By STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH - 02.14.2016

“On this day (January 8) in 1697, Scottish medical student Thomas Aikenhead, 18 or 19 years old, was hanged to death for blasphemy, in Britain’s last execution for blasphemy. The young Edinburgh student was found guilty of denying the trinity. . .[emphasis added]” (https://ffrf.org/news/day/, for January 8, 2016).

In 1996, as many readers of my columns know, I published the original version of the book now known as “The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S.: 1981-2022.”)  (The current version of the book, the third, is published by my dear friend and comrade Patrice Greanville, Editor/Publisher of The Greanville Post and Publisher of Punto Press.)  In that book, based entirely on what the Republicans and the Religious Right were already telling us back then...

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By STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH, January 04, 2016

 

First question: what is terrorism?  One definition is that it is an armed technique, usually used against non-combatants, in a conventional or non-conventional war situation.   (Well yes, I did make that one up.)  One dictionary definition is: “1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes; 2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization; 3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.”  Another is: “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal; the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.”  But then the good old Wikipedia tells us that: “There is neither an academic nor an accurate legal consensus regarding the definition of terrorism.  Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions. Moreover, governments have been reluctant to formulate an agreed upon, legally binding definition. These difficulties arise from the fact that the term is politically and emotionally charged. “ 

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By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - 12.07.15

“Modern Middle East Imperialist (MMEI) War III,” you say?  How are you counting (?) might be the first question.  Of course Western Imperialist Wars have been waged on the region at least since Alexander the Great marched through it in the 4th Century, BCE.  But the modern (contemporary) set can be said to have begun when George H.W. Bush tricked Saddam Hussein into invading a Kuwait that, among other things, had been diagonal drilling across the Iraq/Kuwait boundary, stealing Iraqi oil.  Militarily that war ended quickly.  But through subsequent U.S. policy (e.g., the Bill Clinton “No Fly” zone) over the years it wreaked havoc on many tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians (especially children).  Then came Bush II’s infamous War on Iraq which, by all logic it seems to be, was waged in order to establish a state of Permanent War for the U.S., if not one or more other Western Powers, and perhaps to create the “Permanent Republican Majority” (or at least Presidency) in the U.S. that was the dream of Karl Rove’s Repubs. (and of course the nightmare for the rest of us).

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By STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH - October 26, 2015

The Web is suddenly crawling with images of Trump as Hitler—the idea has apparently caught on. To what extent this is the weight of the establishment attempting to quash Trump as an unwelcome messenger is anybody’s guess at this time.  In America anything goes, given the appalling level of political illiteracy in the political class and media, not to mention the masses.  Thus there is now an increasing amount of speculation —- the new “buzz” —- that Donald Trump has one or more characteristics in common with the German Nazi Chancellor/President/Dictator (yes, he was all of those things) Adolf Hitler:

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By STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH - 10.11.15

For Secular Humanist Jews (and I am one) Yom Kippur is not a day of atonement, as it is for theist Jews.  (In 2015, Yom Kippur was observed on September 22-23.)  We may well have done wrong things in the past year, but we do not regard them as “sins.” “Sin” is a religious concept requiring the existence of an unknown, unknowable, and unprovable, yet somehow all-powerful super-natural being which at some level has control over our lives or parts of them. For us, Yom Kippur, the most important day in the Jewish calendar, is a day of renewal and rededication. We reflect, we restore, we renew — we look ahead, not behind

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By STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH - 09.13.15

Over four years ago, on BuzzFlash, I published a column on Donald Trump entitled “Trump is the Race Card.”  Yes, Trump is a blowhard, and no he doesn’t have any real programs to offer that would have a chance of solving the problems he likes to list (some real; some imagined.  His new [old by Repub. standards] “immigration” policy is a bad joke [see below]).  But like just about every other political commentator on our side around, I still find it irresistible to launch broadsides at him. 

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