The Test for the American People (A Piece Challenging My Trumpian Neighbors)
This piece is running as an op/ed in newspapers in the very red congressional district (VA-06) in which I ran for Congress (as the Democratic nominee) in 2012.***************************Some insightful...
View ArticleWANTED: Democrats Who Will Loudly Say What Jack Smith Cannot
The central arena at present of the American battle between Democracy and Fascism is the fight going on now between Donald Trump and the Rule of Law.The Rule of Law will almost certainly win in the...
View ArticleWhat Makes People Vulnerable to Lies?
This piece is appearing as an op/ed this weekend in newspapers in my very red congressional district (VA-06).**********************************Human intelligence is one of the marvels of the known...
View ArticleDoes Saving American Democracy Call for Kamala Harris to Make a Heroic Act of...
A Must-Win ElectionIt is widely, and I think rightly, believed that the survival of American democracy would be seriously jeopardized by Donald Trump’s winning the presidency in 2024. That means that...
View ArticleDark Forces Rising in the World’s Great Religions
This piece will be running next weekend as a newspaper op/ed in my very red congressional district (VA-06).*********************************For the most part, religions can be seen as efforts by human...
View Article“What It Means that Culture Builds Upon Itself”
This piece will appear as an op/ed in newspapers in the coming week.************************************There’s an idea that is essential to understanding how we come to be what we are today, as well...
View ArticleIntroduction to a "Big Picture" View that Might Help Human Civilization (and...
A Mission:Over the past decade, I’ve posted almost a thousand essays here on Daily Kos. Almost all of them have dealt with the crisis in American politics unfolding in our times, often going into the...
View ArticleThe Israelis’ Response: A Consequentialist Perspective on the Pros and Cons...
Vengeance turns out to be sometimes life-serving, but sometimes also the source of a dynamic that can continually makes the human world more broken.***************************(I apologize for any...
View ArticleThe Problem in the House, and It’s Evident Solution (Op/Ed in My Very Red Area)
This piece will run shortly in newspapers in my very red congressional district (VA-06).**************************If we’re going to have a reasonably functional House of Representatives, something has...
View ArticleI've Never Seen So Complex a Situation as the One the Israeli Decision-Makers...
I generally like for my writings to be carefully organized and polished reasonably smooth. Some of my op/eds go through ten sets of changes, or even more. (I hope you’ll consider reading the first...
View ArticleA BETTER HUMAN STORY #1: The Fateful Step
Introduction: This essay is the first in a series titled A BETTER HUMAN STORY. “First,” that is, except for an Introductory essay published here a week ago: “Introduction to a ‘Big Picture’ View that...
View ArticleWho Needs a Speaker? What If It Turns Out That "House Paralyzed" Notion is...
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that the House cannot conduct any other business until it succeeds in electing a Speaker of the House. I’d never heard it before last January, but it was all over...
View ArticleThe Chosen Species (an Environmental Message to the Conservatives in My Rural...
This piece is running as an op/ed in newspapers my very red congressional district. It’s an area in which the Bible is a major part of the culture. Hence, it’s beginning with a couple of important...
View ArticleIsrael's Dilemma, and the American Help
Because it is so timely, I have substituted this piece to be my newspaper op/ed for this week, rather than the piece I said here earlier this week was going to run— i.e. “The Chosen Species,” which is...
View ArticleA Tribute to President Biden, Whom Historians Likely Won't Give Credit for a...
I hope historians give Biden credit for an impressive performance in this Israeli/Hamas confrontation.But I expect they won’t.I think Biden has achieved a leadership tour de force around this crisis....
View ArticleWe Need to be More Rational about Hostages
I don’t claim to know just how hostage situations should be dealt with. (Especially in so complicated a situation as the holding of so many hostages by Hamas in Gaza.) But having observed various...
View ArticleHostage Strategies
I just heard on MSNBC: if Hamas releases two hostages a week, with the number of hostages they have it would take about two years for them all to be released. That’s a long time for a hostage crisis to...
View ArticleA BETTER HUMAN STORY # 2: The Fate of Human Civilization
This series was introduced three weeks ago with a piece titled, “Introduction to a “Big Picture” View that Might Help Human Civilization (and Our Democracy) Survive.” (Admittedly an extravagant claim,...
View ArticleWhy Do the Brilliant Israelis Seem So Inept at PR?
It was a relative of mine who first called my attention to the shortcomings of Israel’s way of selling its cause to the world. (This was back in the ‘90s.) This relative (of my parents’ generation) was...
View ArticleMaybe This Explains Why Intelligent People on the Right Can Believe the...
This piece is running this weekend — under the title, “Of At Least Two Minds” — in newspapers in my very red congressional district (VA-06).*********************************A remarkable finding of some...
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