Salem-News.com Articles written by Daniel Johnson

Portrait of a Corporate Criminal

Under California’s Three Strikes Law, an individual criminal faces life in prison. BP is long past its three strikes.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Criminality is rampant in the world of business. It is rare for miscreants to be brought to any effective justice. Wall Street is the most obvious example where a handful of firms virtually brought the world economy to its knees and no one has actually been held accountable.

“Corporations are people,” Mitt Romney said.

`G.O.P. Strains to Define How to Close Gap With Voters`--NYT

The United States may be getting ready to join other progressive nations in the 21st century.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - I’m a daily reader of the New York Times online. I know most people aren’t and that they get most of their news from less concentrated sources like TV and tabloids. Some people don’t read the NYT on principle because it’s liberal. I suppose that’s true, but in admitting this, I put my alleged bias right up front.

Sex, Ayn Rand and the Republican Party (Updated Oct 13, 2012)

"Some people are moulded by their admirations, others by their hostilities." (Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen)

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Although she died in 1982, Ayn Rand and her acolytes, like the living dead, keep rising from the ground to walk the streets.

A Romney Presidency

Eight years of Bush/Cheney was only the beginning...

(CALGARY, Alberta) - The main reason most people choose in supporting Mitt Romney for president is that he has a lot of business experience and will be able to put that experience to work in turning the economy around. Here are my thoughts on how he might go about doing that and beyond.

The first thing he will do is look at the national debt/deficit in order to bring down those astronomical numbers. Looking at America the balance sheet, he will weigh the positives and negatives in terms of the individual states.

Life and Death of the Gun

Guns kill the equivalent of about ten 9/11s every year. Where are their monuments and Freedom Towers?

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Every morning, 312 million Americans get up and begin what they expect to be a normal day. About 80 of those every day end up on a slab in a morgue from gunshots.

Capitalism 2

This is the text of a talk I delivered to the Calgary group Poverty Talks on the first anniversary of the OWS movement.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Why are so many people in our society poor? Because they’re animals. And because they’re animals, it’s difficult, if not impossible, for them to escape from their lives of deprivation and degradation. Political scientist and social activist Francis Fox Piven summarized the plight of the poor and working poor:

“Some of the aged, the disabled, the insane, and others who are of no use as workers are left on the relief rolls, and their treatment is so degrading and punitive as to instill in the laboring masses a fear of the fate that awaits them should they relax into beggary and pauperism.”

Capitalism 1

Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of cells--growth for the sake of growth, to the point of killing its host.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - "Capitalism is the best system ever devised," said George W. Bush when speaking to the right-wing Manhattan Institute. Despite its faults, failings and inequities, almost everyone basically agrees uncritically with that sentiment.

Thoughts on the 2012 Republican National Convention

The Republican Party believes deeply in God. But didn’t God have something negative to say about lying?

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Sally Kohn, an unpaid contributor to Fox News, (they won't pay to be "fair and balanced") said:

“Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.”

A Job for Occupy Wall Street

Paul Ryan at the 2012 RNC Convention said: “The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” By Republican measure America is truly a savage society.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Perhaps someone can explain the philosophy of the American health care system to me. Americans believe they have the best health care system in the world, yet in comparison to other countries, the UN ranks the U.S. at 37^th. Compared to just Canada, the U.S. has lower longevity and higher infant mortality.

Guns in Switzerland

Gun advocates hold up Switzerland as an example of gun freedom--they could not be more wrong.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Uh-merican gun nuts prominently tout Switzerland as an example of a country that requires adult males to be armed and yet has a low firearms homicide rate.

It sounds good on the surface until you dig a little deeper (which right-wingers seldom do) and discover that not only are the differences between the two nations like night and day but that Switzerland and Finland routinely compete for the highest annual rate of gun death in Western Europe.