Joel S. Hirschhorn
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Sprawl Kills - How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money and Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government. He can be reached through delusionaldemocracy.com. He is a former Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources at the National Governors Association and a senior staffer for the U.S. Congress.
Contact Information
Articles by Joel S. Hirschhorn
November 01, 2009
I had a long conversation with my favorite physician, who has operated on me twice successfully. He is an incredibly kind person without an ounce of greed or pretense. Like other physicians I have spoken to, he spoke eloquently about the terrible times he consistently has with private health insur...
September 14, 2009
Anyone smart and strong enough to fight delusional thinking and who pays attention to current events should clearly see that corporate corruption of the US political system is so pervasive and powerful that there will be no genuine reform of both the health care and financial sectors.
I always be...
August 10, 2009
As we approach the eighth anniversary of 9/11 consider this paradox. In the post 9-11 years the scientific evidence for disbelieving the official government story has mounted incredibly. And the number of highly respected and credentialed professionals challenging the official story has similarly ...
July 20, 2009
Perhaps most Americans deserve the federal government they have. A government that, contrary to the lofty rhetoric of Barack Obama, is pure politics as usual. A government that is as corrupted by moneyed interests as ever. A government that is as dysfunctional and inefficient as ever.
A govern...
June 25, 2009
In the national debate about health care reform absolutely nothing makes less sense than the positive views of much of the public about private health insurers. There is no good reason to have positive views of private health insurers, the companies that have relentlessly increased the costs for ve...
May 14, 2009
Americans need a civics lesson. And so do politicians. Of all the wrong and delusional thinking about the US Constitution the one that is most thoroughly incorrect and routinely used for political propaganda purposes is that there are three coequal branches of the federal government.
You hear p...
April 21, 2009
There are no headlines or pontificating pundits, but the real news that has become crystal clear to any but the most delusional and distracted Americans is that President Obama has no commitment to applying the rule of law where it counts. Certainly, not applying it to the large number of rich and ...
March 27, 2009
Americans clearly are capable of being outraged. Missing, however, is a sustained, vibrant demand for deep reforms of our political and government system. You hear a lot about populist rage these days, especially connected to the AIG bonus debacle. But populist rage as a reflection of class confl...
March 18, 2009
Like others promoting constitutional amendments, Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat, Wisconsin, apparently is unaware of the refusal by Congress to obey Article V of the Constitution. He has a fine idea: every senator must actually be elected rather than appointed to that position. In 1913 the 17th a...
February 11, 2009
Americans seem like docile, drugged out sheep herded towards the economic cliff, mesmerized by melodic rhetoric of political messiah Barack Obama.
January 30, 2009
By now most Americans have experienced extreme disgust upon hearing about the nearly $20 billion in bonuses given to people in New York City´s financial sector at the end of 2008. After sending the nation into the current economic black hole there is no way of comprehending the audacity of fi...
January 11, 2009
Hardly anyone is listening to Ron Paul about what's wrong with government attempts to restore the economy.
January 06, 2009
Americans are sitting on nearly $9 trillion in cash, giving them the power to rescue the economy.
December 12, 2008
Americans keep electing crooks and seem surprised when so many get convicted of crimes
November 29, 2008
There is a compelling case for indicting George W. Bush and putting him in prison, not to get revenge, but to obtain justice and show the world that we truly believe in the rule of law that even presidents are not above.
November 24, 2008
Like a law of physics, corrupt politics, unshared national wealth and uncontrolled greed combine to produce economic inequality and delusional prosperity. Now comes a book that should have been titled Stolen Wealth. This would have been more consistent with its long subtitle: How the Rich Are Taki...
November 13, 2008
Without real political competition there is insufficient political choice.
November 07, 2008
Why do Americans keep re-electing losers in Congress? Stupidity.
October 14, 2008
The hardest thing for Americans to do right now in this presidential election season is to fight distraction and, instead, focus on the failure of all three branches of the federal government. And also to resist the propaganda masquerading as patriotic obligation that voting will fundamentally fix ...
October 07, 2008
John McCain ready to concede before Election Day?
September 29, 2008
Nations come and go, rise and fall as elites and the wealthy make victims of most citizens and plutocracies prevail. Current dogma is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth. Perhaps in terms of ideals there is some truth to that. But with another trillion dollars that we now must borrow at ...
September 22, 2008
Our elected domestic tyranny operating as a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy has been raping our nation.
September 10, 2008
If people can believe Obama when he says that the election is not about him but about them, then they also can believe McCain when he says he is a proven change agent and reformer.
September 04, 2008
The Bush administration has found yet another way to waste taxpayer money while providing huge sums to private contractors. According to a survey of activities in 2007 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, about a third of the federal professional intelligence workforce now consis...
August 29, 2008
I applaud John McCain´s choice of Sarah Palin as his vice president nominee. In many ways this choice was far more impressive than Barack Obama´s selection of Joe Biden. Better yet, the McCain selection will make the general election campaign far more interesting and competitive.
I ...
August 19, 2008
Join me in imagining the aftermath of Obama losing the coming election.
July 28, 2008
Representative government fails when corrupt politicians mostly serve corporate and other special interests. Then it is crucial for citizens to have direct democracy opportunities. This means having the right to place initiatives or referenda on ballots that can make new laws, amend constitutions,...
July 15, 2008
No better time than to reject both Democratic and Republican candidates.
June 27, 2008
Power elites seem oblivious to the potential for a Second American Revolution.
June 09, 2008
The academic world is not without its corporate takeover madness. Unless the New York Board of Regents steps in this month to put the brakes on the so-called merger of New York University and Polytechnic University, something quite nefarious will happen.
To call the transaction a merger was and ...
May 28, 2008
American need courage to reject the two-party plutocracy.
May 09, 2008
More than ever voters in November must find the courage to vote against the two-party plutocracy.
May 02, 2008
Americans deserve a constitutional right to universal health care.
April 27, 2008
Barack Obama does not appeal to millions of Americans for good reason.
April 24, 2008
Now is the time for Hilary Clinton to take a bold position that in one brilliant, courageous stroke shows the nation that she is more willing to pursue true reforms of the two-party plutocratic political system than Obama is.
With this position she can reveal that all the Obama talk about ch...
April 16, 2008
The Second American Revolution we need will not be won with votes or guns, but with consumer dollars.
April 08, 2008
At some point the business sector realized the best way to take advantage of consumers was to use default options that make them spend money. A default option works because it creates an automatic decision by the consumer doing nothing. And doing nothing is the path of least resistance for time-po...
March 27, 2008
Whether you see yourself as a truth seeker, patriotic American, independent thinker or voter, or just someone with bad memories of 9/11, you should make an effort to view The Reflecting Pool, a new independent movie. It is not about 9/11. It is about the credibility of the official government stor...
March 21, 2008
Every few days I get yet another mailing begging me for money for your campaign. There is always explicit language about my being one of your supporters. But I do not support you for president. You are an abomination, because of your support for President George W. Bush and his unjustified, immor...
March 18, 2008
The U.S. Postal Service is our enemy. While countermeasures have been created to deal with the invasion of telemarketing phone calls and spam emails, we continue to be bombarded by junk mailings. The solution that the USPS is opposing is a do-not-mail list or registry that households could choose ...
March 13, 2008
Are Americans ready to accept the truth about their lying politicians?
March 06, 2008
Far too many people who have suffered a heart attack or had treatment for coronary heart disease do not take advantage of a proven path to improved health: cardiac rehab.
February 28, 2008
Because he wants to salvage American democracy and help Americans, Ralph Nader is running for president again. He deserves the support of all Americans that see themselves as progressives, dissidents, independents, and patriots who want to remove the stranglehold of the two-party plutocracy on our ...
February 23, 2008
Never have so many hoped for so much because of rollicking rhetoric and pulsating platitudes. A tsunami of hope has plunged America into electoral euphoria. In its path is the wreckage of critical thinking about what ails the US and what bold, revolutionary actions are needed. Barry Obama has acc...
February 14, 2008
Hope mongering has been working much better than experience mongering. Now, the rest of the story….
As befits American culture, politics is all about slick selling to the masses. Hillary Clinton is selling Day-1 help to victims and sufferers. Barack Obama is selling effervescent hope to yes-we...
February 01, 2008
Americans are in denial. They want to believe that elections can produce the changes they desire, despite all the evidence that the two-party plutocracy will prevent necessary reforms no matter who is elected.
January 17, 2008
There is a terrible price to pay for supporting false change agents in this presidential race.
January 05, 2008
Ron Paul’s obnoxious supporters like more traditional political activists can spin and delude themselves about election results. But the Iowa caucus results could not be clearer: The vast national desire for political change is manifesting itself through support for both Democratic and Republican c...
December 27, 2007
It’s as if a whole lot of people have caught a virus that I have escaped. People that I thought had correctly rejected the current corrupt two-party controlled political system have flocked to Paul. So I went back and re-read most of his published columns and examined in detail his voting record. ...
December 19, 2007
For evidence that America’s political system is a criminal conspiracy, open your mind to piles of new analyses that prove beyond doubt that the official 9/11 story is a lie. Years of a bipartisan cover-up of 9/11 lies make it much more than one horrendous past event. It endures in infamy as a symp...
December 12, 2007
Here comes another inconvenient truth. Despite all the attention to Oprah for Obama and the pundit blabbering about the Democratic primary horse race the outcome has been predetermined. What people do not want to know is that power elites control what the Democratic ticket will be. When the prima...
November 30, 2007
RFK, Jr. has disappointed millions of liberals, progressives and environmentalists by endorsing Hillary Clinton.
RFK, Jr. once said: “the Republicans are 95 percent corrupt and the Democrats are 75 percent corrupt.” This has been widely quoted because of its honest assessment of the corrupt two-...
November 24, 2007
Most Americans have succumbed to tradition and advertising and stuffed their bellies with unhealthy food and stuffed their shopping carts with unnecessary stuff. Now, here are some tough facts about the sad state of the American economy from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, as revealed recently b...
November 20, 2007
The phrase honest politician has become an oxymoron. We should not be impressed by the prospect of having the first woman, first black or first Latino president. What would be far more radical would be to have the first honest president, if not ever, certainly in a very long time.
Presidents in...
November 16, 2007
The Wall Street Journal gave the top half of its opinion page yesterday to a long essay by Peter Berkowitz titled “The Insanity of Bush Hatred.” If anything, it deserves a gold medal for political propaganda – make that political lies. What caught my attention immediately was the frequent use of t...
November 11, 2007
With an endless, futile and costly Iraq war, a stinking economy and most Americans seeing the country on the wrong track, the greatest national group delusion is that electing Democrats in 2008 is what the country needs.
Keith Olbermann was praised when he called the Bush presidency a criminal co...
October 31, 2007
Fast forward to Election Day 2008: Network anchors, cable pundits, and state and local election officials are going nuts as evening hours pass and voter turnout is hardly approaching 20 percent nearly everywhere. “What’s going on?” everyone is asking incredulously. TV and computer screens all over...
October 26, 2007
As self-professed champion of the Constitution presidential candidate Ron Paul has missed a monumental opportunity to educate Americans about the criminal behavior of Congress in violating their oath of office. Even more important, he has not taken advantage of his 15 minutes of fame to promote the...
October 22, 2007
The Bush administration obviously lacks true out-of-the-box thinkers. There is an absolutely creative way to get the truth out of captured terrorists. It surely is not prohibited by the Geneva Conventions or any US laws. In fact, it is doing something positive for the overly silent suspect; it is...
October 12, 2007
Among the millions of Americans frustrated with the refusal by the federal government to forcefully control illegal immigration is South Carolina Senator Glenn McConnell. As President Pro Tempore of the Senate McConnell has explained why he is calling for the nation’s first use of the US Constituti...
October 01, 2007
After many years of political disappointment, more progressives, liberals and conservatives – and certainly moderates and independents – know in their hearts that voting for Democrats or Republicans is a waste. Just imagine if voter turnout was cut to 25 percent or less! Let the whole world see Am...
September 24, 2007
Everyone thinks of terrorism and homeland security for lessons learned from 9/11. There is another opportunity. Make our government trustworthy and truthful.
The 9/11 truth movement is stronger than ever, though it is generally derided by politicians and ignored by the mainstream media. It is ...
September 05, 2007
Many technical analyses cast doubt on the official explanation of the collapse of three World Trade Center buildings, including those presented by an impressive new group: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. More difficult than discovering the truth, however, is convincing most of the public t...
August 24, 2007
The Founders of our nation and the Framers of our Constitution surely did not foresee the day when, of the federal government’s three branches, the public would have the least confidence in Congress. In fact, the public has a little less confidence in Congress than it has in HMOs. At 14 percent, t...
August 11, 2007
Massive amounts of Chinese imports are threatening public health and safety. Many food and consumer products pose risks. Lead in children’s toys and jewelry. Toxins in foods for pets and humans, and in toothpaste. Unsafe automobile tires. Many prescription drugs made with few safeguards. The l...
August 06, 2007
We no longer can trust Congress to impeach and remove a terrible president. The Washington Post has published an op-ed piece by Robert Dallek that proposes a constitutional amendment to allow “ouster by the people” for removing a president other than by impeachment or because of incapacity. Consid...
August 02, 2007
The incredible collapse of the Minneapolis bridge will send a message to the nation that has been repeatedly sent for decades, but that our political system has refused to effectively respond to. America’s physical, engineered infrastructure has been in desperate need for massive spending to repair...
July 30, 2007
The latest bipartisan George Washington University Battleground Poll rightfully received media attention because of its depressing data. There is historic political pessimism and cynicism. But something is more troubling than the data on the dire views of Americans about their elected representati...
July 19, 2007
I unexpectedly found myself crying over the Iraq war as I read the obituary of Capt. Maria Ines Ortiz, a highly praised Army nurse. What I read broke my heart. The story of this remarkable woman and her tragic, pointless killing in Iraq had so much more power than the endless statistics that have ...
July 13, 2007
All over the Internet are sincere efforts to reform and improve America’s political-government system. The downside is fragmentation of the subpopulation that has escaped brainwashing, cultural distraction, and self-delusion. Strategy solidarity is missing, but is possible.
Millions of disconte...
July 06, 2007
On the Friday before July 4 Republican Senator Arlen Specter showed his respect for the U.S. Constitution and his anger about President Bush’s repeated pissing on it by introducing the Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007. What happens to this crucial bill will test both congressional integr...
June 28, 2007
When someone in high elected office shows the nation how vulnerable our Constitution is, we should be thankful for the wakeup call. Like many ruthless dictators, evil kings, and monster generals, Dick Cheney is the leading practitioner of the ends-justify-the-means mentality, where only his vision ...
June 24, 2007
According to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD)...
June 21, 2007
The frog-in-boiling water model helps us understand political upheavals: how citizens wake up early enough (or too late) to respond to social and economic oppression. Sometimes the greed and arrogance of Ruling Classes makes them careless and social waters heat too quickly. Sensing doom, alert cit...
June 15, 2007
The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal national poll results vividly show a population incredibly dissatisfied with their nation’s political system. In other countries in other times such a depressing level of confidence in government would send a signal to those running the government that a major uph...
June 06, 2007
You have acknowledged the appropriateness of amending the Constitution. In fact, you introduced legislation for an amendment that would stop giving automatic citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents. You said: “Our founders knew that unforeseen problems with our system of gove...
June 02, 2007
Condemn progressives for voting enthusiastically for Democrats and the inevitable response is something like “just imagine how much worse voting for Republicans would be.” Similarly, many true conservatives and Libertarians see voting for Republicans as a necessary evil. With many progressives reg...
May 10, 2007
For so many, hope is down the drain. Hard to fault them. Abundant evidence shows our insane world sliding down a global cheese grater.
Fish are dying in the Great Lakes. Bees have disappeared. Polar ice caps and glaciers worldwide are melting faster than ever. A global pandemic of a drug-res...
April 24, 2007
Stop being a compliant consumer. Face the ugly truth. Don’t get fooled by the stock market. Accept the need for the mistreated middle class to become the revolutionary class. The British military establishment's most prestigious think tank sees what too few over-consuming Americans are willing t...
April 12, 2007
Few Americans have heard of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. It was created by Congress in 1972 and became the fourth congressional support agency. It was designed to provide the House and Senate with independent, nonpartisan and thorough analysis of complex technical issues and ...
April 05, 2007
Americans have always accepted a certain level of economic inequality as the inevitable consequence of an open capitalist society where some people through their own efforts do better than others. The presumption is that there is fairness in the marketplace and economic system. What a quaint, outd...
March 31, 2007
Running as an independent, third party candidate and relying solely on his own money, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg definitely can win the presidency in 2008 – if he follows my advice.
The numbers are on his side. Take all the people who generally vote but are lesser-evil voters without ...
March 20, 2007
What is this thing called democracy? So easy to talk about, so difficult to make real. Pure democracy is not what our Founders gave us. Who would want a simple majority to control the minority? Instead, America was given a representative democracy within a constitutional republic where laws that...
March 06, 2007
American: So you mean that if you Australians don’t vote, you get a fine?
Australian: Yeah, and when you Americans don’t vote you get George W. Bush.
As surely as politicians lie, citizen apathy produces democracy atrophy. Much more than a right – in a democracy voting is an irrevocable civic...
February 21, 2007
Rising American economic inequality has received attention by Senator Jim Webb, presidential candidate John Edwards, CNN’s maverick Lou Dobbs, and others. The middle class has not shared in rising national prosperity, because the nation’s wealth has been siphoned off to the richest Americans. Some...
February 07, 2007
Will Americans learn to trust their fellow citizens or stay stuck on stupidly backing serial political betrayers?
I have been watching films from the 1940s and 1950s about World War II. It was well known that Adolph Hitler was truly delusional. His delusions prevented him from accepting wisdom ...
January 31, 2007
It’s hard to avoid labels. I am a proud political dissident. Could the majority of Americans be dissidents? Think of the two-thirds of the country that believe the nation is on the wrong track, the 52 percent that believe politicians are dishonest, the majority that do not vote, and the vast majo...
January 23, 2007
What a wonderful political distraction is Senator Barack Hussein Obama. What continues to amaze me is how our bipartisan obstacle to true political competition continually creates illusions of change and reform. Thus it keeps a grip on Americans’ hope for the future, and preempts public support fo...
January 17, 2007
You may not want to know this. Americans have been successfully brainwashed to fear exactly what their revered Constitution gives them the right to have. Those smart Framers of the Constitution decided that we needed exactly what the establishment, pro-status quo elitists who run our plutocracy do...
December 29, 2006
No matter how awful you think our government and political system have become, odds are you do not know about this travesty of justice, an incredible failure to honor our fabled Constitution. This failure has removed the sovereignty of we the people, and made Congress much more powerful than it sho...
December 18, 2006
The motto of the United States of Consumption is “In More We Trust.” The contribution of American culture to humanity is consumption obsession. Our epidemic of obesity, our land gluttonous suburban sprawl, our monster-size environmental footprint, our ravenous automobile addiction, and our heartl...
December 11, 2006
To be successful in overturning our elitist plutocratic system we should add economic apartheid to our semantic arsenal. Better than economic inequality, economic injustice and class warfare, because apartheid is loaded with richly deserved negative emotions. Sadly, in South Africa, economic apart...
December 04, 2006
The United States has lost its center through destructive centrifugal politics. America seems spinning out of control. It has become a non-populist, dollar-driven, elitist democracy. Centrism can be a powerful metaphor and tool for national renewal, if it is also populist.
In the world of poli...
November 20, 2006
A great democracy offers citizens sharp political choices. That’s what gives political freedom meaning. With two-party control of America’s political system, political options and discourse are stifled. We badly need more visible third-parties that can fully participate and reach the public with ...
November 12, 2006
With all the hoopla about the big Democratic win, little attention has been given to the assault on direct democracy. Sadly, Florida voters caved in and passed Amendment 3 that requires 60 percent to pass ballot initiatives instead of the present simple majority. What should be viewed as one of th...
November 08, 2006
Forget political correctness. The revolution has NOT arrived! Bush is still president. The corporate state is safe. The Upper Class has little to fear. Lobbyists will be writing different names on checks. Winning Democrats will entertain more than they will produce historic restorative reforms...
October 30, 2006
Even worse than a taxpayer financed bridge to nowhere is the much ballyhooed upcoming election to nowhere.
If Republicrooks should retain control of one or both houses of congress, our country continues downhill. Our trust and faith in our constitutional republic is surely flushed down the toile...
October 24, 2006
In our culture of corruption, when so many Republicans have been nailed, how nice it would be to see top Democratic politicians condemn the scum in their own party
After reading an article about disgraced Louisiana Congressman William J. Jefferson, a Democrat, I was impressed that the state Democ...
October 23, 2006
As we approach the end of 2010 it is fitting to look at how President Kinky Friedman has met the expectations of the millions of independent and fed-up Americans who supported him in 2008 and the millions of delusional Democrats and Republicans who could not believe that then-Texas Governor Kinky, r...
October 16, 2006
Voters in Florida should not fall victim to the slick advertising by corporate and other special interests. Their aim is to pass Amendment 3. Why? Because the corporatist state wants to up the percent of votes required to pass citizen ballot initiatives that amend Florida’s constitution, from the...
September 30, 2006
Take a break from anguishing about an attack on Iran, the insanity of the Iraq war, and fraudulent upcoming elections to consider another piece of Republican chicanery. Right now you are being fed a load of economic propaganda by both the Bush administration and most mainstream media. The goal of ...
September 20, 2006
We the people have a secret weapon.
It is known to the political and economic plutocrats running and ruining out country, but not to working- and middle-class citizens.
Easy to see Americans as both consumers and citizens (let's ignore illegal immigrants). My point is that most Americans spend...
September 09, 2006
I urge Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger NOT to sign AB 2948 that would ratify a specified interstate compact that requires the chief election official of each signatory state to appoint the slate of presidential electors that was nominated in association with the presidential ticket that received the ...
September 07, 2006
Our national economic inequality keeps plaguing me and I keep running into strange realities. Am I dreaming? All around I see Americans who, despite growing economic inequality, have the illusion that they are doing just fine in our growing, prosperous economy. Why don't they share my anger that U....
August 24, 2006
I keep noticing that many writers condemn someone by calling them a "populist." So I have been wondering why being a populist is used as a derogatory term. Why has it become a vague, patronizing and formless term of condescension? Recently, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been tagged with ...
August 23, 2006
Contrary to popular thinking, many revolutions have not occurred because of a widespread desire for freedom or democracy. They have been driven by mass hatred and rejection of economic inequality. The poor have revolted against the rich for eons. For much of human history the lack of freedom was lin...
August 03, 2006
Kinky Friedman and his supporters in Texas are concentrating on getting him elected as governor of Texas. Running as an independent without any big special interest money makes his quest a long-shot. But that’s nothing compared to so many other aspects of Kinky. He has achieved remarkable success...
February 13, 2006
With President George W. Bush marketing democracy worldwide, it is appropriate to consider whether there is validity to a central tenet of American democracy, namely that the three core branches of government are coequal.
So many people, especially American politicians, keep repeating this mantr...
January 06, 2006
If you need evidence of just how deceptive the Abramoff scandal will ultimately reveal itself to be, then consider what Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher said at a news conference at the Justice Department: “Government officials and government action are not for sale." This was an outrageo...
December 09, 2005
Like other progressives yearning for a major political revolution and the crushing of the two-party duopoly and corporatist state I have often felt depressed about the political clout of the Christian right. Now, after some research, I find that my perceptions that have been shaped by the mainstrea...
October 26, 2005
Analyses of the failure of all levels of government to prevent and then effectively manage the Katrina calamity in New Orleans have missed the point. Rather than blame bias towards poor people and African Americans, the deeper cultural explanation results from over fifty years of suburban sprawl do...