Author Archives: Philip A Farruggio

Many baby boomers remember the original MAD Magazine, which was founded in 1952. MAD reached its apex during the mid to late 60s, when there was so much to satirize about. The Cold War, the Vietnam debacle, the Civil Rights movement, Women’s Rights and of course the birth of ‘The Pill’ were among the many great issues to consider during that time. Factor in the presidency of Richard Nixon and whoopee, MAD had lots to satirize. We high school and college kids could not wait for the next issue to come out! This writer knows that MAD is actually still around , but the power of its themes were so great during those latter years. Continue reading →

Many thanks to Bob Dylan’s great song of the same name. What rankles me is how so many of my friends, neighbors and acquaintances seem to accept how far down the rabbit hole our Amerikan society has fallen. Continue reading →

Many thanks to singer/songwriter Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” for inspiration. As New Year 2018 is before us, we are truly in a ‘Season of the Rich.’ One need not be an accountant or financial whiz to know that this so-called ’tax reform bill’ is a super rich man’s gift to the super rich. Continue reading →

It is yuletide season once again What better book to read or film to watch than Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”? Continue reading →

First off, for purposes of proper understanding, let us agree that we are an empire, and have been since the end of WW2. Let us then agree that we are not just an empire, but a Military Industrial Empire, with at least 1,000 bases in over 100 different countries. What has been news to this writer and the majority of our citizens is the fact that we have troops in 90% of African countries. Of course, we all know of our vast military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq . . . for too long to even comprehend, as well as our illegal drone attacks on too many nations. Continue reading →

They have a term for those on death row awaiting execution: dead men walking. Well, ditto for a large (too large) segment of our Amerikan populace. One needs to first read William Hartung’s brilliant piece “How the Military Industrial Complex Preys on the Troops.” Google it and learn what the hell is really happening to your tax dollars! Continue reading →

This writer lived through a major hurricane assault, when Mathew trampled through Port Orange, Florida on October 7 of last year. We were lucky while being the unlucky neighbors in our 50-unit sub community. Continue reading →

During these trying times, for any of us with even an ounce of rationality, please go out and get the 1997 Barry Levinson film Wag the Dog. This satire (is it really?) was originally based on the sexual scandals around our president at the time, Bill ‘Ignore my smirks’ Clinton. In reality, this film is really a testament to many of our presidents and how they use phony foreign threats to raise their poll numbers. Continue reading →

That was from the song And Flowers Die, by prolific composer Michael Palermo and this writer as lyricist. How appropriate to compare this song with the ‘death song’ of our Military-Industrial Amerikan Empire, now in only its 72nd year of prominence. How great and powerful our empire was for so long. We controlled the economies and governments of so many countries, even continents. Now it is the autumn of our status as Number One. The Asian rim, as many refer to it, being led by China and all those other nations in that region, will become the future economic powerhouse of this planet. Continue reading →

Two great films, entitled “The Manchurian Candidate”, (1962 & 2004 remake) told a chilling story of mind control. Continue reading →

You go to the butcher shop and the sweet young cashier gives you change and says ‘Have a blessed day.’ You call one of your small business customers and they bid you adieu with ‘Have a blessed day.’ You watch some news talk show on the boob tube and the commentator says, ‘Bless our brave warriors.’ A lady at a retail store cashier line gets into a conversation about our (so-called) ‘Iraq War’ and she states equivocally ‘When someone breaks into your house, you have a right to kill them.’ Churches throughout America have, ever since 9/11, been falling over themselves to make sure to ‘Bless our brave troops,’ never beginning to focus on the tens of thousands of innocent civilians our ‘brave troops’ and drone missiles and WMD have murdered in the name of this ‘War on Terror.’ This is madness amplified to the Nth degree! Continue reading →

Years ago, a dear and late friend of mine, Bill K. once told me this story: He was a Chicago cop, one of the ‘ good guys ‘ who treated everyone equally. One day, he was driving his young son Nick to school. They were passing a bus stop and saw this guy getting off the bench to board the bus. The man was dressed like a laborer, with his lunchbox in hand. Bill turned to his son and said “Do you see that guy getting on the bus, obviously on his way to work? You see him holding that lunchbox, wearing a winter workman’s coat and hat? Well, son, THAT guy is the hero that you should worship. THAT guy gets up early each morning and shovels off to a job, bringing his ‘brown bag’ lunch with him. He probably puts in his full day, gets on another bus and goes home. Then, he gets up early tomorrow and does it all again. THAT is a hero!” Continue reading →

This writer has made it my main purpose, for 15 years now, to focus on the single most important issue destroying our nation’s economy. Yes, for those who read me frequently, it is this obscene military spending coupled with extreme militarism! Continue reading →

Ah, to be seventeen again, with so few cares in the world. Continue reading →

In Barry Levinson’s 1997 satire Wag the Dog, we laugh at how the “powers that be” can manufacture a crisis to mask domestic problems . . . carrying a nation right into a war. Continue reading →

Many of us live in Amerika and truly care about the America that has been stolen from us. The theft did not occur overnight, no, on the contrary it has been going on for as long as one can remember. This writer could literally fill a book with the events that have shaped this crime. Continue reading →

Memories come and go, but important ones seem to stay with us for entirety. I can recall, so vividly, traumatic events from my early youth. Continue reading →

My neighbor is a Vietnam vet suffering from the effects of Agent Orange. He is in his early 70s and looks at least 10 years older. In and out of hospitals with lapses in memory, the guy still maintains a ‘ gung ho ‘ Amerikan exceptionalism mindset. Will he ever learn the truth about how his life and that of millions of others, military and civilian, were damaged or destroyed by our country? Continue reading →

In Joachim Fest’s fine biography of Adolf Hitler, aptly titled Hitler, we learn many things never before taught in our world history classes here. To delve into it now with the needed detail from this 700+ page masterpiece would be futile for me the columnist. There is just so much to digest and comprehend about this Austrian of little education and no professional calling who became the Fuhrer. Yet, throughout the book, one cannot help but realize just how much the movers and shakers of our Amerikan empire copied tactics and outright propaganda from the Hitler gang. The use of the term Fatherland to describe Germany rings so close to post 9/11 Amerika’s choice of Homeland as in Homeland Security. Continue reading →

When the Bush/Cheney gang was in control, the bought and paid for Congress kept allotting more and more billions (over 50% of our federal tax dollars) for military spending. You see, it really did not register in the so called Defense budget because it was slotted as ‘Discretionary spending,’ thus the scam. Continue reading →

Just before the French Revolution, remember Marie Antoinette’s famous line, when appraised of the plight of the masses? When told that they did not have enough bread to eat she retorted ” Let them eat cake!” Well, in this 21st Century Amerikan Empire, when dead end box store and service jobs are the norm for many of our fellow citizens, they will always have their electronic gadgets to play with. Continue reading →

Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 satire of the same name (without the question mark)was meant to be a warning for Americans during the height of Nazism in Germany. Lewis understood how easy it can be for fascist movements to grow during tough economic times. He observed it in first Italy and then more powerfully in Germany, culminating with Hitler being appointed chancellor in 1933. Continue reading →

Last week, USA Today’s main section had an extensive investigative piece on lead in the drinking water supply of many rural communities. Continue reading →

For those who study metaphysics like this writer, there is the concept that this 3rd dimension we live in is really just a dream. When they say ‘dream’ they mean that the higher consciousness which is our real self is actually creating this 3rd dimension part of us. Continue reading →

On Friday, October 7, we were awaiting the hurricane named Mathew that was fast approaching Daytona Beach Florida. My wife and I were hunkered down in our master bedroom in what was supposed to be the safest part of our townhome, that being the western part. Continue reading →

Watching Richard Attenborough’s fine 1982 film “Gandhi,” one sees just how a colony of empire operates. The Indian people were treated as not even 2nd class citizens, and with it went all the injustices one can imagine. Continue reading →

Anyone who ever saw The Honeymooners episode from the mid 1950s: The Man From Space, check out what our soldiers are wearing while occupying countries. They resemble Ed Norton in his sewer worker’s uniform, who resembled some sort of man from outer space. Either way, the sight of our soldiers breaking into the homes of occupied Iraqis or Afghans, with 20 pounds of equipment and those gadgets on their heads, is really disheartening. I don’t think that Orwell, in his wildest dreams, could have created such a vision of a police state gone mad. Continue reading →