About Brian Wright

Hello, I'm Brian Wright, the proprietor and chief content provider to this Web opinion and review site. The Coffee Coaster (thecoffeecoaster.com) has been around since late 2006, and in early 2012 I finally decided to give the site a major makeover with this Wordpress implementation. My views are 'wholistic libertarian,' meaning focused on the spiritual--I like to use the word: essentual--evolution we will need, individually, in order to reach the New Paradigm of peace, freedom, and abundance. Let's help one another in the process.

Book Review: Moral Politics

How liberals and conservatives think
by George Lakoff
1996, 2002 , University of Chicago Press , 426 pages

MoralPoliticsMoral Politics, a book whose message is considered prophetic, is the most recent pick of the book discussion group I belong to. In our previous gathering we discussed Fred Singer’s remarkable Unstoppable Global Warming.  The majority then seemed to revel in that what I regard as that book’s weird endorsement of carbonofilia (love of choking on automobile fumes and smokestack emissions).

These are libertarians who, I’m sure for the most part, like to firmly plant their political value-judgments on reason and science.  WHAT IS THE DEAL?  Well, Moral Politics provides a clue; in fact it reveals an entire roomful of clues. Continue reading

Movie Review: Evan Almighty (2007)

Evan Almighty ____________ 6/10
Engaging satirical flick for the whole family

Evan_AlmightyNo, Evan Almighty is not a contender for the Oscars, much less a serious threat to unseat political satire-comedy classics such as Wag the Dog, American Dreamz, or Man of the Year.  But it’s a reasonably intelligent family-friendly spoof of power politics and an extremely funny deflation of the socially ambitious political personality.

Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) is one such ambitious, though well-meaning, poli-person. The film begins with Evan leveraging his TV news persona to win a race for the United States Congress.  It’s always been his dream to reach this pinnacle of public service, and he’s also firmly attached to the frills of the job: a monster trophy home in the hills of Virginia, first-class office and staff, chauffeur and special parking privileges.

His first day on the job, neighboring Congressman Chuck Long (John Goodman), who has been in office for a long time, approaches Baxter to pre-endorse Long’s self-serving land-use bill.  Long feels Baxter’s notoriety and his cultivated anchor-man good looks—we see Baxter spending 10 minutes over the sink shaving and removing his nose hairs—will give Long the credibility he needs to push the bill through. Continue reading

Guest Column: US Foreign Policy, Palestine-Israel, and BDS

Platform statement by Jill Stein, Green Party candidate 2016

Green_PartyEditor’s Note: I’m pretty sure the vaunted Libertarian Party platform takes no such stand for common-sense decency in foreign and military policy—certainly not to the extent of implicating Israel for “war crimes and massive human rights violations,” and supporting the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. [BDS seeks to end Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people.]

The Greens are holding their national convention in Houston next weekend (August 4-7), and the way I read the tea leaves, they will be on the ballot in 24-30 states. By contrast, I expect the Libertarian Party, currently at 36 states, will achieve ballot status in very close to 50 states. Basically, even though the LP has ‘shot itself in the foot’ in many ways insofar as taking the ethical high road of the nonaggression principle, I’m still leaning toward the LP’s Johnson-Weld ticket… though weakly, esp. every time I hear William Weld open his mouth.

Anyway, Here Goes, I Only Wish an LP Had Written Something Similar

The Jill Stein campaign calls for ending support for governments committing war crimes and massive human rights violations, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

It supports the BDS movement as a peaceful, nonviolent set of actions organized by civil society across the world aimed to end Israeli apartheid, occupation, war crimes, and systematic human rights abuses. Continue reading

Brian’s Column: Doreen Hendrickson, American Gandhi

The good word from Doreen’s husband Pete is that she’s on home tether
The epochal word is their message of truth and peace is about to break thru

IRS on TrialLet’s all liberty lovers share in Pete Hendrickson’s elation that his dear wife Doreen has now been released from federal prison where she was serving an 18-month sentence for refusing to commit perjury under orders of a federal judge. Yes, you read that correctly. The facts are plain and well presented in the video on the right. →

Doreen is now in home confinement… with the proviso that within 60 days she swear to a lie that her economically-gainful activities in 2002 and 2003 (and Pete’s) were taxable activities, rather than activities of common right in which the government has no ownership interest. [The statements have been written by the government and Doreen is meant to swear them as being her own words.] Almost certainly, at the end of 60 days, Doreen will again refuse to commit perjury[1]… “and THEN… and THEN… uh uh… and then along came Jones…” as the song goes.

Along Comes the Great Spirit of Mohandas Gandhi and Rosa Parks

Make no mistake about it, the federales have tied themselves up in a Gordian Knot… through stupidity, arrogance, and just plain meanness. What is Rogue Judge #2 going to do when Doreen continues to refuse to yield to Rogue Judge #1’s unlawful command? Send our hero back to the West Virginia federal compound for life?  Even in the toxic, dumbed-down, lackey-media country we’ve become, Doreen’s struggle and truth will break through.[2] She will have become an insuperable moral indictment of the rotted system for all to see, which system will unravel as the British Empire in India and racial supremacists of the Old South. Continue reading

Book Review: The Celestine Prophecy (1993)

by James Redfield

1993, Warner Books, 246 pages

Celestine“We know that life is really about a spiritual unfolding that is personal and enchanting—an unfolding that no science or philosophy religion has yet fully clarified.  And we know something else as well: we know that once we do understand what is happening, how to engage this allusive process and maximize its occurrence in our lives, human society will take a quantum leap into a whole new way of life—one that realizes the best of our tradition—and creates a culture that has been the goal of history all along.”
— James Redfield

This is a book I generally find myself reading again and again, when I need a lift or when I want to feel more spiritual about things.  It was published back in the early years of the Clinton presidency at a time when early Baby Boomers like me were passing into their 40s: suddenly middle age and looking for meaning… as important, not finding it in the belief systems handed down to us. Continue reading

Movie Review: Michael Clayton (2007)

Human costs of the corporotocracy 7.5/10

Michael_ClaytonPolitically probing George Clooney’s Michael Clayton arrives on the big screen just in time to greet the winter.  And it has a theme that befits the falling of the leaves and the dimming of the light: a topnotch Mr. Fixit working for a high-powered New York law firm (Kenner, Bach & Ledeen) runs into an assignment that causes him to consider whether the way of life he has chosen is the way his life is meant to be… or the way his particular corporate world is meant to be.

We get a profile of Clayton (Clooney) early as his fast-lane excellence is contrasted with a personal life going down the tubes: divorced, financial troubles, gambling problems, having difficulty relating to the son he adores.  On the fast-lane side, we see how deftly he resolves incidents that can be deeply embarrassing for his big-money corporate clients: traffic accidents, addictions, infidelities, immigration barriers.

But as smooth and polished as Clayton is, the true secret to his success lies in his honesty and realism.  One client complains that Clayton isn’t the miracle worker that Kenner, Bach & Ledeen’s (KBR’s) CEO Marty Bach, a hard-headed, grizzled weasel played perfectly by Sydney Pollack, has represented him to be.  Clayton replies: Continue reading

Guest Column: Liberty Lessons Learned via Trump 2016

What the liberty minded can take away from Trump’s triumph
by Shane Trejo [full column via The Liberty Conservative]

Image courtesy of Pong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Lessons Learned: What the Liberty Minded Can Take Away from Trump's Triumph ID 100170695

Take some notes, class is in session

I have noticed a troubling trend amongst liberty conservatives that is growing lately. Instead of forging alliances with the anti-establishment Republican grassroots, they are pouting, whining, doing the bidding of the Bill Kristol’s of the world, abandoning ship, taking their ball and going home. They are proving all the worst stereotypes about the liberty minded: that we are marginal, petty, flaky, unreliable, melodramatic and undeserving to enjoy the blessings of freedom.

Although events in the last year have killed morale and bruised many of our egos, there is a silver lining. The Trump phenomenon has harmed our enemies more than it has us. The elite media is reeling, having been out-smarted by a reality TV star. The neocons have never looked more foolish and out of touch. The special interest money machine that fuels Washington D.C. has been neutered by Trump’s garbage machine. When looked at as a case study, there are many lessons that we can learn from Trump’s historic campaign.

Lesson #1: Populist, antiestablishment politics are a gold mine

Donald Trump has proven this once and for all. Nigel Farage has overseas proven it as well. The people are fightin’ mad for a multitude of obvious reasons. We have to embrace this fact, not reject it. The liberty movement is not a cheerleader outfit for the status quo. We want to rock the boat. We want to turn the table on establishment politics. We are not guardians of liberal democracy nor the defenders of equality. We are liberty warriors on march to ultimate victory for a radical, anti-statist cause. Continue reading