2/26/26

Let's start with this: My book "How Stupid Are We? went out of print just as this website was being created. Thus, you cannot order it from this website (or any other way right now). I have contracted with Wells Hamilton Literary Consultants LLC to republish it, probably with a new subtitle. As soon as that is live you will learn about it here. Some of you may know how difficult it has become to be published by what are referred to as "traditioinal publishers". That would be the kind that pay advances to authors, print the books, advertise the books and pay ongoing royalties. Most new authors come up first as self-published authors and then pay out of pocket to advertise and market their books. You need to be self-published and then prove that your book is selling before the big guys will consider acquiring it I am and have been for years fighting that fight. Hopefully this website will help.

Now I want to get to the reason I want to have a blog. I want to clearly state whence I come intellectually and personally. I am a liberal left-winger. I am a professed atheist. I am not in favor of the use of force of any sort in political or religious debate or interaction. Our president and his party claim that the "antifa" movement is a left-wing terrorist organization. In fact, it is not an organization and if you Google it yhou can discover that there have been less than 5 people ever convicted in a federal court for "antifa" activity. But, to the extent that some people on the left who call themselves "antifa" urge the use of violence to further their aims, I abjure them and their position. In fact, I believe that liberals in this country should never use the lable "socialist" because it automatically calls up images of Communist nations and movements. No one in this country is a socialist. Not even Bernie Sanders or New York's new mayor are really socialists. Socialism is that system in which the government owns the means of production as the old USSR did with its constantly failing 5 year plans. All of this diversion being to let everyone know that I am not a socialist nor do I fit well in the camp of "progressives".

With respect to religion, I was brought up in New England and I went to church every Sunday growing up in the Northern Congregational Church until my teen years when it was the Southern branch of that church. I belonged to the church youth groups, was president of the senior high youth group and even once preached a sermon in that church - The senior youth group was given the Christmas midnight service to run. However, when I was about 5 years old, my mother told me that God created everything and I asked her who created God. She told me He was alsays there and at 5 years old, I couldn't buy it and I can't buy it today either. However, although my book "Is He or Isn't He, A Response to God's Not Dead" argues the case that the "evidence" for God set out in the book "God's Not Dead, Evidence for God in an Uncertain Age" is no such thing and supports that position at great length. It was not and is not my intent to try to convert believers to atheism. But I do want to set forth the bases for my position that there is no God such as is conceived of in the three great religions of "The Book" that is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent who listens to prayers, grants relief prayed for and consigns sinners to hell. It is in the book and that book can still be purchased off this website on the page devoted to the books.

I think this is enough about me and my positions from me. I don't relish talking about myself and will try to do as little of that as I can henceforth. However, I WILL be putting forth my positions argumentatively (I was a trial lawyer after all) and the pronoun "I" will appear regularly as I talk about substantive stuff.

I am writing this blog post on the 26th of February 2026 as it says above. This is the day that will, as FDR put it " live in infamy" in which Donald J. Trump plunged this nation and almost every Middle-East nation into war. He did it for reasons not clear despite his muddled and contradictory and lying explanations. He did it because he is a stupid megalomaniac who truly believes he is so powerful that he "can do anything I want" and he wants to prove that to the world and especially to his political adversaries. He admits that American troops will be killed. What he does not care about is the death, torture and destruction that happens in the actual war zones and despite the fact that more innocent men women and cildren will die than combatants. Look only to Ghaza for proof. He also overlooks the fact that Iran has potent antiship weapons such as the French Exocet missle that can cause massive damage to our naval vessels in the area. He overlooks the fact that Iran has a huge global terrorist network and strikes by terrorists within the boundaries of the US are very possible. How many American civilians would he like to kill?

More next time. Be well and be safe and let me hear from you. Cliff