Global

It’s funny how pure chance can affect things. I usually make it a point to attend the premieres of every play at my favorite theatre, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum. Thus I greatly looked forward to driving out to the splendid amphitheater in Topanga Canyon on July 26 for the opening night of the first revival of the 1938 revolutionary play Haiti, A Drama of the Black Napoleon. But it was not to be - the road from Pacific Coast Highway up from Malibu to Topanga was closed, alas.

The following Saturday my disappointment turned into a piece of colossal luck, as I attended the next performance in the repertory season of Haiti - as did that courageous Congresswoman Maxine Waters, in order to receive The Will Geer Humanitarian Award. Before the show began, Congresswoman Waters joined the costumed actors onstage to be presented with the award by WGTB Artistic Director Ellen Geer to an ovation from the audience and cast.

“A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.” – A truism attributed to Dr Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment.

“I saw thousands who could’ve overcome the darkness, but for the love of a lousy buck I watched them die.” – Bob Dylan

Myth # 1:

“The FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) tests all new psychiatric drugs”

False. Actually, the FDA only reviews studies that were designed, administered, secretly performed and paid for by profit-driven, multinational pharmaceutical companies or farmed out by those companies to private research firms, in whose interest it is to find positive results for their employers. Unsurprisingly, such collaborations virtually guarantee fraudulent results.

Myth # 2:

“FDA approval means that a psychotropic drug is effective long-term”

Last May I was in Russia when fascists held a rally in my hometown of Charlottesville, not to be confused with their larger rally which followed in August.

– Traditional Scottish prayer

Two years after Russia interfered in the American presidential campaign, the nation has done little to protect itself against a renewed effort to influence voters in the coming congressional midterm elections, according to lawmakers and independent analysts.

– Washington Post, August 1, 2018

oes anyone here have confidence that the American voting system is secure, stable, and designed to protect the voting rights of every eligible American voter?

Now being planned and built in Washington, D.C., which is already just about coated in monuments to wars and particular warriors, are monuments to: World War I, the Gulf War, Native American fighters in wars, African Americans who fought in the U.S. war for independence, and the War on Terrorism, as well as one to Eisenhower the Warrior.

That War on (make that “of” — an easy alteration) Terrorism monument is supposed to be built by 2024, and the war it glorifies is due to end sometime in the next millennium or, as war planners like to say, “imminently.”

Most countries glorify their deeds, but many also mourn and regret and warn against repetition of their worst crimes. Not the good old USA, no sir. George Bush the elder said he’d never apologize and didn’t care what the facts were. That’s telling ’em.

Columbus is home to several annual conventions appealing to the gaming, fantasy, comic book enthusiasts and the general geek community. There's the Origins Game Fair, Marcon fantasy and science fiction convention, the Ohayocon anime convention, Buckeye Comic Con, Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), Geeklycon and this year, WizardWorld. Matsuricon is an annual Japanese pop-culture event in Columbus, started in 2006 and held exclusively in Columbus, that focuses primarily on Japanese animation (known as “anime,”) manga (Japanese graphic novels,) and video games.

"Matsuri" is the Japanese word for "festival." Matsuricon’s goal is to promote the cultural awareness of Japanese pop culture through related events, special guest speakers and cultural presentations. At Matsuricon you can find everything geeky and otaku, from anime to video games, Doctor Who to Marvel, My Little Pony to Homestuck and everything in between. It's an anime con first, but includes everyone else because the obvious overlap of fandoms.

“And when they found our shadows (grouped ‘round the TV sets), they ran down every lead; they repeated every test; they checked out all the data in their lists. And then the alien anthropologists admitted they were still perplexed, but on eliminating every other reason for our sad demise they logged the only explanation left: This species has amused itself to death.” - Roger Waters

“Apathy and indifference are nurtured in the modern age as most peoples’ free time is frittered away with worthless trivia like ball games, computer games, movies and soaps, and fiddling with their mobile phones. These distractions might be fun, but after most of them you’ve learnt nothing of any value, and remain ignorant, malleable and suggestible, which is just how the elites want you.” - Clive Maud

“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed... When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” - Dresden James

The establishment of a military force to go abroad and overthrow governments does not appear anywhere in the Constitution of the United States, nor does calling for destruction of countries that do not themselves threaten America appear anywhere in Article 2, which describes the responsibilities of the President. Indeed, both Presidents George Washington and John Quincy Adams warned against the danger represented by foreign entanglements, with Adams specifically addressing what we now call democracy promotion, warning that the United States “should not go abroad to slay dragons.”

Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has proven to be particularly prone to attacking other countries that have only limited capability to strike back. North Korea was the exception that proved the rule when the Chinese intervened to support its ally in 1950 to drive back and nearly destroy advancing U.S. forces. Otherwise, it has been a succession of Granada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia, and Libya, none of which had the capability to hit back against the United States and the American people.

rogressives should figure it out. Amplifying the anti-Russia din helps to drown out the left’s core messages for economic fairness, equal rights, environmental protection, diplomacy and so much more. Echoing the racket of blaming Russia for the USA’s severe shortages of democracy plays into the hands of Republicans and corporate Democrats eager to block progressive momentum.

When riding on the “Russiagate” bandwagon, progressives unwittingly aid political forces that are eager to sideline progressive messages. And with the midterm elections now scarcely 100 days away, the torrents of hyperbolic and hypocritical claims about Russia keep diverting attention from why it’s so important to defeat Republicans.

According to Donald Trump, the one allied victor of World War II not still occupying Germany has made Germany its slave.