For decades I have spent a couple of hours every morning carefully reading The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and several other major newspapers. But although such a detailed study of the American mainstream media is a necessary condition for remaining informed about our world, it is not sufficient. With the rise of the Internet and the alternative media, every thinking individual has increasingly recognized that there exist enormous lacunae in what our media tells us and disturbing patterns in what is regularly ignored or concealed.
In May 2015 I published a major article highlighting some of the most disturbing omissions of our national media in issues of the greatest national importance. The considerable attention it attracted from The Atlantic, Forbes, and a New York Times economics columnist demonstrated that the mainstream journalists themselves were often all too aware of these political problems, but perhaps found them too difficult to address within the confining structure of large media organizations. This reinforced my belief in the reality of the serious condition I had diagnosed.
In an attempt to partially remedy this disturbing situation I will be regularly publishing on this website a selection of the sort of political, important, and controversial perspectives that rarely if ever reach the pages of our major newspapers or the pixels of our television sets. The handful of political columnists and bloggers whose work I am herein providing represent merely the smallest slice of the enormous range of unconventional ideas that lie just a mouse-click or a Google search away from each of us, and my particular selection is certainly not intended to be comprehensive. But over the years I have regularly read the writings of all these individuals and found their ideas stimulating and useful, and I believe that many others might have the same reaction.
This is not to say that I personally agree with all or even most of what these writers believe or claim. However, sometimes the most valuable insights are obtained by reading political opinions sharply divergent from one’s own. Facing a sharp political or ideological challenge forces us to more effectively frame our arguments and buttress the weaknesses in our logic and evidence that had previously remained unnoticed. Taking the measure of an effective critic is always more valuable than listening to a mindless echo. And I would always prefer reading something disturbing than something dull.