OPINION

We Can Overcome Ignorance and Fascism — By Reading

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“I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.” – John Adams The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — There’s no good excuse these days to be ignorant about anything. Any information you want or…

Court Secrecy Undermines Trust in Google Antitrust Trial

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Guest Column – By Caitlin Vogus – Freedom of the Press Foundation Before a single witness could utter a word of testimony in the Google antitrust case on Tuesday, the public and the press were temporarily barred from the courtroom. It’s just another step in a long list of anti-transparency measures styming access to the…

Everybody Knows the Dice Are Loaded, the Wars Will Never End

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Everybody knows the dice are loaded. Gamblers may roll with their fingers crossed. But the war is not over. It never ends, even though the good guys already lost. The fight was fixed. And the poor stay poor, while the rich just get richer.…

Putin Gets His Way: American Democracy is Chaos

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Gonzo Journalism – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Man, I was all mentally prepared for a government shutdown. I was dreaming of sleeping late every morning and taking a long unpaid vacation from having to pay attention to the morons making a mockery of running the Congress of the United States. But nooo!…

Revealed: The Republicans’ Three-Step Plan for Corporate Fascism

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Guest Column – By Thom Hartmann – The Republican Party is increasingly clear about its goal: Make America Russia, or at least Russia’s mini-me, Hungary. They are openly embracing a modern, westernized, Christian white supremacy-based version of classic fascism. And the MAGAT Republicans have a three-step process to bring it about that they’re already putting…

Democracy Needs Moderated Forums, Not Hate-Filled Free-For-Alls

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Let’s face it, there are times in this crazy world and this funny business when the only recourse in the face of imminent disaster is to call up the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson, the doctor of Gonzo Journalism. Now is such a time,…

If Bork’s Thinking is Behind Google Strategy, Let’s All Boycott Google

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — After spending some time this week thinking about the world of 1687, when Sir Isaac Newton and the Royal Society of London published Principia Mathematica — with a little MAGA Republican distraction thrown in — I’ve stumbled on to another epiphany. Newton’s Laws Work:…

Newton’s Laws Work: Except in the House of Representatives

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“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.” ― Sir Isaac Newton The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sitting here in front of a big screen hooked up to the internet on a late summer morning and wondering what to say about a nagging…

RIP Jimmy Buffett the Parrot Head Billionaire Beach Bum

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Jimmy Buffett had his only Top 10 hit with “Margaritaville” in 1977, searching for that lost shaker of salt for the Mexican booze in the blender helping him to hang on, I was smoking and boozing it up a little in bars myself…

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — A Journey Through Shifting Times

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Guest Column – By Valentina Francis – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy has taken a unique course, defying expectations and adapting to the changing tides of history. Once celebrated by the American Left and criticized by the reactionary Right, his legacy has undergone a fascinating transformation. On campuses across the nation, a thought-provoking shift…

The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance: How Authoritarian Leaders Mutilate Reality, History and Culture

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“The first thing every totalitarian regime does along with confiscation and mutilation of reality is confiscation of history and confiscation of culture.” – Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Introduction WASHINGTON, D.C. — When I first walked into the administration building of an Alabama community…

Art Ruins Sink Into the Marshes of Glynn

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The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — In my dreams it sometimes seems possible to solve all the world’s problems with only the abstract expression of a correct thought derived from empirical observation. But in the waking life of living, breathing human beings, this would only work if all were rational,…

The State of the News Media and What That Means for Democracy

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“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson,…

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

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“Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still, But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.” – Scottish poet William Sharp, who used the pseudonym Fiona MacLeod The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Southern writer Carson McCullers took that line from…