Gadfly

The Greed Pandemic

July 26th, 2020

Why We Need a Wealth Tax
In one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in one of the wealthiest cities on Planet Earth, a homeless woman named Rosa lives her life a nickel at a time. The New York City 5-cent deposit system provides her some income because she sorts through bags of trash for cans and bottles from the elite apartments surrounding Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence. When she counts out 200 bottles and cans, she puts them in blue bags given her by a sanitation company. The…

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Poaching Among The Plutocrats

July 19th, 2020

A Liberal Education vs. Student Debt
In April of 2019 the chewed-on leather boots, belt buckles, and rifles of three rhino poachers were found in an African national park, evidently eaten by a pride of angry, hungry lions that surprised them. In another incident the partially-eaten body of a rhinopoacher was found by a police patrol. This poor fellow had been crushed by an elephant but was not on the elephant’s menu so was later digested by a neighborhood lion. And so the world goes.…

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Shark Feasts

July 12th, 2020

How Did Sharks Know The Middle Passage Route Of Slave Ships?
Because they ate a lot of living and dead naked Africans for 350 years who either jumped off slave ships or were dumped off dead. That’s not fake history, folks, but in a white supremacist country, that’s the kind of history we are not taught. During those years an estimated 12.5 million blacks from Africa were loaded on slave ships that used the “Middle Passage” trade winds of the Atlantic to bring them to slave…

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Healthcare Predation

July 5th, 2020

Predatory Capitalism Breeds Predatory Medical Care
Survival in the animal world depends upon who eats who. Wolf packs in Yellowstone chase down the oldest weakest elk and kill with a chokehold. African lion prides select the oldest and weakest water buffalo to kill for survival. Killer whale pods kill seals to eat—and sometimes play with them just for the hell of it. Our national symbol the bald eagle swoops down on fish to eat—or gorges on ditch roadkill. At the same time we have a…

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Adam and Eve Meet Charles Darwin

June 28th, 2020

What Is It About The Word “SEX” You Don’t Understand?
Sex has to be the most pleasurable act for animal species on earth, and birth to perpetuate the species has to be among the most painful. One out of 100 human babies in the world is born intersex; that is, born with both male and female equipment, sometimes with some of the parts hidden in the body. This is when sex gets to be particularly interesting. The 6-3 Supreme Court LBGTQ+ decision last week is only one part of the…

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Joe Btfsplk is Alive!

June 22nd, 2020

Will The Dark Wall Cloud Over Joe’s Head Ever Move?
Older readers will remember a character called Joe Btfsplk in Al Capp’s satirical comic strip Li’l Abner. Joe was known for his bad luck which was symbolized by a dark cloud hovering over him. Anyone who was close to Joe suffered because of his presence. Joe tries to capture the cloud in a bottle but he fails. He finally realizes he is what he is. I wonder if Joe Biden will ever realize he is what he is under his dark cloud. Yes,…

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America and Her Last Rites

June 14th, 2020

The Last Decoded Message From Hitler’s Bunker In 1945: “Closing Down Forever”
Well, well, well, now we finally have our own little Hitler in his White House bunker, assuming command of the military because, as a genius, he knows more than any of his generals and admirals. He has his own propaganda-guy-Goebbels and the “state TV network”, Fox News, which serves as his Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda 24/7. He has his own vice-president Goring in William Barr, his…

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Caught in a Tempest

June 7th, 2020

The U.S. Is A Failed State On A Rudderless U.S.S. Titanic--Captained By A Caliban
And yes, it’s headed directly for a huge iceberg. There is no evidence that Donald The Lyin’ King has read anything beyond a menu or a porn star’s telephone number. His tweets are void of any reference to classical literature or American or world history. I’m sure he has never read any of Shakespeare’s plays.

Donald is a perfect caricature of Caliban, a major character in Shakespeare’s The…

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A Clicking Stop Light

May 31st, 2020

Are We Close To Hearing The Last Clicking Of A Stoplight?
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker, has been creating provocative and entertaining columns for many years. She also was a speech writer for President Ronald Reagan. I call her a true conservative, not a fake one, because she actually believes everyone has “place” in a society. In May she had a fascinating experience. She has been walking the streets of New York for more than half a…

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Absent Without Leave and Desertion: The One Percent

May 24th, 2020

Democratic Socialism Rescues Disaster Capitalism—Again
Our elected representatives are currently appropriating trillions of taxpayer’s dollars to save our economy from the ravages of COVID-19 and disaster capitalism. Here we go again. Economists who have studied capitalism for many years say that recessions and depressions happen about every 8 to 10 years between bull and bear markets. The last Great Depression started in 1929 when Wall Streeters opened up upper-story windows and…

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