About

I began this  blog for a number of reasons.  One of them is that I believe it is the duty of all civilized people to  speak out on issues that concern us all,  that  much the more when such people perceive an injustice.

Another is that I have lost all faith in the ability of mass media to report accurately ( read: non-ideologically ) on  any  serious subject.  (That is, when they  bother to report on a serious subject seriously. )   Please note,  I  an  not putting forth the absurd argument that there is a “liberal media”  dominating and distorting  the USA.
I leave that to the mentally ill.

I am speaking of  the self evident corporate monopoly on  every form of  media and the servile offerings their “journalists”  spew forth for our consumption and every deepening intellectual and spiritual retardation.   Corporate values  —  subservience,  worship of  power,  religious devotion to authority figures,  and  a complete absence  of  any and all democratic  impulses — were long ago internalized by  such “journalists”  as they are, indeed, day by  day, insidiously internalized by  ourselves.

Yet another reason for this little blog is my certainty that if humane change is  ever going to happen in America, it  will  never flow  from the top down ( it never has )  but must be forged upwards from the street.

My writings are my little efforts in that struggle.

What is certain is this:  we have entered a stage in human history in which not only do the current systems no longer work, they are actually pernicious.  Only a fool can believe our economic system can sustain itself  and by  extension, ourselves.  Only a bigger fool can think that we can continue to rape the earth and it too will continue to sustain us.

Both political parties in this  nation are spent forces and increasingly ridiculous bullshit machines.  In that void  steps the corporate machine  supplying endless diversions and an almost military order.

We are, I believe, in great danger.  Our answer to that danger, by and by, is to entertain ourselves  not unlike “the sickness unto death.”

Writing is  one way to articulate and confront that danger, as best one can.  And so I do it.

My writing has appeared in many publications including Truthdig, The Catholic Worker, Alternet and the Socialist Worker. I have also read my work on WBAI and appeared  on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show.