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Interview With Bay Area Catholic Author Stefan Salinas Part One

By Orion on Thu, 06/08/2017 - 7:51pm |

Originally posted at Radical Second Things: 

I met Stefan unexpectedly last week while I was at the Bay Area Book Festival. I came across his two children's book - Catholic Churches Big and Small and A Muslim Family's Chair for the Pope - and instantly thought that both were a perfect match for Radical Second Things. I got copies of both and Stefan agreed to an interview. Hopefully it leads to more - he is perfect for this project!

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Radical Second Things: This is the Chance for Americans to Rebuild and Take Control

By Orion on Thu, 05/18/2017 - 12:37pm |

The United States is in crisis mode and feels like it has since roughly 2014. There were abnormal and bizarre mass shootings like the Aurora shooting in 2012 that seemed to be hinting at something weird but life still seemed normal. When the Obama administration's militarization of the police collided with racial tensions in Feguson, Missouri, however, the U.S. got crazier than I've ever seen.

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Trump Gets Lynched

By Orion on Mon, 10/10/2016 - 12:56pm |

Like most who probably are reading this, I tried during the ascent of Donald J. Trump to make sense of what on earth we were witnessing.

First there was the idea that he was a Clinton plant (which may be partially true) - there to be the perfect candidate for Clinton to defeat as she finally gets the presidency she has wanted for so, so long. Clinton and Trump were friends for quite a long time - there are social pictures of the Clinton and Trump camps together going back almost as far as I have been alive.

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Why Trump and Why the Alt Right

By Orion on Sat, 09/17/2016 - 1:29pm |

I'm gonna say some things here that perhaps you won't want to hear, especially in a venue like this. I will say it never the less.

There's a reason why Donald Trump made it this far, why he is gaining in the polls and why he could even win.

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Right about the Alt Right

By Orion on Fri, 08/26/2016 - 12:33pm |

I had quite a few adventures with Dagblog. My most personal moments were shared here - my drug withdrawal, the loss of my wife and my warning, which was very much validated, about the rise of the Alternative Right.

I first started here, nearly six years ago, warning about the Alt Right - a movement of well dressed, charismatic and angry white men - ranging from Alex Jones to Richard Spencer to Augustus Invictus (a Senate candidate in Florida). I have fortunately never met the former and I have spoken to the latter, the most latter of which called me "a piece of shit."

I postulated their rise after working for conservatives in Washington D.C. and encountering casual racist comments that shocked and surprised me (remember 2009 and 2010 were a more innocent time). This was before Black Lives Matter, police shootings, mass shootings or the decline of the American empire in full display. I responded to these comments by researching white supremacy and finding, to my disappointment, a growing and energized movement of white reactionaries fueled with all of the old hatreds - anti-black racism, xenophobia and, of course, anti-Semitism.

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America's Putin

By Orion on Mon, 07/25/2016 - 1:30pm |

I am currently reading my second book about Vladimir Putin and the response to him. The first book I read was Putinism: Russia and its Future with the West, written by Walter Laqueur, a French-Jewish author who has been studying Russia for decades. I am currently reading Kicking the Kremlin: Russia's New Dissidents and the Battle to Topple Putin.

I live in the United States. I speak with a West Coast American accent. While I am of French ancestry and my mom often is there, my social world is completely in the United States (and France and Western Europe in general are facing basically the same problem). I don't really have other options. I currently live in Berkeley, the part of the US that most liberally allows me to be myself and do what I want.

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