Fastened To A Dying Animal By Phil Rockstroh of Ebullient Skepticism Fastened To A Dying Animal: a short jeremiad regarding that affront to the nation's dignity known as the US election process Here in this crumbling empire once known as the American republic, here in...

A Q and A For The People Of A Forsaken Republic: Addressing the origins of the Who's-Your-Daddy Nation By Phil Rockstroh of Ebullient Skepticism (Note that Phil has a web site now!!!) "We must become the change we want to see." -- Mahatma Gandhi "In any case, I hate all Iranians." --Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary to Defense...

A Conservative's Garden of False Narratives: Who are you calling a moonbat, anyway? 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 Disneyland of Militant Ignorance: The American Normalization of Mass Murder 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...

Tales of Angst, Alienation and Martial Law: Roasting Marshmallows on the American Reichstag Fire to Come. 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...

What Lies Beneath: Privileged Grotesques, Ordinary Monsters and the Iraqi Deathscape. 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, he didn't deliver...

Mcmansions, SUVs, Mega-Churches and the Baghdad Embassy: Life Among Dim and Brutal Giants 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...

Within the Architecture of Denial and Duplicity: The Democratic Party and the Infantile Omnipotence of The Ruling Class. 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...

Tantrums of Mass Destruction or The Enduring Beauty of Ugly Truth: In Praise of the Shabby-Ass Human Glory of Every Day Resistance. By Phil Rockstroh 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 results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption...

A Soul Defying, Tacit Approval of Torture: How Did We Come to This? 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...

Expanding Markets and Dying Oceans By: Phil Rockstroh Expanding Markets and Dying Oceans: Eating the Planet Like a Bag of Doritos for Jesus. "Standing next to me in this lonely crowd, Is a man who swears he's not to blame." --Bob Dylan It has been...

Prisoners of Envy: Wal*Mart Nihilism Versus the Punk Rock of Blogging 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....

America Has Left the Building: An Open Missive of Anger and Hope 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,...

To Hell with Centrism: We Must Reclaim the Inspired Edge 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...

Selling Satan: Iraqi War Dead and the Collateral Damage to America's Soul By: Phil Rockstroh Headline (Reuters): "United States numb to Iraq troop deaths: experts" "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...

Midterm Elections 2006: It's Always Darkest, Right Before ... It Goes Completely Black 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...