I spent years as a political pundit on mainstream TV -- at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. I was outnumbered, outshouted, red-baited and finally terminated. Inside mainstream media, I saw that major issues were not only dodged, but sometimes not even acknowledged to exist. Today there's an elephant in the room: a huge, yet ignored, issue that largely explains why Social Security is now on the chopping block. And why other industrialized countries have free college education and universal healthcare, but we don't. It's arguably our country's biggest problem -- a problem that Martin Luther King Jr. focused on before he was assassinated 45 years ago, and has only worsened since then (which was the height of the Vietnam War). That problem is U.S. militarism and perpetual war.
Glenn Beck is building an amusement park called -- what else? -- Independence Park. But he's pitching it to be much more than a roadside tourist trap with a tilt-a-whirl, concessions and skeeball. Beck wants his herd of followers to believe it's a real city -- his own version of Ayn Rand's "Galt's Gulch."
The bumper-sticker party of "these colors don't run" -- the party that practically branded the notion of American patriotism -- is only around half-sure that it doesn't want to abandon the United States. The other half is split between still making up its mind on secession and totally wanting to secede right away.