We're the 1% of Wall Street fame
We run the shady finance game.

If a sub-prime mortgage is what you chose
We sadly made your house foreclose.

You're out of sorts, you're tied in knots
We feel so bad out on our yachts

You're in a dither...

The Tea Party movement was a spark plug for the political right, leading to an election victory for the Republicans in 2010. Clearly, Occupy Wall Street and its far-flung branches will be a shot in the arm across the left of center. I've observed the Los Angeles encampment directly and...

Journalists and right wing pundits smirk. The Occupy Wall Street movement has no goals, they say. Or the goals are all over the place. There are no clear leaders, no spokesperson, no real strategy. The movement has as its core a bunch of middle class white college students -- many...

I spent Sunday afternoon at the Occupy Los Angeles encampment (its second day) on the south lawn of City Hall. There were about 400 demonstrators, mostly young and white (as elsewhere), but with a visible regional smattering of Latinos. People, for the most part, were resting, chatting, meeting in work...

Republican pundits are aghast over the staggering deficit and scold us to deal with the budget like a sensible ordinary family: cut household expenses. But what if the well-heeled son in the household opts out of contributing to the family income? America's flush son is the corporate structure and its...

There's been a distinctly red haze over the Santa Monica Mountains. The Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist body in the United States, is about to restart its Los Angeles local. Since the 1990s there has been no DSA unit in Tinseltown, despite the city's liberal stereotype. A kick-off...

Afghanistan Briefly

Afghanistan, Afghanistan.
The British Ran
The Russians Ran
Even Al Qaeda Ran
And are now in Pakistan.
What is the plan
Of the Obama man
For Afghanistan?
To ban
If he can
The Taliban?
They're a...

The citizens have voted; they've cast their lot
We're sure they voted, who knows for what?
They vote to the left, then switch to the right
On what they believe, they shed little light

The poll results, they're not worth a nickel--
We...

Since eagerly casting my vote for Obama,
I've lived through a year of political trauma.

Through the campaign I was there behind him,
Since that time it's been so hard to find him.

He's a pragmatic man of highest capacity,
So where did he hide his...

When I first heard President Obama announce an increase of US troops in Afghanistan, I had an instinctive "support-America!" response. Despite being critical of the war, as a WW II veteran that was my gut reaction. We have tens of thousands of our troops in that country, sent there by...

Progressives are in a state over Obama's cabinet appointments. Cries of "betrayal," "sellout," and "Clintonian copycat" fill the air. Steve Hildebrand, Obama's deputy campaign manager, just found it necessary to speak out urgently in the Huff Press to defend the cabinet appointments against progressive critics. I agree with him that...

Every four years the Republicans put on a show to spin Middle America into believing that the Grand Old Party is the champion of Joe-the-Plumber, Joe-Six-Pack, and other salt-of-the-earth folks out there. They elbow them under their "big tent" for the nominating convention with a wink (what else?) and a...

The "Open Letter" to Barack Obama in the Nation (posted on the magazine's web site on July 28, 2008) chides him for retreating from his core liberal beliefs and steering toward the center. I think the letter misjudges where Obama really stands in the political spectrum, a miscalculation that...

Has anyone noticed that Hillary is methodically displaying the very stereotypes the right wing has attributed to her all these years? She seems dedicated to prove they were on target all along. Hillary is using the same slash and polarize tactics against someone in her own party that...

Change has been a watchword this primary season. Everyone trumpets change now that the Bush governing regime has crumbled. Obama's has been the strongest and most consistent voice for change, but the change theme has been ubiquitous, though variegated (and confusing), among all the candidates. I think it would give...