Too Little, Too Late

Why the Leftist Critique of Obama is Important

Corporations Are People Too

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the U.S. Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision is that it changes nothing substantial about the way in which politics are conducted in this country. The only change is that the militarized Corporatocracy that runs the government no longer sees the need to conduct itself surreptitiously but, rather, does so openly and in a brazen fashion: buying and selling our politicians and making clear to anyone who gives any thought to it that the principle of "one man, one vote" is absolutely meaningless.

Perhaps we should breathe easier in the new atmosphere of candor. We need not fear that we have have been sold down the river: we can know it with certainty.

Dorothy Day

Muslims for Jesus

If You Read Nothing Else This Year...

Read Tarek Mehanna's statement to the judge who sentenced him:

The real criminals in the Tarek Mehanna case

Leo Tolstoy: Sociologist and Moralist

" ... the whole structure of our lives is such that each man's personal advantage is obtained by inflicting suffering on others, which is contrary to human nature. The whole order of our life and the whole complex mechanism of our institutions designed for the infliction of violence, witness to the extent to which violence is contrary to human nature. Not a single judge would decide to strangle with a rope the man he condemns to death from the bench. Not a single magistrate would make up his mind himself to take a peasant from his weeping family and shut him up in prison. None of our generals or soldiers, were it not for discipline, oaths of allegiance, and declarations of war, would, I will not say kill hundreds of Turks and Germans and destroy their villages, but would even decide to wound a single man. All this is only done thanks to a very complex state and social machinery the purpose of which is so to distribute the responsibility for the evil deeds that are done that no one should feel the unnaturalness of those deeds. Some men write the laws; others apply them; a third set drill men and habituate them to discipline, that is to say, to senseless and implicit obedience; a fourth set--the people who are disciplined--commit all sorts of deeds of violence, even killing people, without knowing why or wherefore. But a man need only, even for a moment, free himself mentally from this net of worldly organization in which he is involved to understand what is really unnatural to him." -- Leo Tolstoy, What I Believe, translated by Aylmer Maude, Oxford: Oxford World Classics (1940), 349.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Obama Justice Department indicts ex-CIA agent for exposing torture

Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy Finally Yields Fiscal Bankruptcy

Gingrich group files for bankruptcy

On the Road Again with Mr. Springsteen

I skipped seeing Bruce and the E Street Band when they came to Denver with the last tour (Working On A Dream)--now that I think about it, that's the first time I'd skipped a Springsteen tour (on purpose) for a while--maybe ever (since I first saw him perform in 1976).

He's back on the road now with a new album (Wrecking Ball) and with what appears to be a new intensity in the wake of the passing of Clarence Clemons--trying his best, single-handedly, to keep the dream of the invisible Whitmanian republic (the "America we hold in our hearts" as he puts it) alive.

I fear, however, that that America is not the one most of his fellow citizens hold in their hearts (like Bruce, I am a throw-back).

Still, he persists, holding his tent-revivals wherever he goes. You have to admire him for that, if you can stomach the pathos.

By the mid-'70's, the Stones were singing "It's only rock and roll" but, for Bruce, it has always been more than that. He is a true believer. Sadly, however, believing just isn't enough. Never has been, of course, but there was a time in this country when the music could lead to more: to a changed consciousness. Those days are well behind us.

Nowadays, I recommend a multi-year reading program in Tolstoy, conducted at whatever pace suits the individual reader. In my view, Tolstoy is essential.

So, God bless Bruce! Long may he run. Unfortunately, though, I think Jagger and Richards probably got it right: it is "only rock and roll" (and, as the song goes, I still like it). If Bruce swings by my neck of the woods again, I'm likely to show up and pay my respects.

But, for the rest of the time, I remember that Tolstoy remains.

I recognize that reading the Russian Bear is a big commitment; indeed, that's what I told a friend who urged me to read Tolstoy when I was 22. She insisted that, if anyone should read Tolstoy, I should. At the time, I just shrugged my shoulders and assured her that I would get around to those fat tomes at some point. And, several years later, I did.

The point is to do it. Do it now. The hour is getting late.