Philosophy, politics, and religion from behind the bar.

Is the current GOP the NAZI party of our time? How would we know before it's too late? Most of Germany didn't know in the 1930's. Or rationalized what was happening around them. Or blinded themselves to it. "These NAZI's have some rough rhetoric, but look at the good they're doing. The nasty parts? I don't think they really mean it. They'll distance themselves from the uglier parts of their supporters. Don't believe the rumors, the nay-sayers, the negative people. We're making progress! We're bringing glory back to the Homeland!" Really. How would we know? Once it becomes our new "normal", how would we know what we have become? A seed planted by William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater, sprouted as Ronald Reagan, and coming to flower today. We never had a chance.

What is the value of our fossil fuel subsidies? Adding in all that we allow them to take. All we allow them to use. All we let them to get away with? What is the value of a stream? A harbor? The Gulf of Mexico? An ocean? The air? The climate? I would think we would start somewhere around one hundred trillion dollars, just start , conservatively. Just to make a few billion for a very few people, and give us the illusion that it's progress. And by what right? Commerce. Commerce trumping everything else. Tax breaks and government contracts? They're not even a speck on the tip of the pile. This is robbery on an unprecedented level. And it's all "legal", when we also subsidized their rights to write the laws. Ultimately, we have given the oil, gas, and coal industries our future, and how we are going to live it. Imagine the value of that.