In 1965, I was on an early anti Vietnam War march that started in Berkeley and attempted to march through Oakland to the Army Induction Center. Allen Ginsberg was there, Paul Krassner. We were met at the Oakland border by a phalanx of Oakland Police in riot gear. In Oakland at that time, the first amendment didn’t apply. Along comes the Black Panther Party, now celebrating its 50th Anniversary. There’s a conference I would love to attend, but I’m in Mexico again where I live now about a third of the time. But I hope they resurrect the party in […]

(October 10, 2016) I think it’s safe now to start planning for what happens beyond the election. It seems likely that Hillary will win. She might even have a supportive congress, which would open her up to considerable pressure to abide by the platform that she and Bernie worked out. We should think about where to focus our efforts. Criminal justice reform would be my number one. Reduce the prison population by half in the next 3 years. Pardon all the nonviolent drug convicts. Force her to deliver to the Black community what she so generously promised. To move in […]

(October 3, 2016) “Voting your conscience” is a bourgeois individualist concept, to use old words. True though: the bourgeoisie is the ruling class. Capitalism is their thing and supremacy of the individual is their ideology. I don’t mean to make you feel bad, but voting is a tactical decision within an electoral strategy. And strategy is a plan to achieve…what? That’s the big question. What do we want? I know what I want. I want a society that values the well-being of people and of the planet above its individualism, it’s profit. I support these three demands: End all wars […]

(September 26, 2916) What if Trump wins? Since foreign policy really isn’t in the hands of the elected government but in the hands of the national security state (NSS), we probably don’t have to worry too much about Trump leading us into war: a major faction of the NSS wants to invade Syria anyway and will most likely do so regardless of who is elected. This will escalate conflict with Russia, but the U. S. military is stronger enough than both Russia’s and China’s that a major war is unlikely for the next five years or so. As China builds […]

(September 19, 2016) Capital is global. Capitalism is global, controlled by a cabal of international billionaires, wealthier and more powerful than any class in history, like even Louis XVI. Our movement – the movement for societies that value humans above things, human well-being above individual profit – is currently fragmented by nationality and within our nations. The only thing that can defeat the ruling class and end its rapacious exploitation of the environment and our own labor is an international movement. Let’s keep it simple, what we can all agree on:          End all wars.     […]

(September 12, 2016) There are several reasons that I am encouraging young Berniecrats to become teachers in the public school system. One, there’s a teacher shortage, so it’s not a difficult job to get. My advice is to skip the education schools and see if you can get an internship that will train you on the job. Second, teaching is reasonably well-paid, at least compared to barista or Whole Foods jobs, with good benefits. It certainly should be much better paid for all the work and training involved, but you can live well on a teacher’s salary, and there are […]

I want to take a break from electoral politics for a while. I want to spend time promoting my book, White Knight or how one man came tobelieve that he was the one who caused the San Francisco City Hall killings andthe Jonestown Massacre (it’s a comedy) as I am shamelessly doing right now. I want to work on my memoir called Schools of Thought My 65 years in education. I want to enjoy my retirement. One of the things I’ve re-discovered in the process of the Sanders campaign is how little power is actually being scrabbled over. The primary […]