Let There Be Dragons

[Graphic: Rainbow Dragon by Decadia, 2011.]

By Elizabeth Anker
Source: By My Solitary Hearth

Editor's Note

This is an essay that I just wanted to curl up with. It centers around a book review (that is now on my reading list) and wanders off into an analysis of power, patriarchy, oppression, and … a new path that humanity could take.

24 July 2022

My Weekend with the Good Guys

Texas Minuteman Militia

[Photo: “Good Guys” with Guns – Texas Minuteman Militia via New Trajectory]

By Robert C. Koehler
Source:  CommonWonders

Editor's Note

Critcal thinking is such a crucial skill but so few seem to acquire it. One would think it would be easy to learn critical thinking; afterall, we have these big brains for something. But in my years of trying to teach it, I have found that it those who are outsiders are the likeliest to learn it. It is even harder to maintain that frame of mind over time because it does require not taking the easiest intellectual path, and most of us (myself included) get lazy from time to time. If we let ourselves get lazy too frequently, we can find ourselves swept along the scenic tour and missing the clues of reality glittering on the shore.

Russia, Iran and Turkey Hold Tehran Summit While the Paranoid West Views it Suspiciously

[Photo: Presidents Putin, Raisi, and Erdogan (Iran Daily July 18, 2022).]

By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD

Editor's Note

As the war in Ukraine grinds on with no end in sight, side negotiations to allow the movement of oil and grain for both nations are underway. The blockage of grain, in particular, is having devastating effects across the Middle East and Africa increasing both hunger and poverty in multiple nations – including the United States. There are significant economic impacts for both Ukraine and Russia which is particularly difficult in the devastation of war.

19 July 2022

The US Is Descending Into a Crisis of Overt Fascism. There’s Still a Way Out.

Stranger than Fiction, cartoon

[Graphic: Stranger than Fiction, Dave Whamond, PoliticalCartoons.com]

By: Henry A. Giroux
Source: Truthout

Editor's Note

I know that many of us are heartsick about the state of affairs in the United States and the world. However, it is critical that we not give up.

IOW short for In Other Words

People often feel either that things can’t get worse (IOW, we have already lost), or that things will right themselves (IOW, I don’t have to do anything). First, don’t give in to the former. Remember September 11, 2001, and our “failure of imagination”? Or thinking that the GW Bush administration was the bottom… and then we got Trump and crew? Things can, and will, definitely get worse IF WE DO NOT ACT. In relationship to the second, things may right themselves – in several thousand years. So we MUST ACT!

15 July 2022

Overlorded…

California - Future Hellscape, cartoon

[Graphic: Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News, NY]

By Elizabeth Anker
Source:  By My Solitary Hearth

Editor's Note

Call it “dark humor” or “writing with teeth”, this essay by Elizabeth Anker (AKA Eliza Daley), had  me from the first paragraph. Anyone who has been here at UncommonThought for a while knows my love of language. And like Henry A. Giroux, I believe that language is critical to agency, and to taking our power back. This piece has numerous examples of this – just one of which is reclaiming “normal” from its politicized painting over of reality.