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Destruction of DemocracyRacial Politics

The Trump Show… and What It Means for the Rest of Us

Photo above: Donald Trump and his Laughing White Men's Supreme Chorus back when they thought they were celebrating the removal of you and your children from affordable health care in the U.S. It's been a bit comforting to hear more and more conservatives and liberals speak out on the threat the Trump administration poses to our democracy. Progress! But I find we continue to dance around the issue of race and skin color. Hard right Republicans and their conservative media, per their playbook, have shamed the press and the Democrats into not ...

metadadablog on September 18, 2018

Recent Posts

Radical CentrismRole of the Citizen

Has the Time Come to Mandate Universal Service?

Photo above: John F Kennedy meeting with early participants in the Peace Corps, a program of people to people outreach in foreign countries. Radical Centrism: Remaking Citizenship Part IIIn my last post I promised a more detailed follow up on a key idea about rebuilding citizenship in the U.S. — mandatory universal service to country. Some will say it's easy for me to advocate universal service to country since, of course, as a 71 year old curmudgeon, I'd be exempt from such service. But I did come of age during the days ...

metadadablog on September 9, 2018

Recent Posts

Radical CentrismRole of Government

What Can We Do — What SHOULD We Do — for Our Country?

Radical Centrism Papers: Remaking Citizenship I "Ask not what your country can do for you... Ask what YOU can do for your country!" So John F Kennedy inspired us almost 60 years ago in his electrifying inaugural address.  But since the idealism he unleashed with that statement, it seems we've been just been doing a lot of forgetting. Politicians, presidents, political parties, preachers and pundits have sort of been just letting us off the hook.  Right? The weakening of our democratic republic and debasement of our civic values seems to continue unabated. Not ...

metadadablog on September 6, 2018

Recent Posts

Destruction of DemocracyInternet Age

WWIII May Have Already Started… Here’s What It Looks Like on the Ground

I made a bit of a mistake in my Thank You Comrade Putin post — a very American mistake — of believing that what happens in the U.S. is some kind of special history, when in fact, these days, everything must be taken in a global context. So here's a well-researched article by Michael Carpenter that appeared in The Atlantic recently detailing Putin's use of fringe groups to further his war on democratic governments around the world.  It is important to understanding the vast scope of Putin's ambition. Here's that link again. Please click ...

metadadablog on August 30, 2018

Advice for DemocratsElections

Guys, It’s Not Trump! It’s the GOP

Above: The Georgia race — John Ossoff and the Elephant-in-the-Room Memos to Demos I: OK, it's been a year.  Democratic candidates have now focused their hopes on tying Trump as the bogeyman to the local candidate in each of five elections. They lost them all. They are doing the same in the Virginia governor's contest that, ...

By metadadablog on November 4, 2017

IssuesKeynesian Economics

A Word from Our Sponsor

Mom and Dad Create the World: Intermission As I share pieces my family’s story as an avatar of the World War II generation, now is a good time for a frank truth: that my parents and their entire generation got a big assist from government. A visionary President (Roosevelt) instituted reforms driven by the collapse ...

By metadadablog on November 3, 2017

IssuesMen's Experience

Coming Together for Good

Mom and Dad Create the World 2 The American century (20th) followed the arc of our immigrant families that peopled the East Coast and midwest in the late 19th and early 20th century. Indeed, the vibrancy of the US economy as it grew through the 40's and 50's into a world power must be attributed ...

By metadadablog on November 2, 2017

Advice for DemocratsElections

Time for Sanders Supporters to Grow Up?

Well, recent troubles with the party management and power structure of the Democratic Party illustrate that they seem to be as busy as the Republicans at tearing their party apart. A Salon editorial by Sophia McClennen published last spring, is one of the most articulate expression of the resentments of a substantial portion of the Sanders wing ...

By metadadablog on October 31, 2017

IssuesMom and Dad Create the World

From an Unrecognizable World

Mom and Dad Create the World, Part I My dad grew up on a farm in Manning, Iowa, America’s heartland (there picking up ideals of honesty, work, and duty that informed his life). He walked several miles to a one-room schoolhouse until eighth grade, when his father required him to quit school to work the ...

By metadadablog on October 29, 2017

ElectionsFacts and Fake Facts

The Loudmouth in the Bar

Remember Archie Bunker, a television avatar who became not a laughing stock, but a symbol of resistance for the common man. There’s a fascination with a loudmouth know-it-all in a bar.  He’s the guy who treats the world like the male to male competition among certain species of birds or other animals: instead of beaks, ...

By metadadablog on October 29, 2017

Internet AgePolitical Dysfunction

Welcome to Your Front Row Seats at the Apocalypse!

"May you live in interesting times," they say... Well, we do. But it seems we are pitifully powerless to affect the change hurtling toward us. We feel less like the hero in the arena, and more like we just bought front row seats at the Apocalypse! This is a blog for everyone who's interested in ...

By metadadablog on October 29, 2017

CultureMyths

Stories We Tell Ourselves

Okay, I’m not trying to be off-putting on my earliest posts, but the concepts of language and narrative that I explain here are central to so many of the posts that follow. So, please ignore or skim this brief detour through philosophy if you choose. I think there’s a peculiar discovery that underlies much of ...

By metadadablog on October 29, 2017

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