What does that do to the Petri dish of American society when injustice is virulent? Doesn’t it create an ideal breeding ground for the kind of racism, intolerance, chauvinism and venomous “debate” that has become so mainstream today?

It is well known that the Religious Right are out to turn the world to Christ and what better way to do it than by using the biggest and strongest military in the world?

Just in time for the 2012 election PlanetPOV presents the new Periodic Table of Dangerous Elements. There are plenty of new infamous characters added but there are still some golden oldies on the table.  Some more notorious international figures were added as well but really you could make a whole [...]

Last night’s execution of a man who many on the right and left believed was not proven to have committed a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, also killed confidence in a core principle in our American legal system.

You start out in 1954 by saying, “N—-r, n—-r, n—-r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n—-r”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about [...]

This morning, I kicked a foul-mouthed woman off my Facebook page. She was a totally unreconstructed PUMA, who posted this article from the UK broadsheet, The Telegraph. I’ve nothing against foul mouths. I can swear with the best of them and in four languages. Hell, I live in Britain, where [...]

I was born a Democrat. My parents were Democrats before me. My father cast his first vote at 21 in 1936, for FDR. Four years later, when she turned 21, my mother did the same. She came from a long line of Democrats, going way back to Jackson, I suppose. [...]

There’s been a campaign going on around the blogosphere for awhile, advocating that MSNBC ban Pat Buchanan from appearing on the network. Buchanan is a political analyst, who, in the wake of the tragedy in Norway, wrote an editorial, which appeared to rationalise, if not favour, the motives of the assassin [...]

People are living longer. Just look at the number of ex-Presidents we have living yet. There are four, and I can’t remember when so many ex-leaders of the country have been alive and compos mentis. There have always been ex-Presidents who lived beyond their term of office. Herbert Hoover, Harry [...]

My presence is a present; kiss my ass! – Kanye West, “Monster” Kanye West has released the designed-to-be-controversial video for his single, “Monster”, and it puts Lady Gaga, Rihanna, etc. – heck, it even puts Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie – on notice, that anything they can do, he can [...]

Now, six years later, he’s back and running again for the GOP nomination. It reveals a sad state of Republican affairs in the Commonwealth when Allen’s opponents for the Republican nod are a Tea Partier and a State politician who advocates Virginia minting its own currency and who manages to make Pat Buchanan look like a Progressive. In the world of the Republican blind, the one-eyed George Allen is king, at least in Virginia.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” ~YODA       FEAR: Perhaps mankind’s oldest and most primal emotion.  If you can name one emotion most mammals share, it is fear. Fear is what kept our species [...]

This email is not about being a Republican or being a Democrat. It is about having some integrity and specifically, your lack thereof.

As one of your constituents in Arizona’s 7th Legislative District I wanted to let you know that I am outraged as a taxpayer at the time, money and effort spent on the ridiculous AZ “Birther” bill sponsored by State Rep. Carl Seel.

I’m a big James Bradley fan.  The author of Flags of our Fathers and Flyboys hooked me with the first book, a loving examination of his father’s role as one of the participants in flag-raising at Iwo Jima that we are all familiar with.  The book was very interesting and obviously a [...]

I could not believe how many pick-up trucks in the school parking lot were sporting a Johnny Reb bumper tag that read, “Hell, no! We Ain’t Fergettin.’” It was here, in 1960’s Mississippi, that I learned the Civil War was not quite over.

The house she rented was in a neighborhood of starter homes in Charlotte, NC. She paid her bills and through no fault of her own, faced eviction because her lousy landlord didn’t pay his/her mortgage.

Why is politics so mind bogglingly complicated? You often hear conversation  about the host of complex problems we face today and that these issues cannot be reduced to bumper sticker slogans and addressed by simplistic solutions. I say simple clear, concise ideas are powerful and the problems we face are [...]

On a Cloudy Day By James Michael Brodie One night, years ago, I was driving down a quiet road at night with a couple of friends. Seeing a silver barrel hurling headlong toward our windshield, the driver, as if choreographed, swerved left then right, avoiding the oncoming projectile as if [...]

On this day of tribute to Rev. Martin Luther King, a consideration of how a new campaign for social and economic justice is greatly needed today.

White folks who remarkably continue to claim (or ignore) racism isn’t alive and well, that circumstances have markedly improved for black folks are either delusional or purposefully in denial or are lifelong gopers, or lifelong racists!  Case in point….the Scott sisters! Two black women convicted of robbery that involved a [...]

Thank you for signing on to the obstructionist dog and pony show contrived by your Republican colleagues in the Senate. Have you signed the “secret” letter being circulated in the hallways of the Senate Building, akin to passing notes in study hall?

In this interview, Loewen links the Civil War era to the later era known as the Nadir of Race Relations (1890-1940), and further, to the modern day Neo-Confederate movement, which tends to look amazingly like it’s twin brother…the Tea Party.

The new HBO series, Boardwalk Empire debuted this week. It’s set in 1919′s Atlantic City when Prohibition became the law of the land. While watching it, and perhaps this is not coincidental, the similarities between the present and that period struck me. The births of the Temperance Movement and the [...]

As a follow up to our post on writing a speech for Obama on confronting the hatred and racism that has become so mainstream in our politics, I’ve composed the following draft for your review and comments. One note before you read it: Many folks wrote inspired comments which I [...]

A federal judge today blocked many of the key provisions of the Arizona Immigration law. Score one for the Constitution and rationality. Aside from the aspects of this law that institutionalized racism (giving BS lip service to, “We won’t racially profile while we’re racially profiling.”), this law created a huge [...]