Commenting on the Mueller Indictments

There is no denying the importance of the Grand Jury indictments of former Trump campaign officials at the behest of Robert Mueller.

But whether it will be proven that Our Military Leader was himself guilty of collusion with the Russians is yet to be seen. 

In the meantime, damage continues to be done to the democracy. 

And yet progress is being made.  Let us hope that Monday's events are a harbinger of more progress ahead. 



Please check back here soon for more.

The Famous Author You've Never Heard Of

Author Donald Bain, ghost writer extraordinaire, has died.   Author of the Murder She Wrote mysteries, and Margaret Truman Daniel's mysteries as well, passed away last Saturday in White Plains, New York.

I confess I never heard of Mr. Bain, either -- until today.  He was obviously an interesting and talented writer, as well as an aspiring musician ( about whose talents in that department I am totally clueless).

Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote

In the interest of promoting alternative sources of information, I am linking to an article on another blog.  The blog, entitled "The Passive Voice," is itself interesting and worth a look. 

Happy reading.  


Ghost Writer Dies

Edwin Starr Teaches Us the True Value of Most Wars

...including Viet-nam.

A special re-visit to the 1960's 





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Could the Market Crash of 1987 Happen Again?

 

Quickly --

Thirty years ago, the stock market crashed.  People were terrified.  Could it happen again?

Today's CNBC commentators weigh in: 


1987 Market Crash: Could It Happen Again?

It Is a Deep and Important Time...

...in America now.  With all that is at stake I am forced to spend extra time researching.  While this research (and my musical life) goes on, I will continue to post here as much as possible.  At the same time, I encourage you to visit my sister blogs as you will find more detailed information in those locations.  (Please see left sidebar.)  

The Profit System is (Literally) Killing Us

The profit system is literally, if indirectly, killing us.  I think I can show that quite quickly. Today's New York Times in an editorial entitled "The Gun Carnage, as Time Goes By," describes what has gone on in the gun industry.  According to the Times, referencing a Harvard and Northeastern Universities study. says that three percent of American adults own half the nation's guns -- an astonishing 17 guns per person!  The newspaper further states that as fewer Americans have bought guns in recent years, the gun makers have marketed more and more guns to fewer individuals.

Just what is going on here?  We know more guns are being sold to fewer individuals.  Perhaps we may wishfully imagine that there is no net increase in guns.  At any rate, a huge number of guns are going into the hands of individuals. Seventeen guns per person?  And we know that being a profit-making industry, gun manufacturers have a motive for selling more guns.  Again, at best we can fantasize that through proper education and training of gun-buyers this might not be a problem.  But it is a problem.  Why?

First, there are in fact persons of evil intent loose in the land.  Second, there are more guns.  This alone is a recipe for disaster.  But the hidden contributor is an economic system which encourages such a situation.  How? -- by never calling gun manufacturers to account.  The charters for the gun-making companies go on forever, even out-lasting the lives of mortal human beings.  Thus does the corporation get the upper hand politically.

This combination of factors explains in essence what is going on.  Of course it doesn't explain the existence of evil.  That I leave for now to the philosophers and theologians.  But any society which allows such a situation to exist can hardly be called civilized.  

Journalist Elucidates the Continuing State of Emergency (But probably not the one you are thinking of)

 Below is an excerpt from an interview with journalist Masha Gessen on the program Democracy Now, recently.  I find Ms. Gessen's views overall excellent, compelling.  My only disagreement is her repeated contention that the American people elected Trump.  This is fallacious, as I have repeatedly reported here for now nearly a year.  It is a critical error -- one which does not make her other arguments incorrect, but rather significantly incomplete.  

Here is the excerpt. 

Gessen:  My argument is basically that our Reichstag fire—and the Reichstag fire, as I’m sure you know, is, in 1934, the Reichstag, the parliament building in Berlin, burned, and Hitler, who had just recently been appointed chancellor, used it as a pretext for restricting political freedoms in really profound ways, in ways that—to create a state of exception, what his favorite legal theorist, Carl Schmitt, called a state of exception, which is when the sovereign claims extraordinary power.

Well, I think that that has all happened in this country, and it happened in the wake of September 11th. The state of emergency that went into effect three days after September 11th has never been lifted. It was renewed by President Obama every September for seven years of his presidency, the seven Septembers that he was president. We continue to be in the state of emergency. The War Powers Act passed with one dissenting vote three days after September 11th, continues to be in effect and has been used by President Obama and now by President Trump. And there’s also been a 16-year run of concentrating—increasing concentration of power in the executive branch—under George W. Bush, basically, in the interest of shoring up more military and surveillance power; under President Obama, for some of the same and some other reasons, having to do with a Congress that was intent on paralyzing him. But basically, I think that chain of events did a lot to create the possibility of Trump, to create the very possibility of a politician who could run for autocrat in this country and get elected.

Civil Rights Groups Sue to Stop Crosscheck Program

 via Election 101 --

Read how groups in Indiana are trying to stop vote suppression in Indiana!

https://electiontruth101.blogspot.com/


Graphic Courtesy The Black Commentator   

The Las Vegas Massacre

I, along with the whole country, am heart-broken over the mass killings in Las Vegas this past week-end.  It is long past time for an honest discussion on weapons in the hands of lone rangers.  We can and must do better.  The urgency of this matter can hardly be over-estimated.

Sunday Opinion Highlights

A couple of opinion pieces really grabbed me this past week-end.  The first is linked-to below.  Hugh Hefner was certainly no one to hold up as a paragon of virtue.  In many countries he simply wouldn't have been able to do all he did.  I support America's approach to freedom, and Mr. Hefner was certainly free to live a promiscuous life if he saw fit.  But to advance this modality in public shows not only Hefner's depravity, but that of American culture.

Just to show how complex this is, though, his publishing depicted a part of American reality.  As such, it should not have been, and, indeed, could not have been shut down.

So where does this leave us?  No one is completely evil.  Even the Devil himself was once an angel in heaven, we are told.  And even Evil Incarnated can only exist because it serves the purpose of the Divine.  Or so traditional Judeo-Christian theology tells us.

The evil in the case of Mr. Hefner was his treatment of women -- a subject which has become increasingly dear to my heart.  The objectification of women -- to dignify the matter with an elevated term -- served to demean them.  And America needed no encouragement of this kind, as a body of history is now showing.

The second matter is that of the protests of NFL players.  This is a more complicated matter than that of women's rights.  And yet, when we are talking about Civil Rights, and equality of the races, the answer should be clear -- people have the right, even the duty to protest.  Whether kneeling for the National Anthem (which was made so by Congress only in 1931), is the right way to protest can be debated.  But it is not for OML* to use the remaining prestige of his office to demean and badger the protestors.  People are free to pay to see, or not;  to watch on TV or not.  At any rate, as one writer said, when a view is held by the majority, protest is rarely needed.  We must vigorously support the right of everyone to peaceably protest.

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(I am looking for the article by the NFL player who wrote about the matter this past Sunday.  Eventually, I'm sure I will find it.)

Hugh Hefner Undeserving of Praise

*Our Military Leader