Hafezean Piety

Hafezean piety is "transcendental" in the Emersonian sense, which is to say, it is transgressive. Put another way, Emersonian Transcendentalism is Hafezean because the Sage of Concord saw in Hafez the model of religiosity that he wished to emulate. Not some sort of "other-worldly" mysticism and certainly not a Kantian "religion within the bounds of reason alone." Emerson longed to be frankly "religious" in a way that suited the human condition as he understood it as a 19th century Euro-American: pragmatic and naturalistic and yet open to those moments of "transcendental" ecstasy that the landscape induced in the sensitive spirit.

A sort of Hudson River School "mysticism," earthy, lucid, and yet visionary.

Bruce Springsteen - Stolen Car (1980)

American Democracy Betrayed By The 4th Estate

An honest government would bust these Trusts. But ours won't, because the government and its supine journalistic "watch dogs" are all in it together.

Bruce Springsteen Induction Speech For The E Street Band

Bobby's Version

The Grateful Dead: Days Between, 8/22/1993

Surviving Trump

How to be a Stoic.

Wayfaring Stranger (Jack White)

Hey Blue Eyes (2014)

Appalachian Family Reunion

Young Pete

Odetta

The Trump Era Foretold

First Time, Tragedy; Second Time, Farce

Burroughs On Kerouac

Democracy And Empire

The fix we're in.

Neil Young "Birds" Live 1970's

State Of The Nation

Wilco Live At Ancienne Belgique

After Another Round Of Duopoly...

Here we are:

The National Pastime

SEND A MESSAGE: GO GREEN!

Progressives in the Democratic Party cannot tell the difference between party affiliation and codependency.

In A Winner-Take-All Society...

this just does not compute:

Brothers

Salvation

This article (from two years ago) was prescient in many respects. To paraphrase Bill Clinton (in a way that would horrify him): It's the duopoly, stupid. Neither God nor the Constitution ordained for us the "two party system"--the political arm of the Corporatocracy. Until we bust the Republicrat-Democan political "trust," we will continue to exhaust good political energy rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The electorate as a whole will continue to run back and forth from port to starboard looking for salvation, but there is no salvation to be had on a sinking ship.

President Trump: How & Why

Esperanza Spalding: Blake's Fly

You Must Never Weaken

(Play very loud).

Can We?

Jill Stein Wears Pantsuits

But maybe no one cares because they weren't bought by Wall Street.

The American Jesus

By Any Means Necessary

9/11: A Conspiracy Theory

William Burroughs: Advice For Young People

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Jimmie Driftwood: He Had A Long Chain On

Lesser Evilism...

is a counsel of despair.

Once Upon A Time In America

You Want It Darker

Freight Train Elizabeth Cotton

William Barrett On Existentialism, Part 1 Of 3

William Barrett On Existentialism, Part 2 Of 3

William Barrett On Existentialism, Part 3 Of 3

Into The Apocalypse With Bob

Don't Waste Your Vote — Invest Your Vote

Arizona Republic

The right wing announces its choice.

The Father Of Our Country

P. T. Barnum.

Life Is Too Short To Waste It On Farce Passed Off As Tragedy

Courageous Op/Ed

For those who refuse to return to the abusive party.

More Than A Region

Appalachia is a state of mind.

Appalachian Music Part A

Appalachian Music Part B

Where To Point The Finger Of Blame

The self-destruction of the American experiment in democracy will not come at the hands of the Worst, full as they are of passionate intensity. The Worst have always been full of passionate intensity.

The self-destruction of the American experiment comes at the hands of the Best who, lacking all conviction, latch on to what they perceive to be the "Lesser Worst" (whatever that's supposed to mean); they do this because, in addition to lacking conviction, they lack moral courage and a political imagination.

The Best, i.e., Liberals and Fauxgressives, are doing us in.

Dylan Cover

The Classic American Left

An Eye For An Eye

Yellow Journalism vs. What Actually Happens On Planet Earth.

American Industry

Carnegie Steel

More American Heroes

Omar ibn Said



Pete Seeger

An American Life

Enter The Platitude-Free Zone

The Function Of The Independent Blogger

But to organize a new union between our political ideas and our imagination--in all our cultural purview there is no work more necessary.

~ Lionel Trilling, "The Function of the Little Magazine," in The Liberal Imagination, 100.

Urban Dictionary

Fauxgressive.

Each One Teach One

Scenes From The Paris Of Appalachia

An American Hero

The Joke's On Us

"The election isn't until November, but we've convinced Progressives that they have no choice but to vote for me. Thanks Bernie! Bob Byrd would be so proud..."

Why Books Matter

Diary of the Dark Years.

American Genius

Diyanet Center Of America

A Turkish contribution to American pluralism.

NYSL: Why Trilling Matters

JK

Jack Kerouac thought he was a Buddhist but he was not a Buddhist. He was too Catholic for Buddhism to really stick. He could not get the suffering out of his soul.

He was, in fact, a dervish--which is what you get when you cross a Catholic with a Buddhist--something that he discovered when he was in the Maghreb.

In the end, what John Clellon Holmes said of Kerouac was more true than anything anyone else ever said, including anything he had ever said about himself:

If he'd known how the world worked he never would have broken his heart over it.

(Quoted in Jack's Book, 318).

Righteous Voices Of Resistance

Cornel West


Chris Hedges


Noam Chomsky


Jill Stein


The late Howard Zinn

Death Of Seneca

Or is it Uncle Sam?

The Writing's On The Wall

60% Of Americans Want A Viable Third Party.

How To Weather The Coming Clinton Years

For half a millennium Stoicism was very likely the most widely accepted world view in the Western World. Although there was, of course, never a single all-pervasive world view in antiquity, yet from the third century B.C. to the second century A.D. more people in the Mediterranean world seem to have held a more or less Stoic conception of the world than any other. The Peripatos had its following among a few intellectuals; Platonism was dormant while skepticism ruled in the Academy; and even if Epicureanism had a slightly larger following, it, too, was limited to a small coterie of ardent believers with a somewhat larger group of sympathizers, particularly among the Roman aristocrats. The Stoic world view, however, appealed to all classes, attracting slaves and laborers as well as kings and emperors. Its ideas infiltrated religion and science, medicine and theology, poetry and drama, law and government. Even when it had to yield to other world views, it left its mark on Christianity, Gnosticism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neo-Platonism. For a variety of reasons the Stoic outlook, both physical and ethical, captivated a large number of people in the ancient world, probably many more than we shall ever realize; and, in fact, in view of its pervasiveness, it may not be much of an exaggeration to say that the Stoic physical world view was the ancient counterpart of our current, popular, scientific world view.

~ David E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology, Ohio State University Press (1977), xiii.

W.W.Gh.S.?

What would Ghazali say to those who argue that we should vote for Clinton to avoid electing Trump? I think he would liken them to "a man arrested and incarcerated by a sultan with a view to cutting off his hand or his nose, and who spent all night wondering whether he would be cut with a knife, a sword, or a razor, and neglected to devise a plan which might ward off the punishment itself"--a response that Ghazali deemed to be "the very height of folly..."

[The metaphor comes from Dhikr al-Mawt, T. J. Winter translation].

No Ballot Cast In Fear Is A Ballot Freely Cast

Given the choice between Trump and Clinton, the argument of the "Lesser Evil" implies a comparison that is never actually made and which is not possible to make since Trump as a government official is a complete unknown.

So it really isn't an argument so much as it is an insinuation.

In any case, it is a counsel of fear and no ballot cast in fear is a ballot freely cast. Counsels of fear are forms of intimidation and actions taken pursuant to such counsels are the product of intimidation.

This intimidating insinuation of the "Lesser Evil" is part of the discourse of voluntary servitude. It is groupthink. It will never liberate the American people from the albatross we call the "two-party system."

Any person who advises another to ignore the promptings of conscience is not acting in the advisee's interest.