've had this exchange before. I had hoped that you might have revised your errors in incorrectly presenting the case that biological evolution is equivalent to… Read full post »