Thomas Jefferson wrote in a September 28, 1821 letter, "The government of the United States, at a very early period, when establishing its tariff on foreign importations, were very much guided in their selection of objects by a desire to encourage manufactures within ourselves." Conservatives don't want you to know this, and - even more frenetically - are working to prevent any discussion of "protectionist" tariffs on labor.

Here are a couple of headlines for those who haven't had the time to study both economics and history:

1. There is no such thing as a "free market."
2. The "middle class" is the creation of government intervention in the marketplace, and won't exist without it (as millions of Americans and Europeans are discovering).

"It's never been tried before." "The Bible doesn't mention it." "Civilized people have never done things this way." "No society in the 6000 years of the history of civilization since Gilgamesh has suggested such a thing." "It'll create social chaos, ultimately destroying the nation." "It's just too radical an idea for people to accept."...

In this season of blockbuster movies, it's useful to remember that one of the first lessons aspiring novelists and screenwriters learn is that the goodness of a hero is defined by a single quality - the badness of his opponent. From Superman's Lex Luthor to Batman's Joker to Indiana Jones' Nazis to Luke Skywalker's Darth Vader, for a hero to be perceived as larger than life, he must have a larger than life enemy....

Rush Limbaugh just declared psychological war on the working white males of America, although most of them probably didn't realize it. This week Limbaugh rolled out a "funny" faux advertisement for the "Hillary Clinton Testicle Lock Box" that now any woman can use to clamp down on men's testicles just like Hillary does....

Judge Moore, the "Ten Commandments Judge" in Alabama, says the controversy he and Fox news have stirred up is about religion. But it's not about religion. It's about power. A power that seeks, ultimately, to replace democracy....

Step 1: Admit that you were under the sway of right-wing, anti-democracy radicals. This is the first step for every conservative or "ditto-head" listener on the way to recovery. It is important to understand that the people you were listening to are not "compassionate conservatives," "Republicans," or "pillars of morality." They're right-wing conservative radicals, more interested in strong corporations than strong democracy, and you must be honest with yourself about that fact...

Today's so-called Republicans have established a mind-numbing record at polluting the environment; bloating government; appointing crony partisans; pushing the nation into debt to fund tax cuts for the rich; legislatively catering to the world's largest corporations; opposing women's rights; kneecapping states, local communities, and schools; eviscerating constitutional protections of liberty at home; and devastating our nation's reputation abroad...

In the last Democratic debate, one of the questioners pointed out that fewer Americans identify themselves as either liberals or Democrats than at any time since before Roosevelt's New Deal. The implicit question was, "What's so bad about you guys that Americans have decided 'liberal' is a curse word and people are embarrassed to call themselves Democrats?"

The reaction to the drug problem - and drug felonies - recently alleged against Rush Limbaugh highlight sharply the differences between conservative morality and liberal/progressive morality. Conservatives often mistakenly proclaim themselves the sole holders of morality...

On Tuesday, September 16, 2003, George W. Bush said what virtually every other senior member of his administration had been going out of their way to refute...

Imagine a bomb that only kills Caucasians with red hair. Or short people. Or Arabs. Or Chinese.

The two words we never hear in the corporate media's discussion of Iraq are "oil" and "nationalism." Yet these are the keys to understanding why we got into Iraq, why we only want "limited" involvement from the U.N., why we won't succeed in stopping attacks against us in Iraq, and why George W. Bush's crony capitalism and aircraft-carrier-landing phony-warrior drama have so terribly harmed our nation and set up a disaster for our children's generation.

"If America's largest and most conservative corporations can own and influence big chunks of the American media," some have asked, "then why not our most established and respected unions?"

It turns out that unions can get into the media business - and one already has, creating what has recently become America's only operational commercial liberal talk radio network, officially introduced to the industry this month with a prominent ad in Talkers Magazine.

Are computerized voting machines a wide-open back door to massive voting fraud? The discussion has moved from the Internet to CNN, to UK newspapers, and the pages of The New York Times. People are cautiously beginning to connect the dots, and the picture that seems to be emerging is troubling.