Book Review: Building a Bridge to the 18th Century (1999)

How the past can improve our future
by Neil Postman
1999, First Vintage Books, 193 pages

Building_a_BridgeNeil Postman, longtime professor and eventual chair of the department of culture and communication at New York University, sadly died in 2003 at the age of 72.  Bridge is his final book, and it deals with the same universal themes found in his earlier 20-odd works: language, reason, education, childhood, and the idea of progress. [I also want to state that this book, as so many others, I decided to read and review thanks to reference from my dear mother, who was always in her own orbit politically and managed, eventually, with works such as these, to liberate my literal cause-orientation from its familiar strait jackets.]

Despairing over post-modernists who claim words don’t stand for anything real, he makes a case for reading and writing. Indeed, he feels if we don’t come up with a meaningful narrative for our world, we’re toast.

It is no accident, Postman is a huge fan of the two Thomases: Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, particularly Paine.

Note: Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense and The CrisisCommon Sense sold as many as 600,000 copies, which would be equivalent to a run of 60 million copies in the United States today. Continue reading

Movie Review: The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Good ideas that read better than they film

This isn’t to put down the fine cast and expression of sublime ideas that cause everyone to catch their breath the first time they hear them. It’s just the nature of the ideas.

For those of you who were not swept up in The Da Vinci Code book, it was quite the page turner:  An author and scholar specializing in cultural symbols, Dr. Langdon, visits Paris, France, to deliver a series of lectures.  As he is finishing one of them, a police inspector (Fache) approaches him and insists Langdon accompany him to the Louvre.

There the curator (Saunière) has seemingly been killed or committed suicide in a bizarre fashion, leaving clues in his blood stains and body position specifically for Dr. Langdon to decipher.  This seems evidence to Fache that Langdon has something to do with the curator’s death, enough to charge and imprison Langdon.  Yet Sophie Neveu, a policewoman, intervenes and secrets Langdon away.

The chase is on. Continue reading

Guest Column: Whose Mind is it, Anyway?

How we become slaves of the system
by Bob Livingston, Personal Liberty [full original column here]

Almost everything you think and do is against your best interest and you don’t even realize it. It’s planned that way.

The state seeks absolute control of your mind, body and spirit. Can the state succeed? It has, but only a precious few ever know.

Your mind and your thoughts are not your own. Almost every thought you have channels you toward the state.

By the time a child grows up and goes through the public (non)education system, he or she has no thoughts of his or her own. By the time that person is finished with college, the system has sealed his or her thought processes so that nothing is questioned. The imperative to inquire beyond what comes from the propaganda media and our leaders is gone.

Our minds are so smug in darkness and organized confusion that we are complete automatons. Our ego, our individuality, is completely excised and we are completely transferred into the state organism and group thought. Any deviation from the system by anyone is met with hostility by friends and neighbors.

By this we become locked into a system based only on conventional wisdom.  Conventional wisdom is what everybody knows. It is the court history (faux history) we receive in school and through the controlled media, repeated ad nauseum. Continue reading

Brian’s Column: ‘Trump’s Team,’ Ghosts of Christmas Past

Yet if liberty people step up, there’s light at the end of the tunnel

Strength thru Unity
Unity thru Faith

Just in case anyone is misinterpreting my assessment of what we are in store for with the Donald, here’s an interchange I produced in econversation with some Michigan liberty Republicans regarding the latest cabinet and advisor prospects

It appears to me that the Trump gang is going to be carrying the water for the Israel Lobby just as much as Hillary would have, with the possible exception of not upending Syria for a while. His statements and staff selections indicate he’s on board with the Greater Israel Project, especially in terms of invading and/or attacking Iran.[1]

He also appears to have fanatical belief in the Ziocon[2]-contrived War on Terror and its associated Constitutional infringements—not to mention the continuing unbroken string of false-flag attacks of global state terror—, such as stop and frisk [not even Hillary was for stop and frisk, at least not publicly]; he’s antitruth on several fronts (pals with many of the legitimate suspects of the 9/11 attacks, such as Larry Silverstein and other major Ziocons), is a sadistic Medievalist when it comes to drug freedom and women’s choice, is okay with poisoning the environment (and us) with GMOs, glyphosates—anything the Monsanto/Big Agra cartel wants to throw our way, including slow death by geoengineering and weather warfare.

He likes torture, mass incarceration, rendition, full-spectrum illegal surveillance, all the baubles and trinkets of the US-Israeli imperial juggernaut running amok. In short, where Hillary represents the totalitarian left, Trump represents the totalitarian right… and when you get right down to it, the individual of liberty in either regime is dead meat. Continue reading

Article: Open Letter to Governor Don Siegelman (#24775-001)

Sharing a special relationship that I hope to continue when he’s out
by Brian R. Wright

Note: Democratic Governor (1998-2002) of the State of Alabama was selectively, maliciously, and (demonstrably) criminally prosecuted by the federal judiciary for an appointment of a major campaign contributor to a nonpaying position on a state board—no funds went to the governor personally. [If every political figure were prosecuted for a quid pro quo response to a campaign contribution, there would be no political figures. The miscarriage of justice occurred under auspices of Karl Rove and the US Justice Department running amok with spite of the widely popular Siegelman for impeding the Republican gang’s power plans for Sweet Home Alabama.]

Further, Siegelman received an outrageously harsh sentence of seven years in the Oakville, Louisiana, federal facility. He’s due out in February; supporters are asking Obama to issue the governor a full pardon; Siegelman’s ordeal has received mainstream media attention over the years, including coverage by 60 Minutes. A documentary movie is near to being funded as we speak, entitled Atticus and the Architect, that promises to be a bombshell. It may actually result in the prosecution and conviciton—for criminal conspiracy to deprive liberty—of the notorious Bush operative and dirty tricks sadist, Karl Rove… aka “The Architect.”

Please help with the final days of fundraising to produce this extraordinary film!

My own awareness of Governor Siegelman’s case emerged a few years ago, and my support of him stems from consideration of the fact that we are all in this corrupt system together and if such blatant injustices and high-level corruption can happen to a former governor they can sure happen (and do happen) to you and me. Plus, I am just drawn to stand up for a good man of such notoriety for humanitarian reasons. The toll on him and on his wonderful family is simply staggering. I have sent him notes where he has been caged, and I sent him a Christmas card. I have also donated small amounts on numerous occasions to his cause. Continue reading

Article: Time to Redouble our Efforts

Donald Trump will need major help to see the light of liberty
Ron Paul, Campaign for Liberty

“So what does Donald Trump’s election as President mean?”

When a close friend of mine asked me that question shortly after the results poured in on election night, I tried to be as fair and objective as I could.

It means the American people are angry. With the rejection of Hillary Clinton, it means the American people are telling Washington, D.C. and its apologists in the press exactly where they can shove the status quo.

It means you and I are facing some real opportunities — and some very real dangers.

The American people have spoken, and they are fed up with business as usual.

But now the question becomes — will Washington listen? Continue reading

Guest Column: Electoral College Makes it Official

 Donald Trump Officially Becomes 45th US President-Elect
by Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers [original column here]

December 19, 2016. Final count:

  • 304 Trump
  • 228 Clinton
  • 3 Powell
  • 1 Kasich/ Paul
  • 1 FAITH SPOTTED EAGLE

Congratulations to the GOP Electors who “stuck to their guns” despite death threats and intimidation by tantrum-throwing leftists who inundated the Electors with calls, emails, and even in-person “visits” to their homes. As far as we can tell, this is the first time in American history that Electors actually received multiple death threats by political zealots attempting to terrorize them into changing their votes. Just imagine what Obama, Clinton, and the mainstream press would be saying if the situation was reversed, and Trump supporters had threatened to kill Democratic electors in an attempt to force them to change their votes. The Trump supporters issuing such threats would be have been condemned as terrorists, anti-democratic extremists, and traitors, and there would have been widespread demands for their arrests.

But when Democratic supporters threatened to kill electors, along with calling for the assassination of Trump and the raping and killing of his family members, the Obama Admin, Hillary Clinton, and Democratic Party leaders were entirely silent, and likewise for their fellow-traveler comrades in the media. We heard crickets. By their silence they signaled their approval of this terrorist campaign of intimidation of electors. Continue reading