You turn on any recent professional sport competition and you see the obscene propaganda. Before the game starts they call out the honor guard ( many times dressed in camouflage) carrying the flag, as they have the singer belt out our anthem. Where is this ' War' that...

Ironic how more of these white on black or brown killings are appearing. In 2011 Renaud Camus wrote a book The Great Replacement, focusing on the white population of France. He warned that the ' Powers that be' , especially Jews, were consciously allowing more and...

In previous columns I named our country ' MoronAmerica', not just for those who run things and rule us, but for the public in general. Now, I say ' in general' because obviously with over 300 million of us, there are many wise souls, who shall we say bluntly, ' Know...

Apathy!! Add that one to the list of: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. Sadly, the dumb down nature of our country lends for the nurturing of apathy. Travel through the supermarkets, Main Streets, malls and just about anywhere that Americans...

Sitting here by my keyboard listening to Pink Floyd's ' Comfortably Numb'. It flows into the recesses of my sad and tired mind... Like the joke of the horse sitting at the counter of the bar and the bartender saying to him " Why the long face?" The only way to escape...

We have memories, like flashes of lightning from afar- now we see them, now we don't. Yet, one can almost call upon them at will, these bits and pieces of our lives, once so vivid, once so real, filed forever as  nostalgia. So it is for me, 60 plus years after the...

Remember Captain Renault ( Claude Rains) in Casablanca when he had them close Rick's Cafe Americain. Rick (Humphrey Bogart) runs to him and says " Why are ya shutting me down?" Renault shouts back " There's gambling going on here." At that moment the croupier runs...

In the land of the ignorant. The dictionary defines ignorant as ' Lacking knowledge, information or awareness of a particular thing' . It seems, regardless of the level of education obtained by many of my fellow citizens, we have always been a nation of ignorance. How...

As the clairvoyant escorted me down the stairs to her office, the first impression that tickled me was the crystals. I mean, her desk's  table top housed the biggest crystal I had ever seen. It had a prism of colors contained within it that seemed to set the mood for...

Obviously, what the Trump Thumpers attempted to do on January 6th one year ago was a form of 'Coup de tat'. Such actions should be met with every means legally available to our federal government. lmagine if those of us in the Anti War/Anti Empire community, or those...

There's a new group in town, or should I say throughout this nation. Splintering off from the gang of white supremacists who called  themselves Vanguard America in 2017 (after one of them ran over an anti fascist protestor in Charlottesville, Virginia) we now have The...

From Pink Floyd's song Eclipse from the 1973 album ' Dark Side of the Moon' it ends with " There is no dark side of the moon really... It's ALL dark!" So it is with our current nation, the republic that is supposed to stand for true democracy, rotted to the core by...

As a baby boomer who had a few neighbors of mine killed in Vietnam AKA ' The Shit ' as the soldiers called it, veterans celebrations piss me off! Since the Vietnam debacle we have had many other foreign interventions' that sacrificed American military lives... for no...

He just turned 19 and Summer was approaching. He had always found part time jobs while attending college. His parents had this rule about allowances- non existent. And he liked that because there was nothing like earning his own money. It was usually spending money...

Back in the 60s and 70s the drugs of choice were marijuana, LSD and heroin. Though the Beatles may have actually never wrote in I am the Walrus, but the refrain was popular as hell: " Everybody smokes pot".  For most of my peers, the ones who learned to grow their...

The sunshine sneaking through the shades tickled enough to awaken. He rubbed his tired eyes and sighed. Last night was still resonating from his hazy memory. He suddenly jumped up, realizing he never took off his face. Stumbling into the bathroom he reached the sink,...

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

He didn't stay long... again. She practically begged for him to stay and have breakfast with her. He said he couldn't. She knew the truth. He didn't love her... never did, maybe never could. Yet, when they lay in bed for hours, embraced in heated passion, he seemed so...

He loved horseracing ever since childhood. He remembered going to one of the local bars with his dad on many a Saturday morning. He was perhaps 5 or 6, and his pop would sit him up on one of the bar stools saying ' Give the kid a coke , I'll be back in a few minutes...

Here he was, sitting Indian style on his attic apartment carpet, crying like a baby. Another love affair dosed like kids at an open fire hydrant during a heat wave. He had finally believed that someone loved him for nothing more than himself... and she reneged. When...

We who are so easily dismissed as 'Conspiracy Nuts' know, both intuitively and through careful research, that there was lots more about what really went down the morning of September 11th, 2001. When I first read David Ray Griffin's 2004 bestseller 9/11 The New Pearl...

Professor Noam Chomsky was interviewed recently about war and peace. One of the facts that he mentioned, which of course NO ONE in our embedded mainstream media ever reports is this: " Some background facts may be useful.  According to the major international monitor,...

He remembers the first night he started his gig a L & B Spumoni Gardens. Since his childhood he had always gone there for the best square pizza AKA Sicilian Pizza. Many a Friday night his Dad, Mom and his older brother would climb into the family car ( in those...

Well, you can see on the literally thousands of clips showing the chaos in Afghanistan... as if it only wasn't  always like this. Twenty years ago the Junior Bush Cabal , as I label them, decided to listen to their empire handlers and create a Phony War in Afghanistan...

Director Chloe Zhao has created a somber, almost tragic look back, look now and look to the possible future for many of us working stiffs. The film is called Nomadland ( 2021) starring Frances McDormand as Fern, a 60 something widow forced out of her previous life and...

In David Oshinsky's fine biography of Senator Joseph McCarthy (A Conspiracy so Immense) we learn of the political climate in the early 1950s concerning the ( supposed ) threat of Communism. What many do not understand about Sen. McCarthy was that he was not the first...

If one reads Richard Condon's 1958 novel The Manchurian Candidate or sees the original film (1962) or its remake (2004) one would realize my comparison to today's events. In the novel ( and films ) we see a patrol of US soldiers being captured and then brainwashed by...

If you're a working stiff with some sense of rhyme or reason, you should feel them near. They come in all shapes and sizes, these predators. For starters we have the ever-present War Sharks. These are the gung ho wave the flag gang, made up of Pentagon sharks and the...

Now I don't recall what rank Gov. Ron DeSantis had in the Navy, while over in Iraq or Afghanistan, fighting the ' Good Fight'. After all, those countries have water ... oh, maybe I mean drinking water or sewage water. I will just call him ' Captain Ron' for purposes...

A must read for all who wish to study our Civil War history is Barnet Schecter's 2005 book The Devil's Own Work. He carefully covers the 1863 NYC Draft Riots, the major and important Civil War battles, and finally, the Reconstruction years leading up to the 1868...

Everyone should view Wagner DeAssis's 2011 Portuguese film Astral City... especially those of us who dissent against injustice. Isn't that a contradiction, some would ask? Perhaps, if dissent is meant to be the sole possession of atheists, agnostics and 100%...

Kudos to Bob Dylan for his great 60s song ' It's All Over Now Baby Blue ' . HIs lyrics, as usual, can fit into any social and political commentary: You must leave, now take what you need You think will last But whatever you wish to keep You better grab it fast Yonder...

Well, as a baby boomer who has seen lots of instances of the empire using MY flag as their own private property, this newest one ' takes the cake'. I mean, my generation went through the whole ' America, love it or leave it' rhetoric during the Vietnam debacle. Many...

The husband always loved cats, especially kittens. He remembered being five years old and seeing his neighbor next door having this basket laid out on the pavement. It was filled with a momma cat and her five baby kittens. He petted the momma and then proceeded to...

In the early 70s the Rolling Stones sized it up for we working stiffs in their song 'Luxury':  I want a real fine car, fly Miami too All the rum, I want to drink it, all the whiskey too My woman need a new dress, my daughter got to go to school I'm working so hard,...

Baby You’re a Rich Man The Beatles How does it feel to be One of the beautiful people Now that you know who you are What do you want to be And have you traveled very far Far as the eye can see How does it feel to be One of the beautiful people How often have you been...

You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand You see somebody naked and you say, “Who is that man?” You try so hard but you don’t understand Just what you will say when you get home Because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is Do you, Mr....

A must see movie for all Americans is " Inherit the Wind" ( 1960, Stanley Kramer, Director). To those who never saw this film, it accurately portrays the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. The trial of substitute high school teacher John Scopes was for...

He blesses the boys as they stand in line The smell of gun grease and the bayonets they shine He's there to help them all that he can To make them feel wanted he's a good holy man. Sky pilot... Sky pilot How high can you fly? You'll never, never, never reach the sky....

In Mark Wortman’s impressive historical account of the lead-up to WW2 here in America, 1941 , Fighting the Shadow War, one becomes amazed at what went on then. We can still have debates as to whether the US should have gotten into the European conflict or not before...

One of our nation's greatest novelists, Sinclair Lewis once wrote that " When Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." Are we soon to be approaching that Rubicon? January 6th , 2021 will go down in American history either as A) The...

This baby boomer had lived most of his life under the thumb of a landlord. It was always the same refrain : The landlord did as little as could be done for the tenant. This is just the way it is in a capitalist society. Before this current era of the absentee...

Many Americans can see for their own eyes how people from low income areas speak, due to the overwhelming news coverage ( finally ) of police killings of unarmed blacks. When there are equally disturbing instances of murders within areas where low income whites and...

Wikipedia defines Kapos , which originated from the German concentration camps, as the following:  Kapos were inmates of Nazi camps who were appointed as guards to oversee other prisoners in various tasks. There were three main types of Kapos : work supervisors, block...

May 26, 2016 Growing up in what we considered "Beautiful  Brooklyn" in the 50s and 60s, who would wish to live anywhere else? We had tree-lined streets and neighborhoods that were like little villages back in those "good old days." Every main avenue contained a slew...

Perhaps baseball, once our national pastime, should return to that position. After all, in what other sport does stealing (and cheating) become celebrated? The cheating part I will come to a bit later in this column. For now, anyone who follows baseball even but a bit...

The two figures strolled in the most relaxed manner, until they came upon what many up there call ' The Edge of Heaven'.  They stood on the precipice and together peered down, below the ethers,  through the stratosphere and then the clouds, until they could view the...

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

For those who have read my previous work you know how I feel about landlords, especially absentee ones... and most especially corporate ones! In the mid 1990s my new wife and I ( each with one kid )  moved from Long Island, N.Y. to Indianapolis IN. Quite candidly, we...

Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste I've been around for a long, long years Stole million man's soul an faith And I was 'round when Jesus Christ Had his moment of doubt and pain Made damn sure that Pilate Washed his hands and sealed his...

Perhaps it was those bright red MAGA caps or the humongous banners they waved as they marched upon the Capitol building. Perhaps it was the torches carried, so conveniently at night, and the chants of ' Blood and Soil' and ' Jews will not replace us' by those mostly...

This writer does love sports, especially football and baseball. I was raised as a baby boomer with literally a football, a bat and glove in my hands 24/7. The only time us kids tossed aside those items and scooted upstairs was when our Moms yelled out ' It's Howdy...

This writer has been a student of the Holocaust since childhood, with my Poem/Plaque "Never Again"  in the Wiesenthal Holocaust museum in Los Angeles. I recently found out, through Ancestry, that I am 8% Jewish, but that should not matter at all. Basically, one's...

Being a conspiracy theorist, except for some of the Q-Anon sidetracking, this writer sees clearer than most. For many, the choices around events can be defined as 'Glass being half full' or 'Glass being half empty'. Perhaps the reality may be that there is NO glass...

He was pissed! Really pissed! How could that purchasing agent asshole do this!? What a way to start his week. As it was he hated Mondays, always! The new week brought the same anxieties all the time. You work on straight commission and this is the way it is. He...

He kept looking at his watch as he drove along Coney Island Ave. Why was he so anxious when he had driven this route every Saturday morning since late March? He was just taking his youngest son to the kid's Pony League baseball game, so why nervous now? He knew why,...

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...

"Nothing ever seems to last promises made promises lost and pride is kept at any cost and flowers die and children cry and lonely people carry on." She was tired, but not too tired to go to work. Matter of fact, she was lucky to be able to have a job. So many of her...

You look at what they call  ' The Industrialized world' and you can get a feel for how they run their democracies. Canada, France, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and Scotland, to name a few, all have at least FIVE  viable political parties. Germany and Italy have...

The guys and gals at work always called him ' Mr. MAGA' for several reasons. One, he always wore that red hat wherever he went. Two, he was ' In ' with Trump from 2015 when the guy first entered the presidential race. When he had a day off, or decided to take one, he...

Before I go on with my thoughts on the use of persuasion by demagogues like Donald Trump, we need to understand how powerful a system of obedience can be. There are two past studies that this writer recommends which get to the heart of the use of obedience to shape an...

Lovers of real American history should recall the words uttered by the late, great newsman and newscaster Edward R. Murrow about Senator Joe McCarthy. During the height of the political witch hunts orchestrated and influenced by the late Senator (AKA McCarthyism)...

She works hard for her money, as the song relates. She’s the cleaning lady, the one who gets on her knees and scrubs your toilet of all the things that none of us would ever wish to look at, let alone touch. She mops and dusts and vacuums your house for $60 to $90...

Two weeks before Christmas and the darn stove broke. She had the ham butt in the fridge and was really looking forward for her first big dinner in the new place. Having just, six months earlier, relocated to Florida from Flat Broke Mississippi, she wanted to at least...

Bleak was something he could easily relate to, especially now. He didn't know which bothered him more, the bitter Detroit December cold, or his jobless situation. When he was going strong, along with the economy, being a massage therapist was great. He made really...

Please remember that in 1961 when JFK took office the top bracket for federal income tax was at 90%. Now, we all should know that no one in that top bracket actually paid at 90%. That is what a slew of deductions and bright accountants were for. When Reagan took...

Spanning some 60 years of employment, this writer has some conclusions. Of course, these are from my own personal experiences. Yet, having spoken with a myriad of working stiffs over the years, perhaps this analysis is valid. During those 60 years of work, I think...

Ok, you all should know about blood transfusions. Watch any of the hospital shows on the boob tube and see how, in dire emergencies, they rush to do blood transfusions. Well, guess what? The depression level financial crisis for us working stiffs is here. Now, many of...

Go get Rick Perlstein's great book Reaganland: America's Right Turn, 1976-1980 and see how we got here from 'There', the turn to the right wing in the dawning of Reagan's presidency. Even the slogan that Trump 'borrowed' from the Reagan campaigns: "Let's Make America...

We were all taught in grade school of the story of the 'Trojan Horse'. In its war with Troy the Greeks built a gift of a giant horse. They informed the Trojans that, after 10 years of war, they had had enough. Once inside of Troy, the Greek horse, filled with armed...

The 1980 film Brubaker starring Robert Redford, based on a true story, had one scene that told it all.  Reform warden Henry Brubaker gets fired for seeking to uncover past corruption surrounding the penitentiary. As he is walking away down the hallway, his friend...

I usually agree with most of what columnist Caitlin Johnstone offers. Yet, in her latest Op Ed she says that a vote for Biden was NOT against fascism, which will continue now that he is in office. Sorry Caitlin, I agree with Prof. Cornell West on this election. We...

In Francis Ford Coppola's second Godfather film we see Michael Corleone, head of the most powerful Mafia family in the country, having a ' tete de tete' with Nevada Senator Pat Geary. The Senator, as crooked as the Corleones, is attempting to shake down Don Corleone...

Our republic is being crucified by minions of evil portraying themselves as patriots. Yes, to all those like this writer who see through this Military Industrial Empire, regardless of which party runs it: The nails have been driven deeper than ever before! The far...

The late, great Rod Serling narrated that famous intro of his television show The Twilight Zone: " You are travelling through another dimension- a dimension of not only sight and sound but of mind... ". Well, dear children, we are arriving into this 21st Century '...

From a recent report by the Insider publication:  " George Floyd and Officer Derek Chauvin actually worked for the same Minneapolis night club- Chauvin as a security guard for many years, and Floyd as a bouncer during 2019." It begs the question of just how well these...

Among the infinity of unknowns about Covid 19 there is one incontrovertible fact: It is not another Black Death or Spanish Influenza.  Deadly as it is, it will not kill a third of Europe’s population or 100 million people worldwide. Contingent on that fact is an...

Sinclair Lewis wrote an important novel in 1935, It Can't Happen Here. In the fictitious book, based on the threats at the time of fascism taking root in the USA, we see how this virus spread. As with Philip Roth's 2004 novel The Plot Against America we see how...

It's been over 25 years since that glorious warm , blue sky summer day at Belmont Park Racetrack. I not only remember it so well , but I can almost inhale that special racetrack smell, the combination of disinfectant merged with horse manure. The moment you walked...

Singer/Songwriter Neil Young wrote the song ' Four Dead in Ohio' for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: Four Dead In Ohio Lyrics Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'. We're finally on our own. This summer I hear the drummin'. Four dead in Ohio. Gotta get down to it. Soldiers...

He was standing there, in the middle of the school yard,...alone. At first I envisioned him as a pitcher, standing on the mound with a field full of players, some behind him, and  some facing him, in the middle of a game. No, he was standing all alone, dressed in an...

We have memories, like flashes of lightning from afar- now we see them, now we don’t. Yet, one can almost call upon them at will, these bits and pieces of our lives, once so vivid, once so real, filed forever as  nostalgia. So it is for me, fifty years after the fact....

The night was still... so very silent... ominous for that matter. It seemed at first, or rather smelled, the similar essence of any evening in Spring. The air had about it that perfumed scent of the garden, the trees and the flowers, now so awake and alive by the...

From the ' Book of Revelations' in the New Testament God sent forth the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ( White Horse, Black Horse, Red Horse and Pale Horse ) or as Ezekiel lists them: " Sword , Famine, Wild Beasts and Plague". Well, this NEW set of Four Horsemen are...

This writer is not one to always single out certain members of our Embedded in Empire mainstream media. To me, they are all sellouts. Why? Well, let's look at what transpired just last evening on Anderson Cooper's CNN news talk show. As a preface, we know that...

The old adage should say : Nothing is certain but death and taxes... and Karma. Karma is as real as it gets. The various holy books made sure to state that ' What ye sow so shall ye reap' AKA ' What goes around comes around.'  Karma has many flavors, but the end...

Shame on YOU. Ok, one need not be a financial genius or economist to know that in 2008-09 Uncle Sam gave away the store to the failing Wall Street banks and investment corporations. We paid for it, you and me working stiff taxpayers, to the tune of well over one...

The CIA’s assassination of  President John Kennedy in 1963 is the foundational event in the invisible government’s takeover of the United States. Some of us have been repeating this for years, only to be dismissed with the CIA-coined term “conspiracy theorists.” Bob...

Since we are the only major industrialized nation to have but two political parties with any clout, the corporate masters can control everything... and they do! You have the DemonCrats and of course the RepugnantCans, neither the ' Party of FDR' or ' The Party of...

Of course, the worst pandemic of the 21st century is out and about us. Italy is now in a 'lockdown' state and throughout most of the world people are in a panic mode. And why not? Viruses like this Corona Virus can kill. Yet, in the world of politics there have been,...

This writer has watched countless boxing matches over the years, and has seen how in many instances ' The Fix is in'. The powers that be want a certain prospect to move up the ranks, they ' Fix ' it. With boxing all you needed was two judges and maybe the referee, and...

What are the political ‘takeaways’ from yesterday’s South Carolina primary? In just few words: not many. None that change the fundamental dynamics that have in play throughout the primaries in general thus far to date. Biden bought himself some time, at the expense of...

sure as hell hope so. I’ve been going through a rough patch these last few years. My search for true love has been disastrous. I suppose this is not unusual, but for it to be concentrated in just a few years has made me quite desperate. I am thinking about embarking...

Channel surfing yesterday and all the empire’s main ( so called ) media had the same breaking news. The jury came out and finally got the #MeToo movement’s poster boy, fat, dirty Harvey Weinstein. Well, dirty Harvey deserved what he got coming to him, even if half of...

The Beatles, with an assist on backup vocals by none other than Mick Jagger, had this hit song in  1967  : How does it feel to be One of the beautiful people? Now that you know who you are. What do you want to be? And have you travelled very far? Far as the eyes can...

Years ago the late great historian and author Gore Vidal came up with that phrase ‘Perpetual War’. He knew, that even back to the early days of our republic, we are a nation predicated on Perpetual War. Whether it be war on Native Americans ( who were here way before...

There’s an early scene in Terrence Malik’s masterful new film – what I would call a moving painting – where the central character Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant farmer from an isolated small mountainous village who refuses to take an oath to Hitler and fight...

This writer just interviewed Aaron Glantz on his new bestselling book Homewreckers. This is more than a ‘must read’… it is a ‘Have to Immediately Read’! Glantz covers the beginnings and the rash aftermath of the 2008 Subprime Housing bubble. Even though I have...

Kudos to the 1941 W.C. Fields comedy film “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break” for the inspiration. Well, this certainly does fit with what is transpiring now in our American Empire. This writer lives in an area I have always labeled as Death Valley USA, this Daytona...

In Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland Alice chases the white rabbit and falls down the well into a world of silliness and nonsense. Not so for our dear Amerika and us working stiffs. The world that we have found ourselves in may be nonsensical, but surely much more...

Now, we all know that there is not a chance that I will be elected president. I guess I have as much of a chance as poor Bernie Sanders has with this current and corrupt Democratic Party. In his case this writer has even changed my political affiliation from Green...

It’s really interesting how many of us equate how the love of God should be expressed. Many religions dictate that we who care should restrict ourselves to doing good deeds and NOT becoming too rebellious towards the ‘things of the world’. Hogwash! Just look at the...

e live in a fabricated reality where the visible world became nearly meaningless once the screen world became people’s “window on the world.” An electronic nothingness replaced reality as people gleefully embraced digital wraparound apparitions. These days people...

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” MLK As Martin Luther King’s birthday is celebrated with a national holiday, his death day disappears down the memory hole.  Across the country – in response to the King...

Now, get this straight. I am not a ' Democratic Socialist' or a supporter of the Democratic Party. Yes, I just changed my political affiliation here in Florida so I can vote for Sanders in the upcoming Florida primary. My ' short term' goal is to see this retro...

This writer has always been told, since childhood, that I was a ' funny guy'. I was, and is, able to bring humor to everyday occurrences. Having attempted at times to do ' Stand Up comedy' way back when, the thought of making a career of it always crossed my mind. In...

A Star Is Always Born By Edward Curtin It is no different now. The yearning still gnaws. The night dark, utterly silent, Sky stretched endlessly back Into an infinity beyond reach. And the fears, the tears Are they any different? It is no different now. Joy sometimes,...

“Hubris” is defined as rash and foolish pride, a dangerous overconfidence, manifested with arrogance.  The Deep State vaunts our “exceptionalism”, and since Reagan’s “City on a HIll” trope Americans have been assured by all succeeding Presidents that ours is the...

It was 1956, Brooklyn , NYC, the year after our beloved Dodgers had finally won a World Series from those Damn Yankees. We kids on Dahill Road were ' The Children of Howdy Doody' , for that was the show that all five, six and seven year olds cherished each afternoon....

Every high school and college student, and all their parents and grandparents should watch Francis Ford Cappola's Apocalypse Now Redux. This is the 2001 re-cut and extended version of his 1979 classic of the same name. Set in Vietnam at the height of that war ( in...

I tune into many cooking shows lately. They all have lots of recipes for just about any kind of dish one can imagine. Well, from our 21st Century Military Industrial Empire's Cookbook the most popular recipe is this one: Take the Two Party/One Party food fight and add...