Covering LightfootI lift my acoustic guitar from its cradle with great reverence. Recently restrung and tuned, I Travis pick the notes and sometimes melody interspersed of a Canadian folksinger. I heard him once in a field at Brown University in a long-ago spring, then missed him in Torrington, Connecticut after his name appeared on a theater marquee I saw while canvassing for Bernie in ’16. I once carried a guitar on the streets of Providence in a different epoch, but I was not mature enough to stick with lessons at the music store. Now I play the plaintive chords and notes under a gray sky in the fullness of early summer of that balladeer now gone. It is beautiful in a sad way. Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.

Less Than a Penny for Your ThoughtsIt’s been decades since I dealt with a publication that paid for articles. Even though I was not crazy about dealing with a then-editor of the Providence Journal, at least they paid and they paid the industry rate that freelancers earned at that time. The Palm Beach Post didn’t pay me for an article I wrote about gun violence and added a complaint involving the article’s conclusion about the National Rifle Association, and that final paragraph was excised from the final piece. The “best” issue related to nonpayment was in connection with an article on a specific issue related to the Kent State massacre of May 4, 1970, which I wrote at the suggestion or behest of an editor at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The forensic sound analysis of a student’s recording at the time of the massacre was what that article explored. It took months to complete the article, which involved interviews and lots of preparation in the way of sources. As an anniversary of the massacre approached, and the editor I interacted with about the article failed to respond to my then-latest edit of the piece, I dumped that article down into the online political site at which I had contributed for years, also without pay.The conclusion is that many publications don’t pay for the work of the writer or journalist. In other words, we’re expected to write to inform and perhaps for our health, the latter not being a reason at all. In my opinion, the Internet has accelerated that change with writers certain to need a day job to stay afloat.Adding insult to the injury of not paying for the labor of writers is when publications tout the large, in my estimation, donations that come their way. How insulting it is to write repeatedly for a publication, have that publication tout large donations, and not receive the proverbial 25¢.At least writing on my own on Substack, I can keep some measure of dignity. Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.

Photo credit: Wikimedia CommonsWe’ve Reached 250I have to return to 1981, or earlier, to talk about where we are at 250 years out from our founding. I’m driving around a rotary in Narragansett, Rhode Island, when a commentator says, on an FM radio station, that those of us who hold democratic and ethical values need to fight back in the face of the reactionary policies of Ronald Reagan. For those who remember, Reagan began the process of handing power over to those who wanted war over peace, those who wanted a monied elite in positions of power, and who won an election through the incompetence of his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, with an unhealthy dose of racism added to the mix. A massive redistribution of wealth followed, along with attacks against government agencies that helped people. It was “Morning in America.” Actually, what it was, was the long march toward the debacle we see today with endless wars, massive income inequality, and three branches of government that provide no credible opposition. We live in a system in which a duopoly runs the show of the power elite of the military, business, and the investment class. Industry that lifted all boats has long since departed our shores for cheap labor and cheap infrastructure.For me, pushing back against the Vietnam War, ancient history now, was the most significant action of my life. Both the military and CIA had been operating around the globe with impunity since World War II, but Vietnam put the system on display. Reagan comes into the picture again, since he attempted to launder the horror of the US in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Look at his words about the protest movement of the 1960s and early 1970s for a hint of what was to come, and we see the result in the current disaster that is the Trump regime. Even quoting Reagan today sickens, as he had a lethal hatred for both the free speech movement and protesters against the Vietnam War. Observers can see the results in how protesters are treated near ICE prisons and criminalizing dissent to learn how the movement to the far right turned out.Going back a bit, yes, there were yahoos on the left, but looking around today, there are far more extreme yahoos on the right. Recall the Capitol insurrection or the Unite the Right in Charlottesville, Virginia. Following the Vietnam War, I held out hope that the political and economic systems would be reformed, but the opposite is true. Racism is now applied to immigrant communities, and the economy makes it more difficult to find a niche and make a living. The industries that left this nation are not coming back, and whole swaths of former citadels of productivity have left these shores. Weapons production seems to be one of the few growth industries left, with technology following behind. Critical thinking about all of this has been left on the trash heap of history. Genocide in the Middle East and mayhem in Eastern Europe are all the rage now. We come perilously close to igniting the nuclear fuse. The environment is a sinkhole of despair!The Founders were the pampered elite of their time, mostly slaveowners, who saddled the nation with an Electoral College that gives the few power over the many. Many of the best ideas of a republican form of democratic governance have fallen victim to the elitism and racism of the majority of those who gathered in Philadelphia to found a new nation.None of this, however, is an endorsement of theocratic forms of government, including those influences here, or dictatorial regimes around the world. Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.

Celestial CyclePhoto credit: Howie LisnoffThe quarter moon rode the mountainous cumulus clouds a few days from summer. It rose between the Berkshires and Taconics and would set in early hours over the 3,000-foot peaks of the Catskills to the west. Decades of its relentless waxing and waning cannot assuage the impact of the experiences during its march above the laundry and armory across from the white-clapboard two-story World War II barracks of another war. I paid close attention to its movement during those months of basic training desperate to get back to a more normal footing. Late in the training cycle, with only a few days remaining, one soldier shot off his foot. A sergeant, who had been to Vietnam, drove his muscle car into an entry-gate pillar on the base and died just before the holidays. The kid from Brooklyn, a reservist or Guardsman, suffered relentless harassment as a warning to others. The calls of gooks and Charlie were pervasive. I had become a resister to war watching that pale crescent move across the Georgia sky. Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.

Early Summer Recollections: Past and PresentThe day, with fair-weather clouds and a vibrant blue sky and moderate temperature, was much like that day in early July 1971. The Berkshire Connector of I-90 showed off its late-spring greenery among the surrounding rolling hills at both times. On this day, I headed to the Albany, New York area to pick up my guitar, which was in repair. All of those years ago, the four friends’ destination was Eganville, Ontario, Canada. We were on the road to visit a family friend of mine who was building a house in Ontario.My best friend Joe, his friend Judy, and another friend of mine rode the inviting highway in my friend’s green 1967 Ford Mustang. Of all of those friends, it was Judy who I stayed in contact with the longest and who died four years ago. The others on that trip and in that car are gone, except in memory.I had become acquainted with Judy when I called her in the spring of a year before in an attempt to reach Joe about the possible dangers of his participation in a protest rally in New Haven, Connecticut, in support of members of the Black Panther Party who were on trial there. I told Judy that military transports had flown low over my family’s house in central Rhode Island on their way to Quonset Naval Air Station in case Nixon wanted the military on the streets of New Haven to deal with the crowds gathered there. Judy was a senior at New York University, and Joe studied for a master’s degree in literature. He would go on to earn a Ph.D. in college and university administration.The last time I saw Judy was in the early morning hours of a July day after driving down from Canada following the 4th. We left Judy and Joe at a graduate students’ small one-story apartment complex, as Judy was ready to begin studying for a Ph.D. in psychology, a degree she would never get for reasons I do not know.Through a strange and serendipitous set of circumstances, I would reconnect with Judy decades later, but our interactions were of the most superficial kind. Sadly, when I sent Judy a commentary about our road trip of July 1971, she seemed upset by something I had written in that article. I think that it may have had to do with the way I categorized the July 4th holiday that year, amidst the turmoil of the Vietnam War era. When I heard the shocking news that Judy had died four years ago, I found much of the biographical information of her life story very much antithetical to the person I had known at NYU.I found a reference to Judy’s years as an undergraduate very curious in that bio. A guess is that one or both of Judy’s daughters had written about her life. Judy’s days at NYU were portrayed as being immersed in the youth movement and movements for social justice during that era. No mention was made of the antiwar movement, but I knew from attending meetings with Judy and Joe that they were heavily involved in the latter. In 1971, we all traveled to D.C. to take part in the May Day antiwar demonstrations there, which were anything but sedate. Thousands were arrested on the streets of Washington and held at a sports stadium in that city.But, there seemed to have been a kind of almost seamless transition for Judy sometime following that era, as she earned an MBA and began working in the insurance industry. That didn’t particularly make an impression on me, but it was the fact, described in Judy’s life story, that seemed to point to living a middle-class, and perhaps an upper-middle class life, with absolutely no hint of involvement in any social causes whatsoever. It may be that Judy’s reaction to my essay about the July 1971 road trip reflected the redirection of her life toward careerism and away from movements for social justice. I don’t know.Many of us, the baby boom generation, became middle class, but remained socially and politically active.A recollection of the road trip that Judy recalled, but I must have submerged, was of being led by local police out of a town north of Albany off of Route 87, where we had stopped for dinner. I remember Joe getting into an argument with some people sitting at the counter while we sat in a nearby booth. The argument had to do with hair length, and Joe was not a person who shrank from confrontation.What I do know is that my friend Joe moved along that similar path of careerism. That these two lives followed that life story is not surprising. Millions did, and I often wonder what sentiments they had as they apparently jettisoned ideals in one sense for the comforts or acceptance of middle-class life.One final memory of Judy is of the three friends getting up in West Potomac Park on that May morning in 1971, after having spent the night in sleeping bags. We were ordered out of the park by police. Judy went her own way toward a women’s march against the war, while Joe and I sought refuge in the nearby Lincoln Memorial, as the police quickly began hassling demonstrators there and throughout the city. Judy would have been recognizable on that day from so long ago because she had striking red hair that set her apart. The entire Washington, D.C. experience was surreal because the theme of the May Day demonstrations was to stop the government from business as usual while it waged the vicious war in Southeast Asia.All of these thoughts came tumbling back as I drove on the Berkshire Connector of I-90 at the height of spring at the edge of a different summer, but similar in many respects. Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.

He Didn’t Have the DecencyTrump didn’t have the decency to wait until Memorial Day was over before resuming attacks against Iran, with which the US was supposed to be negotiating a peace deal. According to one report I’ve heard, the hawks in his administration, and perhaps in Congress, “got” to Trump and began another escalation in this war of aggression. Who knows at this juncture, as those of us who are concerned about issues of war and peace are left mostly out of breath these days.Was it the issue of nuclear fuel enrichment? Was it the opening of the Strait of Hormuz? Who knows? Was it the demand of Netanyahu to keep the war, one of his many wars, rolling? Were Trump’s big donors upset with him because he had deviated somewhat from their edicts? Oil prices are already on the rise once again. It’s as if the lunatics have been given free rein to not only run the asylum, but also take up key posts in the government in Washington, DC.Here’s a guy with his hand within reach of the so-called nuclear codes whose behavior and policies are frighteningly chaotic! Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.

Democratic Party’s Autopsy 2024The leadership of the Democratic Party has finally released its so-called autopsy of the 2024 presidential election. They didn’t want to release this devastating loss to you-know-who, who has done you-know-what to this nation, its people, and the world. So, how did this debacle take place?The Democratic Party, much like the Republican Party, has long since lost its interest in supporting its people, the people of the US. You and me, to differing degrees. They, the Democrats, once the champions of the New Deal and the Great Society, became the party doing the bidding of the corporate elite and the military-industrial-investment complex. The Democrats would present a prettier face to the public every four years, but wars, corporate bailouts, weak environmentalism, and support for the very wealthy. The results of deindustrialization are obvious with masses of former manufacturing sites in the US abandoned to low-wage countries. All of this happened while hegemony over the globe increased, usually through trade agreements and a military presence in the form of US military bases.Then came the 2024 presidential election. Joe Biden was a Republican president in most ways. He claimed to be a Zionist, which meant expensive and destructive support for Israel. He was a preeminent supporter of tough crime bills that put masses of people in jail. Income inequality was as apparent during Biden’s term as it was before him.Then came Kamala Harris, a weak candidate. Whether or not presidents generally select weak running mates is beside the point. In a society that is biased against women at the presidential level, Harris, who seemed not to be able to articulate a coherent agenda against Trump, was at an immediate disadvantage following Biden’s rejection by Democratic donors and Democratic leaders. The Trump administration cornered Harris on her position on transgender issues and used that strategy to the hilt. It was sort of like George H.W. Bush’s attack against Michael Dukakis on crime. Much of the electorate in the US is not sophisticated in terms of manipulation, and the Republicans have been playing that card for years and then stiffing a segment of their supporters. Look at the cost of fossil fuels, housing, and food today, and people have to wonder. Look at these costly and destructive wars with $1.5 trillion, in addition to billions spent on the Iran war, which is hurting us all and is illegal as a war of aggression.I watched an interview with Kamala Harris sometime late in the summer of 2024, and when asked how she was different from Joe Biden, she gave a foolish response that she was obviously not Joe Biden. What else is new?This is the New York Times’ summary of major points in the Democrats so-called presidential campaign autopsy. Read it and weep, but don’t be surprised, as this has been going on for decades! Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.

What the fuck, Howie? You’re talking, writing about something about which you do not know. If you haven’t read Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, then why the hell are you talking about it?Well, it’s careerism that I want to address arising from the revolutionary movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. That the author’s parents went on to become professionals at what is regarded in US society as the highest pinnacle of success, low-level gatekeepers in this nation, is of interest to me. True, they risked jail sentences that could have put them away for life, or close to life sentences, but like others in the radical movement of that era, they went on to rise to high levels of professional life. Only because of prosecutorial incompetence did some on the political, economic, and social left miss being thrown into the dungeons of the prison system of the US that seems to have a penchant for locking up lots of people of color. Indeed, life is good here: radical in one epoch: professionals in another. None became the so-called experts that some love to adore. One of those so-called experts became a pal of sorts with Jeffrey Epstein. Interesting! Some did not fare as well, but notice that those folks either became silent, or near silent, or just faded away. I often wonder what it was like to be at the top of an era of protest and to sink into relative oblivion later in life?Recently, I completed a search of what former radicals had to say about the Israeli-US war in Iran, a war of aggression no matter what is thought about the radical fundamentalist regime in Iran. They are in a sovereign nation, so to speak, and I could hardly find a serious word about the war. There were a few statements, but how do those who spoke out and acted against the Vietnam War, and the expanded war in Southeast Asia, fall silent? Perhaps the media as it exists now doesn’t give a shit anymore about what old radicals have to say?In July 1971, I drove from Connecticut to Ontario, Canada, with a group of friends to visit an expat, a family friend, who was in the process of building a house there. Of the four friends, two, including my best friend at the time, went on to become careerists, one other friend became a mental health worker, and I worked in public education for most of my working life. I never wanted to become any kind of gatekeeper, but rather, only support myself and my family. I was able to speak out and remain a critic of this society, as is witnessed in the series of my published writings that I am now gathering into a series of books: Writing on the Left for a Better World. Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.

Democracy Is Not Coming to the USADespite Leonard Cohen’s optimistic pronouncement in song, to anyone paying attention, the founding that was a republican form of democracy in the US is just about gone. For the power elite and their subservient sycophants, democracy never mattered. In the past quarter century, there was a somewhat weakly held premise that the elite wanted a less vicious face at the head of government than we have today.But the elite really never cared about the riffraff among us, and the working class and segments of the middle class were jettisoned to the gods of income inequality, bald-face hate, war, and a general decline in the so-called quality of life in which issues like the environment mattered.Now, we’re up to our necks in the gathering flood and prospects of getting out of this are similar to those faced in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912 on the Titanic. There will be no one to save most who are left on board.Since the Trump presidency, and especially during his second disastrous term in office, the Supreme Court has acted to nullify the remaining access to the ballot for many. They allow for the gerrymandering of states while gutting the 1965 voting rights law. The Congress means nothing at all. War powers? They, the Congress, could care less!While Trump issues executive order after executive order, immigrants are rounded up by ICE, many who are legal immigrants, in a nod to the hate that occupies his base. Others who can still speak out are marginalized, while both genocide and wars rage. Now, he’s on his way to destroying the sovereignty of Cuba, as he did in Venezuela. Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran are all marked nations. The response to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks turned into endless wars. The supremacy that flourishes in Israel is a reflection of the supremacy that existed in the US during the worst epoch of segregation and slavery.The 2026 Congressional election is being fixed, just as some sports events once were. The ruling class is ready to bring the curtain down in the US. Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.

The Meanness Surrounding Us*Please read this version of this commentary piece which includes additional comments about military spending not contained in the podcast.The Internet has long since become a focal point where vicious points of view are expressed with abandon. This was once not the case, and I don’t know if the atomizing of US society has contributed to this loss of regard, especially a regard for strangers. Not having to face someone a person is mean toward may be a factor in this loosening of social bonds?Two recent incidents have reinforced this belief. A few days ago, an Internet attack dog was victorious in being written into an office in the government of the town where I live. His sentiments, attacks, against others he cannot possibly know, were so virulent that the online administrator of a site that provided local information and discussion removed him from its membership. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool right-winger foaming at the mouth with petulance against others with whom he disagrees. Now he will occupy an official place on the town’s government. The latter is curious, as the town is made up of lots of those who have migrated here from the greater New York metropolitan area and hold, at least seemingly, liberal beliefs. There are a few people who will vote for the Green Party candidate in a given election, and masses who supported the legalization of recreational marijuana. In other words, there are those who push up against in different ways the gathering right-wing sentiments and actions of some.Unrelated, but interesting, are a group of posts on a Facebook site about a detour on a nearby road that has been the subject of two previous major closures. That road is highly traveled. The road is closed once again because of the crash of a tanker truck that spilled fuel onto neighboring land. I believe at least one person was killed in that crash.The online discourse included the expected mean posts with people castigating others for complaining about the detour that necessitated the cleanup of land near the crash site. Castigating remarks involved insults against people who dared to criticize the current road closure.I often travel that road, and it’s interesting that I’ve experienced a number of bumper hangers who want to push me to exceed the speed limit to reinforce their own need for speed and who knows what else. Infrequently, the bumper hangers become very aggressive. Most reading this are aware of road rage.We live in a highly fractured and atomized society that has been broken for many reasons. A global economy and the loss of the US manufacturing base began the shift. The makeup of the workforce accelerated these trends. The nation solidified its position as a world hegemonic power, although the government has lost war after war, beginning with the Vietnam War. Celebrating wars became cant to many. The Korean War can be viewed as a stalemate. Military spending has eclipsed spending on programs that nurtured many people. The environment, schools, and health care have all suffered. Taxpayers pay for bailouts of the power elite and their coterie, while many can’t afford an emergency bill of $400 or $500. This fiscal year’s military spending began at $1.5 trillion, with the Iran war costing multiples of billions of dollars more. The terror attacks of September 2001 accelerated military spending and tragically led to endless wars. Many see this issue and are moving away from unblinking support for militarism, but the sense of atomization and not being in this together increases. I grew up in a society with much different norms for interacting with others.I recall a time in the near-forgotten past when camaraderie, at least among some, solidarity if you will, was not all that exceptional a value. Now, it’s not just that I’m not my brother’s keeper anymore, it’s I’ll f$%k my brother if I can get away with it. Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.