Racism and slavery were the training wheel lies for todays schizo-frenetic Right wing — It is not just that Donald Trump lies. It is not just that any particular member of the GOP lies. It is, also, that the lies are so readily accepted by some voters. The lies are either believed, wholesale, in an immoral credulity, or wielded in an amoral ruthlessness —…

If you liked the movie trilogy, there’s more — so much more — waiting for you in the books — I always read Simon Dillon and you should too. His insight into cinema is unparalleled on Medium, isn’t much equaled elsewhere, and is only surpassed in dedicated intellectual endeavors like The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books and other august publications. Recently, Simon revisited The Lord Of…

Dear Senator Joe, Victorian England wants their pietist class structure back, the clergy (old testament and new) want you to know that revanchism is their thing, get your own, and the GOP wants you to join them or to stop stealing their material. “Manchin has told several of his fellow…

In which the author emerges from an alcoholic comma… Some time ago, no matter how long precisely, I made a visit to a psychotherapist. She was a nice person, with several degrees in various psycho-social disciplines, and a well appointed office done up in soothing colors. During one of our…

A subtle moral bait and switch occurs in un-necessary additions to August Wilson’s play… — The blues ain’t nothin but a good man doing wrong. — Anonymous The Netflix adaptation of August Wilsons’ theater play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is extravagent in portrayal yet diffident in direction. There are magnificent performances: The actors — every last one of them — gives every last bit of…

Habits, duplicity and orthodoxy oppose identity politics. — It could be argued that “Identity politics” — a term much in vogue now — really has no actual adherents or proponents. It is, in fact, the opponents of a certain form of ’Identity politics’ who are the ones fueling the use of the term. Others, more sympathetic to the…

The insanity of embracing inequality, in the argument against a living wage — We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had too much. John Kenneth Galbraith, 1991. A theory of economics, as told by a conservative, is that if you put more money in…

Sometimes, the power the Representative holds is the power to push back on the electorate — “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” Edmund Burke. Representation versus delegation The Republican Party is caught in a trap: Senators and Congressmen/women, representatives of people, in great fear of the Trump voters, are completely…

But it is unsure of which direction it wants to go and what kind of film it wants to be. — Netflix’s new prestige drama, The Dig is based on a true story. On the eve of World War II, a wealthy Englishwoman, Edith Pretty, (Carey Mulligan) hires the unlettered Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) to excavate some earthen mounds on her property. The title of the movie is simultaneously straightforward and…