The passing of the torch of One Party/Two Party government has begun. Now, don't get me wrong folks, this MAGA return to power is definitely the 'Stronger of two evils'. No doubt about it, from more tax cuts for the Super Rich, mass deportations of low wage farm...

I Am You The soul knows no color Except golden sacred energy The energy chooses the flesh As vehicle for its expression. The skin peels off, like paper No magic does it possess Yet the soul transcends mortality Carrying a wisdom no body can accept. From where does all...

Well, the propaganda they sell us like soda water is that 'We are a free country and everyone has the opportunities to succeed in life.' Ok, and since we are immersed as a nation in the quicksand of non unionism (less than 7 % of private sector workers are in unions)...

The Breakthrough There is an angel floating by my shoulder whispering as I sleep I can hardly hear it yet I know it's there. These are forces all about our illusion breathing through the ethers they touch our souls they tickle our spirits. God is all around asking...

All the flags are out on many of the homes throughout our nation. The American flag is a wonderful symbol of the fact that we are nation composed of 50 states with a melting pot of too many different cultures to even list. Sadly, our flag has been hijacked by those '...

We, in 2026 Amerika, are nothing more than the lyrics to a great song by The Rolling Stones. Jagger lays it all out in this 1968 retort to the evils of this our Amerikan Empire. Did I just say 1968? Imagine dear children, students of mine, how nothing had changed by...

You want to get a real jolt of R&B energy just put on the 1965 hit by Martha and the Vandellas 'Nowhere to Run'. What instills my hope in the magic of Karma (What you sow ye shall reap) is watching this Trainwreck of a President and his regime operate. I should go...

Those who call themselves Christians should take heed and digest what their Bible had forecast: 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 – “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of...

For those of us not around in December of 1941, our American History books made sure to include FDR’s famous speech to the Congress and nation in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He called December 7th, 1941 ‘A day of infamy’ … and it sure was....

It is a logistical shame that Trump and his Cabal did not wait less than three weeks before attacking Iran. Remember that March 19th of 2003 was the quintessential moment since LBJ made Vietnam the new WW3. Funny ( not really) how regimes like Bush/Cheney and...

Millions of American baby boomers grew up watching The Three Stooges comedy shows on our little black and white televisions. Matter of fact, along with The Soupy Sales show, the stooges became a must see for many adults as time went on. The pub down the street from...

Image By Jacek Halicki - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link A few months ago I was chatting with a retired lawyer friend at the local Y. He is a devout Catholic who regularly attends Sunday Mass. When he informed me that he believed approximately 75% of people who went to...

There are puffy clouds called people that float through your sky of life. Some are so cottony white, some are dark and filled with lightening and rain. Others are almost translucent, allowing you to look beyond into heaven above. That one was my Aunt Suzie. A bit...

John Sayles wrote and directed the blockbuster 1987 film Matewan, about the 1920 'Battle of Matewan'. This was centered around the Matewan ,West Virginia coal miner's strike that saw scores of people left dead. Fast forward 115 years to Minneapolis, Minnesota. On the...

Just watched  the late Rob Reiner's 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi for the umpteenth time. The movie, based on a true story, covers the 1989 retrial of the killer of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, one Byron De La Beckwith. The assassination of Evers by Beckwith...

Rock artist Phil Collins put it succinctly in his major hit song " I Don't Care Anymore': Hey, I'll do alright by myself 'Cause I don't 'Cause I remember all the times I tried so hard And you laughed in my face 'cause you held the cards I don't care anymore And I...

We first have to understand, in a darkly humorous way, just how far down the rabbit hole the Trump Regime has fallen. I take it back, it is NOT so humorous at all folks! Looking how 'Life imitates art' we  should watch Don Siegel's 1956 film Invasion of the Body...

It was '85 and this writer had been divorced for going on four years. I had my two young sons, 10 and 7, living with their mom and her boyfriend in Canarsie Brooklyn. I lived in this quaint attic apartment a half hour away from them in Elmont, Long Island, not too far...

Chris Hedges just wrote a powerful column on the great Scheerpost site entitled Grand Illusion. He calls America, our nation, a dying empire, similar to what transpired in most past empires. He mentions the vast Roman Empire and the 20th century Nazi Germany one. The...

We have always lived in a society that hinders mental health care instead of enabling it. Now, this writer is surely not a psychiatrist, but I did spend a night in a Holiday Inn Express. My experiences as a patient of Freudian psychoanalysis  40 years ago taught me,...

Just about this wintery time of year this writer can almost inhale the memories of 50+ years ago. Actually, it was January of '69 and we college students needed bread AKA money, moolah or dinero. Being 18 and single, vibrant and seeking female companionship always...

It was Christmastime 1984. He had been separated for three years and divorced one. It was a Saturday, and he always spent Saturday with his two sons. The oldest boy was nine and the younger one but six. He would drive in from his apartment forty minutes away and take...

Taking a bit from the 1974 hit movie Chinatown this writer can see comparisons that can almost blind you. Chinatown, directed by Roman Polanski, with a Robert Towne script and starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, reveals so much about the power of the super rich....

She’s a little lady, 70 something, with this cute, addictive smile. Drives an old bomb of a car, replete with Peace and End the Occupation type stickers on it. She’s a nurse, still works, doing home care for very ill folks with that special Mona type TLC. I first met...

In Francis Ford's Coppola's brilliant 1979 film Apocalypse Now we have the CIA ordering the assassination of a renegade colonel. Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, rambled 'Off the reservation' and simply went too far, even for the genocide loving US government...

You're eighteen, second semester at Brooklyn College (a tough school to get into) and always looking to make a few bucks spending money. I mean, you live at home and college tuition costs only $32 a year. Ah, the good old days of free tuition at the CUNY ( Ciy...

 Remember the famous line by Claude Rains as Captain Renault in Casablanca? After being told by his Nazi handlers to close Rick's Cafe he responded to Bogart's question of why are you shutting me down? He simply answered 'There's gambling going on!' as he then took...

Back in my Brooklyn NYC of the 50s and 60s we used to call the neighborhood luncheonette 'The Candy Store'. In my Ave U neighborhood we had at least one such store every few short blocks. The one I will  focus on was ' Moe's Luncheonette' on Ave U between East 24th St...

The trickster was always what he is now. For decades he had conned too many of the public, the business world, and of course the government. Years ago the trickster, being influenced by his role model Roy Cohn, gave his money to both of the two empire's political...

Imagine how all those wonderful (yeah, right) good and devout MAGA Christians just love Jesus. After all, they say he is the Son of God (or is it lately their new King Donald?). One wonders if any of these folks ever took the time to read The Sermon on the Mount from...

I just love it each year at this time in November. All the flags waving and ceremonial heads hung  down in honoring our ' allen Heroes' and 'Brave Warriors'. Hogwash! Take the time and go onto You Tube or wherever and watch the 1971 Winter Soldier Hearings. See actual...

    With his storm troopers...oops, his ICEMEN, rambling into a town like a pack of ghosts, replete with no faces. With his navy, My **** navy, blowing up speedboats outside a sovereign nation (Venezuela) with no evidence of drug dealing or terrorism. With...

Well, what we got in 2016 was the most terrible president in my baby boomer lifetime. And that took a lot, because just about all of them before him did nothing to help working stiffs. In 2020 the big money Democratic machine pushed, in my estimation, the worst...

On April 4th, 1967, almost one year before the empire took him out, Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous anti Vietnam War speech at Riverside Church in NYC. Please note that after this remarkably written and given speech, many of his political, media and wealthy...

Ask yourself this: Knowing what horrific genocidal revenge that Israel has dished out since Oct, 2023, why have both the Biden and now Trump 2 regimes enabled it? I mean it is one thing to simply ' Look the other way' to remain somewhat neutral, but to continually...

Oh boy, 1970 was a crucial year for this writer. Nineteen years old and just baptized into activism on May 5th, with no celebration for Cinco de Mayo that year. My campus at Brooklyn College was closed down by the mass of students like myself who were pissed off at...

I have spent my entire life since the age of five as a sports fan ( standing in our living room watching Johnny Podres finish off the Yankees for the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers' world championship on a tiny black and white TV). Played four years as a wide receiver at...

In 1961 Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted experiments on obedience. Basically, he set up a fake testing office whereupon two volunteers would be participants each time. Actually, there was only one volunteer each time, as the other was a...

I gotta get back to doing standup comedy. I mean the **** is so smelly and deep no matter where you look. Don't you just love those countless television and radio commercials showing Americans how those lovely corporations are there ' To help you'? I...

An ocean of time goes flying by for the 32 years we are sidekicks. This writer has had many male friends, who, at the time, were my sidekick. Eddie, Tommy, Carmine, Warren were pals who I hung out with, played ball with, chased after women with, cried on each other's...

As a student of metaphysics since my college days, I have finally realized the truth. You can spend all the millions of hours reading Edgar Cayce, Astrology books, Past life testimonials and of course the best book I ever read, The Autobiography of a Yogi by...

There are three major motion pictures that every working stiff should watch... and recommend to others. The first such film ( and of course there are so many more) this writer recommends is Martin Ritt's 1970 The Molly Maguires. Inside the disgrace of the feudal...

Let's get it out there, as the kids in my 1960s youth would exclaim 'Damn Straight'!! All those fellow citizens of mine who still drink the Trump led Republican Party Kool-Aid, shame on you! Goddamn it, they just followed the leader and made sure the Super Rich got...

When you find out the woman you have loved for 32 years is terminal, reality sets in completely. The evil fed beast of greed, selfishness and lack of empathy stands there through the camera lens, with such arrogance. One wonders how the MAGA WORLD feels today when...

The group of Ascended Masters stood outside of the station. As the train pulled in it was Jesus The Anointed One who spoke first. "Fellow Masters, take a good look at this sight, for this is the reason we are all down here." This was Purgatory, the only place other...

I met David in sixth grade. We seemed to hit if off from the start. I had forgotten that we played against each other in Little League. Funny how some things escape us while other, more insignificant ones, stay with us seemingly forever. Not only were the two of us in...

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

In Eric Kurlander's 2017 book Hitler's Monsters he sums up the whole 'Fuehrer Messiah Complex' in a nutshell: "In the Nazi version of history and politics, Hitler figured as a redeemer who would save the German nation and lead a godly realm to an ultimate victory over...

When you're a five year old you really don't know what is occurring away from your focus. There I was, a little boy from the streets of Brooklyn, NY, USA now transported to some farm in the country. That meant upstate NY with all kinds of animals flowing by me like in...

A must see for everyone concerned about the state of our Republic is Petra Costa's 2024 documentary Apocalypse in the Tropics. Ms. Costa captures the essence of the far right wing evangelical movement in Brazil that pushed Jair Bolsonaro into the presidency in 2018....

Before one can tell a tale properly one needs to go further back in time. Five years before I was born my mother gave birth to a dead child. She carried the fetus for the entire term and then, horrifically, the baby strangled on the umbilical cord and was delivered...

Amazing how so many so called 'Good Christians' don't know squat about the man they worship as their redeemer. Those people have been encamped inside the MAGA tent that they obviously forgot, or never knew, what the man from Nazareth taught: "Let each of you look not...

It was 80 years ago that George Orwell's book Animal Farm was published. The last words of the book sum up what we now have been experiencing in Amerika: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was...

I realize that many of my neighbors decided to follow the leader, not once, but now twice, and elect this craziness. All that I ask is that those of you who are NOT very wealthy, and are working stiffs like this writer, to look closely at this Trump Train. While you...

The US Army, perhaps in need of more ‘boots on the sand’, is revving up its ad campaigns. The latest television ad says it plain and clear: Warriors Wanted! And why not just appeal to the childlike, video game raised young men and women to join up? Then they can get...

Having someone close to me with a severe mental condition as the needles of American Fascism penetrate my psyche is much too much. The boob tube lies to me about what Israel is doing to Gaza and now Iran. Having neighbors surrounding me who are either oblivious to...

Interesting how we have three countries that are led by people who don't know a rat's ass about their Creator. Look at what develops when all those hypocrites assume power and influence. My nation has not just a MAGA movement, but an infiltration by so called 'Lovers...

...on January 6th, 2021 at the Capitol Building, NOT in Los Angeles! It must be difficult, Donald, to keep getting instructions from your core of Neo Fascist minions (or is it handlers?) like the new Goebbels Stephen Miller and the new Himmler Steve Bannon. Or was it...

I just returned from the supermarket. Was in the produce section checking out the lemons. A shopper  was nearby, a 60 something woman who was dressed like myself in a strictly working class attire . I remarked how the lemons were highly priced and  " You need a...

He was my dad, and he most likely never had a chance for a better life. He was born in 1915 to a Sicilian father and Neapolitan mother, both immigrants. When Alphonse was ten, he lost all his teeth from  gum disease. Then, at seventeen, at the onset of the Great...

For decades this writer has been getting flak from friends and associates for my belief that this life is nothing but a dream. My readings of Indian yogi and mystic Yogananda reveal how the Hindus and other Eastern religions hold this to be true: The 3rd dimension we...

In 1973 I was still a somewhat naive college senior ready to face the business world. My major had been in Speech and Theater, with a minor in Sociology. As the year was ending and the new one upon us, I was engaged to be married and needed to find secure employment....

It was a hot, sunny Saturday afternoon in late May, 1970. I always went to the 5 PM Mass at  St Edmunds Catholic Church to avoid the regular crowds. Once there I stood in my usual place, which was back by the exit door. This day there was this other guy standing right...

  We have someone running what they call ' Homeland Security' ( or should we say ' Fatherland Security'?) who actually looks and acts like her counterparts from Germany circa 1940. This former Governor of South Dakota, with a population about the same as my...

I've got a chip on my shoulder that's bigger than my feet I can't talk to people that I meet If I could see you now I'd try to make you sad somehow But I can't, so I'll cry instead Kudos to the Beatles for this passage from their 1964 song I'll Cry Instead. Obviously...

She was the oldest of three girls born right before WW1. A very smart kid, she excelled in grade school right through high school. Great with numbers, she was a natural to become an accountant. No way. Her father needed her to get to work and earn money to help the...

Now, most students of the early years of Nazi run Germany can see the truth of it all. Meaning how the far right wing of American political life took ideas from that horrific playbook. Reagan and co. decided to use blacks and browns living in our ghettos as the...

Sometimes you can almost inhale memories of the past, regardless of how long ago they were. Imagine, 55 years has flown through the time tunnel of this baby boomer's incarnation and it feels like yesterday. May 4th, 1970 was a very traumatic day for us anti war...

A great definition of evil is "the condition of being immoral, cruel, or bad, or an act of this type" This writer and his wife volunteered some years ago to deliver lunch for Meals on Wheels in our town. Most of our elderly neighbors were somewhat homebound and looked...

This writer recalls after the 9/11 horror speaking to an old friend who lived in Queens, NYC. The news was coming out about how the government was detaining Muslims ( many of them American citizens). It was similar to what ICE is currently doing for the Trump...

With a play on words from the Dylan song, here we have it. My country, the one I have loved since my childhood, is fading fast. Now, with this MAGAWORLD phenomenon ( I say that sparingly) the greatness of America is not what it once was. Please don't criticize this...

Everyone this Easter and Passover season should watch Michael Anderson's 1968 film The Shoes of the Fisherman. Matter of fact just tune into the last 10 minutes. You will see the new Russian Pope, played by Anthony Quinn, telling his followers and the world how to...

Of all the things that every American must use is toilet paper. You can be a billionaire who can afford to hire someone to wipe you rear end, or a homeless unfortunate, we all need that paper. Imagine all the tons of it that has to be made, shipped and sold to the...

Lots of ironic and contradictory things to consider folks. First off, is it weird that since many believe there is but One Creator, why all the infighting? It seems that each of the leading religions of the world refer to God as Christ, Allah, Brahma, Shiva, Yahweh,...

I love it how just about everyone, from all points of the political spectrum, swears we are a 'Democracy'. Tell that to the school teacher, the small businessman, the truck driver who wishes to hold statewide or federal elected office. As my fellow Italian American...

In Charles Dicken's classic novel Scrooge, later made into the great film ' A Christmas Carol' , we see Ebenezer Scrooge being paid a visit at his office on Christmas Eve. The men visiting him are looking for donations to help the poor and destitute: “At this festive...

They claim that almost half of the eligible electorate do not vote. Why do you think that is? Others, like this writer, who are socialists, have ' Bit the tongue' and voted for the Foxes AKA Democrats, simply to keep the Wolves AKA Republicans at bay. This time...

Pink Floyd had it right on with their 1973 song Money: Money, get away Get a good job with more pay and you're okay Money, it's a gas Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash New car, caviar, four-star daydream Think I'll buy me a football team Money, get back...

Before I begin on the Democrats, allow me to make this assertion: The Republican Party, for as long as this baby boomer can remember, are but a pack of wolves. They devour anything that is for working stiffs and the poor and indigent. Recently, the Republicans are...

I interviewed author Aaron Glantz two years ago about his 2020 bestseller Homewreckers for my internet radio show on our website Itstheempirestupid.com. Glantz put tons of research into his book, and it boggles the mind as to how far down the rabbit hole our nation...

My old man got screwed by his Used Car partner right before I was born. He wound up declaring personal bankruptcy after Amos forged his name on a bank loan. Thank goodness my grandfather, my Mom's dad, found him employment on the docks. Grandpa Phil had at one time...

The fall from grace can be so deep. Here he was, 36 and broke. Divorced, with two little angels that he saw at least twice a week, regardless of what his ex felt. He had definitely ' Made his own bed' when he blew the cash from the sale of his dying business two years...

No, this is not about the ocean or surfboards. It's about the current economic and cultural climate we are living in. While the Democratic Party turned a mostly deaf ear to the ills of our working stiffs... for decades, their adversaries, the Republican Wolves, have...

Amazing how truth can stand up to time, sometimes in such a sad way. Check out the 1970 Black Sabbath song ' War Pigs' and compare it to today's insanity: War Pigs A Song by Black Sabbath Generals gathered in their masses Just like witches at black masses Evil minds...

The passing of the torch of One Party/Two Party government has begun. Now, don't get me wrong folks, this MAGA return to power is definitely the 'Stronger of two evils'. No doubt about it, from more tax cuts for the Super Rich, mass deportations of low wage farm...

If one was making his life into a movie, Larry would be played by Michael Richards AKA Kramer. He was 6' 2 with that same kooky hair that Kramer had. Always slouched down a bit, with the quintessential cigarette dangling from his mouth, Larry didn't walk... he marched...

In John Sayles 1987 film Matewan, concerning the 1920 coal miners’ strike in West Virginia, not all cops were of the same ilk as the Baldwin-Felts private detectives. Those ‘rent a cops’ were deputized by the authorities, at the behest of the powerful mining...

In 1965 Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote the giant hit song made popular by singer Jackie Deshannon , What the World Needs Now is Love. I enclose the lyrics: What the World Needs Now Is Love What the world needs now is love, sweet love It's the only thing, that...

He loved his brother, from the time he realized he had one. Three years older than him, his brother always had that allure of someone way up upon a pedestal. As a four year old sitting in the apartment kitchen with his mother and paternal grandmother, he could get so...

He was working as a wood craftsman when the ICE agents showed up at the jobsite. A few of his fellow workers started to flee the premises, but he stood there with his tools in his hands. The agents grabbed him, threw him to the ground and handcuffed him. HIs brow...

Funny how so many ‘ so called’ Christians kneel and perform such pomp and circumstance every December 25th. All the beautiful Christmas decorations and wonderful seasonal songs are in fitting tribute to … WHAT?   Do any of the myriad of hypocrites and phony spiritual...

He was Santa Claus every holiday season at the local mall. The photography company built a beautiful ' Santa's Workshop ' in the main lobby of the Kings Plaza, Brooklyn mall. There he would sit, usually in the late afternoons and evenings, after his college classes...

He knew he was late, but what could he do? The kid has a fever and his wife was herself late for her school crossing job. Since he was on commission and she had to be there at that street corner on time, he had to comfort their three year old until Gloria showed up....

Dylan's song resonates well with this writer, causing me to come to tears. Why? Well, look around you citizens of this Amerikan empire. Like lab rats running nowhere inside a maze with no exit, working stiffs and the poor and indigent cannot find a way out of this...

It was another cold, clammy Chicago January morning. The Serbian was up at the actual ' break of dawn' preparing for work. He had recently gotten his green card and steady work was more of a luxury. His muscular look had gotten him a laborer's job at a construction...

On this wonderful ( and commercial driven) day off from work or school we need to give thanks. The super rich, mega millionaires and billionaires alike, are what's keeping our nation afloat. After all, it is they who pay so much in taxes compared to the rest of us. So...

Rick Perlstein's 2020 bestseller Reaganland is a must read for many reasons. First and foremost this 900 or so pages book reads like a novel... Perlstein is that great a storyteller. He covers the rise of the right wing in our nation, focusing from Jimmy Carter's...

Op ED Commentary What Israel is doing to Gaza, and what the settlers are doing in the West Bank, are heinous acts. What Hamas did on Oct 7th was equally heinous when civilians are murdered. When open minded people read my pom (permanently in the Simon Wiesenthal...

They attribute the famous quote ' Let them eat cake' to Marie Antoinette, Queen Consort of King Louis XIV of France. Apparently, she was told that the peasants did not have enough bread to eat. Her retort Let them eat cake, famous for all the Super Rich throughout...

The divorce was powerfully negative. No one is right when everyone is wrong. Yet, he still could enjoy those two little munchkins. Picking them up from elementary school on released time Weds. and shooting over to Brennan & Carr for an early dinner. The oldest...

Sailing back listening to Pink Floyd's classic Comfortably Numb. The mood of melancholia is mixed with a musical yearning for something seemingly out of my reach. As the song ends I get tossed hard into the current reality. Oh, how  I wish I could replay that song ad...

Every American who has even the slightest interest in our political and electoral system should watch the 1964 classic film Seven Days In May. Director John Frankenheimer, along with screenwriter Rod Serling ( he of The Twilight Zone fame) , captured the essence of...

It wasn't the pandemic  or the slew of hurricanes that has been killing my country. No sir. The ever growing monster called Empire has been devouring our republic for decades. The Super Rich who have always controlled this scam and labeled it democracy laugh every...

The dictionary defines abyss as "A Deep or seemingly bottomless chasm." Look around you folks and realize just how far down that rabbit hole we have fallen. You turn on the boob tube and try to watch a NFL football game. The teams are owned by billionaires . The...

The 1960 Stanley Kramer classic film ' Inherit the Wind' is a must see for everyone, especially our young middle and high school students. This film focused on the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial when a teacher was arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee. Yet nearly 100...

Many thanks to Bob Dylan's great song of the same name. What rankles me is how so many of my friends, neighbors and acquaintances seem to accept how far down the rabbit hole our Amerikan society has fallen. We live under the broken umbrella of an nation whose...

When you're 20, playing college football, chasing girls and barely keeping enough passing grades to stay out of the draft, what could be better? That was this writer in the fall of '70, at the height of the Vietnam debacle ( I never would call it a war). Just...

Sitting here watching, for the umpteenth time, the Jonathan  Demme directed remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Early on in the film the Denzel Washington character says to his troubled former infantry mate " It's over. It's done. Ya gotta move on." So it is with...

Sometimes when one looks back at what was in the deeper past speculations become conclusions. This is what it was concerning Richie D. When this writer was six or seven I can remember Richie D. who was a year or two older than me. My family and that of most of my...

Boy oh boy, the Neo Con Democratic Party sure knows how to dismantle things. Think of this: They had the right wing Republicans on their heels with the Dobbs decision on abortion. Probably hundreds of millions of American women had a genuine 'Hissy Fit' over their...