Sky Dwellers, Pie Eaters, and Their Political Enablers: Faithful Defenders of the Status Quo
"Well we're moving on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Moving on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie."
But now fast-forward to 2007 and real world America. When it comes to those deluxe apartments in the sky, today's exclusive penthouses sit atop much taller high-rises--but the chances of ever living in one (or even breathing its rarified air as a dinner guest) have shrunk considerably. And although the proverbial economic pie is much larger today as well, a relative handful of gluttons are gorging themselves while everyone else settles for leftovers and crumbs.
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The Link Between War, Terrorism, and Intimate Violence
When children either experience or observe violence against their mothers in their homes, they learn that it's ok, even "moral," to use violence to impose one's will on others. This is why throughout history, the most violently despotic and warlike societies have been those where violence, or the threat of violence, is used to maintain domination of parent over child and man over woman.
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Jesus Wouldn't Bomb a Soul:
By Jason Miller
"I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally."
---Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980)
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From Lawn-Boys to B-2's: America's penchant for mowing `em down
"I just look around and see people mowing their lawns on the same day we start to bomb Iraq and it drives me wild."
--Mike Palecek
Having read and thoroughly enjoyed three of Mike Palecek's novels, I felt particularly fortunate that he agreed to engage in a cyber-interview with me. His irreverent satirization of the myriad of ills plaguing the United States is unparalleled amongst current authors of sociopolitical fiction. Palecek may hyperbolize, but his fertile imagination has afforded US Americans a priceless opportunity to stop and examine what we are becoming as a nation. And he has done so in a fashion that is both absorbing and entertaining.
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