Americans are Expendable to Their Goverment

Americans are Expendable to Their Government Americans are expendable to their government and the corporations.  That is the simple meaning of refusing to extend unemployment benefits to Americans, on the theory that unemployment benefits keep people from working and lead to inflation.  Never mind that there is no work to be had—having exported its manufacturing [...]

Work In Progress

I write and knit at the same time.  Write a few words, knit a few stitches, write a few, knit a few.  I am now working on Defiance in Time of Peril:  An Open Letter to America’s Young Womanhood.  At the same time, I have begun knitting what will be a sweater coat, “Morocco”, from [...]

Redefining Citizenship

By my husband, also in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  Guest Columnist: Redefining citizenship PHILIP GOLD Take a new, liberal president and Congress. Add an economic crisis, assorted international woes and a general lack of confidence. Next, dust off the usual-suspect proposals to reinstate the draft, institute mandatory national service, or just give people opportunities to volunteer. [...]

The Political Economy of Cowardice and the Russian Connection

Run yesterday in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.    Guest Columnist: The political economy of cowardice and the Russian connection ERIN SOLARO “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” So said Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1933 first inaugural address, in the depths of the Great Depression that American greed and excess had done [...]

Review Essay: Tom Cruise’s Unwanted Masterpiece

Valkyrie:  Tom Cruise’s Unwanted Masterpeice Valkyrie is rich movie, proud and dark and grieving, offered as a gift to a nation hanging by a thread, at the time of year when it seems even the sun itself can be defeated, not only a terrific thriller but a richly nuanced masterpiece of moral and emotional complexity. [...]

The Immoral American Economy

There are some mistakes so ridiculous and so deadly that only experts can make them. That’s happening now, every time some economist or policy wonk or government official or business “leader” comes up with some new plan to bail out the economy or some new rationale for keeping the status quo. For today’s economic crisis is the product of a moral self-delusion. And neither Adam Smith’s invisible hand nor all the upturned palms of corporate America nor all the fists in government can solve it.

Sarah Palin, Savior of the Two-Party System

Sarah Palin, Savior of the Two-Party System They want you stupid.  They want you trivial.  They want you numbed with a counterpoint of apathy, denial and transient, unsustainable enthusiasm and/or resentment.  That’s the only way the bipartisan imperium that controls us-”governs” is too honorable a word-can keep the racket going. It has been said, correctly, [...]