Articles
Recent Posts from my Substack Blog The Common-Sense Dispatch
The Moral Collapse of Our Nation
The War on Truth
The existential threat America faces today did not begin with the 2024 election. Still, the election and its results bring the threat to American democracy into an hour-by-hour, day-by-day focus. It is very clear: the United States is in the throes of a moral and intellectual crisis.
Democrats and Republicans disagree on policy, but the differences are much deeper. They live and operate in different realities. Because of this, what’s taken their place is a toxic mix of authoritarianism, reactionary outrage, cultural resentment, and an almost religious devotion to misinformation. It is no longer a simple crisis of bad governance. It’s a moral crisis of character.
International Impact Book Award
Never Enough Words
The book is available on Amazon in Print, Kindle, and Audible.
The narrator is the award-winning voice actor, Marcus Benton.
I have free Audible US and UK access codes. Comment below if you would like one.
The Embedded Psychology of Racism: The Air We Breathe
I was born into a world ruled by segregation. 1952 South Carolina. I sometimes try to mitigate the impact of my raising by telling myself worse places existed. Perhaps they did, but I really don’t know. Even though my DNA shows African heritage, I’ve never lived one millisecond of my life as a black human being, and only people who live and are living in black skin can say how bad it was then and is now. I make that simple statement, knowing that most white people will disagree.
We live in an odd culture. Without question, it is a white centrist culture. That white people are the ones who can define the cost of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and the embedded Racism of today inflicts on black Americans is wrong. However, that is the state of our culture, and we can find its roots in the idea, almost genetic at this point, of superiority that white Americans hold. My generation was surrounded by walls not made of bricks but of ideas. The ideas that drew lines between people told stories about who mattered and who didn’t and instilled in me, without my consent, a narrative of superiority. I did not choose this inheritance. But unless we name it, examine it, and dismantle it, we risk passing it on quietly to the next generation. I see it every day in my classrooms of high school students.
Never Enough Words – Now on Audible
My latest novel – NEVER ENOUGH WORDS – was released in November of 2024.
It released yesterday on Audible. I was very lucky to find a narrator like Marcus Barton. He is an award-winning narrator with many books on Audible in addition to many other types of voice work. He did and does great work.
From Amazon – In this powerful novel by Jack Hammond Jr, narrator Marcus Barton reveals a tale from the Deep South during the Civil Rights era. His powerful narration amplifies the power of the novel itself in ways that are both poignant and insightful.
A Leadership Void in the Fight Against MAGA
Last week, I outlined how Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s warnings about collective stupidity help explain the rise of MAGA, the Tea Party before it, and the long history of right-wing authoritarian movements in America. These movements do not need reason or fact; they require only a crowd bound by grievance, rage, and the illusion of righteousness.
From here, we must ask this question: Trump and the Republican Party have successfully built a movement through manipulation and misinformation. Can’t the Democratic Party create a powerful movement, one that matches the opposition, but one that is rooted in truth, justice, and the defense of democracy? It is possible, but where is the resistance leader, a charismatic and visionary figure, who can lead us beginning today? Where is that person or people
Through a Dietrich Bonhoeffer Lens
Understanding America Today.
Mobs always begin as a murmur. There’s a moment, barely noticed at first, when grievances shared quietly at kitchen tables or in break rooms begin to echo louder—on talk radio, in comment threads, at town halls where the crowd seems bigger than you expected. Faces nod in agreement. Rage finds a rhythm and more voices. Truth, always complicated and always needing careful consideration is thrown aside. Hate and frustration is distilled into slogans and scapegoats. Over time, the murmurs become a roar.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood this better than most. In the dark years of Nazi Germany, he watched his country succumb not only to tyranny but to a moral collapse. He called it stupidity, though not the kind we often mean. To Bonhoeffer, stupidity was not a lack of intelligence. It was a surrender—a choice people made, often in groups, to stop thinking for themselves. “Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice,” he wrote. The reason is chillingly simple: malicious people can still be reasoned with, perhaps even stopped. Stupid people—those swept up in the power of the crowd, blind to fact, deaf to reason—become, in Bonhoeffer’s words, “incapable of independent thought.” It is impossible to think about Bonhoeffer today without also thinking of the America we have become..
Born from Blood – An Unfinished Reckoning
America’s Original Sin(s)
For decades, right-wing media has dominated the narratives, particularly in rural AmericTruths are difficult to tell. Truths are difficult to face. Truths are difficult to mine from the detritus of history. Yet, these things are universal: truth is true. It is not changed by opinion, by rationalizations, by justifications, or by power. It endures, unyielding, waiting to be acknowledged and confronted. This is the foundation upon which we must begin our examination of America’s original sins.
America’s story is one of ambition, resilience, and innovation—but beneath the surface lies a darker truth: the nation’s foundation is built upon three enduring sins that continue to haunt its present. These sins—slavery, greed, and the attempted genocide of Native Americans—are not merely relics of history. They are enduring legacies woven into the fabric of the country, shaping its identity, its inequalities, and its collective conscience. To truly move forward, America must confront these original sins with honesty, accountability, and a commitment to change.
The Death of Decorum and Civility
How This Threatens Democracy
Decorum—once a fundamental expectation in public life—has become an endangered quality in American culture. With its close companions—civility, propriety, tact, courtesy, and respectability—decorum provided the behavioral framework that allowed diverse people to coexist in a functioning democracy. It wasn’t just about pleasantries or formalities; it was about maintaining the basic social glue that ensured disagreements did not spiral into chaos and governance could proceed with at least a common respect for the institutions involved.
For most of American history, political figures understood that good manners and social grace were not signs of weakness but tools of stability. Etiquette governed not only the dinner table but also the Senate floor. Courtesy was expected even among ideological rivals. Tact was essential when confronting the passions of a divided electorate. Leaders who strayed from these standards often found themselves corrected by colleagues or rejected by voters.
The Longest Coup
The Republican Party—the so-called Grand Old Party—is no more.
In its place stands a political movement unmoored from its former principles, driven by grievance, fueled by disinformation, and willing to embrace violence and intimidation to seize and maintain power. What was once a party of conservative governance has become a vehicle for authoritarian ambition, its evolution marked by decades of escalating tactics that have culminated in the ultimate threat to American democracy: the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024.
From the rise of partisan media enabled by the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine to the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and now to Trump’s return to the White House, the Republican Party’s trajectory is one of increasing radicalization, open contempt for democratic norms, and the dismantling of the very institutions it once claimed to defend.
How We Fight Right-Wing Media Dominance
For decades, right-wing media has dominated the narratives, particularly in rural America, shaping the political consciousness of millions through a steady stream of misinformation, fearmongering, and propaganda. The Right’s control of the narrative has turned what should be open discourse into an echo chamber of authoritarian ideology. Meanwhile, digital platforms, once a beacon of alternative voices, are increasingly manipulated by corporate and algorithmic suppression, limiting the reach of independent, progressive perspectives.
But there was a time when the airwaves were a tool of resistance. There was a time when voices like Wolfman Jack, pirate radio DJs, and underground broadcasters used border-blaster and clandestine radio to bypass government and corporate control, reaching the ears of the people directly. There was a time when shortwave radio carried messages of revolution, truth, and defiance beyond the borders of the powerful. It’s time to bring that back.
How Fake Populism Fuels the Right
And How We Can Take It Back
For decades, the Republican Party has mastered the art of fake populism—convincing millions of working-class Americans that their enemies are immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, college professors, and “woke elites” rather than the billionaires and corporations actually rigging the system against them. No convincing should be needed here. What else could explain why millions of Americans blithely walk into the voting booth to vote against their self-interests, to vote against themselves, their friends, and their neighbors?
The MAGA movement and Project 2025 are not populist in any real sense. They are designed to consolidate wealth and power among a right-wing elite while using culture wars to manipulate and enrage voters who are struggling economically. This playbook has worked before; convince people to fight each other while the rich get richer. But if the right can steal populism for their purposes, then we can take it back.
Elections Won’t Save us from Project 2025
For too long, Democrats have run on the promise that if the right people are elected, democracy will be saved. The 2024 election, like every election before it, was framed as the most important of our lifetime. But what if the real battle for America’s future isn’t at the ballot box?
We thought Kamala Harris and Tim Walz offered a better choice than the Trump-Vance agenda. The reality is this: even if they had won, the machinery of right-wing authoritarianism would keep grinding forward. The playbook behind Project 2025, a sweeping plan to dismantle democratic institutions and entrench minority rule, would not have disappeared with one election loss.
If we truly want to fight back, we need to stop thinking of elections as the solution and start building real resistance—the kind that a bad midterm or a Supreme Court ruling can’t undo. Resistance is a day-to-day responsibility.
The Death of the Fairness Doctrine
The Abuses by the Media as a Result
The Fairness Doctrine was eliminated in 1987 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under President Ronald Reagan’s administration.
The Fairness Doctrine, established in 1949, required broadcasters to present controversial issues of public importance in a balanced and fair manner.
The Reagan-appointed FCC, led by Chairman Dennis Patrick, repealed the doctrine on August 4, 1987, arguing that it violated First Amendment rights and was no longer necessary due to the increasing number of media outlets.
Congress attempted to codify the doctrine into law, but Reagan vetoed the legislation.
The repeal is cited as a major factor in the rise of politically polarized media, particularly the explosion of conservative talk radio and right-wing news outlets like Fox News. The end of the Doctrine has profound effects on information dissemination, mainly captured in the rise of conservative media figures and strategic use of media by the GOP to spread misinformation.
A Simple Place to Start
Survival of the Peaceful Renegades
John Prine – a very peaceful renegade. Isn’t that what we should all aspire to? At least those of us who are appalled by the state of America should be peaceful renegades chipping into the resistance one word, one comment, one conversation every time we are presented with opportunity. The words of Prine’s “Spanish Pipedream” is a fine place to start.
“Spanish Pipedream (Blow Up Your TV)” John Prine (John Denver cover video)
She was a level-headed dancer on the road to alcohol
And I was just a soldier on my way to Montreal
Well she pressed her chest against me
About the time the juke box broke
Yeah, she gave me a peck on the back of the neck
And these are the words she spoke
[Chorus:]
Blow up your TV throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own.
The Common-Sense Dispatch
Why a name change?
Over the past years, I’ve posted over one-hundred entries here under the name – Fighting the Red Tide. I have depended on facts, truth, and logic. In that time, I don’t imagine I’ve changed one opinion or one mind that didn’t already agree with my ideas. That is the way it is.
Some have asked. Why do it? Why waste your time?
The simple answers are these. I am an optimist. I can’t help it. I simply am. I believe in the lofty goals of our Founding Fathers even though they have never been realized. I believe in truth. I believe in logic. I believe in America. Even through the disappointment of recent days, I believe, and it’s not a cheap word for me. I do.
So, welcome to The Common-Sense Dispatch, where the focus will be on one fundamental truth: America works best when it works for everyone. Our mission is simple but urgent—finding policies and strategies that uplift the common people, strengthen our communities (both urban and rural), preserve our culture, and secure the future of our nation..
The Past is Never Dead. It’s Not Even Past.
Of course, the title is not mine. It is from the mind and work of William Faulkner. It appears in the sequel to Sanctuary, Requiem for a Nun, written twenty years after its prequel and a year after Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech. I am often asked what my favorite novel is or who my favorite writer is. I have trouble with questions like those for a simple reason. There are too many great novels and too many equally great writers. However, if I were forced to limit my choice to one writer, it would be William Faulkner. I come back to him time after time. He is a safe harbor in challenging times, a touchstone, a place to ground one’s thinking and perspective.
Even then, I would be hard-pressed to name one novel from him or the many other incredible novels from other writers. Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury is high on my list, but how does one accurately compare it to Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Suttree by Cormac McCarthy, or even Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and Four Souls by Louise Erdrich. We move, our thinking moves; we change. Choice and favorites depend on time and circumstance.
2 Weeks After Release – Never Enough Words
After two weeks, Never Enough Words has received good reviews. Naturally, I am happy about those. I would ask all of you to share the links below with your friends and contacts. Thanks for your support of my writing. A review follows:
Never Enough Words Jack Hammond Jr. Independently Published (2024) ISBN: 979-8340234841 – Reviewed by Amanda Caswell for Reader Views (11/2024)
5 Star- Wrestling with personal struggle and societal unrest.
Jack Hammond Jr.’s “Never Enough Words” digs deep into the lives of ordinary people struggling with the extraordinary weight of history, personal traumas, and the shifting societal landscapes of the American South. Readers should understand that this is without a doubt a heavy read, yet, through the expressive storytelling of Hammond, it is one that is worthwhile because it gives the reader pause. This novel is for thinkers, and I believe there’s no better time for a book such as this.
The Lost Foundations of Public Education
Thanks for your readership and support over the years.
In facing election results that are both shocking and bitterly disappointing, the question becomes simple. What now? That being said, the focus of this blurb must become one about the challenges we face as a culture, as Americans. I believe one of the most important factors in our slide into the Republican landslide is the serious and continuing decline in public education. What follows is an introduction to a book I am beginning to that end.
“Education has always been about more than books, pencils, or desks. At its core, education shapes who we are and who we want to become. It’s the mortar that holds our communities together, the promise of opportunity, and the foundation for a life well-lived. John Dewey once said, “Education is life itself.” Sadly, somewhere along the way, we lost that thread. Where public education once centered on growing citizens, thinkers, and good neighbors has become a system obsessed with numbers, rankings, and tests. It’s a shift that didn’t happen overnight, but the consequences are all around us, and the costs are profound..
Never Enough Words – Launch Today
Never Enough Words is available today on Amazon.
Here are reviews from two Advance Readers:
“Jack Hammond Jr is the consummate storyteller. His latest novel, Never Enough Words, takes readers back to Scots Bend, a small town in South Carolina, in the 1960’s when the South was grappling with societal, sometimes painful, changes that frequently deeply divided communities, even families and lifelong friends. Having grown up in a small Southern town that, much like Scots Bend, also had its “hidden secrets and buried sins,” I could relate to the characters and the situations Hammond so masterfully draws out. I highly recommend Never Enough Words. Reading it caused me to remember both the good and the bad about the times it covers. Once I began reading, I couldn’t put it down.”
Frank White, Columbia, SC
The Greatest Gift
“The greatest gift is the moment of realization—the fragile instant when we see clearly, beyond the surface of things, into the heart of meaning.” – M Scott Momaday
America needs a moment of realization; we need that greatest gift. People who still support Trump and MAGA need the gift. With only days left, America needs a miracle. It is surreal that the Presidential election is a 50-50 contest. It is surreal that – Ted Cruz may be reelected. Rick Scott may be reelected. Marjorie Taylor Greene may win. Kari Lake may win. Control of both the Senate and the House are toss-ups. With clear choices before us, the election should be a blow-out in favor of Democrats up and down the ticket.
The truth about this election, especially this election, is that the outcome will define us as a country, but win or lose, our individual vote will define each of us. And so, we are standing in a moment of choice, an incredibly obvious choice. While this has always been true, the wide gulf between the respective visions of America defines us more clearly than at any other time in our history…
Never Enough Words – Novel Release Announcement
My second novel, Never Enough Words, will release on Amazon 10 days from now. November 1, 2024. The details are in the links below. While it is set in the 1960s, some early readers say it is very timely. I appreciate your support.
Never Enough Words
Excerpt:
When he was a young pastor, he was troubled when other pastors wouldn’t accept Jesus’ simple teaching, which left no room for the prejudice and racism that was endemic to the time. Jesus’ words were crystal-clear, and he never understood why others didn’t or wouldn’t see it. The Bible study was essential to the five pastors as it had been for his group in Mississippi. It gave the men something in common, a faith-based bond, and their time together built a sturdy bridge to friendship. Still, in the end, it was the communal prayer, five pastors praying for their people and their community, that Alston believed was vital, especially on this Monday, given recent events. They needed it, and so did he..
Politics 2024 – A Lament
We thought we were smarter. We thought we were more civilized. We thought we could not be taken in by charlatans bent on finding the weak openings of our frustrations, fears, and anger. After all. we are America, “the land of the free, the home of the brave.” We are e pluribus unum: out of the many, one. We are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” We are that nation, right? Or have we left that nation behind? Are we a different America?
Sadly, the 2024 political landscape can be seen as a lament, a reflection of the deep fractures and divisive forces tearing at the fabric of American society. What we’re witnessing isn’t just another contentious election—it feels more like a turning point that could shape America’s identity and its foundational principles for generations. Have we – individually and collectively – changed that much?.
The White Idea of Manifest Destiny
It starts like this. In October 2020, at a rally in Arizona, Donald Trump made a statement in which he said, “I don’t believe we’re going to have to do this, but if we have to, we’re going to be counting ballots for the next two years… and we’re not going to lose this. God is going to come down and say, ‘This is enough; we’re not going to let it happen.'” Further, Donald Trump made a statement during an interview with Dr. Phil, saying, “If Jesus Christ came down and were the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” the former President added later. “In other words, if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter — I do great with Hispanics, great, I mean at a level no Republican has ever done. But if we had an honest vote counter, I would win California.” His statements are simply delusional, but not in the minds of his supporters. A belief in their superiority takes them in.
The Inauguration Speech of JFK
Does our common history matter anymore? Should our leaders be examples, people to emulate, people lighting a path for leaders who come behind them? Do words matter? Can language reveal a path to make us better? Can language pull us down into the depths of conflict and hatred?
Words do matter. Language matters – it can elevate us; it can demean and diminish us; it can lead us into useless wars, but it can also point the way to authentic acts of patriotism and altruism that benefits all humankind – and that is why we should read speeches like this one as often as we read bedtime stories to our toddlers.
It is Our Choice – Our Vote
In America, the power of personal choice may be the most sacred right citizens possess. That power should exist in every aspect of daily life, but nowhere is it more critical than in our vote. The act of voting is more than a civic duty; it is a reflection of our values, our priorities, and our collective vision for the future. When we consider the future of our nation, we must evaluate the candidates and policies through the lens of core American values—those principles that have defined our country and have been passed down through generations. Truth, justice, equality, fundamental rights, and the rule of law serve as pillars of American democracy. The leaders we choose will shape our nation according to these values, or they will ignore them, even to the point of destroying them. Let’s consider each value and how each is being challenged today.
2024 – The Impact of the Right-Wing Echo Chamber
Donald Trump’s political career has always been tied to the right-wing echo chamber—a bubble of media and ultra-conservative advisors that insulates him from mainstream discourse and truth. This echo chamber is made up of outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN, as well as advisors like Bannon, Gorka, Lewandowski, Loomer, and others. It reinforces extreme conspiracy theories and shapes Trump’s worldview.
THE COMMONSENSE VOTE
The foundation of democracy is one person, one vote. At its core, voting should accurately reflect the people’s collective will. In a perfect world, voters would choose based on policies that best serve their economic and social interests. In reality, voters often make votes that contradict their financial self-interest and well-being. Too frequently, cultural identity, misinformation, racial perceptions, and social values play an outsized role in how Americans vote.
A Time for National Redemption
Redemption, at its core, is the idea of making amends, seeking forgiveness, and moving toward a higher ideal after a period of wrongdoing or failure. We are in that place. On a personal level, it involves confronting one’s mistakes, acknowledging harm caused, and committing to change. In a modern political context, national redemption requires similar actions but on a grander scale—requiring a collective reckoning with a country’s past and present injustices. In America, the idea of redemption is fraught with complexity. Can a nation built on contradictions, such as the ideals of freedom and equality alongside the realities of slavery, racial violence, and systemic inequality, truly “redeem” itself?
Beacons of Hope vs. Shadows of Doubt
In the charged atmosphere of the 2024 presidential campaign, the stark contrast between the candidates’ messages and their visions for America moving forward have never been more evident. Since President Biden stepped aside for VP Kamala Harris, the universal sigh of relief from Democrats has turned into an explosion of support reminiscent of Obama in 2008. The other side is stuck in a playbook that is decades old, but still appeals to a significant part of our population .
All Books
Civil War Era Murder Mystery
