General

With yesterday being the Fourth of July, I once again used the occasion to remind my young grandchildren of some of the things they need to know if they wish to consider themselves “informed citizens.”
Actually, me giving this lecture has become something of a family tradition.  Excruciatingly tedious and self-righteous in many regards, but a tradition nonetheless.  Grandpa talks, and the kids listen (or respectfully pretend to listen).  I like to think that we’re all working off the premise that it’s never too early to begin an education.

(ANTIMEDIA) Korean Peninsula — As Americans grilled burgers and watched fireworks in celebration of the Fourth of July on Tuesday, North Korea defiantly test-launched its first successful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Analysts say the missile flew higher and farther than any had before and could more than likely have reached Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

The Western world has slowly been forced to realize that the old cornerstones of society are no longer a given. Liberal market economy, representative democracy and the shift of influence away from citizens up to a global and unreachable level makes for a drop in confidence.

Slightly over a year ago I went on record claiming that America was an “endangering and endangered ruination” with ruinous domestic conditions and destructive and deadly international interventions all stemming from her “corpocracy,” the “Devil’s Marriage” between big corporations and government.1

Imagine a country run along truly democratic lines. In such a mythical land, what would be the role of the politician, and the nature of his or her relationship with that amorphous group paraded under the banner: ‘the people’?

Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.
— Henry A. Kissinger

An early sign that Trump’s cabinet appointments reeked of unprofessionalism was when organized labor and congressional Democrats gave tentative approval to naming Elaine Chao (former Secretary of Labor under George W. Bush) as President Trump’s Secretary of Transportation.  The Senate confirmed her by a vote of 93-6.

In exile at St. Helena, when asked about his dishonorable treatment of Toussaint, Napoleon merely remarked, “What could the death of one wretched Negro mean to me?”

A glossy picture of Rubaya.
just a place where miners toil for pence;
they dig in descending steps
down to Congo’s brown-red core,
each step is eight foot long by eight foot wide
by nine foot deep (this last dimension
decreasing the chances of decapitation;)
their quarry; coltan, a rare commodity used in
mobile phones and computers;
its high market value lures the usual jackals:
the multinationals, other criminal gangs,
corrupt politicians, fat cats,
each comfortable with their greed,

Normally I skip the op-ed pages of the power-worshiping New York Times, but a recent piece by R.R. Reno caught my eye. Reno, a political and religious conservative, edits First Time, a neoconservative journal.