Welcome to Light Against Empire – the Podcast—part reckoning, part resistance. If you've ever felt the chill of rising power dressed as patriotism, you're not imagining it. We confront the spectacle, expose the performance, and hold a torch to the machinery of modern empire—while listening closely to the echoes of those who once brought empires down. www.lightagainstempire.com
Why You Should Listen
We live in a time that rewards masks—public smiles, private evasions, curated lives that look whole but feel fractured. This essay is my attempt to strip those layers back and ask what it means to be one person in public and in private, without performance or disguise. Drawing on wisdom from Baldwin, Confucius, and quieter voices like Montaigne, Jane Addams, and Bashō, I reflect on how integrity isn’t a heroic ...
Why You Should isten
What happens when those meant to speak fall silent, when the witnesses turn into brand ambassadors? This is a reckoning for the Chorus—for us. Not a metaphor. A mirror.
Why You Should Listen
This essay is about reclaiming your humanity in an age that profits from distraction. It blends personal reflection, the wisdom of Rilke and Tagore, and simple daily practices to show how stillness is not escape—it’s resistance, preparation, and survival. If the world feels overwhelming, this is a reminder that you already carry the still point within you.
Why You Should Listen
We’re told artificial intelligence is the next frontier. Smarter tools. Faster answers. Endless convenience. But beneath the sales pitch lies a quieter, more troubling reality: people are asking machines for the things once sought from faith, from reason, and from one another.
This essay isn’t about AI’s power. It’s about our hunger. About what it means when we lean on algorithms for comfort, when we treat proba...
Why You Should Listen
Imagine Zeus pleading the Fifth, Poseidon flooding the courtroom, and Dionysus swearing on a wine glass. Funny? Yes. Familiar? Uncomfortably so.
This essay stages a Monty Python–style trial of the Greek and Roman gods for their crimes against humanity. But the joke isn’t just divine mischief—it’s a mirror. Every absurd objection, every thunderbolt filibuster, every goat in the jury echoes what we see in our own ...
Why You Should Listen
Because in an age when leaders trade oaths for lies, it’s the quiet faithful who still hold the line. This essay is about them—and about us. It reminds us that civilization doesn’t survive on speeches or ceremonies, but on the unspoken covenants of conscience we keep when no one is watching. If you’ve ever wondered whether integrity still matters, whether honor still has a pulse in this country, this is your an...
Why You Should Listen
They told us the future would save us. That progress was inevitable, that AI would fix what human error broke, and that billionaires with rocket ships and startups were somehow modern prophets. But what happens when the myth of progress turns into a business model for collapse?
This week’s Chronicles of Collapse unpacks one of the oldest cautionary tales—Icarus—and brings it flaming into the present.
We’re not ju...
Why You Should Listen
This piece isn’t theology and it isn’t science—it’s the ache between them. A soliloquy of despair and reverence, it speaks from the wound of human cruelty and the wonder of a world that refuses to be destroyed. It asks what remains when tyrants rise, empires collapse, and gods fall silent. The answer is not certainty, but sweetness—the kind that lingers in mountains, in seas, in children’s laughter. If you’ve e...
We live in a time when attention is the rarest of currencies. Every screen blinks with outrage, every feed scrolls with distraction. And yet—there are words that are not noise. Words that do not evaporate in a swipe. Words that matter.
That is why I write here. Not to add more volume to the din, but to carve out a place where reflection outruns reaction, where clarity resists the fog, where hope refuses...
Why You Should Listen to Diogenes Goes to Washington
What happens when an ancient cynic philosopher shows up in Washington with nothing but a barrel and a lantern? He finds the same thing you already suspect: truth doesn’t live here.
This essay is dark comedy with teeth. You’ll see Diogenes live-tweeting his way through Capitol Hill, TSA agents trying to confiscate his lantern, lobbyists begging to slap corporate logos on it, and a P...
Why You Should listen to No Cathedral Built Itself
Because nothing worth keeping is built overnight.
Because your life, your conscience, your community—they’re cathedrals rising one stone at a time.
This essay is about the slow, sacred work that outlives us. The kind of labor Gaudí began, knowing he would never see the end. The kind of patience and integrity that builds character across a lifetime, and community across generation...
Why You Should Listen
In a time when everything is loud, fast, and hungry for your attention—this essay is a quiet rebellion.
The War for Your Interior Life isn’t about productivity. It’s about reclaiming the part of you that the world tries to fracture—your soul’s clarity, your presence, your peace. It’s a fire lit reminder that stillness is not weakness, and your attention is the most sacred ground you still own.
Listen to this when...
Why You Should Listen
Once upon a time, Caligula put his horse in the Roman Senate. Historians still argue whether it was a joke, an insult, or a sign he’d lost his mind.
But the point was never the horse. The point was proving that power can mock the system and the people will eventually get used to it.
This isn’t just history. It’s a mirror.
In an era where loyalty is valued over competence, and absurd appointments are sold as ...
Why You Should Listen: For the Ones Who Wouldn’t Bow
This isn't a sermon. It's not a slogan. It's a recognition.
A secular litany for those who told the truth and paid for it.
For the whistleblowers, the exiles, the last ones standing at meetings full of silence.
For the ones who wouldn't laugh along, bow down, or bite their tongues.
If you've ever been shamed for caring too much,
mocked for see...
Why You Should Listen to This
Some crimes don’t start with gunfire. They start with a blank page. This is the story of how the Constitution can vanish without a single match struck, and why the official excuse — “just a coding error” — is more dangerous than the deletion itself. From the burning of Alexandria to the chisels of Rome, the pattern is clear: regimes erase what they plan to break. If you want to understand the playbook a...
Why You Should Read This
Because there comes a time when silence becomes surrender, and goodness demands more than belief, it demands a stand. This essay names the moral line too many still refuse to see, and invites you to step across it with clarity, courage, and conscience. If you’ve felt the ground shift beneath your feet, if you’ve struggled to name what’s breaking, this is the reckoning you’ve sensed but haven’t yet put to wor...
Why You Should Read This
Because the republic didn’t collapse in a day. It was chipped away—by cowards, clowns, and climbers. This essay isn’t just about Cicero weeping in a bathroom stall. It’s about the death of deliberation, the triumph of theater, and what it means to still care when everyone else has monetized their surrender. If you’ve ever looked around and thought, “Is this really what we’ve become?”—this one’s for you...
Why You Should Read This
We often ask what’s wrong with the system. This essay asks what’s happened to us. Before we rewrite the Republic, we must examine the people holding the pen. We the Unready is not a policy critique—it’s a moral reckoning. It’s about soulcraft, memory, and the kind of character democracy requires to survive. If you believe the future must be built by hands steadier than the ones that broke it, read on.
Why You Should Listen:
Because Prometheus is still chained—and you might be holding the fire he gave. This essay isn’t just a myth retold. It’s a mirror held up to now. If you’ve ever warned the room and been ignored, ever paid the price for seeing clearly, or ever felt the weight of knowing too soon—this one is for you. Come for the Greek tragedy, stay for the truth we keep punishing.
Why You Should Read This
Because we’re not just living in an age of collapse—we’re living in an age of disconnection. Not only from institutions or each other, but from meaning itself.
Because too many are telling us to choose: soul or science, ritual or reason, belief or evidence—as if wholeness demands allegiance to only half the truth.
Because the world is coming apart precisely where our moral architecture used to hold—and we need...
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