Op-Ed

At least since the time of Marcus Tullius Cicero in the late Roman Republic everyone has certainly understood that politicians lie all the time. To be sure, President Donald Trump has been exceptional in that he has followed through on some of the promises he made in his campaign, insisting periodically that he has to do what he said he would do. Unfortunately, those choices he has made to demonstrate his accountability to his supporters have been terrible, including moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, threatening to end the Iran nuclear agreement and building a wall along the Mexican border. Following through on some other pledges has been less consistent. He has increased U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan and turned the war over to the generals while also faltering in his promise to improve relations with Russia. The potential breakthrough offered by promising exchanges during phone calls to Vladimir Putin have been negated by subsequent threats, sanctions and expulsions to satisfy hysterical congressmen and the media.

Repeal and replace? How about the Second Amendment?

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Setting aside the antique strangeness of the wording, isn’t it time to give thought to the values that permeated the era in which it was written — and who, exactly, “the people” were to which it referred?

I say this realizing that the United States has evolved over the years. Women gained the right to vote. Slaves gained quasi-freedom and then, a hundred years later, their descendants won the right to vote, the right to use a public restroom, the right to . . . live as first-class citizens, sort of. Except for the economy, the prison system, the ongoing racism.

The cries of loss and anguish become public, at last. A million young people seize the truth:

“Half of my seventh grade class was affected by gun violence. My own brother was shot in the head. I am tired of being asked to calm down and be quiet.”

The stories went on and on, speaker after speaker. We marched for our lives this past Saturday. I was one of the thousands of people who endured a bitter cold morning in Chicago to be part of this emerging movement, this burst of anger, hope and healing. Violence in the United States of America is out of control. It has its claws around the lives of its own children. It’s a terrifying symptom . . . of a society built around fear, of a political structure devoted to war.

Something has to change.

In 2014 I wrote an article titled ‘The Global Elite is Insane’. I want to elaborate what I explained in the earlier article so that people have a clearer sense of what we are up against in our struggle to create a world of peace, justice and ecological sustainability.

Of course, as I explained previously, it is not just the global elite that is insane. All those individuals – politicians, businesspeople, academics, corporate media editors and journalists, judges and lawyers, bureaucrats…. – who serve the elite, including by not exposing and resisting it, are also insane. And it is important to understand this if we are to develop and implement effective strategies to resist elite violence, exploitation and destruction but also avert the now-imminent human extinction driven by their insane desire for endless personal privilege, corporate profit and political control whatever the cost to Earth’s biosphere and lifeforms (human and non-human alike).

ust when you thought the pro-Democrat “Blue Wave” ignited by President Donald Trump might bring real change, including a revolution in green power, some Democrats are rallying around the suicidal, obsolete technologies of atomic power and weapons.

The most recent absurdity comes from three Ohio Congressional Dems—Tim Ryan (Youngstown), Marcy Kaptur (Toledo) and Marcia Fudge (Warrensville Heights). They can claim a radioactive soulmate in New York’s “liberal” Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Rather than embrace the renewable revolution now remaking the global energy supply and the millions of jobs key to the future of a working-class constituency, these Democrats are pursuing the GOP wet-dream of atomic energy.

In particular, the three northern Ohio Democrats want to rescue four crumbling, unprofitable, increasingly dangerous atomic reactors. And in the process, they are defending the connection between nuclear weapons and commercial reactor waste.

Trying to make sense about the recent silencing by non-human YouTube robots of many valuable, patriotic, truth-telling YouTube journalists

The report below is taken directly from Corbett Report # 332 by Gary G. Kohls, MD

“Those who question the government narrative and mainstream consensus are extremists who need to be dealt with. We can’t have free-thinking individuals roaming around our streets, spreading their damn truth!”

“In 2008, Cass Sunstein, a law professor who would go on to become Obama’s information “czar,” co-authored a paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” in which he wrote that the “best response” to online “conspiracy theories” is what he calls “cognitive infiltration” of groups spreading these ideas.”

A young Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter, posted the image shown (above left) on his

I asked my Facebook page which high school teacher they’d least like to have had a gun in their desk.

Original at Reader Supported News:  http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/48453-why-are-we-still-i…

35% of U.S. mass shooters are military veterans, as compared with 14.76% in the general population for the same gender and age. See documentation of this below.

First a couple of Tweets: