TheWiseOldFart

When I was a young boy, many years ago, I remember hearing the adults around me say: “Why do I bother reading the newspaper? It’s nothing but bad news.” When I was in high school, one of my teachers gave the entire class an assignment requiring us to read the entire first section of the local paper. It was the Los Angeles Times. As I expected, it was mostly bad news. However, what I read today and what is reported on television is far worse than it was in the 1960’s. First and foremost, I believe that most of what I read is filled with lies of omission. I find that the mainstream media is no longer trustworthy. When I fact check their stories, I discover that they seldom contain the complete truth. There is at least one mass shooting every day somewhere in America. Hate crimes have risen by nearly 1,000 percent from where it was in 2015. The greed of corporate America has angered most Americans to a level I once thought unthinkable. A man who shot and killed the CEO of a major healthca...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart “All governments are bad, some are worse than others.” I heard this when I was a young man. Over my nearly 78 years I have learned that it was and is completely true. The only thing I didn’t consider was that my government would become the most corrupt and incompetent of them all. My interest in politics began in 1956, when I was 10 years old. I turned on our television when I arrived home from school, and on the TV was Dwight Eisenhower’s second convention. I was fascinated. Now that I am an old man, I look back on the 13 presidents I have watched, listened to, and read about. Only one of the 13 was a great president; JFK: and three are on the list of the worst in history: Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and at the bottom, Donald Trump. Of the nine remaining, three were admirable for their accomplishments; Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden; three were somewhat competent and had good intentions; Dwight Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama. The f...

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart Hatred is the darkest emotion and the greatest danger to mankind. When such a severe emotion controls a person or group, what follows is inevitable: violence and death. Hatred is sometimes personal, but frequently includes an entire race, other demographics, or religious sect. This is an act of pure ignorance and a low level of basic intelligence.  AMERICA HAS A 405 YEAR HISTORY OF RACISM AND BIGOTY Although it is true that our nation has a more than 400-year history of extreme racism and bigotry, which continues today, the United States is not alone in its crimes against humanity. Greed, jealousy, and envy pare segments of the ultimate and most despicable emotion owned by human beigns: hate. RELIGIONS WERE ALL FOUNDED ON PEACE AND LOVE IN THEIR ORIGIN Much of the world’s history involves violence between religions. Battles between Pagans and Christians led to the Crusades and war between Christians and Muslims. These bloody and senseless battles began in 10...