Four Political Commentaries Worth Viewing

I share this evening four recent video commentaries that caught my attention. All four come from independent media sources.

In the first of these, Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report discusses a New York Times story that’s been getting a lot of attention. This is because it highlights a private meeting between House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in which “common ground” on various issues was reportedly sought. (The image above is itself a commentary on this meeting.) Figuerdo also explains why this meeting should disqualify Jeffries from being the next Speaker of the House.






In introducing this evening’s second video, I’ll just say that I really appreciate Keith Edwards’ 13-minute response (below) to Abdul El-Sayed’s viral appearance on fascist blowhard Jesse Watters’ FOX News show.






Video commentary number three tonight is the Why I Hate Politics podcast’s response to Rashad Richey’s “epic takedown” of Hakeem Jeffries. This 23-minute video also spotlights recent comments by Ta-Nehisi Coates (comments which were highlighted in this previous Wild Reed post).






I conclude by coming full circle with another commentary by Mike Figueredo. Posted earlier today, this 18-minute video is introduced by Figuerdo as followed.

AIPAC-backed Democrats are attacking Hasan Piker again in another coordinated campaign, but this latest manufactured controversy may take the cake for being the most laughably performative act of political theater of all time. The Democrats in question (who support genocide) are accusing Hasan (who opposes genocide) of inciting hate during a stream where he was talking about how inciting hatred is bad. Yes, you read that correctly. They’re cynically twisting his words to pretend like he’s saying the exact opposite of what he’s actually saying. They could be criticizing Trump, but instead, they’re obsessing about a Twitch streamer to signal to their base that opposition to Israel’s genocide won’t be tolerated. In this video we’ll talk about this outrageous defamation campaign and how gross it is that these genocide-supporting clowns are co-opting social justice language to defend atrocities.

Related Off-site Links:
“Pathetic Stuff”: Jeffries Rebuked Over Secret Meeting With Kushner – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, August 23, 2026).
What’s the Rationale for Jeffries to Talk Secretly With Kushner? – Martin Burns (Common Dreams, August 24, 2026).
“I Hate Democrats, But I Love Abdul”: Voters Who Left Over Gaza Return for Progressive Push – Minnah Arshad (The Guardian, August 23, 2026).
Hunter Biden Tells Dems To Stop Smearing Hasan Piker – The Majority Report (August 26, 2026).
Hakeem Jeffries Proves Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Major Point About Dems – Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey (August 18, 2026).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Ashley Stevens: Quote of the Day – August 18, 2026
• “Our Country Right Now Is At a Crossroads”
• Abdul El-Sayed: The Disruptor Michigan (and the Country) Needs
• Mapping Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Defection from the “Obama Hypnosis”
• Jeff Waldorf: Quote of the Day – July 3, 2026
• Mike Figueredo on the “Political Malpractice” of the Democratic Party
• The Time for Illusions Is Over: Henry Giroux on the Democratic Party
• David Norton: “The Democratic Party Serves Capital, Not You”
• Mike Figueredo: “Elected Democrats Have No Real Interest in Doing What the Base Wants”
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “We Must Challenge the Entire System”
• Marianne Williamson: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is Not Enough to Win”
• Nick Cruse: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is the Privileged Position”
• Oliver Kornetzke’s Epic Takedown of the Liberal Tactic of Blaming and Shaming Leftists
• Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

Quote of the Day

God bless the life – the stories, the songs – that was and will always be Dolly Parton. I have quoted her in many a sermon. It is her voice I hear when I need to hear God speak those precious words: “I will always love you.”

Your witness to God’s love will continue to permeate this world when we sing your songs.

Rest in peace, dear prophet Dolly!

– Rev. Marc Blakesley
via social media
August 25, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
Dolly Parton, Country Star, Actor and Philanthropist, Dies Aged 80 After Fighting Cancer – Ben Beaumont-Thomas (The Guardian, August 25, 2026).
Dolly Parton Dies at 80. Here Are 9 Ways She Changed America and the World for the Better – Zeteo (August 25, 2026).
Dolly Parton Knew How to Be Human – John Pavlovitz (The Beautiful Mess, August 25, 2026).
What a Lovely, Lovely Soul – Marianne Williamson (Transform, August 25, 2026).

Image: Artist unknown.

Choosing to Awaken

If you want to believe that what your physical eyes can see is all that’s there, then fine, you can. Stay in that small fraction of perceptual reality if you choose. But at some point, even if that point is at the point of death, we all know better. I’ve seen cynics become mystics on their deathbed. We are here as though in a material dream from which the spiritual nature of our larger reality is calling us to awaken.

The magician, the alchemist, the miracle-worker, is simply someone who has woken up to the material delusions of the world and decided to live another way. In the world gone mad, we can choose to be sane. In order to move ourselves, and our civilization, into the next phase of our evolutionary journey, it’s time for all of us to awaken.

I choose to awaken from the delusions of the world.

– Marianne Williamson
Excerpted from A Year of Miracles:
Daily Devotions and Reflections
HarperOne, 2013

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Awakening
• An Extraordinary, Precious Opportunity
• The Task at Hand
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• Awakening and Turning
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Shining On . . . Into the New Year
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Peng Roden Her
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• The Source Is Within You
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• Returning the Mind to God
• Being the Light
• Cultivating Stillness
• Inner Peace
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• All ’Round Me Burdens Seem to Fall
• No Other Time, No Other Place
• Home To Myself
• God Rest Us
• Awakenings
• Don’t Go Back to Sleep

Image: Mauna Nada (2018).

A Mesmerizing Performance

I mentioned previously that I had purchased a ticket for the live-stream of All the World’s a Stage, a performance by dancer Kadeem Hosein (known as Kadeem En Pointe) and a number of his creative friends that took place last Friday, August 14, at the Shaw Theatre in Kings Cross, London.

I’m happy to report that it was a great show, and I offer heartfelt thanks to Kadeem and all who worked and performed with him in producing such a wonderful gift for the world. Along with Kadeem, others who performed in All the World’s a Stage included dance artists Mercedes Prevatt and Rebecca Chan, singer and musical theatre performer Eve Shanu-Wilson, creatives Mandy Izquierdo, Two Thunder, and Storrveldi, performer Xavier Thomas, and choreographic duo Bloom Collective.

The live-stream of All the World’s a Stage took place at 1:00 p.m. in Minneapolis, as we’re six hours behind London. I invited two chaplain colleagues, Barson and Charity, to watch the first twenty minutes or so with me on a computer in the Spiritual Care office of the hospital at which we work. Like me, they were mesmerized by the beauty and skill of the show’s diverse range of performances.

Kadeem is already planning a second performance to take place this winter. The best way to stay informed about this event and other projects and performances by Kadeem is by following him on social media. To get started, visit Kadeem’s official website and sign-up to his mailing list. Kadeem is also on Instagram and Facebook.

The following performance of The Dying Swan by Kadeem is from September 2020. In describing this dance when it was first posted of YouTube, Kadeem said the following.

Choreographed by Mikhail Fokin for Anna Pavlova in 1905, the piece I dance here – The Dying Swan – is a staple of classical ballet, performed by ballerinas the world over. Maybe my interpretation is not as great (I am not a professional dancer, I only do it as a hobby), but I had fun shooting it and I hope it inspires some people to go outside of their comfort zone – it wasn’t easy to dance in public, add taking your shirt off, putting on pointe shoes AND a tutu . . . need I say more?

Related Off-site Links:
Kadeem’s Official Website
“Being a Ballet Dancer Is Years of Hard Work, But It’s All Worth It” Says Kadeem En Pointe – Stuart Norval (France 24, February 26, 2026).
Men en Pointe: Ballet Dancers Kick Against Gender Stereotypes – Matilda Martin (The Guardian, March 10, 2021).


See also the following dance-related Wild Reed posts:
• Kadeem
• A Message in Dance That Challenges, Inspires and Liberates
• Kadeem En Pointe: Finding Freedom in Dance
• The Soul of a Dancer
• The Trouble with the Male Dancer – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• The Power of Dance
• “Then I Shall Leap Into Love”
• Love’s the Only Dance
• We All Dance
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• The Dance of Life
• And As We Dance . . .
• Our Dance
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Flexibility and Flow
• Move Us, Loving God
• A Prayer for Dancers
• Trusting the Flow
• Aristotle Papanikolaou on How Being Religious Is Like Being a Dancer

“Woke 1.0” as Revisionist History

In my view the 32-minute BreakThrough News segment below is a must-see as it explains a lot about what we’re currently witnessing in U.S. politics and society.

Here’s how this segment is introduced on the independent news outlet’s Facebook page.

[The year] 2020 wasn’t a joke – but is “Woke 1.0” proof of a calculated pivot to the right? Both Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Zohran Mamdani dismissed the George Floyd uprising against police violence as "crazy," but as Rania Khalek and Zoe Alexandra argue this isn’t just careless language: it’s a warning sign of how the Democratic Party disciplines “progressives” to protect the ruling class from socialism’s growing popularity.

Rania and Zoe break down Mamdani’s shift – from explicitly linking NYPD militarization to Israel in 2023, to stating las Wednesday that “defund the police” was a mistake – and argue this isn't an organic evolution, it’s a bet that toeing the party line is the only way to survive in a corporate, genocide-funding party built to crush movements, not represent them.

It’s a growing pattern of capitulation: Mamdani, AOC, and Brad Lander all backing Hakeem Jeffries for House Speaker despite his defense of Israeli apartheid and genocide; Michigan’s William Lawrence disavowing Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) membership within a month of winning his primary on DSA organizing; and Abdul El-Sayed enthusiastically embracing Kamala Harris’s endorsement despite her role enabling the annihilation of Gaza.

“2020 wasn’t some mass psychotic break. It was the largest uprising in modern American history, because tens of millions of people watched a police officer kneel on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes until he died – suffocated to death, on camera, in broad daylight,” says Rania Khalek.

If the movement lets these betrayals go unanswered, what stops Abolish ICE, Medicare for All, and Free Palestine from being next on the chopping block?

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

THE STATE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
• Ashley Stevens: Quote of the Day – August 18, 2026
• “Our Country Right Now Is At a Crossroads”
• Abdul El-Sayed: The Disruptor Michigan (and the Country) Needs
• Scotty T. Reid on James Clyburn as a “Defender of the Political Establishment and Its Policies of Oppression”
• Jeff Waldorf: Quote of the Day – July 3, 2026
• Mike Figueredo on the “Political Malpractice” of the Democratic Party
• The Time for Illusions Is Over: Henry Giroux on the Democratic Party
• David Norton: “The Democratic Party Serves Capital, Not You”
• Mike Figueredo: “Elected Democrats Have No Real Interest in Doing What the Base Wants”
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• Exposing the Dark Money Network Secretly Funding Establishment Democratic Influencers
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Adam Bates on the Team Blue / Kamala “I Told Ya So” Smugness Tour
• When the “Blue Wave” Is a “Blue Crackdown”
• The Longstanding Fault Lines Within the Democratic Party Have Surfaced Again in Minnesota
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “We Must Challenge the Entire System”
• Marianne Williamson: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is Not Enough to Win”
• Nick Cruse: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is the Privileged Position”
• Oliver Kornetzke’s Epic Takedown of the Liberal Tactic of Blaming and Shaming Leftists
• Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t


ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• AOC Falls in Line
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders and AOC’s “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Dorothy Lennon: Quote of the Day – June 25, 2025


THE RISE OF FASCISM IN THE U.S.
• George Conway: The Trump Administration Is a “Criminal Organization”
• Mark Greene on How ICE Is a Weapon of the Epstein Class
• Tommy J. Housman on Reactions to the “Defining Image” of Trump’s America
• James Greenberg: “I Am in Mourning for America”
• An Incident That Feels “Ripped from a Dystopian Novel”
• The “Creeping Fascism of Trump’s America”: A View from Australia
• Will Potter on Trump’s War on Dissent: “This Is What Fascists Do”
• Derek Johnson on the “Courage to Call Fascism by Its Name”
• Jason Duchin: Quote of the Day – September 24, 2025
• Staying Strong in Trump’s Fascist America
• James Greenberg on the Identity Politics of MAGA
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like in Practice”
• Garrett Graff: “America Tips Into Fascism”
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Moving Into Totalitarianism”
• “It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”
• Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025


THE GREEN PARTY
• Butch Ware on Why Third Parties Are Crucial
• Campaigning With the Green Party
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “I’m Not Here as a Spoiler”
• Jill Stein: “Americans Deserve Choices”
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Third Parties and the Historical Record
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)
• Voting Green: Hope Over Fear

Mysticism and Miracles

In continuing with the Wild Reed series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of A Course in Miracles, I share this evening excerpts from Jon Mundy’s 2018 book, A Course in Mysticism and Miracles.

____________

Since its release in 1976, A Course in Miracles has come to be regarded as a great work of art and a 21st-century spiritual classic. More than three million copies now exist in twenty-seven different languages. What is unique about the Course is its incredibly high level of psychological sophistication. It is truly a document of the 21st-century – one that gives us ever-deeper insight into the working of the mind.

A Course in Miracles presents itself as “a manual for a special curriculum, intended for teachers of a special form of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms, all with the same outcome.” The Course is but one of many thousands of spiritual paths – indeed, thousands upon thousands. There have always been those, like the 13th-century Persian mystic Jalaluddin Rumi, who have brought us different spiritual truths. In fact, many of the ideas contained in the Course are reflected in the teachings of a host of different thinkers and traditions that both pre-date and are contemporaneous with it. This is especially true for those who engage in what is called non-dualistic thinking – Gnostics, Neoplatonists, Advaita Vedantists, Zen Buddhists, Sufis, Kabbalists, Transcendentalists, and those who expound New Thought philosophies. Interfaith work and/or what is also called Interspirituality is clearly the wave of the future. In the end, no religion wins. God wins, which means everyone wins, as our will must ultimately be the same as that of God. Everything not of God is illusory – what the Course calls “the dreaming of the world.” The Course, like all mystical teachings, calls upon us to awaken from all dreaming.

[. . .] Like all mystical “systems,” the Course is a path, a way, a process, and a passage. It is a story that tells us of the grand destiny and points the way to the path out of hell. Ultimately, the answer to the riddle we call life is simply a matter of a willingness to live in harmony with the Divine. That is the miracle. We are simply called upon to remember – or better, re-cognize – what we already know.

[. . .] Spend time reading the Course and you’ll soon say: “Who wrote this?” It is clear that no “body” wrote it. It came through the mind and the hands of Helen Schucman, a professor of medical psychology at Columbia University. Having known Helen, however – as brilliant as she was – these sentences are not her ordinary way of speaking or being. [. . .] One spring Sunday in 1975, Helen sat me down with Bill Thetford and another of her colleagues, Ken Wapnick, in Ken’s tiny studio apartment in New York. There, she told me how the Course had come to be and how it affected the other people in the room. [. . .] Helen became a kind of informal therapist for me, helping me sort through my feelings and deal with my too-frequent romantic upheavals. A few weeks after our meeting, Helen met Judy Whitson, who later became the President of the Foundation for Inner Peace, which published the first edition of the Course. Judy and I had been friends since the 1960s and were both working with the American Society for Psychical Research. Judy arranged for the xeroxing of 300 copies of the Course – called the Criswell Edition – so a small group of us could start reading it and practicing the Workbook lessons prior to its publication in 1976.

[. . .] It is fair to say that many folks today are abandoning traditional religion in favor of a deeper, more contemplative spiritual life. Mysticism is becoming more mainstream, and religious dogma is less likely to be accepted without question. Whatever the spiritual discipline or path – Sufism, A Course in Miracles, Buddhism, Taoism, Gnosticism, yoga, mystical Christianity, the Kabbala, or perhaps your own unique inner path – they all reflect one universal journey that leads to a unitive goal. More and more people are now ready to embark on this journey. They are ready to walk the mystical path.

This can be extremely difficult to do in our often frenetic modern world, however. [. . .] Like Helen Schucman, we must withstand continual tests and trails along the way before we arrive at a place where God is all we know, all we see, and all we love. Acceptance and forgiveness can easily be lost in the tangled web of relationships that hamper our progress on our journey. We may think we are beyond judgment and then, unexpectedly, we make a judgment – perhaps not as quickly as previously, but a judgment nonetheless. We may think we have achieved forgiveness, but the ego often slips in the back door when we aren’t looking and pulls us back into its world of illusion.

Despite these challenges, the mystical path is a gentle path that can lead you out of the ego world and into Oneness. Ultimately, it is an easy journey because it ends where it begins – in Unity. Mysticism is, by its very nature, welcoming and affirming, rewarding and fulfilling. It makes no demands, There are no pledges to sign, no dues to pay. There are no rules or regulations. There are no magical formulas, no mysteries, no secrets, no oaths, no incantations, no rites, no rituals, no dogmas, and no creeds. Relax, take a deep breath. Mysticism is free.

When you walk the mystical path, you need not proselitize. Mysticism is not about converting or being in competion with any thought system. It involves no missionary effort and no saving of lost souls, because no one is lost. There are only those who know, and those who are sleeping and will someday awaken. In some ways, we are all like seeds long dormant; when properly nourished, we spring back to life.

Walking the mystical path is simply a matter of “listening to” and following guidance – of seeing the insanity of the world, and then choosing not to play the world’s game. When revelation replaces the illusion of a separate ego self, you gain everything and lose nothing, making it easy to share – to live for, and with, God and neighbor. Indeed, it is one of your pleasant obligations on the path to help awaken those who sleep – not by shaking them awake, but by giving a gentle nudge in the right direction. When you walk the mystical path, you identity with the whole of humanity, nature, animals, the Earth, music, the mind, the heart. You are not against anything or anyone. You have no agenda, only a sense of purpose. You acknowledge no opposites and no enemies. Since we are all One, there is no need to attack those who see things differently. Mysticism attracts without persuading.

In fact, mystical experience is so simple that it is easily missed, misinterpreted, or misunderstood in today’s hectic world. It lies hidden in most “ordinary” experiences and in every part of the whole. It also lies quietly in the heart and naturally finds creative expression in the most ordinary things – in babies, pets, plants, art, music, work, play – indeed, in all of life. Be spontaneous; be humorous; have fun; laugh frequently. Sing and dance and play your way along your journey. In possession of the moment, know that the moment is everything. Be patient and kind, and value your relationships. But always recognize the value of silence and solitude. Remember, no one can be truly alone when the Spirit is always present.

The mystical path leads you to the realization that all there is, is Life. Life is eternal and you have nothing to fear. At death, only the illusory shell of your body and your ego self is lost, and in that loss, you find freedom. The prison doors are opened and your ego selfs loosens its grasp on Spirit – or Spirit loosens its grip on the ego self. This is the message of resurrection – a joyous affirmation of the instrinsic beauty of life and an unequivocal denial of death. As a dewdrop slips from the leaf into the river and the river slips into the ocean, so mystics slip into the All to become the ocean. [. . .] What an increadible thing – to be a child of God. What an incredible thing it is to be!

– Jon Mundy
Excerpted from A Course in
Mysticism and Miracles
Weiser Books, 2018

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Why A Course in Miracles Is Not “New Age”
• A Course in Miracles: A Gift of Peace
• Gifts of Abundance
• I Am One With the Beloved
• Being One With the Beloved, the Source of All Things
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• Dwelling in Peace
• The Peace of God
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Stepping Out of Time and Resting Your Mind
• Resting in the Presence of the Beloved
• In the Stillness and Silence of This Present Moment
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Today I Will Be Still
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• Aligning With the Living Light
• An Expression of Humility

Quote of the Day

Democrats know exactly what their voters want. They have the data. The problem is what their voters want goes directly against what their donors/owners want. So they’re spending millions of dollars on consultants to figure out how to lie to you better.

– Ashley Stevens
via social media
August 18, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
“This Man Is So Out of Touch”: Hakeem Jeffries Slammed for Opposition to Medicare for All – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, August 17, 2026).
Medicare for All Would Be $40 Trillion Cheaper Than Our Shitty For-Profit System – Corbin Trent (Common Dreams, August 17, 2026).
The Deplorable Extremism of the So-Called “Moderates” – Norman Solomon (Common Dreams, August 17, 2026).
Corporate Democrats Must Realize the Enemy Is Trump and the Fascists – Not Progressives – Miles Mogulescu (Common Dreams, August 12, 2026).
Centrist Democrats Really Do Hate the Left More Than Trump – Branko Marcetic (Jacobin, August 7, 2026).

UPDATES: Independents Rise for Working People Where Democrats Once Upon a Time Stood – Les Leopold (Common Dreams, August 19, 2026).
The Reign of Corporate Democrats Is Coming to an End – Robert Reich (Common Dreams, August 19, 2026).
Another Democratic Socialist Victory – Angie Nixon in Florida – Sends Shock Waves Through Party Establishment – Richard Luscombe (The Guardian, August 19, 2026).
Why Are Progressives Winning Across the United States? It’s Not Complicated – Bernie Sanders (The Guardian, August 19, 2026).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

THE STATE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
• “Our Country Right Now Is At a Crossroads”
• Abdul El-Sayed: The Disruptor Michigan (and the Country) Needs
• Scotty T. Reid on James Clyburn as a “Defender of the Political Establishment and Its Policies of Oppression”
• Jeff Waldorf: Quote of the Day – July 3, 2026
• Mike Figueredo on the “Political Malpractice” of the Democratic Party
• The Time for Illusions Is Over: Henry Giroux on the Democratic Party
• David Norton: “The Democratic Party Serves Capital, Not You”
• Mike Figueredo: “Elected Democrats Have No Real Interest in Doing What the Base Wants”
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• Exposing the Dark Money Network Secretly Funding Establishment Democratic Influencers
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Adam Bates on the Team Blue / Kamala “I Told Ya So” Smugness Tour
• When the “Blue Wave” Is a “Blue Crackdown”
• The Longstanding Fault Lines Within the Democratic Party Have Surfaced Again in Minnesota
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “We Must Challenge the Entire System”
• Marianne Williamson: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is Not Enough to Win”
• Nick Cruse: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is the Privileged Position”
• Oliver Kornetzke’s Epic Takedown of the Liberal Tactic of Blaming and Shaming Leftists
• Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t


THE RISE OF FASCISM IN THE U.S.
• George Conway: The Trump Administration Is a “Criminal Organization”
• Mark Greene on How ICE Is a Weapon of the Epstein Class
• Tommy J. Housman on Reactions to the “Defining Image” of Trump’s America
• James Greenberg: “I Am in Mourning for America”
• An Incident That Feels “Ripped from a Dystopian Novel”
• The “Creeping Fascism of Trump’s America”: A View from Australia
• Will Potter on Trump’s War on Dissent: “This Is What Fascists Do”
• Derek Johnson on the “Courage to Call Fascism by Its Name”
• Jason Duchin: Quote of the Day – September 24, 2025
• Staying Strong in Trump’s Fascist America
• James Greenberg on the Identity Politics of MAGA
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like in Practice”
• Garrett Graff: “America Tips Into Fascism”
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Moving Into Totalitarianism”
• “It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”
• Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025


THE GREEN PARTY
• Butch Ware on Why Third Parties Are Crucial
• Campaigning With the Green Party
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “I’m Not Here as a Spoiler”
• Jill Stein: “Americans Deserve Choices”
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Third Parties and the Historical Record
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)
• Voting Green: Hope Over Fear

Mapping Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Defection from the “Obama Hypnosis”

Earlier today the Due Dissidence podcast posted the following a 30-minute video in which hosts Russ Dobular and Keaton Weiss explore the evolution of Ta-Nehisi Coates – from “the Obama administratuon’s favorite essayist” to an outspoken critic of both the Obama legacy and the Biden/Harris complicity in the Israeli regime’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. As one commemator notes on YouTube, “It took Coates long enough, but at least he got there. If only others can defect from the Obama hypnosis.”

Coates is a writer and social commemtator I’ve come to greatly appreciate and respect, and I’m currently reading his 2024 book, The Message.





See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
• Progressives and Obama
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration

Related Off-site Links:
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Obama’s Legacy in a Trump World – Tim Miller (The Balwark, June 19, 2026).
Reckoning With Harris’ Silence On Gaza: An Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates – The Majority Report (June 28, 2026).
Did Kamala Harris’s Silence on Gaza Cost Her the White House? – Ta-Nehisi Coates (Vanity Fair, June 15, 2026).
“I Don’t Get It!” Ta-Nehisi Coates Stunned by Centrist Democrats’ Opposition to Progressive Candidates – MS Now (June 27, 2026).
The Blood-and-Soil Nationalism That Killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good – Ta-Nehisi Coates (Vanity Fair, January 26, 2026).
Ta-Nehisi Coates Rips Ezra Klein’s Kirk Praise to Shreds – The Majority Report (September 17, 2025).
Is America More Racist Than Britain? An Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates – Ash Sarkar (Novara Media, April 6, 2025).
Have We Missed The Message? An Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates – Trevor Noan (What Now?, October 10, 2024).

You Don’t Have to Think

By Steve Taylor

You don’t have to think.
You don’t need to anticipate before you act
and provide a running commentary while you’re acting
then replay your actions afterward
at the same time as watching and critizing
the actions of others.

You don’t have to argue with yourself
about events that dissolved away decades ago
or resurrect ancient humiliations
that can still inflame you with hurt and hatred.
You don’t have to weave imaginary worlds
where you can satistfy your secret desires.

You don’t have to watch helplessly from the side
while your mind whirls away
creating unnecessary discord
and wasting precious energy.

You don’t have to think
except when thought is necessary
when you need to bring your conscious mind to bear
to deliberate, analyze, or organize
or to let your imagination drift
allowing ideas and insights to emerge
from the undercurrents of your consciousness.

Thought should be a tool
we can pick up when needed, then lay down again,
leaving us undisturbed.

Otherwise there is no need for thought
to disturb the natural stillness of your mind
to dilute the purity of experience
to distort reality through interpretation
to confuse the present with the past
and interfere with the impulses that gently flow
from the silent part of you, which knows
better than you think you do.

– Steve Taylor
From The Calm Center: Reflections and
Meditations for Spiritual Awakening
New World Library, 2015
p. 44

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Become the Sky
• The Smile
• “Window, Mind, Thought, Air and Love”
• Stepping Out of Time and Resting Your Mind/a>
• In the Stillness and Silence of This Present Moment
• Returning the Mind to God
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Cultivating Stillness
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• The Source Is Within You
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Until the Light Returns
• What the Wind Says
• Secret Language of the Heart
• Kahlil Gibran on Self-Knowledge

Image: At Pelican Lake, Glenwood, MN – Saturday, August 15, 2026. (Photo by Mackenzie Timmerman)

Rejecting “Cartoonish Conclusions” About Marxism and Dealing with the “Actual Architecture of Our Current Reality”

I don’t know who Gary Zajc is but I sure do appreciate his recent response on Facebook to Josh Bitterman’s take on The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 9depicted at right by an unknown artist).

Writes Bitterman: “[Although The Communist Manifesto] makes valid points about class disparity, [it] effectively uses grievance and idealistic vision to stoke the flames of envy and class warfare. . . . If equipped with wisdom and even a basic understanding of history, one will find that it is incredibly flawed, immature, arrogant, and utopian. It completely fails to account for human nature, the existence of evil, and what we, as modern-day readers of this text, now know about how it ALWAYS plays out in reality: constrained supply, increased demand and suffering, concentration of power, authoritarianism, tyranny, and mass murder. One conclusion is that it provides a dangerous roadmap for misguided, power-hungry, and charismatic leaders to manipulate the masses.”

Following is Zajc’s response.

This is just another shallow, entry-level political analysis that passes for profundity among people who have never actually had to reckon with the machinery of poverty.

Spare us your lazy deflections just because you believe reading the text reveals it to be “flawed, immature, arrogant, and utopian” because it fails to account for “human nature” and the “existence of evil.”

By reducing economic critique to a metaphysical debate about abstract “evil” and inherent “human nature,” the you run from having to deal with the actual architecture of our current reality.

It’s ignorant to blame “human nature” or “society” for economic suffering. Why are you letting the actual architects of our economy off the hook? We do not need to look at historical authoritarian regimes to find constrained supply, immense suffering, or the radical concentration of power. We are living it.

We are currently operating under an economic system meticulously designed to keep working-class people in poverty to protect the profit margins of a ruling class. The concentration of power is happening right now, out in the open, where corporate monopolies choke supply chains to artificially inflate prices, hedge funds buy up residential neighborhoods, and massive corporations use tipping as a structural payroll subsidy so they do not have to pay their own workers a living wage. That is not the tragic inevitable result of “human nature” – it is a deliberate, engineered system.

It’s even lazier to write off valid critiques of class disparity by claiming the text uses “grievance” and “idealistic vision to stoke the flames of envy.” This is the ultimate defense mechanism of the comfortable. You turn any demand for basic human dignity into a character flaw. It is not “envy” to point out that a billionaire class is extracting wealth from the very communities that do the actual physical labor to keep this country running. It is basic math, and recognizing that math is the first step toward actual accountability.

Dismissing structural critiques of capitalism as simply a “dangerous roadmap for misguided leaders” allows your comfortable ass to sit back and pretend that the economic strangulation of the working class is just a sad, unavoidable tragedy of the human condition.

It takes zero intellectual courage to declare that challenging a rigged system is dangerous. Real courage requires looking at the system currently crushing working families, recognizing it is operating exactly as it was built to, and demanding it be dismantled.

Get off your intellectually lazy ass, grow a pair, and invest the time and effort to understand a complex system before drawing cartoonish conclusions.

– Gary Zajc
via Facebook
August 14, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
Was Marx Right? It’s Not Too Late to Ask – Terry Eagleton (Commonweal, March 28, 2011).
For Karl Marx, Human Flourishing Is Inherently Social – Jan Kandiyali (Jacobin, October 12, 2025).
Karl Marx and Why Societies Stop Growing – Peter D’Autry (Medium, July 29, 2026).
How Karl Marx Went From Student to Revolutionary – Encyclopædia Britannica. Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism Wins the 2018 Deutscher Prize – Climate and Capitalism (November 25, 2018).
Reading Marx in the Corpse of Neoliberalism – Jason Koslowski (Left Voice, July 25, 2025).
Marx and Internationalism – John Bellamy Foster (Monthly Review, July-August 2000).
Love in the Time of Capital: A Review of Mary Gabriel’s Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution – Timothy Shenk (Dissent, Summer 2012).
To Struggle!: A Review of Marcello Musto’s The Last Years of Karl Marx – Mauricio Betancourt (Monthly Review, February 2024).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Marx and Class Struggle – Then and Now
• Terry Eagleton: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2011
• The Biblical Roots of “From Each According to Ability; To Each According to Need”
• A Socialist Response to the 2008 Financial Crisis
• Heather Cox Richardson on the Origin of the American Obsession with “Socialism”
• Capitalism on Trial

Photo of the Day

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Photo of the Day – August 9, 2025
• Eternal Summer
• Photo of the Day – August 17, 2023
• Summer Vignettes (2022)
• Summer Blooms (2021)
• Summer Garden (2021)
• Photo of the Day – August 23, 2020
• Summer Blooms (2015)
• Summer Blooms (2014)
• In Summer Light
• Photo of the Day – August 11, 2014
• Summer Blooms (2009)

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

MPR’s Major (But Unsurprising) Failure

Following Tuesday’s primary election results in the North Star State, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) News declared that:

Minnesota made history on primary night. For the first time, all of the candidates for the top political offices in Minnesota are women. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth will face each other for governor this fall, and Michele Tafoya and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan are vying for U.S. Senate.

This is simply not a fact-backed statement of truth.

For contrary to what MPR News declared, not all the candidates for Minnesota’s top offices are female. The Green Party’s candidate for Governor, Steve Young, is male. Young’s running mate, however, is female – Lieutenant Governor candidate Jane Kirby. (You can read about their campaign here.)

MPR’s erroneous reporting confirms the recent observations of Kristina Gronquist, a former Green Party-endorsed candidate for Minneapolis City Council. In a letter-to-the-editor of the Star Tribue, Gronquist notes the following.

Truth be told, there exists numerous feisty, principled candidates who are anti-fascist, unapologetically working class and who do not have monsters in their backgrounds. But you won’t find us in either of the two [corporate-backed “major”] parties. We are in third political parties, like the Green Party. Our platforms promote universal health care, peace through diplomacy, the environment, women’s rights and economic democracy. All our positions challenge the oligarchy and unfettered capitalism. Problem is, our voices are drowned out by the back-and-forth scandals of the two parties and a media that only reports on Democrats and Republicans, as if nothing else and no one else matters.

“[A] media that only reports on Democrats and Republicans, as if nothing else and no one else matters.” There it is, folks. And MPR’s recent failure is clear evidence of this pitiful state of affairs. It’s a failure that makes a mockery of the network’s own ethics guidelines which insist that “We are here to inform the public by considering multiple perspectives, but ultimately presenting fact-based truths.”

If you’re as concerned and disappointed by this failure on the part of MPR News as I am, then I invite you to join me in letting the network know this by clicking here and sharing your thoughts.

Above: Steve Young and Jane Kirby, Green Party candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor – June 2026. (Photo: Michael J. Bayly)

See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• Campaigning With the Green Party
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• Butch Ware on Why Third Parties Are Crucial
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Third Parties and the Historical Record
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)