I keep imagining the White House with a big, really big neon sign TRUMP across the top of the roof. Continue reading
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Author Archives: Joel S. Hirschhorn
Planetary suicide
Every so often a nonfiction book comes along that, because of its objective, comprehensive coverage of a hot topic, should be carefully read with a highlighter in hand by everyone. That new book is “Unprecedented” by David Ray Griffin. Continue reading
American democracy now an oligarchy
History has been made. But few Americans are aware of it or angry about it. I say: Wake up Americans. A war has been waged against US democracy, from the inside. Time to pick a side and fight back. Continue reading
Medicare madness: How Americans can lose benefits in a hospital
Tuck away the many horror stories of the wrong limbs being amputated, things being left in surgery patients, terrible infections picked up in hospitals and totally wrong diagnoses. More relevant is a bureaucratic hospitalization horror that far too few Americans covered by Medicare are aware of. Continue reading
Hate the super rich
There are times when hatred is a needed, logical and moral stance to take. Evil, injustice and corruption are fine examples of what to appropriately hate. Continue reading
New Jersey Governor Christie wants us to believe he was snookered
After having many positive views of New Jersey Governor Christie mainly because he seemed like a better kind of politician, maybe being someone the public could actually trust, I now see him as just another untrustworthy, dishonest politician. Continue reading
Tea Party terrorists
By now all conscious people have seen how American Tea Party Republicans, especially those in the House of Representatives and Senate, are widely seen as radical, unreasonable, mad, stupid, extreme, anarchists, delusional and worse. My view is that the best and most useful way to see these people is this: They are political terrorists. Continue reading
Fighting the Stupid Revolution
Stupid Americans elect stupid politicians. Government-hating Americans elect government-hating politicians. Mean-spirited citizens elect mean-spirited politicians. Continue reading
How stupid are Limbaugh listeners?
While driving on my usual errands’ run the other day, I listened a little to Limbaugh’s radio show. As usual I was completely amazed at the incredible misinformation vomited by the champion of stupidity. Continue reading
Pathetic qualifications produce pathetic presidential performance
President Barack (a.k.a. Barry) Obama is not, nor ever was a master politician, master diplomat, master bureaucrat, master lawyer or master anything. Continue reading
Limbaugh mocks freedom of speech
By now most people know that though it is perfectly fine to shout fire in a packed theater if there really is a fire, even constitutionally protected freedom of speech does not allow such behavior if there is no fire. Continue reading
African safari trip of a lifetime
The most amazing thing I learned on my first safari trip in South Africa is that elephants have the most incredible, very long black eyelashes. Second, lions could not care less about nearby trucks and people, nor lights at night. Third, though giraffes seem to walk slow and gracefully, their legs are so long that they cover long distances very quickly. Continue reading
Technology servitude
Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high tech devices, while driving, while walking, while shopping, while in groups of friends, while in restaurants, while waiting in doctor offices and hospitals, while sitting in toilets—everywhere. While connected electronically, they are inattentive to and disconnected in physical reality. Continue reading
Lies and liars lost
My cynicism about the stupidity of the American public would have increased exponentially if Mitt Romney would have been elected president. In over 50 years of voting and 25 years of working professionally in the world of politics and public policy, I had never seen such outrageous and persistent lies, distortions and intellectual insults from a presidential candidate. Please note that I was not an Obama supporter; I proudly voted for the Libertarian candidate. Continue reading
Fire Congress, vote out incumbents
For politicians to do what is right, first citizens must do what is right. Continue reading
Wake up: Reject the two-party plutocracy
Here we go again. Millions of Americans will soon vote for either the Republican or Democratic presidential candidate not because they deeply believe that he is absolutely the best possible president the country needs and can have. No, they will know that they are compromising and choosing the lesser of two evils, mainly because most people know that both major parties and their candidates stink. The lesser evil is still a loser. Continue reading
Numbing numbers explain US frog revolution
Believing in the classic American Dream that hard work will deliver prosperity is like believing that buying super lottery tickets is a smart way to become wealthy. Both are delusional beliefs because both are bets on incredible long shots that will disappoint nearly everyone who believes this garbage. The American Dream has been destroyed by a revolution from the top. Continue reading
Losing constitutional competition
Among Americans there remains strong pride about the US Constitution, even though there is widespread support for creating reform amendments to it. Globally, however, what should surprise Americans is a significant loss of respect for it. Other nations, especially those creating new democracies, see better constitutions elsewhere. This is not opinion. It is fact. And it is important to understand this historic shift. Continue reading
No matter who wins, Americans lose
Why am I so sick of all the media attention to the Republican presidential primaries and all the blabbering about President Obama’s advantages and disadvantages for the coming election? I just cannot get excited. My answer may also be yours: No matter who wins, our nation loses. Continue reading
Cruise ship vacation wisdom
I have taken a number of cruise ship vacations. The last one was about a year and half ago Continue reading
Don’t mute Newt
The trick to maintaining the US delusional democracy is feeding the illusion for citizens that voting and elections really matter. But when both major parties are owned by rich and corporate elites it matters less than most people think whether Republicans or Democrats win and control Congress or the White House. Their seeming differences are a clever distraction that keeps fooling and manipulating Americans. With the help of the mainstream media, making entertainment out of political races, Americans are deceived into thinking that elections deserve their respect and participation. Continue reading
Jobless and clueless
When Americans who are the most victimized by our cruel economy still believe in something that is demonstrably no longer true, they are deeply delusional. They desperately want to believe in something once great about American society. The reality is that upward economic mobility has been destroyed, replaced by widely observable downward mobility. Some of the mostly younger jobless that have embraced the Occupy Wall Street and related Occupy efforts know the truth. Continue reading
Occupy revolution
History tells us that it is nearly impossible to know in real time whether some kind of national, grassroots public protest ends up being the beginning of a true revolution against a ruling government system. This is true for the earliest beginnings of the revolt against the British that produced the successful American Revolution and the creation of the US. Continue reading
Numbers justify Occupy movement
Feeling angry about being betrayed by a corrupt government owned by rich and corporate elites has driven the Occupy Wall Street movement. Emphasizing how the top one percent has prospered incredibly while the bottom 99 percent have been screwed royally is supported by countless data. New data show this is a global phenomenon and that even in the worst of economic times the wealthiest make out like the bandits they are, and there are a lot more of them than one percent. Continue reading
Semantic propaganda feeds stupidity
We would already have had a much needed American revolution in response to the tyranny of the money-fed two-party plutocracy that is destroying the middle class, except for one big problem: so much of the American population is just plain stupid. Too stupid to behave like angry Greeks and rise up in the streets to rebel against the dysfunctional government. Continue reading
Two capitalisms
With a kind of religious fervor, American conservatives love to talk about their love of capitalism, as if it has a singular definition and can always be counted on to serve public and national interests. The intelligent way to think about capitalism is that it can be of two kinds. The good kind is patriotic and stakeholder oriented, the bad kind is selfish and shareholder obsessed. The global economic downturn is strong evidence of the dominant second form of capitalism that has caused so much human suffering while it has served the rich and powerful. Continue reading
Lie to me
What is the main lesson from the recent fiascos of former Senator John Edwards and Representative Anthony Weiner? If you follow the news shows you saw a number of video clips where each of them had lied many times about what eventually they confessed to, their stupid, sleazy sexual misconduct. Continue reading
Pick your poison
One of the hardest truths to accept is that for most sources of pain hitting humans there seems to be nothing effective for government to do. Nowadays, those of us who do not gobble various distractions but work to stay connected to reality see two dreadful conditions. Nature seems mad as hell. People are dying or suffering from earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, extreme heat, huge snowstorms and more. While some idiots keep trying to deny the reality of global climate change, those of us who have lived a long time see firsthand that killer weather events are more prevalent than ever. Continue reading
Washington’s lies about unemployment, inflation and the economy
How do the powerful keep the US population dumb and distracted? A key tactic has been using methodologies that produce totally misleading underestimates of key economic factors. First we learned that official unemployment figures are too low by a factor of two. Now, understand that the official rate of inflation hitting consumers is even more inaccurate. You will hear about a low inflation rate of less than 3 percent. In reality, it is closer to 10 percent, according to the highly regarded analysis by John Williams. Continue reading
Fight economic oppression, target the top 1 percent
Massive economic inequality is killing America and we the people. It has already killed American democracy. The rich have captured the political system so they could manipulate the economy and benefit unfairly. Economic freedom and opportunity are gone. Greed among the top 1 percent has succeeded so well that a true uprising and revolt by Americans, like that seen in Egypt, may be needed to restore America. Continue reading
Despicable lies, delusional recovery
The US government lies. Sure looks like most Americans gobble up false and misleading information that is nothing less than political propaganda. Continue reading
Welcome to your delusional democracy
Posted on September 14, 2016 by Joel S. Hirschhorn
For some years I have used the term “delusional democracy” to describe the condition of the US. It seemed obvious to me that the vast majority of Americans have deliberately chosen to fool themselves. They have been brainwashed to believe what no longer is true. Become convinced that you do not live in a true and terrific democracy, or that your democracy is the best in the world. Continue reading →