Posted by Phil Rockstroh One would think that from the cries of (feigned) indignation and calls for repentance arising from conservatives regarding Move-On.org’s ad in the N.Y. Times that the liberal-leaning group had not simply questioned the insights and intentions of a public servant, promoting, in a public forum, the policy of an illegal and [...]

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Originally published August 2007 Posted by Phil Rockstroh Given the nation’s tottering infrastructure, imperial overreach abroad and vandalized constitutional process by a lawless executive branch, what will it take to scare the general public, mainstream press and political classes into immediate action to bring about meaningful change? At this twilight hour of the American republic, [...]

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Originally published July 2007 Posted by Phil Rockstroh In this summer of angst and grim foreboding about what further assaults against common sense and common decency the Bush Administration might inflict upon the people of the world, how many times during the day do those of us — still possessed of mind, heart and conscience [...]

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Originally published July 2007 Posted by Phil Rockstroh At present, George W. Bush is unpopular with the majority of the American public not because of the murderous mayhem he has unloosed in Iraq; rather, his standing has plummeted due to the fact that he didn’t deliver the goods. Americans are fine with fueling our republic [...]

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Originally published June 2007 Posted by Phil Rockstroh In microcosmic mimicry of the plight of the besieged middle and laboring classes, my parent’s Atlanta neighborhood, as is the case with many others in the vicinity, is being destroyed, in reality — disappeared — by a blight of upper-class arrogance. The modest, post-war homes of the [...]

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Originally published June 2007 Posted by Phil Rockstroh Why did the Democratic Congress betray the voting public? Betrayal is often a consequence of wishful thinking. It’s the world’s way of delivering the life lesson that it’s time to shed the vanity of one’s innocence and grow-the-hell-up. Apropos, here’s lesson number one for political innocents: Power [...]

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Originally published June 2007 Posted by Phil Rockstroh Recent news reports have revealed that the Bush Administration has bestowed upon itself the right to grant itself absolute power. Recent news reports have revealed that the Bush Administration has bestowed upon itself the right to grant itself absolute power if “any incident, regardless of location, that [...]

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Originally published December 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh “Standing next to me in this lonely crowd, Is a man who swears he’s not to blame.” – Bob Dylan It has been reported that George W. Bush is counting on the judgment of history to redeem the perception that he has been at the helm of [...]

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Originally published December 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh The Holiday Season has arrived, unfolding before us like a cheap vinyl wallet here in The United States of American Express. The days spill forth, their hours comprised of shopping and shooting sprees, of retail and retaliation. Jingle bells and the crackle of gunfire. This is the [...]

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Originally published November 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh Recently, we’ve been plied and pummeled with the absurd proclamation that “the system worked” — that our congressional representatives listened and took note of the collective, antiwar fulmination of the people, registered in our faux republic’s latest, sham plebiscite. Yes, I suspect, the political classes of Washington [...]

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Originally published November 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell “I don’t want to be part of your revolution if I can’t dance.” – Emma Goldman Rumsfeld is gone. Mehlman is gone. Delay is gone. Yet let’s not have our progressives’ version [...]

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Originally published November 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh “If voting could change the system, it would be illegal.” –Theodore Adorno “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” –Samuel Beckett One’s actions grow out of one’s beliefs. Beliefs grow out of the ecosystem of our collective lives known as culture. In this way, cultures are organic: [...]

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Originally published October 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh “United States numb to Iraq troop deaths: experts” – Reuters headline “O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the smallest atom stirs or lives in matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind.” – Herman Melville, Moby [...]

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Originally published October 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh Day-to-day life within an empire consists of the deceitful leading the disengaged. Although when the artifice shielding a nation’s populace from the ruthlessness of their leaders begins to fall away, hysteria and displaced rage rises in the land. Ergo, in the American empire, we’re witnessing these demented [...]

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Originally published October 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh Many believe fascism will come to the United States of America resembling contrived spectacles such as The Super Bowl, The Academy Awards, and American Idol, with the proceedings intercut with teary, yet ultimately triumphant, Oprahesque tales of how redemption can be gained through the renunciation of one’s [...]

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Originally published October 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh “True sanity entails in one way or another the dissolution of the normal ego, that False Self competently adjusted to our alienated social reality . . . and through this death a rebirth, the ego now being the servant of the divine, no longer its betrayer.” – [...]

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Originally published September 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts’ desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. — H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Sun, 1920 As Americans Waddled into the new century, overweight, overworked, and as [...]

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Originally published September 2006 Posted by Phil Rockstroh “Mrs. O’Kelly, do you believe in fairies?” “No, I don’t — but they’re there.” –Irish aphorism There is something missing in The Oakdale Estates subdivision. Oak Trees. Years ago, they were cut down to clear the property for development. Is it possible the gated walls of Oakdale [...]

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Originally published September 2005 Posted by Phil Rockstroh At present, 46 percent of the American people hold the delusion that Saddam Hussein was involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. This statistic came to light as ABC/Disney aired last weekend a drama based on 9/11 containing the corresponding degree of [...]

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Originally published September 2005 Posted by Phil Rockstroh An entire American city has become an uninhabitable mire of fetid water, sodden ruins, and toxic sludge. Moreover, the destruction will not end there: the financial, political, and psychological spill-off, incurred by the deluge, will cause our nation to sink further into a morass of debt, denial, [...]

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Originally published August 2005 Posted by Phil Rockstroh “If he [Hugo Chávez] thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.” – Pat Robertson “Muslims want to rule [...]

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Originally published August 2007 Posted by Phil Rockstroh The rising price of gasoline troubles Americans because it threatens the sustaining cultural illusion of our freedom of mobility — a commercial con job that, over time, has served to transform us from the citizens of a sprawling republic into de facto slaves of the corporate classes. [...]

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originally published August 2005 Posted by Phil Rockstroh In a small, prefab house on the coastal Carolina lowlands, an old man, the son of a son of a tobacco sharecropper, my wife’s father, lay dying. Even though the St. James Bible had been placed at his bedside, Fox Cable News served as his Psychopompus, conducting [...]

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Originally published February 2005 Posted by Phil Rockstroh I dreamed I was a fetus floating within the protective womb of Dubya’s America. In the dream, my work cubicle, the sealed interior of my SUV, and my insular guarded gate suburban home were awash in an amniotic fluid of mass media imagery; an umbilical cord tethered [...]

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Originally published August 2005 Posted by Phil Rockstroh An unpopular war drags on, gas prices rise and rise, as a cloud of scandal gathers over Washington D.C. At times, it seems as though the 1970s never ended: it’s just Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton’s Quaalude-laced, faux populist snake oil caused us to sleep through the [...]

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