Articles by Mark Taylor

With Celebration Of Former MI Gov. And ‘Mass Poisoner’ Rick Snyder’s Endorsement, Biden Solidly Aligns Himself With Evil

Biden is perfectly comfortable with the moral universe of Rick Snyder, where the mass poisoning of children is perfectly acceptable. As a neoliberal democrat, that is his universe. By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (9/7/20) It has been clear that the Biden campaign has no use for wooing progressives, believing, as Bill Maher has dismissively said: “Where else are they gonna go?” As a result, the Democratic National Convention featured a tacky chorus line of anti-labor, anti-choice, born-again, has-been Republicans supporting Biden’s campaign while progressive heroes like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez got a scant 60 seconds for a pre-recorded…


Dawning Of Opportunity For Labor: Why Every Job In The Renewable Energy Industry Must Be A Union Job

The Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics pre­dicts that the two fastest grow­ing jobs through 2028 will both be in the renew­able ener­gy sec­tor.  By Mindy Isser In These Times (9/3/20) he renew­able ener­gy indus­try in the Unit­ed States is boom­ing. Pri­or to the start of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, which has put mil­lions out of work, over 3 mil­lion peo­ple worked in clean ener­gy — far more than those who worked in the fos­sil fuel indus­try. And though the decline of fos­sil fuel jobs appears unstop­pable, the unions that rep­re­sent those work­ers are very pro­tec­tive of their mem­bers’ jobs. Sim­i­lar­ly, they’ve also been resis­tant to leg­is­la­tion like the Green…


Chris Hedges’ Address To The Peoples Party Convention Lays Out The Political Lose-Lose Reality We Face & Must Overcome

“In America you are only allowed to vote against what you hate.” Chris Hedges “We need to overthrow the system, not placate it.” Voting Green Party “I am not willing to surrender every issue I care about to become an accomplice n this moral squalor and death march to extinction. But I am also not naive enough to tell you we can win. The corporte state has built very effective mechanism of control and oppression, but these corporate forces has us by the throat and they have my children by the throat. In the end, I do not fight fascists…


How The National Media Is Completely Missing The Real Significance Of The Ongoing Conflict In Portland

“These right-wing forces are coordinating and positioning themselves to be able to launch a coup against American democracy and the Democratic Party, if the latter gains control of the presidency and government.” By Chauncey Devega Salon (9/4/20) In the Age of Trump, Portland, Oregon, is no longer just another city. Now it is a symbol and almost a Rorschach test for the country’s deep and explosive political divides. For Trumpists, Republicans and members of the far right, Portland is all that is wrong with “the Left” and “Liberals,” a chaotic nightmare zone where Black Lives Matter, antifa and other “enemies” are running amok while they attack “patriotism” and…


$4.5 Billion For Bogus Job Promises: Scott Walker’s Foxconn Con Has Wisconsin Angry

By Matthew Chapman Raw Story (9/2/20) On Wednesday, Crain’s Chicago Business analyzed the floundering remnants of the deal, once touted by President Donald Trump, to build a Foxconn electronics factory in southern Wisconsin — not far from the city of Kenosha, where a police shooting and racial injustice have recently defined the national conversation. “With the help of $4.5 billion in state subsidies—more than Wisconsin spends on its state university system and prisons together each year — along with rolled-back environmental regulations, the CEO, Terry Gou, promised jobs for 13,000 new workers eventually. Total Foxconn investment: $10 billion or more,” wrote H. Lee…



What Has Happened To Violent Police Filmed Abusing Protesters? So Far, Far Too Little.

Officers Are Unlikely to Be Disciplined — at Least Publicly. By Zipporah Osei & Mollie Simon ProPublica (7/28/20) It has been almost two months since a Los Angeles Police Department patrol car accelerated into Brooke Fortson during a protest over police violence. She still doesn’t know the name of the officer who hit her or whether that person is still policing the city’s streets. The officer did not stop after hitting Fortson and instead turned around, nearly hitting other demonstrators in the process, and sped off. The LAPD almost surely knows who the officer is. The squad car’s number is clearly visible…


Trump May Well Bring Social Security To A Screeching Halt

  By Nancy Altman CNN (9/3/20) Donald Trump once claimed that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City and not lose any voters. He’s now seeing whether the same is true if he kills Social Security. His unilateral, unprecedented step of deferring the collection of payroll taxes, the backbone of Social Security, is the murder weapon he would use. Trump has already ordered the Treasury Department to stop collecting Social Security’s dedicated payroll contributions for the next four months pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code, which permits deferrals of taxes when a disaster is declared. Once re-elected, if he…


Sound Familiar? How The Corporate System & Clueless Elites Enabled Hitler’s Rise To Power

“…Hitler’s mania for power did not succeed alone, but instead with the help of a system that let it happen.” By Peter Ross Range Yahoo! News (8/31/20) Adolf Hitler did not have to come to power. Indeed, during his 13-year quest for leadership of Germany, he almost failed many times. In the end, however, his astonishing success showed how demagoguery could overcome potentially career-ending challenges—and profoundly change history. A determined strongman, not taken seriously by the elites but enabled by a core of passionate supporters, could bend events his way just as his country went into free-fall. Hitler’s seemingly improbable ascent is an…


A Quasi Religious Conspiracy Cafeteria: How QAnon Is Going Global

The wild extreme fantasy is going global and could well affect the direction of the nation. The Real Story / BBC (9/4/20) This week President Donald Trump retweeted a false claim posted by a follower of the ‘QAnon’ conspiracy theory, stating that the real Covid-19 death toll is just 6 percent of official figures. Twitter took down the tweet saying it breached their terms and conditions. It’s not the first time the president has promoted messages from supporters of the debunked conspiracy theory that claims — in part -= that Mr Trump is leading a top-secret campaign to dismantle a…


Is The US Social Fabric Unraveling? – System Update With Glenn Greenwald

System Update / The Intercept (8/28/20) This week on System Update, host Glenn Greenwald examines the crumbling of the US social fabric. Glenn explores the rise in so-called Deaths of Despair, and examines the symptoms of deep unhappiness across in America – from suicide to drug overdoses – and how this long-term trend has acutely intensified with the Covid pandemic. Link To 36-Minute Video  


“I said I wanted you to panic…”

“One year ago I came to Davos and told you that our house is on fire. I said I wanted you to panic.… And for the record, when we children tell you to panic, we’re not telling you to go on like before. We’re not telling you to rely on technologies that don’t even exist today at scale and that science says perhaps never will. We are not telling you to keep talking about reaching “net zero emissions” or “carbon neutrality” by cheating and fiddling around with the numbers.… Let’s be clear. We don’t need a “low carbon-economy.” We don’t…


Four Years Ago, We Warned That Trump Could Win. Now, We’re Warning Again.

Trump really could win again. The more progressives wrap their minds around that reality now, the less likely they’ll have to live with it for another four years. [Editor’s Note: The authors make some good points here but they are off on one major aspect: the letter doesn’t need to be written to progressives; it should be addressed to the corporate dems campaigning with their heads up their rear-ends. You know, the geniuses running a campaign following the script of that oh-so-winning 2016 campaign. Progressives have been sounding a warning about corporate dem campaign malpractice for years. — Mark L. Taylor]  By Norman…


Will Swing Voters In This Wisconsin County Stick With Trump? — ‘It’s a coin toss here.’

In Forest county, Wisconsin – which backed Obama before Trump – voters voice doubts about both major candidates. By Chris McReal The Guardian (8/31/20) Joe Biden has blown his chance to win over Kristen, to be found selling home-baked cakes and pies at a farmer’s market in Forest county, northern Wisconsin. The 46-year-old was once a fan of Barack Obama, voting for him twice before switching her allegiance to Donald Trump four years ago. Kristen, who doesn’t want her last name used, was minded to back Trump again in November but was holding off to see who Biden chose as his…


Tragic Miscalculations & Lethal Behavior In The Post World War II Years Of The CIA Ruined Nation’s International Standing And Moral Center

By Dave Davies Fresh Air / WHYY (9/1/20) In his new book, ‘The Quiet Americans,’ author Scott Anderson profiles four daring and resourceful soldiers who became intelligence agents after World War II, when America was strong and respected after defeating Nazi Germany. The CIA then embarked on hundreds of ill-considered covert operations in Eastern Europe, and its obsession with fighting Communism propelled it into the subversion of several democratically-elected governments around the world. Anderson says the result was the loss of America’s moral standing in the developing world, where many had seen the U.S. as a beacon of freedom and…


Hidden In Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy, And Far-Right Militancy In Law Enforcement

  By Michael German Brennan Center For Justice (8/27/20) Racial disparities have long pervaded every step of the criminal justice process, from police stops, searches, arrests, shootings and other uses of force to charging decisions, wrongful convictions, and sentences. footnote1_9xgru6r1 As a result, many have concluded that a structural or institutional bias against people of color, shaped by long-standing racial, economic, and social inequities, infects the criminal justice system. footnote2_g4qgmwm2 These systemic inequities can also instill implicit biases — unconscious prejudices that favor in-groups and stigmatize out-groups — among individual law enforcement officials, influencing their day-to-day actions while interacting with the public. Police reforms,…


How Fascism Works: An Updated ALERT For The Americans

Amanour & Company (7/20/20) Jason Stanley is a professor of philosophy at Yale University, and in his new book “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them,” he explores the inner mechanics of fascism and the forces that drive dictatorships. Stanley joins Hari Sreenivasan to explain his concern at signs of fascism on the rise in the U.S. Link To 17-Minute Video  


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Journalist Kurt Anderson: “Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking Of America”

Amanpour & Company / PBS (8/12/20) As the pandemic lays bare social, legal, racial and financial injustice in America, it is vital to examine how the system got its start. Kurt Andersen is a best-selling author and journalist whose latest book examines the origins of America’s hyper-capitalism. He speaks with Walter Isaacson about the genesis and propagation of the system — and the need to take a step back. Link To 17+-Minute Video  


Taking Away Your Voice: The Campaign To Destroy Your Right To Vote

  Witness History / BBC (8/28/20) The Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark civil rights-era electoral law was designed to protect African-American and other minority voters. It was introduced to remove the many obstacles that were in place to prevent African-Americans from being able to vote. Many states, particularly in the south, used intimidation, local laws and so-called literacy tests to prevent black people from being able to register to vote. In 2010 Shelby County in Alabama attempted to overturn a key part of the law. In 2013 the US Supreme Court upheld their challenge. Now voters who are…


Right Wing Religion Round-Up: ‘Christian’ Fundraising Site Has Exceeded Its $220,000 Goal For Accused Kenosha Shooter Kyle Rittenhouse

By Tom Boggioni Raw Story (8/30/20) According to a report from the Religion News Service, a website dedicated to raising funds for Christian endeavors has allowed supporters of accused Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse to accumulate over $220,000 for his defense. Rittenhouse, 17, is facing extradition to Wisconsin and has been charged as an adult with two counts of first-degree homicide and one count of attempted homicide in addition to charges of recklessly endangering two other victims and possessing a weapon while under the age of 18. As RNS reports. the fundraising site Give Send Go has been hosting the plea for…


Notably Quotable: “On Thursday, Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway tipped the president’s hand…”

“On Thursday, Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway tipped the president’s hand on “Fox and Friends” when she said that “the more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for” a candidate running on “law and order.”” — Heather Cox Richardson, Letter from An American (9/1/20) ***** “It’s a myth that communities of color don’t want law enforcement, we do. What we don’t want is racial profiling. What we don’t want is excessive force. What we don’t want is to have our civil liberties and civil rights be stripped.” — Kamala Harris, Not All Criticism of Kamala Harris…


Historian Rick Perlstein On The RNC & Trump’s Lies & Dangerous Propaganda Driving Many To Violence

“picture of the world that bears no resemblance to reality” Democracy Now! (8/28/20) President Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican Party’s nomination on Thursday before a crowd of about 1,500 on the South Lawn of the White House. In defiance of social distancing guidelines, attendees sat shoulder-to-shoulder with few people wearing masks. Trump spoke as the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus neared 180,000 — by far the highest total in the world — and repeatedly defended his administration’s handling of the pandemic. Trump warned of chaos and violence if Joe Biden becomes president, but made no reference to the…



Anthropologist Wade Davis: The Unraveling Of America

COVID-19 didn’t lay America low; it simply revealed what had long been forsaken. By Wade Davis Rolling Stone (8/6/20) Never in our lives have we experienced such a global phenomenon. For the first time in the history of the world, all of humanity, informed by the unprecedented reach of digital technology, has come together, focused on the same existential threat, consumed by the same fears and uncertainties, eagerly anticipating the same, as yet unrealized, promises of medical science. In a single season, civilization has been brought low by a microscopic parasite 10,000 times smaller than a grain of salt. COVID-19 attacks our physical…


Life In A Socialist Hellscape

“Finns live longer and are less likely to die in childhood or in giving birth than Americans. Danes earn roughly the same after-tax income as Americans, while working 20 percent less. They pay in taxes an extra 19 cents for every dollar earned. But in return they get free health care, free education from pre-school through university, and the opportunity to prosper in a thriving free-market economy with dramatically lower levels of poverty, homelessness, crime, and inequality. The average worker is paid better, treated more respectfully, and rewarded with life insurance, pension plans, maternity leave, and six weeks of paid…


The Many Faces Of The Radical Right & How To Counter Their Threat

The success of the radical right has been built upon the backs of those it demonises. By Archie Henderson Open Democracy (8/27/20) A whole ecosystem has grown up around the radical right as it has surged in visibility this century. The radical right can lay claim to its own stable of media personalities and political superstars, not to mention the social media platforms and political parties that cater to them. Its growth has been powered, in part, by some of the same social institutions that characterize and support mainstream culture: the political system itself, where many radical right parties attempt participation…


Michael Moore Warns Trump On Course To Repeat 2016 Win

“I’m warning you almost 10 weeks in advance. The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in Trump’s base is OFF THE CHARTS! For Joe, not so much.” By Edward Helmore The Guardian (8/30/20) The documentary film-maker Michael Moore has warned that Donald Trump appears to have such momentum in some battleground states that liberals risk a repeat of 2016 when many wrote off Trump only to see him grab the White House. “Sorry to have to provide the reality check again,” he said. Moore, one of few political observers to predict Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, said that “enthusiasm for Trump…


Is Trump’s Death Cult Growing Or Shrinking?

Will Americans who have fallen sway to this cult begin to wake up, or will the Trump cultists be able, using Facebook and lies on Fox News and the media, to get even more Americans into their cult? By Thom Hartman Common Dreams (8/27/20) Donald Trump just guaranteed more Americans will die. Trump has been saying for some time that he wishes there was less testing for coronavirus in America, because that would reduce the number of cases that we find, which would improve, in his mind, his numbers compared to other countries. So yesterday the Centers for Disease Control,…


OCCUPIED TERRITORY! Americans Are Beginning To Learn That The Warfare State Will Eventually Turn Its Guns Against Its Own People.

  Despite widespread death and deprivation, the warfare state marches on without interruption. By David Masciotra Salon (8/8/20) The animating force of American government is war. Every year, the United States bombs multiple countries, conducts special forces raids across several continents and spends hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain a military presence in 70-plus countries, either in the form of occupying armies or large bases. Now that the U.S. is widely seen as a bungling, belligerent pariah, even allied nations no longer want American troops on their territory. The Japanese complain that U.S. military personnel sexually assault women without…


Hooked: The Financial Hit To Nation Of Opioid Crisis Estimated At $2.5 Trillio1

‘No amount of money can ever compensate for the pain’ (Editor’s Note: Those of us who have worked with addicts and alcoholics know: Drug use is A problem, but it is not THE problem. THE problem is a society and economy in distress and collapse. Build a more humane, functional society and most of the drug use will disappear. — Mark L. Taylor) By Alexis Keenan & Adriana Belmonte Yahoo News (8/22/20) U.S. states are claiming that opioid manufacturers, distributors, and others who fueled the country’s decades-long opioid crisis will cost the economy at least $2.15 trillion by the year 2040. The figure was reported in…


Extinction Rebellion TV Interview: Chris Hedges On Coronavirus, Climate & What Next?

  XRTV (3/28/20) A live XRTV #alonetogether interview with Chris Hedges, American journalist and author. Chris won the Pulitzer Prize while at the New York Times and has written a number of groundbreaking books on the crises we face. He will talk about the massive changes which are now upon us – why this has been coming for a long time and how it relates to the climate crisis. He will speak on what the future will look like and our responsibility to shape it into a humane outcome rather than the default of fascism which we are heading towards…


In A Time Of Mass Suffering, It’s Time For A One-Time Pandemic Wealth Tax On Billionaires’ Windfall Gains

It is time to levy an emergency wealth tax on billionaire profiteers and direct the funds to offset the cost of the nation’s health-care costs. By Chuck Collins & Frank Clemente Market Watch (8/20/20) Nothing symbolizes the inequality of sacrifice during the Covid-19 pandemic more than watching a few hundred billionaires gain while everyone else struggles through job losses, debilitating illness, or death. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from Covid-19 and over 32 million have lost their jobs. U.S. households lost an estimated $6.5 trillion in wealth during the first quarter of 2020 alone. But billionaire wealth is surging. Since…


To See The Politics Clearly: Think & Talk Vertically, Not Horizontally

Thinking vertically not only has the potential to unite those who are currently divided but also empower those who are presently conquered.” “As old labels indicate, we’ve all been conditioned to think about politics horizontally, from right to left. This way of thinking needlessly divides us by magnifying our differences and glossing over our commonalities. Turn the political spectrum on its head, and think top to bottom instead of left to right, and a magical thing can happen. Picture a man and a woman. He’s white. She’s black, He’s a farmworker, she’s a childcare provider. Both are struggling to make…


Kenosha Militia Violence Is A Dire Development Not To Be Ignored

Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, Illinois on the streets of Kenosha (Twitter). The trend of police and right wing fascist cooperation is as troubling as it is obvious and does nothing — absolutely nothing — to enhance the limping legitimacy of law enforcement. By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (8/27/20) (Note: This column was updated 3:10 p.m., 8/27/20.) Memorial Day saw the video documented murder of Black citizen George Floyd in Minneapolis by white police officer Derek Chauvin, which initiated protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement around the globe. Just shy of…


Before They Were Conservative Heroes, St. Louis Gun Couple Fought Firearm Companies In Court

Lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey won hundreds of thousands of dollars for clients injured by faulty handguns. By Chip Brownlee & Brian Freskos Trace (8/24/20) Mark and Patricia McCloskey attracted national attention when they stood on the lawn of their palatial home in a gated St. Louis community and pointed a rifle and a handgun at a passing group of Black Lives Matter protesters. The couple quickly became darlings of some Republican politicians and gun-rights activists, who said the two were simply exercising their rights under the Second Amendment. “We’ve got a right to bear arms. We’ve got a right…


Driftless Area Political Report: How Suffering Farmers May Determine Trump’s Fate

As rural southwest Wisconsin’s fortunes have declined, its political importance has grown. By Dan Kaufman The New Yorker (8/10/20) Last October, Jerry Volenec, a dairy farmer from southwestern Wisconsin, took the morning off to go to Madison for the World Dairy Expo, an annual cattle-judging contest and trade show. Volenec wanted to hear a town-hall discussion led by Sonny Perdue, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture, to learn how the Administration planned to address the economic crisis gripping Wisconsin’s family dairy farmers. Volenec’s farm sits atop Bohemian Ridge, a jagged plateau named for the Czech immigrants who settled there in the late nineteenth…


The Apocalypse Is Here: Will We Ever Listen To The Warnings?

What is it going to take to get us to listen and to act? How much worse do things have to become?  By David Sirota TMI (8/25/20) This is a cautionary tale, written as I try to figure out how to construct the “safe room” that state officials now say I need to build for me and my family. And this cautionary tale is not just about one state or one election — it is about our democracy, our head-in-the-sand political establishment, and most important, about whether or not we have the ability to listen and to change as our…


Climate, Crude & COVID Combine To Devastate Ecuador’s Amazon And Indigenous Populations

By Aman Azhar Real News (8/11/20) Unprecedented flooding, the COVID-19 pandemic, and catastrophic oil spills are wreaking havoc in Ecuador’s Amazon and its Indigenous communities, one of the groups hardest hit by the climate-related emergencies fueled by unbridled drilling for oil and mining for minerals. In April, as COVID-19 began to overwhelm the healthcare system, both of Ecuador’s transnational oil pipelines ruptured, dumping thousands of barrels of oil into the Coca river and its tributaries that provide fresh water and livelihoods to native communities. Regarded as Ecuador’s worst spill in a decade, the collapsed pipelines are still not fully repaired, and…


New York’s Successful Socialist Slate Gives Hope & Shows The Left Needs To Think BIG

In New York, voters’ despair over Albany’s twisted politics was met with a movement of reasoned hope.  By Rachel Himes & Ansley Pentz Jacobin (8/21/20) our socialist legislators will join New York State senator Julia Salazar in Albany next year. In June, candidates backed by New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA), the nation’s largest chapter with over 5,800 dues-paying members, swept races in Brooklyn and Queens, solidifying the organization’s role as one of the most powerful forces in electoral politics in the state. In the midst of a devastating pandemic, a national uprising, and economic recession, 100,000 New…


Attack Of The Tomato Killers: The Police State’s War On Weed & Backyard Vegetable Gardeners

Botched SWAT team raids have resulted in the loss of countless lives, including children and the elderly. Usually, however, the first to be shot are the family dogs. By John Whitehead The Rutherford Institute (8/25/20) “They came again this morning at about 8:00 o’clock. A large cargo-type helicopter flew low over the cabin, shaking it on its very foundations. It shook all of us inside, too. I feel frightened … I see how helpless and tormented I am becoming with disgust and disillusionment with the government which has turned this beautiful country into a police state … I feel like I…