Power is the water we swim in; the air we breathe. So pervasive we forget, ignore, or never even become fully aware of it. It’s the ability to offload risk and responsibility if things go wrong, while accruing credit and authority if things go right. Blame flows downward, and reward flows upwards. Where does power […]
Strong economic messages of the Keynesian buttressing of the middle class that is Bidenomics were everywhere in evidence at last night’s State of the Union address, Biden’s third since taking office in 2021. In SOTU 2024 he spoke about stabbing trickle-down economics in its gasping heart as a repeated failure to the American people. Instead […]
Dark money refers to political spending by organizations that are not required to disclose their donors or how much money they spend. This allows wealthy individuals and special interest groups to secretly fund political campaigns and influence elections without transparency or accountability. The term “dark money” gained prominence after the 2010 Supreme Court decision in […]
Below is a list of the covert gang of folks trying to take down the US government — the anti-government oligarchs who think they run the place. The Koch network of megarich political operatives has been anointing itself the true (shadowy) leaders of American politics for several decades. Spearheaded by Charles Koch, the billionaire fossil […]
One of two major parties in our American first-past-the-post voting system of dual-party reality, the Republican Party, has evolved (or devolved…) into a full-throated authoritarian movement seeking to overthrow our democracy, The Constitution, and the rule of law in order to establish a fascist regime in the United States. It’s been a not-so-secret fever dream […]
Christian nationalism, a complex and multifaceted ideology, intersects the realms of faith, politics, and cultural identity. At its core, it seeks to fuse Christian and national identities, advocating for policies and governance that reflect a particular interpretation of Christian values as foundational to the national identity and public life. This movement is not monolithic; it […]
A Cult Dictionary of Mind Control, and the Language of Abuse Cultism has a long history here in the United States — but what is a cult, exactly? One could argue the Confederacy was a kind of cult, and the KKK after it. America gave rise to cult leaders Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh, […]
A cult is a social group, usually insular, defined by unorthodox beliefs and/or practices. The cult usually shares religious, philosophical, or ideological values and goals. The cult definition of “values” may be greatly outside of mainstream norms. The term cult is usually taken as a pejorative, for its connotation of excessive devotion to a charismatic […]
Climate Change Denial: From Big Tobacco Tactics to Today’s Global Challenge In the complex narrative of global climate change, one pervasive thread is the phenomenon of climate change denial. This denial isn’t just a refusal to accept the scientific findings around climate change; it is a systematic effort to discredit and cast doubt on environmental […]
The Moon landing hoax conspiracy theory posits that the United States faked the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969 as well as the subsequent Apollo missions. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, proponents of this theory claim that NASA, with the possible assistance of other organizations, orchestrated a deception to win the Space Race against […]
Disinformation Dictionary of Psychological Warfare The cat is well and truly out of the bag in terms of understanding how easily wide swaths of people can be misled into believing total falsehoods and even insane conspiracy theories that have no basis whatsoever in reality. In their passion for this self-righteous series of untruths, they can […]
Buckle up, we’re in for a wild ride. Many of the serious scholars of political history and authoritarian regimes are sounding the alarm bells that, although it is a very very good thing that we got the Trump crime family out of the Oval Office, it is still a very very bad thing for America […]
Fascism is a specific type of authoritarianism. Both are forms of government characterized by tightly centralized power, either under a sole dictatorship / demagogue or a small cadre of rulers — typically of wealthy oligarchs — where rule is absolute and the vast majority of people have little say in policy-making or national events. Identifying […]
The Founders meant for the republic to be agile in philosophy — always changing to meet the new demands of the next generations. They meant for us to be self-governing, and empowered to create policy for problem-solving in new eras they themselves could not even conceive of. Thomas Jefferson wrote forewarningly of the Dead Hand […]
Trickle down economics is known by a number of names: supply side economics, Reaganomics, voodoo economics, deregulation, Libertarianism, Mudsill Theory, horse and sparrow theory, and the Trump tax cuts, to name a few. It has been espoused by everyone from Ayn Rand to Milton Friedman to Alan Greenspan to Gordon Gecko. Trickle down economics involves […]