The Hawley Nonsense “Porn” Interview – A Master Class In Propaganda

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You probably think I’m going to mock this. Nope. Watch this interview. It is a master class in propaganda. What he says was obviously (to me) written in one of their well-funded think tanks. He has obviously rehearsed this. Those of us who mock it just don’t get what the real message is and how effective it is. As I keep saying, the current Republican fascist appeal all goes back to “NAFTA” – which is the brand name for the Continue Reading...

Fightin’ Joe Biden Wins big, on Jobs, Covid, the Dow and Infrastructure, but Corporate News downplays Successes

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The for-profit press thinks it knows what the story in Washington, D.C., is. Joe Biden is a boring president who struggles to get anything done and the Democratic Party is a hot mess of infighting that paralyzes it. Corporate news is the Eeyore of the news world, spreading pessimism and gloom wherever it goes. The inside-the-beltway narrative of the rich for-profit journalists fails on every point, but they keep filling the airwaves Continue Reading...

The GOP Supports Death Threats Against Officials They Disagree With

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At yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland, it became clear that for the Republican Party, threats of death and violence against elected officials at every level of government are not only acceptable, but that to speak out in even the mildest way deserves hysterical over-reaction calculated to cause officials to receive even more threats of death and violence. It's the cynical cycle of Continue Reading...

Not all Norwegians are blond, or “why we’re so diverse, but you’re all alike”

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Out-group homogeneity effect There is a concept that social psychologists refer to as out-group homogeneity effect. We perceive members of our own group to be relatively heterogeneous, i.e. we see variation. Everyone else, so-called “out-group members”, however, seem relatively homogeneous In other words, we tend to think of our group as a mosaic and people from other groups as monotone. People really do see more variation in Continue Reading...

Film Review: The Big Scary “S” Word

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Viewers of the World, Unite! As its popularity soars, socialism’s secret sauce is explored in this never pedantic, feel-good movie manifesto that will make you want to own the means of production. Director/producer Yael Bridge’s stand up and cheer The Big Scary “S” Word is one of 2020’s do-not-miss films and deserves a Best Documentary Academy Award nomination. As a producer, Bridge was Emmy co-nominated for the 2017 nonfiction film Saving Continue Reading...

Democrats Should Be Having a Five-Alarm Freak Out Over Voting Rights

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Yeah, there's a whole lot of shit that needs to get done, but right now Democrats should be freaking the fuck out over voting rights. They should be losing their fucking minds and screaming nonstop on every outlet they can find. Get your gravest, most serious senators, like Leahy or Bennett or Shaheen, and have them shitting themselves at Jake Tapper's scowl or George Stephanopoulos's hair. Because if we don't have a freak out now, then any freak Continue Reading...

Film Review: Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster

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Nonfiction Creature Feature: He’s Alive!   You don’t have to be a horror fan to enjoy Thomas Hamilton’s documentary Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster (I’m not and I did). The 90-minute nonfiction biopic has all of the conventional hallmarks of a well-made movie history doc. Of course, there are copious clips ranging from Karloff’s classics, including in the role the British actor was best known for, as Frankenstein’s monster in Continue Reading...

New Israeli government, same old smoke and mirrors

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Unless one seeks the truth, it is easy to fall for the hasbara-messaging such as ‘shrinking the conflict’ or ‘economic peace’ that Bennett keeps repeating. Israel's new government is in full swing, with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at its head. Now that Bennett has made his maiden trip to the White House as prime minister, one can confidently, albeit regretfully, acknowledge that nothing has really changed except the personalities. In Continue Reading...

The Accumulated Evil of the Whole: That time Bush and Co. made the September 11 Attacks a Pretext for War on Iraq

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Kyle Swenson at Washington Post reported in 2018 that Floridian Ishnar Lopez-Ramos was in love, but her intended only had eyes for another woman. So Ms. Lopez-Ramos enlisted two 22-year-old accomplices to target the other woman, who worked at the Ross Dress for Less at a shopping Center near Kissimee. They observed a woman fitting the description of Lopez-Ramos’s rival leaving the store. They kidnapped her and zip-tied her. Then they met Continue Reading...

4 migration factors will keep Inclusion on the Agenda for most of this Century

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Today dark clouds hang over Afghanistan as the Taliban takes over the country. The situation may soon deteriorate into a humanitarian crisis, leading to a mass exodus of refugees to neighboring countries and beyond. However the story in Afghanistan unfolds, at least four critical global developments will keep migration at the top of many country’s policy agendas for decades to come. More people crossing borders, whether as refugees or Continue Reading...

A Country on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

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The first time I saw the irrationality of large groups of adults happened when I was an adolescent in Lafayette, Louisiana. My mom took me to a parish council meeting (in case you don't know, parishes are counties but they're called "parishes" in Louisiana because Catholicism) for a debate over allowing fluoridation of the water in the community. I had asked to go because I've always been perverse that way. To my family, it seemed like the Continue Reading...

Afghanistan’s Armageddon 20 Years After 9/11 Offers Foreign Policy Choices: Groundhog Day or Imperial Reckoning?

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Wakeup Calls As the Afghanistan Armageddon unravels, this humiliating, devastating defeat for the US and its allies and the 20th anniversary of 9/11 (and who knows what may take place to mark that day?), plus the June 29 death of war monger extraordinaire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, are wakeup calls. They offer Americans the chance to reflect upon, reconsider and rethink Washington’s disastrous, interventionist foreign policy. After 20 Continue Reading...

Hyphen-ated for Life

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"Democratic representation of ‘We The People' requires an accurate ascertainment of who ‘We The People' are." ~Arab American Institute The space of identity is tight. A single identity can hardly fit into its place, yet that is what society expects. The reality of identity is much more dynamic and colorful than dry categories of some census-defined race or ethnicity. But wait. Is any generic definition a fair categorization of a Continue Reading...

COVID Vaccinations are yet another Tribal Marker

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CNN has reported that some people in Missouri are getting vaccinated in secret to avoid backlash from loved ones. And thus, Covid has offered up yet another way to demonstrate tribal loyalty. First it was face masks; now it’s vaccinations. Vaccine hesitancy has a range of underlying causes, from fears about side effects, to distrust in government, to skepticism over the risks.  I have relatives who believe Covid-19 is a Continue Reading...

Trump’s Tehran Poison Pill: US Trade Embargo provokes Iranian Attacks in Gulf, Making Return to Nuclear Deal Harder

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The BBC reports that a bitumen tanker, the MV Asphalt Princess, was boarded by nine men on Tuesday and hijacked. It cites unnamed “analysts,” presumably MI6, to the effect that the hijacking was the work of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The MV Asphalt Princess, owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was about to exit the narrow Strait of Hormuz, heading from the Gulf into the Arabian Sea. Two years ago, Iranian forces hijacked Continue Reading...