First, a personal note: I’ve been away for quite some time, revising my novel, The Empathy Imperative. I’m still working on it and expect to republish under a different title.
First, a personal note: I’ve been away for quite some time, revising my novel, The Empathy Imperative. I’m still working on it and expect to republish under a different title.
Subhead From THE GUARDIAN: “Republican senator Tom Cotton calls for vigilantism to break up Gaza protests.
“Outcry as Cotton says those inconvenienced by protesters blocking roads and airports should ‘take matters into own hands.’ . . . arguing that people in his state would inflict bodily violence on the protesters, whom he called ‘antisemitic’ and ‘pro-Hamas.'”
Looking back, Cotton not only refused to condemn the 1/6/21 insurrectionists—even though he was so fearful of them at the time that he had a staffer bring him a knife to defend himself as he cowered in a locked room with others—but he also objected to their prosecution and convictions (without having watched the evidence presented by the Select Committee on the insurrection or otherwise read it).
And notice Cotton’s abysmal ignorance and utter indifference to our most treasured right—free speech and the right to peacefully protest government actions and policies.
The pro-Palestinian protesters are not anti-Semitic for protesting Israel’s indiscriminate killing (by bombs and STARVATION) of over 30,000 Palestinians. Virtually everyone condemned the inhuman Hamas terror attack killing over a thousand Israelis and capturing hundreds more. The people to whom Cotton referred were protesting the ongoing virtual genocide OF PALESTINIANS, MOSTLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN. They are not protesting in favor of Hamas. As well, they rightfully protest against the USA for paying only lip service to “pressuring” Netanyahu to stop killing civilians while sending him the bombs to keep killing them. He has no intentions of stopping the genocide.
In another The Guardian report, Netanyahu has stepped up the construction of more settlements on the West Bank (Palestinian land). As Netanyahu has overtly suggested by his statement, “Remember Amalek.” He believes the genocide of the Palestinians is following the will of his Draconian Hebrew/Christian-“Old Testament” God.
18 years
We have been in the market for 18 years and proved our customers our experience matters.
54 countries
We are worldwide with market participation in more than 54 countries in 5 continents.
98K users
We have almost 100k active users with a high level of engagement and adoption.
$12M revenue
We closed 2023 over $12M dollars in revenue which position us as leader in our industry
18 years
We have been in the market for 18 years and proved our customers our experience matters.
54 countries
We are worldwide with market participation in more than 54 countries in 5 continents.
98K users
We have almost 100k active users with a high level of engagement and adoption.
$12M revenue
We closed 2023 over $12M dollars in revenue which position us as leader in our industry
18 years
We have been in the market for 18 years and proved our customers our experience matters.
54 countries
We are worldwide with market participation in more than 54 countries in 5 continents.
98K users
We have almost 100k active users with a high level of engagement and adoption.
$12M revenue
We closed 2023 over $12M dollars in revenue which position us as leader in our industry
18 years
We have been in the market for 18 years and proved our customers our experience matters.
54 countries
We are worldwide with market participation in more than 54 countries in 5 continents.
98K users
We have almost 100k active users with a high level of engagement and adoption.
$12M revenue
We closed 2023 over $12M dollars in revenue which position us as leader in our industry
The ONLY way to clean up government and infuse honesty and integrity is for all Americans to understand that corporate and private-interest money in politics is the ROOT CAUSE of most social and economic problems of the working class as well as government corruption and dysfunction.
Politicians, corporate leaders, and establishment pundits are coming out with misinformation and disinformation guns blazing at Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Why? Because these two honorable people want an honest government that works for all Americans, especially the poor, the working poor, and the entire working class. NOTHING OF SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE WORKING CLASS WILL be accomplished UNLESS WE GET THE MONEY OUT!
Here is a quick education on the nature of “Democratic Socialism”:
Who, among the Democratic presidential hopefuls, has the best policies?
This video interview was made in 2004. Elizabeth Warren has not wavered from this position—she is every corrupt corporation’s worst nightmare! She has the policies that will, if we give her a progressive Congress, reverse the neoconservative, trickle-down economics the economic system that, for the past four decades, has been (and still is) redistributing the collective wealth of the working class upward to the already wealthy while suppressing wages.
This is by far the BEST NONPARTISAN video about how to end government corruption and dysfunction in our government ON BOTH SIDES. We ALL need to get behind this. STOP the heated arguments back and forth and join to get this accomplished! Most Americans, right and left, agree to the points in this video:
Many folks have already read or heard about the Alabama poop train, but the whole story hasn’t been told until now and it tracks stinkingly directly to the White House. The level of corruption in our highest positions of government is truly astonishing. Who would have ever thought that our nation’s leadership would have come to this?
Watch at least this first segment of Rachel Maddow’s exposé.
Bill Mahar is spot on. Democrats, in my opinion, certainly have their problems (spinelessness possibly the most significant). But listen to Bill’s commentary on the current crop of Republicans. It goes to the heart of one of the greatest threats to the working class we’ve ever faced since the Hoover Administration. In fact, it harkens back not only to the runup to the Great Recession of 2007-2009, but to the Age of the Robber Barons Great leading up to the Great Depression that began in 1929.
While Trump continues to distract the media and the public by a flood of baseless attacks on our nation’s security departments, the Republican Congress has been deregulating the already super profitable Wall Street Banks, air quality standards, and consumer financial protections.
The sweetness of those few extra dollars per week for America’s workers will soon fade into bitterness when (not if) the next Republican Great Recession arrives.
A child is born neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Muslim, nor atheist, nor an adherent to any other brand of religious or philosophical order. A child is born a human being with an ability to learn and from this raw material society builds her walls of nationalism, [prejudice] and religious certitude —Max T. Furr, The Empathy Imperative
An insider explains how rural Christian white America has a dark and terrifying underbelly
As the election of Donald Trump is being sorted out, a common theme keeps cropping up from all sides: “Democrats failed to understand white, working-class, fly-over America.”
Trump supporters are saying this. Progressive pundits are saying this. Talking heads across all forms of the media are saying this. Even some Democratic leaders are saying this. It doesn’t matter how many people say it, it is complete BS. It is an intellectual/linguistic sleight of hand meant to draw attention away from the real problem. The real problem isn’t East Coast elites who don’t understand or care about rural America. The real problem is that rural Americans don’t understand the causes of their own situations and fears and they have shown no interest in finding out. They don’t want to know why they feel the way they do or why they are struggling because they don’t want to admit it is in large part because of the choices they’ve made and the horrible things they’ve allowed themselves to believe.
In my mind, if it wasn’t violent or you didn’t cry for help, that wasn’t rape, that was fornication. If it was violent and you did cry out, it was still only rape if you didn’t happen to belong to your assailant (Deut. 22:23-24).
Rape was a one-time thing, a life and death situation, not something that happens with people who love you, and certainly not from your own husband. Marital rape? No such thing!
This should be of interest to every person concerned about medial bills mounting regardless if they have insurance—the cheaper policies will certainly bankrupt anyone with a life threatening illness or injury.
Conservatives believe that the health of all citizens-even that of children–should be a marketable commodity on Wall Street. Do you?
And, by the way, I recently had a colonoscopy right here in the U.S.A. I had to wait two months. Good thing that it turned out well. So, U.S. citizens have to wait for non emergency health concerns as well. I certainly don’t mind that. Take a close listen to this video and think about it.
It cannot be stressed enough. Robert Reich’s message in this video needs to be shared by all who understand, or are seeking to understand, that the root cause of government dysfunction—the root cause of virtually all hot button issues setting Americans at loggerheads—is money in politics. For those who might be blaming the left or the right, it must be understood why BOTH are at fault, with few, individual exceptions.
This IS the number one issue. Listen to this video and share it. Tweet it. Post it where ever you can.
I don’t care if you are conservative, liberal, progressive or far, far right evangelical, this message is for everyone.
Why can’t we ever learn? FOLLOW THE FRIGGIN’ MONEY!
I’ve been making MONEY IN POLITICS my major argument for the ROOT CAUSE of virtually all that is wrong in our Government–in economics, the healthcare “debate,” gun violence control, poverty, etc, etc. .
“Our government?” NAY, our corporate government (we continue to let it happen)!
The ONLY candidate who wanted to stop it was Bernie Sanders. But all corporate America had to do was to keep their elected congressional representatives and Senators in Washington (otherwise called conservatives and blue dogs) repeating (without qualification) to the public that Sanders is a Socialist, and since most of the public has never had an education in civics or in the argumentative fallacies (critical thinking), and because we’ve been nurtured for the past century to belive that socialism is equivalent to old Soviet style communism, they run from him no matter what he says, and into the arms of our corporate congress.
But, you say, conservatives passed a bipartisan bill in 2016 that would severely cut back on the ability of corporations to keep pumping the nation full of opioids?
Yep. sure did. McConnell helped it pass. But that was only FOR SHOW to their voters. They then refused to fund the program. It’s all a dance. It’s the dance called the Side Step. Now you see me doing the right thing, but then you don’t see me refusing to let the right thing happen–tah ta tah ta tah dance dance dance, money money money!
Trump and many politicians have said a lot in favor of curbing corporate power, but how many times does Trump softly say the right things–what people WANT to hear, but then turn around and do the opposite? He is the consummate con man liar as are all who blocked the funding (probably by poison pill clauses or amendments). It would take some digging to find out, so they know they are safe and will be reelected with the financial help of the pharmaceutical corporations–otherwise called legal bribery.
And many wonder why conservatives and almost all liberals refuse to make higher education tuition free for all, as Sanders was advocating, and have the super wealthy (those who benefit from money in politics) pay for it. An educated public (in the humanities) would see these self-serving rats for who they are and could not be propagandized nearly as easily as they are now.
Donald Trump was not wrong. Hours before his nominee for “drug czar” withdrew from consideration over his part in a law limiting the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to crack down on pharmaceutical distributors feeding the US’s opioid epidemic, the president took a shot at the influence of drug companies over Congress.
Read more at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/19/big-pharma-money-lobbying-us-opioid-crisis
— Max T. Furr is author of The Empathy Imperative, a philosophical novel exploring the nature justice and religious belief.
Was Descartes wrong and God was a deceiver, after all?
Consider that if the Christian Bible were true (sans contradictions), then what would that say of objective science, such as astronomy, biological evolution and medical research? Indeed, what would it say about logic and the Creator, Itself?
What would the world be like had it been created by a truly benevolent god and our primary motivating force was empathy, not self interest? How, indeed, with the human condition as it is, could we achieve such a world either via a god or by humanism?
Join humanist Professor M. Jefferson Hale as, in part II, he puts God on the witness stand in an ethereal court to answer for Its malfeasance and terrorism.
NOTE: I have vetted the claims put forth in John Oliver’s segment on Sinclair Broadcasting’s greasing of the slope upon which the United States is sliding toward permanent one party rule by the wealthy and the privileged. While Oliver’s segment is presented in a humorous setting, his facts are all too true.
The following is only one part of the ongoing effort of the political, corporatist and quasi religious, conservative right to gain permanent and exclusive power, and it is likely the most frightening one. It is one that, under the guise of free speech and the ongoing deregulation of the broadcast industry, is psychologically nurturing the nation’s public to unwittingly support their efforts.
Currently, I’m working on the major events in our history that have brought us to these darkening, religio-political skies.
Max T. Furr is author of The Empathy Imperative, a novel of political intrigue featuring the factual history of the rise of the modern neoconservatives, their political philosophy and worldview.
While the storyline in part 1 is based on biblical literality, part 2 features a trial of God in The Ethereal Court of Answers.
The overall thrust of the novel is an analysis of religious cognitive dissonance where modern views come into conflict with the Old Testament’s alleged actions of God.
Is the god of the Bible amoral? Do true-believers believe that whatever their god does, he does because it is the moral and right thing to do, or are his actions right and moral because they are his actions? —A paraphrasing of a question originally posited by Socrates.
. . . [T]he Southern Baptist reluctance to condemn white supremacy outright may be egregious but it is not illogical. This Convention came into existence over the defense of slavery. —Daniel José Camacho
I’ve been trying to analyse a perplexing question: Why do ~80% of Christian evangelicals enthusiastically support Donald Trump, who is about as antithetical to their professed belief in, and adherence to, the preachings of Jesus as one can be? Is Trump the very model of the unvarnished, evangelical Christian? Was the failure of writer’s of the Gospels to have Jesus denounce slavery the very germ that infected the doctrine for centuries to come, including our own?
This commentary by Daniel José Camacho lays out the explanation with which I was toying, and it makes perfect sense. But while I agree with the author’s solution, I think it will take at least the better part of another millennium to happen.
Do we want houses of worship to be involved in politics, further dividing the public and religiously engineering outcomes of elections?
While religious worship is something personal and dear to most folks, injecting politics and having to listen to a preacher tell you that you are doomed to hell if you vote for “X” politician is to attack the personal integrity and intelligence of the congregation.
Jefferson was adamant about separating religion and politics for a reason, and that reason he spelled out in A Bill for the Establishment of Religious Freedom. This is the document from which our Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment was crafted. It is a short read.
Although I am not a religious person and frequently engage in debates with fundamentalist Christians, I love this letter and it is why I like Christians who can see through the hypocritical, emotional rhetoric of self-serving preachers and have the courage to call them out publically.
Can I call you Frank? This is just pastor to pastor. Feel free to call me Peter. Anyway, I have to say I was flattered when I learned that your Decision America Tour took a detour off the beaten path to call upon us “small community churches.” We are nothing if not small. We seat 30-40 on a good Sunday. And we are a century old fixture of our small community. Most often we are overlooked and overshadowed by mega-churches and politically influential religious voices like your own. We don’t hold a candle to an auditorium filled with the music of a one hundred voice choir led by professional musicians. We probably will never be recognized in any nationally syndicated media. After all, we don’t do anything really “newsworthy.” We just preach the good news of Jesus Christ; love one another the best we can (which sometimes isn’t…
Once again we see what for-profit private prisons (corporations) are doing to boost profit. Millions of voters and conservative politicians claim that private enterprise, when deregulated and/or allowed to oversee themselves will do what’s best for the people, and do better than the (Federal) government with all its regulations and oversight. Yet study is yet another example of that shows otherwise. It’s the same problem with our private “healthcare” corporations in the U.S.—profit over people, profit over lives.
By and large, corporations are concerned with, not people or reasonable profit, but high profit alone—and as high as they can get it by hook or crook. Deregulate Wall Street? Abolish public schools? Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Abolish the ACA? Take away healthcare for millions of people? These are the goals of the present administration and Congress. Profit over people, profit over lives.
President Obama was trying to phase out private prisons and detention centers (human warehouses) at least on the federal level, but Trump wants more of them to warehouse more people. More profit! More profit! —Author
This report cites a ‘systemic failure’ to provide adequate medical care to detainees with health issues and warns Trump’s desire to expand capacity would make it worse. . .
Raúl Ernesto Morales-Ramos, detained in California and ravaged by cancer, begged for treatment. He was given ibuprofen.
Tiombe Kimana Carlos, detained in New York with chronic schizophrenia, was held in solitary confinement. She made a noose from a sheet.
Manuel Cota-Domingo, detained in Arizona with untreated diabetes and pneumonia, began to have trouble breathing. Staff dithered over who should call 911.
Some of us, especially women, have the feeling that our nation, in terms of both economic and social justice has taken a 180° turn and is careening headlong into the past.
Take a read and decide for yourselves. Is this what we want for women in our society?
This is an extremely rare but important article not only for understanding the disaster we often bring to the lives of our children, but also it shines a bright light on the sheer depth of society’s ignorance and fear of those we see to be “different.”
Think about it. Why is society so ignorant in matters of its genetic heritage and sexual nature. The root cause, I’m convinced, is hereditary religion. We are taught from tot-hood that everyone is born genetically the same–male and female, and never the twain shall meet. It ain’t so, Joe! —Author
Dear Frank
This report cites a ‘systemic failure’ to provide adequate medical care to detainees with health issues and warns Trump’s desire to expand capacity would make it worse. . .
The Benevolent Thou 
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