Author Archives: Brian Wright

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.

Movie Review: The Third Man (1949)

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Post World War II film noir w/authentic feel _ 8/10

The Third ManCalloway: Go home Martins, like a sensible chap. You don’t know what you’re mixing in, get the next plane.
Martins: As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I’ll get the next plane.
Calloway: Death’s at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.
Martins: Mind if I use that line in my next Western?

Anna Schmidt: A person doesn’t change just because you find out more.

Amazing I’d never seen this highly artful, black and white film, because it actually has a bit of a political message, set as it is in immediate post World War II Vienna, Austria. The city was divided into four separately policed zones—US, Britain, France, Russia—mainly to accommodate the diplomatic niceties extended to the Soviets. Hint: Nobody wanted to be in the Russian zone.[1] It was quite common for Germans to forge their identity papers so that they would appear to live in districts under responsibility of the Western powers. Continue reading →

Guest Column: Ali Championed Palestinian Liberation, Who Knew?

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Muhammad Ali: “I declare support for the Palestinian liberation struggle”
Dr. Kevin Barrett, c/o Veterans Today [Full VT column here]

AliThe mainstream media doesn’t want you to know one important thing about Muhammad Ali: His all-out, unreserved support for the liberation struggle of the Palestinian people against Zionist genocide.

Samidoun writes:

In 1985, Ali traveled to Israel in an attempt to secure the release of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in occupied Southern Lebanon. This followed on his visits to Palestinian refugee camps in 1974, when he declared in Beirut that “the United States is the stronghold of Zionism and imperialism.” While visiting Palestinian refugee camps in South Lebanon, he declared:

“In my name and the name of all Muslims in America, I declare support for the Palestinian struggle to liberate their homeland and oust the Zionist invaders.”

The mainstream media has no problem celebrating Ali’s heroic resistance to the Vietnam war. We’ve all heard about that.

So why won’t they even mention the Champ’s equally heroic stand on behalf of the Palestinian people? Continue reading →

A Presummer’s Night Dream

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A plush memorial-garden setting sets off a  barrage of heavenly imagery

Here’s the dream note from 6/1/16:

Godwithin7Williams [an engineering firm I worked for 35 years ago] has a memorial garden measuring 1/2 mile by 1/2 mile inside a full square mile grounds including the Michigan design and production facility. And I run into some of my engineering buddies nearby. Men whom I only knew remotely are speaking of my work for the company as splendid and caring, showing integrity. I feel poorly that I haven’t been more friendly to these men who obviously think exceptionally highly of me; though when we worked together, I was always courteous and complimentary. The garden is this amazing natural retreat, complete with a raging river with rapids into the corner of it, all so beautiful and full of life. It reminds me of heaven—a living heaven. There’s a spirit to it, yes of Sam [Sam Williams, the company founder], but also of everyone who chose to take part in his journey. I feel fulfilled and worth something far more than I customarily regard myself. I want Rose [former wife] to share this with me, and I also see on reflection just how beautiful my own soul is, how utterly amazing—despite the rough edges and early addictions—my creative work has been.

Synchronicity

Gerry_HermanIt happens that one of the finer persons I ever met at Williams was a tall, bright Kansan[1] named Gerry. When I first arrived at Williams back in 1977, I went to work for the accessories group—lube pumps, fuel controls, start cartridges, electronics. There were only four of us at the outset; Gerry was the head ramrod of the electronics… and anything else that required more than simple arithmetic. He was, shall we say, the brains of the outfit… and without peer in that quality for most of his career at the company. Continue reading →

Book Review: Little Pink House (2009)

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One woman’s historic battle against eminent domain
A true story of defiance and courage
by Jeff Benedict
Review by Brian Wright

Kelo_Pink_HouseIt’s with the greatest pleasure that I review this epochal action-crime drama of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Little Pink House is the exhilarating literary ride about the Kelo vs. City of New London eminent domain case that shook the country. It’s chock full of heroes (Susette Kelo and her many partners in the freedom fight) and villains (the several local, state, federal, and corporate poobahs who think nothing of bulldozing the poor and handing the vacated land to the looting rich… minus a healthy commission for their thuggery). If you ever entertained doubts about the confiscatory evil of eminent domain (ED), this book will dispel them: ED = Erector-set Dysfunction. The book makes crystal clear that public takings are nothing but expropriation of some persons for connected, well-to-do other persons… and those who participate in the action are the slimiest scum: cowards who steal under protection of law. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Alongside Night (2015, updated version)

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An impressive and important artwork in the libertarian cultural oeuvre (8/10)[1]
Written and directed by J. Neil Schulman, produced by Patrick Heller
Reviewed by Brian R. Wright

Alongside_NightPatrick Heller of Liberty Coin Service, who financed this film, is a personal friend of mine and political ally going back to the early 1970s. To use a military analogy, back in the day of Rampant Campus Collectivism we charged up a lot of the same hills under heavy fire… and continue to fight for reason and liberty in our much more sinister Era of Polished Global Fascism. I’d say we’ve managed to secure some beach heads for what we (with others)—and certainly the writer/director of Alongside Night, Mr. J. Neil Schulman—see as the ultimate if not imminent victory of Worldwide Liberty.

In 1979, when Neil’s novel was written, only a handful of authors had emerged to work Ayn Rand’s corner (philosophical individualism) or, say, Robert Heinlein’s hard science fiction path—Heinlein had a more martial-society ideal for the heroic person. [Yet, Heinlein came up with any number of mindbending plot devices and convincing tech innovations.] Anyway, Alongside Night along with L. Neil Smith’s Probability Broach were the ones most of us contemporaries in the modern libertarian movement read and discussed.  Continue reading →

Guest Column: In Loving Memory of Harambe

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The same child ‘saved’ by killing Harambe the gorilla will be systematically poisoned by clueless humans wielding toxic vaccines and cancer causing junk foods

Harambeby Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) It’s important to point out the outrageous hypocrisy of the shameless murder of Harambe the gorilla, a conscious, aware, intelligent being who showed no intention of trying to harm the child that fell into his exhibit at the Cincinnati zoo. #JusticeForHarambe

The very same stupid, idiotic humans who carry out these murders to “save a child’s life” will turn right around and have their own children injected with brain damaging mercury in the form of vaccines. They’ll feed their children cancer causing chemicals like sodium nitrite in bacon, sausage and hot dogs. They’ll routinely commit chemical violence against their own children at every meal, yet when a gorilla is near some child, it’s so scary to ignorant humans that they haul off and murder the primate out of nothing but ignorant fear.

Humans are stupid. Harambe is no villain, and he didn’t deserve to die.
Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: The 2016 LP National Convention

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Libertarians nominate presidential ticket Gary Johnson/William Weld,
now actually standing a chance of winning the 2016 election… IF…

SM_Johnson-Weld… they continue to avoid shooting themselves in the foot (as was ever their wont) and rise to the challenge of The Truman Prophecy… by committing themselves to the Snowden-Manning political program. [In a phrase, the Libertarians “have to bring real truth and real justice to real people.”]

Note: From Shane Trejo’s column here, I realize that Weld, with some disturbing specifics to his background, could be a colossal mistake. But I don’t think so. As I try to point out in this column, what matters isn’t who our candidates are but the political program they will effect. And WE, the truth-justice-liberty warriors, will be—or certainly can be—the driver of what they do. They represent us; we have to insist they embrace the Snowden-Manning program, or else! ALL parties and ALL candidates.

It was a cliffhanger from what my Rose—watching CSPAN—was telling me with regular updates this afternoon. Gary Johnson won the presidential nod this morning on a second ballot, handily. But his preferred vice-presidential candidate, William Weld—another former two-term Republican governor in a largely Democratic state (Massachusetts 1991-1997)—had to duke it out with a handful of presumably fine individuals yet having the political notability of the dogcatcher in Enid, Oklahoma. Continue reading →