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Richard Girard is a polymath and autodidact whose greatest desire in life is to be his generations' Thomas Paine. He is an FDR Democrat, which probably puts him with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in the current political spectrum. His answer to all of those who decry Democratic Socialism is that it is a system invented by one of our Founding Fathers--Thomas Paine--and was the inspiration for two of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, who the Democrats of today would do well if they would follow in their footsteps. Or to quote Harry Truman, "Out of the great progress of this country, out of our great advances in achieving a better life for all, out of our rise to world leadership, the Republican leaders have learned nothing. Confronted by the great record of this country, and the tremendous promise of its future, all they do is croak, 'socialism.'
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165 Articles, 1 Quick Links, 770 Comments, 5 Diaries, 4 Series, 0 Polls
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Sunday, September 29, 2019
Cognitive Dissonance The Neoliberal experiment, also called Thatcherism and Reaganomics, has failed, An estimated forty-seven percent of Americans live only one paycheck away from poverty, while the wealthiest 1/10th of 1% make more than 92 percent of the population combined. For this reason, any candidate who doesn't denounce Neoliberal economic and political policies and influences does not deserve our vote in 2020. Only one has:Bernie Sanders.
Sunday, September 29, 2019Cognitive Dissonance The Neoliberal experiment, also called Thatcherism and Reaganomics, has failed, An estimated forty-seven percent of Americans live only one paycheck away from poverty, while the wealthiest 1/10th of 1% make more than 92 percent of the population combined. For this reason, any candidate who doesn't denounce Neoliberal economic and political policies and influences does not deserve our vote in 2020. Only one has:Bernie Sanders.
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Friday, June 9, 2017
Resisting Evil I'm old enough to have watched the Watergate hearings. The Republican members of the Sam Ervin's committee did not disgrace themselves the way John McCain and other Republicans did today questioning former FBI Director James Comey. We have fallen so far in the last 45 years. Honor, love of the Constitution and the Country are now second to Party loyalty. I'm disgusted.
Friday, June 9, 2017Resisting Evil I'm old enough to have watched the Watergate hearings. The Republican members of the Sam Ervin's committee did not disgrace themselves the way John McCain and other Republicans did today questioning former FBI Director James Comey. We have fallen so far in the last 45 years. Honor, love of the Constitution and the Country are now second to Party loyalty. I'm disgusted.
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Sunday, September 11, 2016
Conformity is Death For a democracy, conformity in thought and action is a sign of the democracy's degeneration. Colin Kaepernick and others kneeling during the National Anthem is a good sign, not a bad one, because it says that people are willing to take an unpopular stand. Be proud, it shows that there is still hope to salvage our democracy from the oligarchy that threatens it. Hoka Hey!
Sunday, September 11, 2016Conformity is Death For a democracy, conformity in thought and action is a sign of the democracy's degeneration. Colin Kaepernick and others kneeling during the National Anthem is a good sign, not a bad one, because it says that people are willing to take an unpopular stand. Be proud, it shows that there is still hope to salvage our democracy from the oligarchy that threatens it. Hoka Hey!
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Saturday, June 18, 2016
You've Plunged a Dagger in My Chest, Yet I Live America has been at war with itself for almost fifty years. In Bernie Sanders we have our last best chance at peace. In Hillary Clinton we have a continuance of the guerrilla war that has been fought since the time of Nixon. And in Donald Trump, I see the potential for hell on Earth.
Saturday, June 18, 2016You've Plunged a Dagger in My Chest, Yet I Live America has been at war with itself for almost fifty years. In Bernie Sanders we have our last best chance at peace. In Hillary Clinton we have a continuance of the guerrilla war that has been fought since the time of Nixon. And in Donald Trump, I see the potential for hell on Earth.
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Monday, March 14, 2016
We Are the Change The oligarchs are trying to solidify their position, and fully establish a neofeudalistic society based on wealth. Bernie Sanders represents our last best hope to stop them. Hillary slows the takeover. Trump represents something worse: a Fascist state, IMHO. The rest of the GOP are puppets with the oligarchs pulling their strings. Vote Bernie!
Monday, March 14, 2016We Are the Change The oligarchs are trying to solidify their position, and fully establish a neofeudalistic society based on wealth. Bernie Sanders represents our last best hope to stop them. Hillary slows the takeover. Trump represents something worse: a Fascist state, IMHO. The rest of the GOP are puppets with the oligarchs pulling their strings. Vote Bernie!
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Love is at the Heart of Courage The people who would have power over us rely upon fear to achieve their ends. If we stand together against their attempts to use fear to make us cower before them, if we use love for our fellow human beings as the basis for the courage to say "NO!" to their attempts to make us back down for what is rightfully ours, then we cannot be defeated in our quest for a new and better tomorrow. "Love is at the heart of courage."
Wednesday, December 16, 2015Love is at the Heart of Courage The people who would have power over us rely upon fear to achieve their ends. If we stand together against their attempts to use fear to make us cower before them, if we use love for our fellow human beings as the basis for the courage to say "NO!" to their attempts to make us back down for what is rightfully ours, then we cannot be defeated in our quest for a new and better tomorrow. "Love is at the heart of courage."
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Friday, October 2, 2015
In a Perfect World In a perfect world being pro-life would mean protecting children from birth to adulthood if the parents could not, not only from conception. In a perfect world there would be viable alternatives to fetal cells for some types of research, and abortions would not be needed for cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. The current attack to defund Planned Parenthood is myopic, unrealistic, and bad policy.
Friday, October 2, 2015In a Perfect World In a perfect world being pro-life would mean protecting children from birth to adulthood if the parents could not, not only from conception. In a perfect world there would be viable alternatives to fetal cells for some types of research, and abortions would not be needed for cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. The current attack to defund Planned Parenthood is myopic, unrealistic, and bad policy.
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Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Ignorance of Reality Is Called Delusion The recent law-enforcement raid on Rentboy.com in New York City may at long last remove the blinders from the gay community on how precarious their position really is with law enforcement. They have refused aid to sex workers in their struggles, not understanding that, to many cops, gays and lesbians are every bit as No Human Involved (NHI) as any sex worker. Now thousands of closeted men's names are in police hands.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015Ignorance of Reality Is Called Delusion The recent law-enforcement raid on Rentboy.com in New York City may at long last remove the blinders from the gay community on how precarious their position really is with law enforcement. They have refused aid to sex workers in their struggles, not understanding that, to many cops, gays and lesbians are every bit as No Human Involved (NHI) as any sex worker. Now thousands of closeted men's names are in police hands.
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Friday, August 21, 2015
Children of a Lesser God, Part 2 Twenty percent of our nation's wealth and fifteen percent of its income has been redistributed upwards, mostly to the top one percent of population in terms of wealth, over the last thirty-five years. This has left millions of Americans in despair, without hope for the future for themselves, or their children. As John Berger said, "the modern poor are not pitied"but written off as trash." God help us all.
Friday, August 21, 2015Children of a Lesser God, Part 2 Twenty percent of our nation's wealth and fifteen percent of its income has been redistributed upwards, mostly to the top one percent of population in terms of wealth, over the last thirty-five years. This has left millions of Americans in despair, without hope for the future for themselves, or their children. As John Berger said, "the modern poor are not pitied"but written off as trash." God help us all.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Children of a Lesser God, Part 1 In 1948, Harry Truman said, "Out of the great progress of this country, out of our great advances in achieving a better life for all, out of our rise to world leadership, the Republican leaders have learned nothing. Confronted by the great record of this country, and the tremendous promise of its future, all they do is croak, 'socialism.'" This has not changed in 67 years, but the real socialism today belongs to the rich.
Thursday, August 20, 2015Children of a Lesser God, Part 1 In 1948, Harry Truman said, "Out of the great progress of this country, out of our great advances in achieving a better life for all, out of our rise to world leadership, the Republican leaders have learned nothing. Confronted by the great record of this country, and the tremendous promise of its future, all they do is croak, 'socialism.'" This has not changed in 67 years, but the real socialism today belongs to the rich.
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Friday, August 7, 2015
Faith and Reason I am confused by the evangelical Christians I went to high school with. They think you should only have to give what you want to the poor, not what the poor need, and to be forced to do otherwise is wrong. Jesus said "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven..." (Mk 10;21 NIV) They forget that except for God's Grace, they too could be destitute, like those they hold in contempt.
Friday, August 7, 2015Faith and Reason I am confused by the evangelical Christians I went to high school with. They think you should only have to give what you want to the poor, not what the poor need, and to be forced to do otherwise is wrong. Jesus said "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven..." (Mk 10;21 NIV) They forget that except for God's Grace, they too could be destitute, like those they hold in contempt.
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Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Of Prophets and Loss The prophets of the Old Testament fulfilled a very important function in ancient Israel: they reminded the Jewish people and their kings of their duties to both God and one another. In our secular world, we still need someone to remind us of our duties to the world, humanity in general, and one another in particular. We need people to remind us that we are our brother's keepers, and the Earth's stewards. We need more gadflies.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015Of Prophets and Loss The prophets of the Old Testament fulfilled a very important function in ancient Israel: they reminded the Jewish people and their kings of their duties to both God and one another. In our secular world, we still need someone to remind us of our duties to the world, humanity in general, and one another in particular. We need people to remind us that we are our brother's keepers, and the Earth's stewards. We need more gadflies.
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Tuesday, June 30, 2015
We Matter! Clarence Thomas says we have no right to dignity. The reality is that without dignity and its handmaiden respect, we have no rights.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015We Matter! Clarence Thomas says we have no right to dignity. The reality is that without dignity and its handmaiden respect, we have no rights.
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Thursday, June 4, 2015
Bitcoin and Other Delusions We are all appalled by the seemingly sudden outbreak of police violence against Afro-American males here in the United States. There is nothing new here: the violence of law enforcement against American minorities, as well as the different and disenfranchised, is simply being caught more by cell phone cameras. Women are one of the most consistent recipients of police violence, and the most under-reported. This must stop...now.
Thursday, June 4, 2015Bitcoin and Other Delusions We are all appalled by the seemingly sudden outbreak of police violence against Afro-American males here in the United States. There is nothing new here: the violence of law enforcement against American minorities, as well as the different and disenfranchised, is simply being caught more by cell phone cameras. Women are one of the most consistent recipients of police violence, and the most under-reported. This must stop...now.
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Tuesday, November 18, 2014
The South's Gonna Lie Again The re-emergence of Confederate thought and sentiment in the 21st Century is a carefully orchestrated piece of propaganda orchestrated over the last 150 years making Lee, Davis, and Jackson saints, and demonizing good men like James Longstreet. It is an immoral ploy, worthy of a look only due to it's growing success, beginning in the 1930's,and it's relation to todays oligarchs.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014The South's Gonna Lie Again The re-emergence of Confederate thought and sentiment in the 21st Century is a carefully orchestrated piece of propaganda orchestrated over the last 150 years making Lee, Davis, and Jackson saints, and demonizing good men like James Longstreet. It is an immoral ploy, worthy of a look only due to it's growing success, beginning in the 1930's,and it's relation to todays oligarchs.
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Sunday, October 12, 2014
Teaching Civil Disobedience The plutocratic oligarchs in our country are intent on dumbing us down until we are little more than mindless robots that work ourselves to death at their behest. All work should have dignity: Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR and JFK saw it. Marx saw it, Theodore Roosevelt saw it and MLK saw it best of all. The Jeffco School Board's proposal is an attack on what they believed. Here's a list of some history they wouldn't allow taught
Series: Pulling Back Conservatism's Curtain (6 Articles, 8649 views)
Sunday, October 12, 2014Teaching Civil Disobedience The plutocratic oligarchs in our country are intent on dumbing us down until we are little more than mindless robots that work ourselves to death at their behest. All work should have dignity: Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR and JFK saw it. Marx saw it, Theodore Roosevelt saw it and MLK saw it best of all. The Jeffco School Board's proposal is an attack on what they believed. Here's a list of some history they wouldn't allow taught
Series: Pulling Back Conservatism's Curtain (6 Articles, 8649 views)
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Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Rights, Privileges, Franklin Roosevelt, and an Unfinished Revolution With Ken Burn's PBS series on the Roosevelts< I thought it very propitious to finally publish this article. In spite of their many faults, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt had one thing in common: their love of the average American. Together, they were responsible for every right and Protection that we enjoyed as workers and average Americans up to the Reagan counter-revolution of the 1980's. It's time to get those rights back.
Series: Dying From Ignorance (2 Articles, 2776 views)
Tuesday, September 23, 2014Rights, Privileges, Franklin Roosevelt, and an Unfinished Revolution With Ken Burn's PBS series on the Roosevelts< I thought it very propitious to finally publish this article. In spite of their many faults, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt had one thing in common: their love of the average American. Together, they were responsible for every right and Protection that we enjoyed as workers and average Americans up to the Reagan counter-revolution of the 1980's. It's time to get those rights back.
Series: Dying From Ignorance (2 Articles, 2776 views)
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Monday, August 18, 2014
Discerning Our Reality There are many things in this world that are not what we believe they are. One of these is the next stage in human evolution. It is not super-intelligence, or unearthly psychic powers; it is the development of our compassion and empathy. Without these, any other development will lead to our ultimate destruction.
Series: The Madness of Selfishness (8 Articles, 8615 views)
Monday, August 18, 2014Discerning Our Reality There are many things in this world that are not what we believe they are. One of these is the next stage in human evolution. It is not super-intelligence, or unearthly psychic powers; it is the development of our compassion and empathy. Without these, any other development will lead to our ultimate destruction.
Series: The Madness of Selfishness (8 Articles, 8615 views)
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Monday, July 14, 2014
In the Heart of Madness How does one stay sane in a world gone mad? Where narcissism is celebrated as a desired trait, and acting like a sociopath is considered the best way to get ahead in business. Selfishness is the one consistent symptom in all mental illness, so common we have to ask if it is not a form of neurosis in itself. We may never know: societies based on selfishness don't survive for long.
Series: The Madness of Selfishness (8 Articles, 8615 views)
Monday, July 14, 2014In the Heart of Madness How does one stay sane in a world gone mad? Where narcissism is celebrated as a desired trait, and acting like a sociopath is considered the best way to get ahead in business. Selfishness is the one consistent symptom in all mental illness, so common we have to ask if it is not a form of neurosis in itself. We may never know: societies based on selfishness don't survive for long.
Series: The Madness of Selfishness (8 Articles, 8615 views)
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Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Fortitude versus Greed Too many libertarians think that their liberties begin with Milton Friedman's version of capitalism. This is a harmful and restrictive viewpoint, if one looks at history. If you want to have any degree of authority over yourself in this society--what most of us will recognize as being the definition of personal liberty--you must be responsible for yourself, and accept the obligations, and the duties, that you have to others.
Series: The Madness of Selfishness (8 Articles, 8615 views)
Wednesday, July 9, 2014Fortitude versus Greed Too many libertarians think that their liberties begin with Milton Friedman's version of capitalism. This is a harmful and restrictive viewpoint, if one looks at history. If you want to have any degree of authority over yourself in this society--what most of us will recognize as being the definition of personal liberty--you must be responsible for yourself, and accept the obligations, and the duties, that you have to others.
Series: The Madness of Selfishness (8 Articles, 8615 views)
