The Hal Blog

I few weeks back, I made the decision to leave Facebook for a while. It's all explained in the piece below. You can still read and listen to my political work regularly on Substack, where I will continue posting, and see my photography work at my official web site. Links below. Thanks for everything and hopefully I'll see you on Substack!

Substack: https://thehalblog.substack.com
Photos: http://www.halmasonbergphotography.com

https://thehalblog.substack.com/p/audio-podcast-dear-facebook-goodbye

Audio Podcast: Dear Facebook... Goodbye Again... - Read By Hal Masonberg When leaving a social media platform becomes synonymous with empowerment and well-being

After the first No Kings “rally,” I wrote in great detail about my disgust and dismay at such a vapid display of what was essentially a corporate-organised flash mob disguised as protest.

I am writing again as, this weekend, impotence prepares to strike again...

Read: https://thehalblog.substack.com/p/as-the-world-burns-liberals-demand

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Here is the audio version of my article: https://thehalblog.substack.com/p/audio-podcast-if-you-live-long-enough

The Hal Blog Substack

First I should say that it is not Bruce Springsteen’s mission or responsibility to meet my needs, beliefs, desires, political leanings, ethics or my image of him. I have never met the man. I do not know him beyond his music and celebrity image. Though I have seen him in concert dozens of times since the late 70’s. I was born and raised in New Jersey in the 60’s and 70’s where loving Springsteen was like drinking water. It was essential. And it was well deserved. Few performers have been as inspiring and committed as Springsteen. His concerts are an experience like none other. Truly. Like a true preacher of inspiration and a storyteller of great passion, he can bring a stadium to its feet and fill that world with light and love and power. No small feat.

In addition, his music - particularly his earliest works - are among some of the most powerful songwriting in modern history. For me, GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK is one of the greatest albums ever released, right up there with the most inspired and revered works of Bob Dylan. My interest in Springsteen’s music waned in the 80’s when he got rid of the E-Street Band and embraced what I saw as a much more mainstream and pop-oriented variety of music. It did not speak to me. Again, it’s not Springsteen’s mission to please me or make music that inspires me. He should and does create for himself. He is on his own journey, his own creative path and I respect and admire that, even if the work he was creating in this period was personally less inspiring and appealing to me. I was thrilled when Springsteen reunited with the E-Street Band and I felt he returned to some of the intrepid and inspired songwriting that he had previously explored, only this time with a renewed wisdom and perspective....

Continue reading...

https://thehalblog.substack.com/p/if-you-live-long-enough-your-heroes-e59

The best and most concise history lesson on how Europe, Russia and the United States got to where it is today and how the United States not only undermined peace at every turn, but ensured that the entire modern Western World rejected it as well and openly murdered any politician that threatened the military industrial complex and its goal of global dominance. I lived in Sweden when Olof Palme was assassinated. I remember all of this very, very well. Jeffrey Sachs and Yanis Varoufakis are two voices - both are economists, political historians and experts - that I trust implicitly. This is the best breakdown of exactly what is happening and why that I have heard in a long time:

Europe Has Become a War Project — Can It Be Stopped? | Yanis Varoufakis & Jeffrey Sachs As leaders, generals and diplomats gather in Munich this weekend to debate Europe’s security and the future of the transatlantic alliance, the real question ...

Listen or read: https://thehalblog.substack.com/p/audio-podcast-venezuela-and-the-rogue

The Hal Blog

Newest Hal Blog article:

"The United States - like Israel - is a terrorist nation committed to hegemonic military power-grabs that will devastate not only their own countries and populations, but the world. They have, in unison and with the help of much of the Western World, shredded any semblance of international law or humanitarianism. Forget democracy. We have strayed so far from that path that it can no longer even be seen in the rearview mirror. Without a global uprising against these countries and their current politics, administrations and underlying ideologies, freedom, equality and a rules-based order will remain mere phantoms long-dissolved like wafts of vapour into the atmosphere.

The path we are on has been laid out for all to see. Whether or not people are willing to see it is another thing. Historians and responsible journalists have been calling this out for decades, though their pleas and forewarnings have mostly fallen on deaf ears already impaired by the cacophony and dissonance of mainstream corporate media propaganda and the daily rewriting of history..."

Continue reading: https://thehalblog.substack.com/p/venezuela-and-the-rogue-lawlessness

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One of the most important conversations I've seen in a very long time. And that's saying a lot. This conversation is so much more than its title suggests. What is being articulated here is essential. It is the very essence of where we are and why and where we might be headed. Invigorating, terrifying and extremely consequential.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/gavin-newsom-by-141901285

The Hal Blog

Gavin Newsom DESTROYED by Marxist Economist & CA Gubernatorial Candidate | Bad Faith Get more from Bad Faith on Patreon

New audio podcast:

The Impotent Fraud of "No Kings" Rallies:
How fake "revolutions" are manufactured to prevent actual revolutions.

https://thehalblog.substack.com/p/audio-podcast-the-impotent-fraud

The Hal Blog

New post:

The Impotent Fraud of "No Kings" Rallies:
How fake "revolutions" are manufactured to prevent actual revolutions.

"Back in June, I wrote about the first “No Kings” march/rally and my immense pessimism around such events. For me, such displays are more Democratic Party-inspired commercials for neoliberalism and political team sports than they are about actual change. They are family picnics disguised as “movements for change.” The No Kings protests demand nothing. They challenge nothing. In the end, they offer up more of the same but with a far less odious face. They are happy to exchange the vulgar and pompous rhetoric of Trump for the deceitful pleasantries, faux concern and vapid gestures of inclusion of a Kamala Harris or a Joe Biden or a Barack Obama. The No Kings rallies exist to put the mask back on, not to change the direction of the country or to demand humanitarianism or any semblance of democracy. It is, in my opinion, a distraction to make people feel that they are doing something when, in reality, they are being corralled into a safe place that puts zero pressure on a corrupt establishment that just wants to get back to quietly - not overtly - ensuring that our global elites continue to profit off of what Kamala Harris promised would be “the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” All while the bulk of American citizenry continue to sink deeper into poverty, hopelessness and despair. Not to mention the continuation of genocide and the arrogant defiance of international law perpetrated by both ruling parties..."

Continue reading: https://thehalblog.substack.com/p/the-impotent-fraud-of-no-kings-rallies

The Hal Blog