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Now it is not good for the Christian’s health to hustle the Aryan brown, For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down; And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: “A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.” (Rudyard Kipling, 1892)
I hear in patriotic utterances a slave of limited vision who justifies a master’s brutality and position. Geographic boundaries are naught but fences around hearts within. They better control and maintain riches and power of those who configured the lines and formulated repeated lies. One can break out by dreaming beyond a master’s litany and joining the universal quest for freedom. Are you ready to fight the master, or does love of lies, worship of toys, and hunger for crumbs hold you back?
"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair". - HL Mencken
Civil disobedience is not a problem. It is the obedience to government dictates in the face or poverty, starvation, cruelty, and stupidity which has brought wars and pestilence, destroying the lives of millions. There is no shame in disobeying laws made to benefit grand thieves and murderers who walk free. It is civil obedience that is the problem. Civil disobedience is its solution.
Who are the colonialists? There are 191 independent nations in the world and 62 colonies owned as follows: United States 24, England 14, France 7, Australia 6, New Zealand 3, Norway 3, Denmark 2, Netherlands 2, China 1
THE WATERGATE LAWS: First law; No matter how paranoid you are, what the government is actually doing is worse. Second law; Do not believe anything until it's been officially denied.
There are those who talk and those who do. Those who talk are often by nature not those who do. Those who do are often by necessity not those who talk.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once……Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." (Albert Einstein)
“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. “- Gandhi
The internet began as US military tool. It was liberated with little regard for law and grew to an international media allowing the world’s peoples to see beyond national boundaries and jingoistic utterances of false patriotism. Can you, as you use it, follow its course? Can you cast off nationalistic servitude to a corporate military dictatorship and join the quest of the world’s peoples seeking true freedom of bettered lives through shared resources?
There are so many unanswered questions regarding the events of 9/11 that it is currently impossible to determine exact culpability. But it is the manner in which those questions are being left unanswered and even refused answers that leads to no other conclusion than elements within the US government were not only aware of the events to unfold but were also involved in their planning and execution.
There is no biological basis for the concept of human races anymore than there is to so classify the differences between spotted and chestnut horses. Its non biological basis developed and was promoted as moral justification for slavery, genocide, and imperialism in order to square with otherwise contrary religious beliefs. It has served rulers well as an effective conquer and divide strategy since.
A hunk of cardboard, a magic marker, a public sidewalk, two feet, one backbone, five letters, two words, easy to spell NO WAR
The ears are far better organizing tools than the mouth. Listen.
The hardly hidden but denied bigotry that often appears in here under the guise of knowing and understanding while yet separating and characterizing people by groups is sad and frightening. Those characterized are not the problem. Those who do are.
Always been one to fan rather than to douse a fire if in the end the blaze might destroy walls rather than smother the burning truth of the soul with smoke. Nothing wrong with iconoclastic rabblerousing as long as the heart proudly pumps the blood of that cast. Sometimes the best way to do that is to let self decieving pseudo sophisticated fools appear as what they are and in so doing, agitate, aggravate, educate, and organize for you
You are playing with the big people now, those that have and continue to do something in this world. As you feed yourself on momentary personal diversion, we will continue to use your toy as a tool to organize. Those that cannot see through your games are not ready to go anywhere anyhow.
Do you become more by calling someone less, or does it just show you as small?
Saddam Hussein al-Majid al-Tikriti, whatever else he is, is the elected president of a nation illegally invaded by the unelected one of another, and despite his current condition he remains the president of that nation until another government is in place and recognized internationally.
There has always been a sure sign of the fall of every empire that has ever existed. It was always preceded and signaled by its obtaining a leader characterized by arrogance, stupidity, and a sense of invulnerability (Geir Lundestad, Norwiegan historian). Can you think of any such on the current scene?
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering
The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and our denial of the public good. The overall effects on the individual are passivity and conformity in those areas which matter and non-conformism in those which don't. (John Ralston Saul)
When you point a finger at someone... three fingers point back at you.
" when the missionaries came to Africa, they had the bible we had the land....we closed our eyes. When we opened our eyes...we had the bible, they had the land!!!"........ (Desmond Tutu)
"You know you have created God in your own image when he hates the same people you do."
Anything that has to be justified to make people understand its motivation shouldn't be done.
This basis for the perception of an old man of his nation and its people will not oft be heard for there are few yet alive to declare it. We who grew to adulthood in the US during the 1930's and 40's were taught well by government, schools, media, and surrounding society to hate the racist superiority inherent to the beliefs and actions of those German people who championed Hitler's barbarism. We learned to cheer resistance fighters and militaries aligned against that colossus. Those roots and defining lessons drive me to stand and oppose the actions of the US today.
"Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress" -- Thomas Edison.
"No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." -- John Donne
Those who are unaware are unaware of being unaware.
He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
Everyone has the right to shout 'theater' in a crowed fire.
Land does not belong to people. People belong to land.
A leftist will fight for your right to your opinion, while a rightie will fight for your right to his.
Common sense is the faculty that tells you the world is flat.
"All great truths begin as blasphemies" - george bernard shaw.
"Death could come upon me very easily now. But as long as I'm able to live, I shouldn't go out to meet death. Of course, if someday I should be forced to face death - as I shall - it doesn't matter. What does matter is the influence that my life or death will have on the lives of others . . ." from The Little Black Fish - By Samad Behrangi
Turtle and the rabbit had a race one day. Rabbit thought he had it won any old way. So he lay down and went to sleep. But when he woke up, he found the turtle had him beat. Life is a gamble, people come rain or shine. You got to keep on a betting, and you're bound to win sometime. - Brownie McGee.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini
Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth.
There ain't nothin in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.
"Evil god damn mad dog live" backwards is "Evil god damn mad dog live", and that proves it.
If voting could actually change anything it would be illegal. - Emma Goldman
I don't know where you are from but if you are from or have lived long in the US, or probably many other nations as well, consider racism a part of your make up no matter who or what color you are. It is taught well and has to be for it is the grease that allows the wheels of commerce to turn. You can run but you can't hide from it. It shows. It always does. The best you and I can do is devote our lives to fighting it. The problem is that you can't fight it effectively until you recognize it in yourself, realize your part in it, and take responsibility for that. When you know who you are, then you can deal with what others are.
Scapegoats are easily served up as sacrifice by cowards who wish to keep living as they do at any price.
The people who call themselves conservative in the US are not conservative at all. They picked up the word as a call for return to the "good old day"s", those of out and out open racism. "Conservative" there is nothing there a thinly veiled code word for racial bigotry.
Humans have lost their connection to nature & so have been scrambling to re-invent nature in their own image.
El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz. (= Peace is respect for the rights of others.) - Benito Juarez
"Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off." -C. G. Jung
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world. As a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all. - Kahlil Gibran.
The time will come when a woman with ideas is not refered to as opinionated but well informed as are men today. - Treresa Heinz Kerry
"In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart." - Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press -- in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of LIBERAL excess during the past years." - Adolph Hitler or George W. Bush
You never know when a seed planted may sprout. And, you may not be around to observe and nourish it if it does. But. that is no reason to refrain from planting it in the first place.
The power of rulers lie in their laws. Break their laws and their power vanishes.
"Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know." - Socrates
"Resist much, obey little" - Walt Witman
"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And, overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life." - Nelson Mandella.
"When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour." - George Orwell.
RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD --- Taoism: Shit happens. --- Hinduism: This shit happened before. --- Confucianism: Confucius say "Shit happens". --- Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit. --- Zen: What is the sound of shit happening? --- Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah. --- Jehova's Witness: knock, knock, "Shit happens". --- Athiesm: There is no shit. --- Agnosticism: I don't know whether shit happens. --- Protestantism: Shit won't happen if I work harder. --- Catholicism: If shit happens, I deserved it. --- Judiaism: Why does shit always happen to us? --- TV evangelists: Send us more shit. --- Jedi Knights: May the shit be with you.
Divide and conquer is a strategy that has worked well for rulers through the centuries. Fools among the oppressed welcome it in offering open hands with fingers spread, the better to break them off one by one. The wise join and show clenched fists poised to strike back.
When a finger is pointed at the moon, the imbecile stares at the finger
"A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first." - Chanakya (Indian politician, strategist and writer, 350 BC-275 BC
"What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one."-- Bertolt Brecht
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
A calf and old bull on the hill top peered at the cows in a field below. The calf panted "Come on, come on, lets run down, and get one!" The bull replied "Now son, take it easy. We'll just graze our way in that direction, look them over, think it through, and consider strategies. Then when we know what we're doing, we'll get them all."
"It is not only by shooting bullets in the battlefields that tyranny is overthrown, but also by hurling ideas of redemption, words of freedom and terrible anathemas against the hangmen that people bring down dictators and empires." - Emiliano Zapata Salazar
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." - Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945
"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one." - Benjamin Franklin
The system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters, housewives, the very people we are trying to reach. Many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on and priveleged by the system, they will fight to protect it. As long as they do, these people are a willing part of that system, and that makes them our enemy.
I take "extremism" to heart as a proudly radical extremist. It means changing things at the core cause by any means necessary rather than pretending to do so while safely shuffling peripheral symptoms. If that's extremism, so be it and welcome.
The real enemies in the stride toward freedom are not those who proclaim themselves that but rather the moderates more devoted to order than justice. Those are the ones who proclaim agreement with goals but act to reduce tension by opposing methods for their acheivement. Absolute ill will is easy to overcome. Shallow good will is more difficult.
"All together now, keep your eyes open beyond yourselves, see the margins of the world, where those who are different from us are waiting to demonstrate that they are as human as we." - Carlos Fuentes
In the abstract, we think of lawbreaking as something set off against a clear white background of lawfulness. But in the real world, it's all a whirling gray blur. Just as truth is an area and not a point, law enforcement is an art with an aim of a just and safe society not a paint-by-numbers rote exercise. It is not what is legal or illegal, but what is fair and unfair. Otherwise laws can be a harmful trap. Laws are generally made so as to order society in attempt to protect desires of the rich and powerful from the needs of the poor and weak. Break them!
A giant oak is nothing but a nut that stood its ground and absorbed that which was found around.
"The people deserve whatever they will permit." - Thomas Jefferson
Communication change has fostered progression from active participation to passive acceptance as a characteristic of many areas of current societies. The changes are seen in music, athletics, dance, writing, art, politics, and even family. Creation to enhance the lives of others is a dutiful avocation of all in a vital society. Whereas people once took part in activities that bound them to others, now most sit aside and observe with acceptance what is served them. That has a lot to do with why they are easily led around as though with a ring in the nose.
There is important reason here for anonymity of identity and personal characteristics which understanding people will neither seek to breach nor comment upon. It serves to maintain principle above personality by holding message more important than messenger. Notice that those lacking ideas prefer to focus on personalities. Why? A good guess is that they don't like theirs, it hurts, and the pain can be eased by projecting theirs outward in attempt to diminish others. Rather than struggle to rise to the stature of peers, they opt to cut them down. I do not care about what you, me, or others are. Tell me instead what you believe about the world around us and what we can do about it. That is what may lead to learning and growth.
This often seems not the place to encourage social revolution. Too much begging personal attention. Too little listening. Too much worship of status conferred by taking from others. Too many believing personal existence matters. Too many smart ones who’ve never used it to survive. Too many seeing difference in people rather than similarity. Perhaps though, we can start from here, realizing everyone gets to where they will be from where they are.
Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it's a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.
The lowest aim in life is to become a soldier. The good soldier never tries to distinguish right from wrong. He never thinks; never reasons; he only obeys. If he is ordered to fire on his fellow citizens, on his friends, oh his neighbours, on his relatives, he obeys without hesitation. If he is ordered to fire down a crowded street when the poor are clamouring for bread, he obeys and sees the grey hairs of age stained with red and the life tide gushing from the breasts of women, feeling neither remorse nor sympathy. If he is ordered on to a firing squad to execute a hero or benefactor, he fires without hesitation, though he knows the bullet will pierce the noblest heart that ever beat in a human beast. A good soldier is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous machine. He is not a man. He is not a brute, for brutes only kill in self defence. All that is human in him, all that is divine in him, all that constitutes the man has been sworn away when he took the enlistment. - Jack London
"Rich or poor, we all need love, food, and shelter. Needs, not wants, should always be met." - truelittleredfishofsonshine.
"The dreamer is the designer of tomorrow. Practical men... can laugh at him; they do not know that he is the true dynamic force that pushes the world forward. Suppress him, and the world will deteriorate towards barbarism. Despised, impoverished, he leads the way... sowing, sowing, sowing, the seeds that will be harvested, not by him, but by the practical men of tomorrow, who will at the same time laugh at another indefatigable dreamer busy seeding, seeding, seeding." -- Ricardo Flores Magon
"if you're not attached to where you're going, you can never get lost"
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. - John Kenneth Galbraith
There are two kinds of burglers, one that just wants what others have, the second doesn't care about the possessions but just wants to destoy what others have. The latter is called primal envy personality type.
"When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all." - William O Douglas
Ten principles of success: 1) To begin from the possible, 2) To see advantage in disadvantage, 3) To change the place of action, 4) To make a friend out of an enemy, 5) To turn minus into plus, 6) The power of peace is stronger than the power of violence, 7) Not to be a dichotomous thinker, 8) To bring the battle in one’s own favorable field, 9) Gradualism instead of radicalism, 10) To be pragmatic in controversial matters - The Prophet Mohammad Son of Abdullah, al Qur'an
"All truth passes through three paths: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident" -- Schopenhauer
As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air -- however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. - Justice William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court (1939-75)
For too many years, robbery has been portrayed as discovery. For too long, slave owners have been described as noble founding fathers...thus corrupting the truth, and adding dehumanization to robbery and brutality
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The People liberate themselves. - Dr. Ernesto 'Che' Rafael Guevara de la Serna
If you want to build a ship, dont herd people together to collect wood, and dont assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. --Antoine de Saint-Exupe
Organizing for and resulting social change do not happen over night or even within life times. Its payoff may be generations away. That however is no excuse for not pushing forward. The highest price for trying is one's life, which is fleeting anyhow. It is something the young tend not to understand but hold in false self importance that they are IT when they are really only a small part of an IT which began long before and will continue long after them.
"Sean siempre capaces de sentir en lo más hondo cualquier injusticia cometida contra cualquiera en cualquier parte del mundo. Es la cualidad más linda de un revolucionano." - Dr. Ernesto 'Che' Rafael Guevara de la Serna
In tyranny's domain, You are the link in the chain, You stink of him through and through, The tyranny IS you. - Gyula Illyés
"There is a difference between an inconsequential left and a consequential right, the difference is they both do the same things, but one says they don't." - Subcomandante Marcos
There is no path. Paths are made by walking. The only path seen looking back is as a wave in the sea, one never to be treaded again. - Antonio Machado
If you've only come to help me, then return to your homes. If you consider my fight as part of your own survival, then perhaps we can work together. - Australian Aboriginal Saying
A degree of human casualties and suffering may be the optimal path to a better world, especially when the alternative is greater brutal chaos. Variations of this logic have often been used to justify atrocities. But there is a crisp litmus test for avoiding delusion: Action be taken with a heart void of malice and an unwavering commitment to the broadest possible ultimate outcome of good for all. Can anyone live to this standard? Can anyone give their life for this standard. If the standard could be met, would the world be a better place? These are questions worth reflecting on.
Those who have heart can read the hearts of others and know the truths behind their words, no matter how they are arranged.
"In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence ~ one word of truth sounds like a gunshot:" Czeslaw Milosz
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
"If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn't we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?" - Eduardo Galeano
No protests work, but they all contribute.
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." -Albert Einstein
"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."- Martin Luther King Jr.
"If you want to learn the truth, seek out those ideas that men are imprisoned for voicing."- unknown
"Crepúsculo de los bueyes, esta despuntando el alba" - Miguel Hernández
The world changed just a little when a guy on a subway platform had a seizure and fell between the electrified tracks. A stranger on the platform with his two little daughters saw a close train rapidly approaching. He jumped onto the tracks and lay on top of the stricken one to hold him down and still while the train passed over them. He shared with someone else all he had, life. Want to change the world? Give what you value most to someone in need.
Just because you are not paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you.
Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. Love, courage, and wisdom together is one in a million, as with one who moves the world. - Amman Hennesy
Goodness not guided by intelligence is almost as dangerous as intelligence not guided by goodness. - E. Stanley Jones.
"Wherever there’s oppression, there’s rebellion. Let it be." - Prole
The stupid neither forgive or forget, the naïve forgive and forget, but the wise man forgives but does not forget - Thomas Szasz
"People will change themselves only if they see need for it, want it to happen, and make it happen. You can never change other people. You can never change the world. You can only improve yourself, and the world will improve with you." - Eve
KAHLUA - 3 cups white sugar, 12 slightly rounded tspn. good instant cofee, 4 cups water, 1 fifth of vodka (3½ cups), 3 tspn vanilla; Mix first 3 ingredients together, bring to a boil, simmer gently for 1 hour - cool STIR IN: Vodka and vanilla. Will keep tightly corked indefinitely and can't tell its fake, kinda like people.
"A nation is a political fiction imposed on a social and geographic reality almost always by force, for the benefit of a political minority." - Mario Vargas Llosa
"Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't." - Pete Seeger
In every city are to be found two opposite parties, people vs aristocracy, arising from the desire of the populace to avoid oppression of the great, and the desire of the great to command and oppress the people. When the nobility see that they are unable to resist the people, they unite in exalting one of their number and creating him prince, so as to be able to carry out their own designs under the shadow of his authority. - Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. IX
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