Compilation of Articles, Anecdotes and / or Interviews

And So To America

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “And So To America” by Cecil Roberts, published in 1947. Clearly, the author (who was an established British writer born in May 1892) had 20/20 hindsight of WWII at this book’s writing. He threw in the kitchen sink at intervals, of the history of specific people, places and things, of all different centuries.

In October 1939, Roberts began public-speaking tours in the United States to try to alert ordinary Americans to the dangers of taking no action against the Germans, who had already invaded Poland. In 1935, FDR sign the Neutrality Act that took effect in 1937. The Act denied America’s allies any military help in the event they felt they were in need of it. After the horrors of WWI, America had no interest in entering another war, and thought the Atlantic Ocean would offer geographic protection from the violence going on in Europe.

The author claimed the British government initially declined his offer of assistance on the public-relations front, but he did admit that it compensated him for certain services he performed for the British Embassy in America, and the British Ministry of Information.

Roberts also participated in a program that allowed about four thousand children and some of their mothers to move to the U.S. during the time that Britain was getting bombed via warplanes. Generous American families hosted them. Those Britishers’ families had assets in the U.S. that had been frozen by the Treasury. For, Great Britain had yet to pay America back for its WWI debt.

Beginning in September 1939, Republicans in the American federal government voted against three different pieces of legislation (that passed at FDR’s urging anyway) that would prepare the United States for war, through: military spending to rearm, reinstating the draft and repealing an arms embargo (which kind of negated the Neutrality Act).

In 1940, there were two major groups of Republicans, one of which opposed FDR in the presidential election– isolationists and the anti-New Dealers. They viewed his running for a third term, as dictatorial. Besides that, they were also thinking Germany would win the war, so they were preparing to reap the spoils when that happened. They were viciously vengeful against FDR, spouting the meanest, nastiest smears again him.

As is well known, in mid-August 1945, on the world’s various continents, people were homeless, still dying in frightful numbers from disease and starvation, from having participated in the war gone by, occupying the wrong place at the wrong time as an innocent bystander, or from just plain bad luck in not having been born a royal-family member!

Meanwhile, in Newport Rhode Island, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt threw a dinner party for some two hundred guests in lavish surroundings that included fresh pink flowers, two orchestras, and caviar and champagne. The author was there, rubbing shoulders with the elitists, a little disturbed about this cosmic injustice, but not enough to do anything about it.

Roberts also wrote, “In the following years [after WWII] one was very conscious of the India and Palestine questions. It would appear that large sections of the American people were perturbed about the reputed tyranny of Britain in these two places.” Read the book to learn a boatload more history and of the author’s adventures in the lap of luxury in America.

Eighty years later, the overall status of humanity in the world has improved a little, but not much.

For the last 45 years, Republicans in America have:

enjoyed their pet programs (military and security that kick out, keep out, or possibly trample on, the civil rights of, foreigners and poor people) while

been trying to justify eliminating what they consider government handouts (the social safety net that assists older or unlucky people, or those who have made bad life-choices).

Beginning with the George W. Bush era, the Republicans have become hypocrites because they ruined their own reputation for fiscal responsibility– they went on a spending spree that caused the deficit to skyrocket!

Here’s a little song that describes the current political situation in the United States– what the budget-busting Republicans are singing.

SLASH SLASH

sung to the tune of “Splish Splash” with apologies to the Estate of Bobby Darin and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Slash, slash, we’re doing the math,

long about a budget-bill fight. yeah

Snub, snub, just taxing-the Democrats’ club,

favoring everyTHING far-Right.

Well, jack up the deficit. It’s all Biden’s fault.

Open wounds around us, and we rub in the salt.

Well, slash, slash, we went back to the math, well, how were we to know Biden’s brain was all gone?

We’re Biden-bashing, healthcare-slashing,

wheeling and dealing, Dems are stewing and a-suing,

we’re complying with Trump’s lying. Yeah.

Bang, bang, we smear the Liberal gang,

dancing on the Democrats’ graves.

Yeah, no cops, pulling out all the stops.

This bill has the pork we crave.

Well there’s, big MON-ey, for ICE.

Forget the EARTH.

We Reagan wannaBES put America FIRST.

Well- a, we can’t forget about the math. We have to put our fancy PR on. Yay.

We’re polling and steam-rolling, wheeling and dealing,

Dems are stewing and a-suing. Slashing and slashing. Yeah.

Yes, we’re Biden-bashing, we’re polling and steam-rolling.

Yeah, Dems are stewing and a-suing. We’re wheeling and dealing.

We’re polling and steam-rolling. We’re complying with Trump’s lying. Slash slash yeah

mm slashing and slashing, all-time we’re Biden-bashing, whoo-wee, Dems are stewing and a-suing, we’re slashing and slashing…

Bad Jew

The Book of the Week is “Bad Jew, A Family’s Quest From the Minsk Ghetto to Netanyahu’s Israel” by Piotr Smolar, translated from the French by Anthony Roberts, published in 2024. This sloppily edited volume with confusing descriptions of the author, his father and grandfather– contained a brief overview of the mentality of Eastern European Jews and Arabs. As is well known, these peoples have had a long, intertwined and inter-tribally violent history in Palestine (currently Israel). American-English language would say, “self-hating Jew” not “bad Jew.”

Born in 1974, the author grew up in Normandy in France. As an adolescent, he asserted his identity by practicing Catholicism with his aunt and uncle in Warsaw, Poland. He never did receive a formal education in Judaism.

The year 1967 saw an anti-Semitic Wladyslaw Gomulka, the Polish government’s first secretary, denounce the author’s Polish grandfather for his Judeo-Communist views. The grandfather wrote op-ed pieces for his newspaper with a pro-Zionist, pro-Israel bent (For a description of the different aspects of Zionism, type “Zionism” in the search bar on the upper right side of this blog; the term “Zionism” like “feminism” and “global warming” was hijacked for emotionally-charged propaganda purposes.). Gomulka also spread propaganda that the Jews were the ones who committed Stalin’s crimes.

In 1968, the Polish government allowed Jews to leave with the clothes on their backs, with the condition that they never return. Many went to Israel. Although he didn’t explicitly say so, the author was trying to convey the idea that, even in the late 1960’s, there was such rife anti-Semitism in the world that Israel was still relevant as a homeland for the “wandering Jew.” Israel has certainly been an exceptional sovereign territory. During its short existence of only three quarters of a century, with American financial aid, it has:

established agricultural collectives in the desert;
developed salinization and irrigation technologies;
built a military-industrial complex; and
founded numerous Big-Tech startups.

Given all the historical hostilities in Israel, one would think that the only people who still live there are ideologically dogmatic Darwin-award candidates. The author spoke with some residents who gave that impression. They are willing to risk their lives to defend what they consider their own respective tribe’s property which their ancestors owned for centuries. On the other side, the Palestinians have the same mentality.

Read the book to learn about several other reasons why the Palestinians (and Arabs) and Jews can’t work out their differences, and more about the author’s and others’ family backgrounds.

Blind Spots

“The media clapped like seals congratulating the researchers. Reporters amplified the study’s conclusion, even thought they hadn’t yet seen the actual data… the media promoted whatever health authorities said, rarely challenging them or publishing quotes from dissenting experts.”

For decades now, such are the sound bites emanating from communications sources, telling people about alleged medical-research results or medical recommendations; information that is distorted at best, and is even harmful to the population.

The Book of the Week is “Blind Spots, When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What it Means for Our Health” by Marty Makary, MD, published in 2024. This slightly sloppily edited volume contained anecdotes of wrongheaded messaging of medical “experts” that resulted in numerous needless deaths and ruined lives. Not to mention lawsuits.

In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) told Americans that an infant should not be fed any peanut butter or products with any peanuts– as the child would develop a peanut allergy. The AAP should have made the opposite recommendation, as their reasoning was backwards.

Makary saw that the AAP’s board of messengers were mostly dieticians and had little or no immunology knowledge! For fifteen years, many pediatricians blindly obeyed the AAP, and told their patients to avoid peanuts. Those patients developed extreme (life-threatening) peanut allergies that had to be treated with exorbitantly priced EpiPens. The experts with whom Makary spoke– who claimed to know what caused a peanut allergy, were later promoted and got awards in their respective careers.

The above happens frequently in the medical industry. For decades, arrogant medical authorities also told people that opioids aren’t addictive. To combat a myth such as this, the author and his colleagues started a website, “Sensible Medicine” but a drawback is that one of the types of people (a closed-minded, cocky medical professional) who could benefit from the site, won’t read it!

The author wrote that Big Pharma shies away from funding research that doesn’t involve intellectual property from which it can make big bucks. Thus, funding was stopped for a non-mRNA technology flu vaccine (one covering many flu strains)– because it wouldn’t have to be administered annually, and wouldn’t pay royalties to anyone.

Meanwhile, the media continue to spout their staged and scripted reality shows of political soap-operas whose issues affect a tiny percentage of ordinary Americans, while America’s broken healthcare system continues to cause the deaths of, and bankrupt numerous people every day.

Read the book to learn of many more healthcare abominations borne of greed, and dogma, and how healthy skepticism is a good thing.

Ivan’s War

The Book of the Week is “Ivan’s War, Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945” by Catherine Merridale, published in 2006.

As is well known, by the mid-1920’s, Stalin had taken over Russia, in which there had been a revolution to turn the country Communist. Beginning in 1929, Stalin forced peasant-farmers to merge their land into collectives and adopt wrong-headed agricultural methods, resulting in millions and millions of deaths from famine. Elite schools in the cities were training the upper class (and a few poor boys) for leadership.

In spring 1937, Stalin ordered many top leaders in his government and military to be fired or tortured or killed, or a combination thereof. The younger soldiers had been brainwashed from birth to be anti-Fascist and therefore to hate the Germans, so they were confused when Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler in August 1939. Nevertheless, when WWII came, the Russian military incited the educated young men to lead the fight to protect mother Russia. Back home, their families were still starving.

In June 1940, the Soviet military was unpleasantly surprised by an attack on their Slavic lands by the German Luftwaffe. The now-enemy had knocked out a lot of military resources and Soviet troops had been disorganized and poorly equipped previously. Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin’s right-hand man, used the occasion to inspire patriotism and incite additional hatred against the Germans.

Propaganda literally flew back and forth hot and heavy. German planes flying over Ukraine dropped leaflets that said Moscow had fallen and Stalin was dead. Turnover in the Red Army was extremely high due to: desertions, deaths from NKVD executions for desertions, and deaths from disease and enemy fire and bombardments.

In spring 1944, Soviet soldiers invaded Romania. They began to see peasants there and in Germany, Poland, France, Holland, Belgium and other capitalist places, who were living way better than they themselves had been, in their civilian lives. The young Soviet military men began to question how Communism was so great if they had been so economically poor.

Instead of setting fire to Romanian villages as they and the Germans had done to so many other battlegrounds as they were leaving, they looted corpses and appropriated farm animals, alcohol and material possessions for themselves. Black markets flourished.

When they finally marched into East Prussia and Budapest, the Soviets’ frenzy of hatred involved raping females, too. Peer pressure caused otherwise ethical men to become barbarians, and drunkenness made it easier to misbehave the way they did.

The Russian propaganda outlet “Pravda” portrayed the Soviets as victims of the Nazis, and called for revenge and reparations. It conveniently neglected to mention the atrocities they committed.

Stalin deflected blame from himself for millions and millions of Soviet deaths through the decades of his rule, by claiming he was suffering along with his people. He believed that Western capitalist cultures were a bad influence, so he demobilized the Russian Army from Germany in 1945– making them sign nondisclosure agreements. He also appeased them with a monetary bonus and (low quality) consumer goods. However, they were spied on by his intelligence service 24/7.

Stalin cast aspersions on the Jews during and after the war. One of numerous myths spread was that during the war, Jews held office jobs instead of fighting on the front lines. In 1945, Ukrainians in Kiev launched a pogrom.

The ravages of the war gave rise to adrenaline junkies with PTSD. After the war, they didn’t know what to do with themselves, and they continued to lead violent, empty lives. “Instead of aspiring to freedom, patriots would henceforth– wittingly or not– become complicit in the repression of the minorities, large-scale arrests, and a bleak and deadly dogma that had almost nothing in common with the libertarian promises that had drawn such crowds to Palace Square in the revolutionary months of 1917.”

After official histories of the war were published, Soviet censors prohibited the publishing of any additional war-related information. No one was allowed to see the archives. They were classified. Top secret.

Read the book to learn much more on the history of the Soviets’ experiences before, during and after WWII.

ENDNOTE: Speaking of non-disclosure and keeping up appearances, here’s a little ditty that describes Trump’s latest marital status.

FIRST LADY MELANIA

sung to the tune of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” with apologies to The Beatles, their estates and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Donald had a victory in the political race.

Melania is, standing by her man.

Donald said to Melania,

“You’ll help me save face. We’ll sign an agreement to maintain the Trump brand.”

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

Donald has a radical agenda in store.

Melania, must obey her king.

She’s stiff and aloof and doesn’t care anymore.

She knows she’s not allowed to say a thing.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

For all of their years, their marriage is a BUS-iness act.

With previous kids, their family’re reality show stars…

of Donald’s and Melania’s contracts.

Donald’s the big winner in the transactional race.

Donald lets the children lend a hand.

Melania stays at home and does her pretty face,

and at events she’s loyally standing by her man.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

For all of their years, their marriage is a BUS-iness act.

With previous kids, their family’re reality show stars…

of Donald’s and Melania’s contracts.

Donald’s the big winner in the transactional race.

Donald lets the children lend a hand.

Melania stays at home and does her pretty face,

and at events she’s loyally standing by her man.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

First laDY, MelAN-ia, fashion icON,

la la la la fashion icon.

For Donald it’s FUN.

But for Melania, it’s NOT!

The Crash of Flight 3804

The Book of the Week is “The Crash of Flight 3804, A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil” by Charlotte Dennett, published in 2020. In this fact-filled, chronologically disorganized volume, the author (a journalist, not a historian) elaborated on the actions that specific nations took, despite their announced motives, in trying to gain access to fossil fuels around several, but not all, energy-rich regions of the world.

The author described in great detail, certain historical events (perhaps those from sources to which she had easy access), and omitted or provided scant coverage on a huge number of others that were equally important. The book’s subhead should have specified, “…Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil and Gas around the Middle East, Mediterranean Sea, and Central Asia.”

The author could not possibly comprehensively cover the global history of fossil-fuels exploration in this one book. For, she also recounted her investigation into her father’s death, beginning in 1975. He was supposedly employed by an oil company, but was killed in a plane crash in 1947. He was actually working for the predecessor to the CIA.

Dennett wrote that in the 1800’s, budding empires sought to control the railroad industry, then in its infancy, in order to travel to faraway, uncharted or unclaimed territories sooner than otherwise. Most Americans have always been clueless as to the secret-goings-on of alleged religious movements that are part of America’s foreign-policy initiatives. Such operations aren’t covered in the media, except for kidnappings or murders. Through the decades, beginning in the twentieth century, spies acting on half of governments or international corporations, have masqueraded as missionaries around the world.

In the United States especially, think tanks produce reports that turn into propaganda campaigns that get leaked to the media. The “news” stories include calls to action, whose ulterior motive is helping America meet its energy needs. By the way, the Qatari publication, al-Jazeera is funded (possibly indirectly) by the United States, subject to the whims of the diplomatic community.

In the 1990’s, building oil pipelines in Central Asia became all the rage. Actually. After secretly supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, in August 1998, the United States changed its tune because Osama Bin Laden masterminded the bomb-attacks on the United States embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania. Bin Laden was incensed that Saudi Arabia was friendly with the United States. But how else was America supposed to meet its energy needs?

According to the author,”neoliberals” believe in providing economic aid to developing nations in order to bribe them to stop acting in ways that empower them, such as making WMD’s, or drilling for oil and gas in their own territories to meet their own energy needs. So when the United States’ neoliberals send aid, they are actually giving recipients fish instead of teaching them to fish. They rely on loans from the IMF and the World Bank, so unsurprisingly, they can’t break their cycle of dictatorship.

According to the author, “neocons” believe in providing military-related aid, and imposing their culture on the peoples in developing nations. As is well known, in the 1990’s and again in the single-digit 2000’s, the United States sent its troops into Iraq to maintain its access to and grab additional oil, and produce economic devastation while claiming to bring democracy to Iraq.

Thanks to globalization and the Internet, the world now knows who the major neoliberal and neocon offenders are. It’s not just the United States.

The author made inflammatory but factual statements about Israel. The reader would think she would fear getting smeared as “unpatriotic” and / or be the victim of retaliation from numerous people who have a vested interest in defending Israel.

As is extremely well-known, the least criticism of Israel (even if there is ample evidence the statements are true) elicits a knee-jerk, emotionally charged accusation of antisemitism from the Israel-defenders. Sure, there is plenty of hatred against Jews, but not all of the accusations of antisemitism are true.

One other propaganda-related issue: from 2022 into 2024, in America, media stories smeared gas-powered stove / oven units, arguing they were hazardous to one’s health. Could it be they were actually hazardous to the health of the strategic interests of the United States, in connection with the access-to-natural-gas-related mess in Syria of recent decades?

Anyway, read the book to learn (and become more cynical by the minute) about: a few different oil and gas pipelines whose actual construction was stalled; the secondary motive of the drafters of the Balfour Declaration (the first of course, was to establish a Jewish homeland; hint: in 1918, the U.S. figured out what the British were really doing in Palestine); why America arms and finances Saudi Arabia and Israel more than all of its other allies; why Gaza is such a valuable piece of real property; numerous rounds of “Curious things will happen when there’s dishonor among thieves” and other violence-inducing shenanigans plaguing certain energy-rich regions of the world.

Shadow

“… the isolated and powerful imperial presidency was over. The nation seemed to be falling in love with its new Midwestern president.”

-NOT January 2025, but August 1974. Regardless of where he (or she) is from, though, the absolute best American presidential candidate would have maximum life-experience, knowledge and wisdom, but still be lucid and sane.

The Book of the Week is “Shadow, Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate” by Bob Woodward, published in 1999. This primer on presidential power-struggles was written toward the end of the Clinton Era–prior to the historical revisionism and 20 / 20 hindsight of the resurgence of American presidential power.

President Jimmy Carter made a campaign promise that his administration was going to behave morally. Yet, in summer 1977, his budget director Bert Lance got in trouble for personal financial conflicts and hypocrisy. In 1978, Carter signed the Ethics in Government Act, some aspects of which turned out to be a can of worms for later presidents. Pursuant to the Act, an independent counsel was to be appointed to investigate illegal behavior of a president when there was probable cause. However, in the next two decades, overzealous, viciously vengeful, legally wily government officials abused their power to launch witch hunts. Any counsel appointed could never really be “independent.”

The Justice Department has the authority to investigate wrongdoing by a president. Nonetheless, the Department serves under the president, who is presumably considered innocent until proven guilty. But, most of the time, the president’s political enemies clamor for the administration to appoint the “independent” counsel (a prosecutor) whose job is to find wrongdoing.

By the summer of 1995, the above conundrum dogged president Bill and first lady Hillary Clinton. “The FBI couldn’t investigate itself. The White House was at the center, and the Justice Department also would have zero credibility investigating its own bureau or the White House.” “Independent” counsel Ken Starr twisted the Ethics in Government Act for his own purposes in instigating the tabloidy probes into Whitewater business transactions, the White House travel office activities, Vince Foster’s death, and later on, Bill Clinton’s sex life.

In May 1997, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a private party could bring a civil suit against a president still in office. Thus, the Paula Jones case could proceed. Even so, at that time, now-Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh believed that Ken Starr was abusing his power as an independent counsel in maximally, mean-spiritedly probing the Clintons. Bill Clinton didn’t help his cause, though, by launching vigorous denials and counterattacks, instead of coming clean.

Anyway, read the book to learn of how post-Watergate presidents handled the changing political times in connection with presidential power amid increasing partisan hostility. As is well known, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Excesses reach a screaming crescendo; dissatisfaction reaches critical mass, and the people say, enough’s enough.

In order to boost their ratings (and profitability), the media incessantly teases Americans with propagandizing, incitement and phoniness. But, not to worry. When the nation is at its breaking point, there will be surprises. Again, DO NOT be fooled by Trump’s “new Nixon” act. Here’s what’s actually going on.

THE MINDS THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’

sung to the tune of “The Times They Are A-Changin’ with apologies to Bob Dylan.

Protect your history books YOU have at home,
beCAUSE revisionists around you have grown.
Stop fretting. Soon our government’s fate will be known.
If you vote, it’s democracy you’ll be saving.
It’ll be really exciting, you’ll see a new tone.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

Come readers and thinkers who are mature and kind.
And keep your ears open, it’s compromise you’ll find.
Don’t give up too soon, for you’ll see the signs.
There’s no telling truth from the raving.
You just might be in for a pleasant surprise.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

Come senators, Congress reps, do the correct thing.
Don’t be a greedy hypocrite, don’t act like a king.
Or you will get outed, you will feel the sting.
There’s a new ethical attitude dawning.
It’ll soon shake your conscience and become a thing.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

Come community leaders throughout the land.
Tyranny is trembling despite best laid plans.
Think for yourself: democracy is at your command.
You’ll replace the rapidly aging.
To the young idealists, you’ll lend your hand.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

Sure, there are still pawns,
but the worst it is past,
though the nation’s mandates appear to be vast.
Targets of hatred should no more be harassed.
The ugliness is rapidly fading.
And the best characters will be hired for the cast.

For the minds, they are a-changin’.

Bill Moyers Journal

The Book of the Week is “Bill Moyers Journal, The Conversation Continues” by Bill Moyers, published in 2011. This compilation of interviews was done in the middle of the Obama Era–prior to the historical revisionism and 20 / 20 hindsight of the Trump Era and thereafter.

One subject Moyers touched on was campaign finance. Due to the merging of the American political, media and business worlds, and court rulings, money has corrupted the election process. Two cliches apply: The fox is guarding the henhouse (it’s really hard to clean up “Tammany Hall” because many of the enforcers themselves have conflicts of interest), and the fish rots from the head down (unethical behavior is contagious).

One way to take unfair advantages away from wealthy candidates is to legally require publicly financed campaigns. Obviously, even legally required disclosure means nothing to shameless, greedy officeholders who refuse to act ethically in connection with their conflicts of interest, once they’re elected.

Higher-quality (better behaved, less hypocritical!) Americans would be more inclined to run for office at all levels. Leaders need to be tax-paying, law-abiding citizens– people for whom honesty is a habit, a lifestyle (or at least have a reputation for it, such as Bernie Sanders). Otherwise, this nation will become a Third World country.

The latest big U.S. Supreme Court ruling is yet another indication that the nation needs campaign finance reform. That ruling was likely a choice between the lesser of two evils, in which the worse evil would be even more expensive (not just financially) for American taxpayers.

It was comparative to the 2008 financial-crisis bailout program. The alternative to the bailout would have been, that alpha males with hubris syndrome who possessed almost as much hegemony as George W. Bush, would have launched an extremely long, traumatic, complex set of lawsuits (whose goal of some would have been to get their bonuses), that would have bankrupted ordinary, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens. Ironically.

Perhaps the conservative Supreme Court justices rationalized that their ruling would be the lesser of two evils. Yes, they would give absolute power to a future president who acts like a dictator who loots his country. However, the law could be modified in the future. And the current American money-driven electoral system allows a candidate to purchase his way to office, anyway.

But the alternative would be: Trump could take the title, “president.” As is well known, Biden has some skeletons in the closet, and he’s been the target of witch hunts for, forever. So the ruling was also a deterrent to Trump’s allies and other Biden-haters who would stop at nothing to kick Biden out of office, and distract Americans from the 2024 presidential election process.

The bottom line is, TAXPAYERS ARE ALWAYS FOOTING THE BILL FOR THE MESSES AND SHENANIGANS OF THEIR GOVERNMENT. Decisions made by the authorities in massive financial scandals clearly aim to lessen the (still outrageous) tax burden on innocent Americans, lest there be revolution.

The United States needs CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM NOW. Abortion, gun control and healthcare can wait.

On a different issue, Moyers interviewed James Cone, a professor in New York City and a person of color. Cone thought white Americans omitted inconvenient facts when discussing their history, such as: Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were slaveholders. He said, “Because America likes to be innocent… that’s why it’s hard for Barack Obama or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to talk about blackness; if they talked about blackness in the real, true sense, it would be uncomfortable.”

Read the book to learn about a wealth of other issues on which America needs to work.

Outrageous Acts / The Fifth Risk

Since nonfiction books on discrimination and software are all political these days, here’s a double post, although admittedly, the connection between them is tenuous.

[One sidenote: Trump has recently stolen yet another Reaganism but put a new twist on it. Trump used the word “bloodbath.” Reagan said during the Vietnam-Era anti-war protests, “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.”]

The first Book of the Week is “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions” by Gloria Steinem, published in 1983. This volume consisted of a compilation of the author’s columns on discrimination, politics and her personal life.

In a summer 1969 column, Steinem wrote of “Feminist Realization”– when American women became aware of how deeply political their position was. She volunteered to help with the presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and George McGovern in 1968, but because she was a female, their personnel cut her down. She refrained from working on important matters, lest people spread the rumor that she was sleeping with the candidate.

In October 1968, Nixon remarked, “Well, I had my staff count up all the issues I’ve made statements on, and it came to one hundred and sixty-seven issues. Of course, Hubert [Humphrey]’s been on both sides of every question, so he has twice as many.”

In 1972, in Steinem’s eyes, unlike Richard Nixon– McGovern inspired hope. Nixon therefore not only lacked charisma, but spurred emotional trouble and anger against McGovern.

Read the book to learn much more about the tenor of the times for Steinem and other American females, when the Women’s Movement began to really gather steam.

The second Book of the Week is “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis, published 2018.

In this short volume, the author wrote about how software has been revolutionizing various areas of Americans’ lives by assessing risk. It used to be called “Big Data” but it’s now called AI. The author stuck to a few subjects in which analysts processed scads and scads of data that were public, for instance, to contain dangerous nuclear waste, make farming more efficient, and warn people about life-threatening weather conditions.

However, the government argues that all that number-crunching of personal data (by which Big Brother is violating the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) is the cost of keeping Americans safe.

Anyway, at the time of the book’s writing, the author wrote that people in hazmat suits at the nine nuclear facilities (which closed in 1987) called Hanford in the state of Washington, were still continuing to clean up the substances that cause cancer, birth-defects and genetic-disorders: strontium 90, uranium, plutonium, chromium, tritium, cesium, carbon tetrachloride, and iodine 129, among others. These substances account for two-thirds of all the toxic waste contained in toxic-waste sties in the United States.

In 2017, a profit-seeking organization called AccuWeather was trying to get taxpayers to pay again to get their weather updates. They were already paying for public information provided by the government-owned National Weather Service. AccuWeather dispensed that public information to its own paying customers.

Read the book to learn more about how AI is doing great things in a few select areas.

Brave New Weed

The Book of the Week is “Brave New Weed, Adventures into the Uncharted World of Cannabis” by Joe Dolce, published in 2016. The author interviewed several individuals in various places associated with growing, using and /or selling parts of the marijuana (or cannabis) plant in the medicinal, recreational and entrepreneurial realms, and related his own personal experiences with it. The terms “marijuana” and “cannabis” will be used interchangeably hereinafter, to refer to the whole plant but other terms will be used to refer to specific parts, such as buds.

At the book’s writing, many American states had yet to pass laws decriminalizing or regulating cannabis. Dolce spoke with people who dispensed it for medicinal purposes, legally and illegally. On the latter score, some Americans dispense marijuana to treat medical conditions without proper licensing or credentials. But they aren’t just out to make a buck. They truly care about their patients. They do their homework, experimenting with the chemicals in cannabis, and consulting with others in Israel, Spain, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Czech Republic.

Anecdotally, Dolce was told that cannabis contains double the carcinogen benzopyrene that tobacco does, yet cannabis can be used to allow easier breathing in treating COPD in the short term. He also related that preliminary studies showed that people who were potheads in their youth are turning out to have lower rates of Alzheimer’s disease in their old age, than those who weren’t.

There is still so much secrecy and false information that is disseminated accidentally and / or intentionally about cannabis, that Americans have had difficulty in learning the truth about it. The author attempted to state facts when he found a reliable source of them. One such fact is that cannabis-related scientific research on mice cannot be perfectly extrapolated to humans because humans are an infinitely more complicated life-form than mice. Israel is one place whose laws have allowed extensive marijuana research on humans.

Dolce tried a concentrated cannabis oil illegally dispensed from an individual in California. It made him so ultra-sensitive to all the stimuli around him– the lights, road, sidewalk, other cars, the sky, the car radio, etc.– he was having trouble driving. On a related note, in 2023, in Boca Raton, Florida near State Road 441, drivers would know they were similarly overstimulated when they saw the wording and graphics of a certain billboard. Without explanation, the billboard disappeared in a few weeks.

On a negative note, the places that grow cannabis-buds are extreme electricity hogs– their bills can run into the thousands of dollars monthly after a Colorado state discount is subtracted. All business is done in cash, and the IRS collects a large amount of tax revenue. Further, high-volume consumers of cannabis lose their ability to dream while sleeping.

Nonetheless, the author’s ideal vision for the future of cannabis is one in which Americans spurn Big Agriculture, Big Tobacco and Big Pharma in favor of toxin-free, contaminant-free, and environmentally-friendly products they can use to relieve their suffering; with the profits of such an industry reinvested in the local community. Good luck with that.

It still remains to be seen what kinds of regulation various states will impose, given their current political climates, and how much of a role the federal government will continue to play– given the nature of political donors and lobbyists, voter-demographics, and propaganda wars.

Read the book to learn about: how hemp is different from marijuana; the best way to store buds to extract optimal medicinal benefit; Colorado’s decriminalization of cannabis that began in 2009 and the legalization of dispensing it that began in January 2014; various dispensing businesses there; marijuana’s different forms including oils, sprays and vaporizers; what transpired when, in 2015, Dolce quit cannabis for sixty days; the lingo, the etiquette, dosing, strains, forms, biological effects, and interesting medical factoids including, “Cannabis is so dose specific that large and small amounts create opposite effects.”

Tripping on Utopia

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The Book of the Week is “Tripping on Utopia, Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science” by Benjamin Breen, published in 2024. This book documented the circumstances that led several “scientists” in America to experiment with psychedelic drugs from the 1940’s through the 1970’s.

In 1920’s Munich in Germany, psychotherapists tested mescaline on schizophrenic patients. Ditto in 1930’s London, England. In 1933, funded by government or university grants, the thirty-one year old Margaret Mead, along with her male or female lover of the moment (She had a series of them through her life), practiced “salvage anthropology.” She tried to salvage information about exotic cultures that were dying due to colonialism and war.

In the 1930’s, Mead did fieldwork with the Native-American Omaha tribe in the Great Plains. They, and her research subjects in Bali used peyote, a psychedelic drug, for ritual purposes. She theorized about sexual identity and wrote best-selling books.

Mead and her scientific colleagues discussed how Hitler used hypnotism to control the subconscious thoughts of his fellow Germans. He didn’t need psychedelics! Starting in 1939, she and her then-husband studied human nature to help propagandize for the war effort. In 1941, “The members of the Committee for National Morale saw themselves as a shield protecting freedom, democracy and diversity from the weaponized manipulative forms of applied science emanating from Nazi Germany.”

The American federal agency, Office of Strategic Services (OSS) began to study truth serum and hypnosis for the purpose of getting prisoners-of-war to talk, improving the health of traumatized soldiers, and analyzing enemy psychology.

In 1944, since Mead and her husband, Gregory Bateson, had insiders’ knowledge and experience of tribes’ cultures in Asia, they were allowed to play adolescent-boy spy games, thinking they could make the Japanese surrender. In late 1944, Bateson volunteered to go to Burma on perilous missions. In reality, as evinced by kamikazes, and their guerrilla warfare all over the South Pacific theater, the Japanese would never, ever surrender. They would actually fight to the last man. Mead, Bateson, and other spies were fooling themselves. Their big egos led them to risk their lives for nothing.

After the war, the CIA began a series of research projects called MKULTRA. Most of those conducting the LSD, mescaline and psilocybin Cold-War Era studies didn’t know the CIA was providing funding. The Macy Foundation and the Department of Defense were the CIA’s fronts. The operation was a desecration and perversion of legitimate scientific research, as it scrapped the scientific method. In one experiment, a spy posing as a “scientist” slipped LSD into the alcoholic drinks of his unknowing friends and acquaintances at social gatherings.

Further, many of the research described in the book sounded unscientific— lacking rigor (amateur, James-Bond wannabes were conducting them), lacking a statistically significant amount of data, and lacking a regard for chemical interactions of the psychedelics with alcohol!

In the 1950’s– about two decades prior to the outlawing of psychedelics– the “scientific” community (comprised of psychiatrists, pop psychologists and spies, not to mention profiteers) around Stanford University especially, had the arrogant notion that perhaps LSD could accelerate the rate by which global culture could not only become one big, peaceful, happy family with no starvation– but also become more tolerant of otherness, different lifestyles, sexual orientations and gender identity.

It appears that in trying to solve the world’s problems, politicians nowadays are a little less naive than they were in the mid-twentieth century. However, reducing social ills requires multi-pronged approaches– legislation and social programs. Ironically, instead of eliminating social ills, introducing psychedelics to society caused social ills to multiply exponentially.

Anyway, read the book to learn about the evolution of research on psychedelics, including various shameful episodes in which people, dolphins and Siamese fighting fish were harmed or died; one of which involved a prestigious institution (whose main character was, by 1960, described thusly: “Approaching forty, he had alienated most of his colleagues back in Berkeley, was nearly bankrupt, and had no income despite his extravagant multimonth family vacation [in Spain and Florence, Italy].”).