The Strange Death of Liberal America

Welcome to something unusual--a blog that does not feature rants but essays to make you think.

Because of my disability essays appear as they are written. Sometimes there may be gaps longer than a week which usually means I am unable to write or tied up in other projects.

I invite you to explore the content using the search feature. Unlike "rant-of-the-day," thirty word cut-and-paste jobs that pass for commentary these days, many essays on this blog hearken back to the days when newspapers, magazines and television featured thought-provoking analysis. Because of that the content of this blog is still relevant even when it might have been written three years ago. .

To demonstrate that the essays in the sidebars below may may have been written in 2008, but read like they might have been posted last week. The essays in the links below change monthly so check back periodically to catch essays you might have missed.

What the Rich Are Doing With Their Tax Cuts

Greenspan Testifies--2008

Henry Fonda's Farewell in The Grapes of Wrath

A Liberal's Graduation Speech

No Child Left Behind--In Lbya

iIs Terrorism the New Communism?

For Alvin Greene Conspiracy Theorists: Electronic Voting's History of Incompetence

What the Heck Is a Moderate?

Look Out for Newt--A 2007 Piece Even More Relevant Today

Woodrow Wilson: Justice and Only Justice Shall Always Be Our Motto

Long Day's Journey Into Night: The Parallels Between Khe Sanh and Iraq

No time to read an essay? Use the print button to print it out and read it when and where you want.

Get your information from primary sources not search engines.

Pew Research Center

The Brookings Institution

The Census Bureau

The World Health Organization

The Supreme Court

U.S. Senate

U.S. House

Breaking through: John B. McLendon, Basketball Legend and Civil Rights Pioneer

The spam filter on the site seems to be operating in overdrive lately, so some comments have either disappeared or ended up in the trash bin. I have tried to recover as many as I could. If your comment is missing please send it again.

I try to respond to each comment, but sometimes it takes a few days. I Also would welcome more discussions between readers about various essays. This dialogue is actually more important than the essay, for if the essay does not trigger discussion, then it fails.

If you get frustrated because essays do not appear often enough you might want to make use of the search feature. The archives contain several hundred essays on a large variety of topics, all researched with the same standards as the ones you see on the main page. Enter any name or term you like and you are likely to find some thing on it. For those who are interested in the financial crisis, this blog has been on that issue for four years. I am willing put coverage of that issue up against any source out there.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

The background image for this blog is taken from a photograph of the "Star-Spangled Banner" that flew over Fort McHenry.

Unlike some bloggers who seem to have desire to be media stars but have no personal involvement in anything, I have devoted my life to working for justice. As a first generation American, I learned from my family that we must constantly defend democracy and the idea of the level playing field that sustains it.

Formerly head of a national school reform group, I have designed leadership programs for legislators, health care initiatives for people of color, open system tools for schools, mental illness initiatives, conducted strategic planning for government agencies and nonprofits and served as a consultant on local, state and national committees and commissions.

Currently I am helping to plan an environmental initiative with a state agency, working to seek more equitable funding for education, and recently completed a grant that seeks new ways of more actively involving people in community decisions.

My focus is on using cutting edge tools such as Open Space Technology, cluster analysis, AtlasTI and system dynamics to empower people to better use what I term the three A's--accessing, analyzing and applying information.

I urge all readers to become involved in their communities and believe any blogger who spends more time writing than working for justice has no creds.