How Wealth Rules The World

Dear Steve,

Thanks for your email.

A phone call sounds great, although I'm running out of time relative to next Wednesday's Mexico departure. (Wanna come visit? I'm confident you can sit in with the band.)

Today I meet with Patrick and John Tarantino for noon lunch at Taqueria el Toro in Raleigh. https://www.yelp.com/biz/taqueria-el-toro-raleigh (A couple years ago, cancer came close to killing Tarantino but after a gruelling new drug regimen he "made it back" and now is still driving in his late 80s.)

If Sunday's band rehearsal doesn't take place, that same late afternoon-through-evening-time-slot would be a good time to catch up.

Yesterday a Christmas delightful present arrived from Rob and Christina: lots of yummy chocolate from Cottage Grove's "Sanity Chocolate" and a book titled, "How Wealth Rules The World: Saving Our Communities And Freedoms From The Dictatorship Of Property." https://www.amazon.com/How-Wealth-Rules-World-Dictatorship/dp/1523097639 

I look forward to reading it.

The descriptions of "Wealth Rules" that are posted online and printed on the back cover (where Winona LaDuke and Thom Hartmann give it high marks) remind me of:

"Perfectly Legal: The Campaign To Rig Our Tax System To Benefit The Rich And Cheat The Rest"
This David Cay Johnston book was brought to my attention by a retired Air Force colonel and life-long Republican 

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/08/perfectly-legal-covert-campaign-to-rig.html

Curiously, I mistook the first excerpts of "Perfectly Legal" as right-wing analysis. (It turns out that American politicians -- on both sides of the aisle -- have supported the systematic marauding of The Non-Rich in ways that are startling when you learn the legislative details of how these predators work.  

Initially, I was rather deeply unsettled when I realized that I was reading the writing of Donald Trump's earliest biographer and, arguably, staunchest critic.

David Cay Johnston: "Trump Is Not A Loyal American... There Is A Traitor In The White House"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/07/david-cay-johnston-trump-is-not-loyal.html

Pax et amore

Alan

On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:32 AM Steve Dear wrote:

Good sir!

Let us talk by telephony some time. 

I trust you are well.

Peace,

Steve

Elmira, OR

On Jan 9, 2020, at 9:07 PM, Alan Archibald <alanarchibaldo@gmail.com> wrote:

I Loved Netflix' "Messiah". You Might Not If … By Brad Jersak (Patheos)

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/01/i-loved-netflix-messiah-you-might-not.html  

Friend Leigh Sturman alerted me to "Messiah" in a brief note saying she enjoyed it.

Since I leave for Oaxaca next Wednesday - and won't be back until April 1st - I doubt I'll have time to check it out.

However, stumbling on this Patheos article - coupled with Leigh's recommendation - moves me to send you this notice.

The last essay I wrote as an undergraduate was titled "How Do We Recognize The Messiah When He Comes Back?"