Currency

"If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People."
--Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) Inventor

Gossip

"Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared."
--Erica Mann Jong (1942~) American Author, Poet

All V

"It has all been very interesting."
--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, last words, 1762

Howard Zinn, R.I.P.

August 24, 1922 - January 27, 2010

If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

Historically, the most terrible things--war, genocide and slavery--have resulted from obedience, not disobedience.

How can you make a war on terror if war itself is terrorism?

I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president--which means, in our time, a dangerous president--unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.

We grow up in a controlled society, where we are told that when one person kills another person, that is murder, but when the government kills a hundred thousand, that is patriotism.

I don't believe it's possible to be neutral. The world is already moving in certain directions. And to be neutral, to be passive, in a situation like that, is to collaborate with what is going on. And I, as a teacher, don't want to be a collaborator.

I don't know if you have the same feeling as I do, when I wake up in the morning and read the paper, and you feel like you are in an occupied country. You feel like some alien group has taken over our country. But those men in the White House, who are making decisions to send young people to kill and to be killed, those people are alien to me.

You remember when Ali fought Foreman ? He seemed asleep. But when he woke up, he was ferocious. And so will the people - wake up!

Starfish

While walking along the beach, a man saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up, and throwing it into the ocean. As he came closer, he saw thousands of starfish the tide had thrown onto the beach. Unable to return to the ocean during the low tide, the starfish were dying. He observed a young man picking up the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the water. After watching the seemingly futile effort, the observer said, "There must be thousands of starfish on this beach. It would be impossible for you to get all of them. There are simply too many. You can't possibly save enough to make a difference." The young man smiled as he continued to pick up another starfish and toss it back into the ocean. "It made a difference to that one," he replied.
--Author Unknown

Right IV

"Right is right, even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it."
--William Penn (1644-1718, British Religious Leader, Founder of Pennsylvania)

Play

"Don't play for safety. It's the most dangerous thing in the world."
--Hugh Walpole, Writer

"Debate"

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
--Noam Chomsky (1928- ) Institute Professor Emeritus of Linguistics

Apathy III

"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
--Plato

Government II

"Drive on. We'll sweep up the blood later!"
--Katherine Hepburn (1907-2003) American Actor, Writer

Teach

"Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity." --Karl Marx

Unassist

"You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul."
--Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

The Massachusetts Fiasco

What passes for analysis in the corporate media is lame, as usual.

Martha Coakley made it clear that she would be an Obamaton, voting for whatever "healthcare" screwjob comes out of the best CONgress that insurance and pharmaceutical drug cartel money can buy.

Coakley never adequately addressed the question of what would happen to the current Massachusetts system under Obamacare. For better or worse, the Massachusetts system was a known quantity.

Contrast Coakley's performance with the Late Senator Edward Kennedy. The people of Massachusetts felt that Kennedy would stand up for them, and that at least to some extent would stand up to a tyrannical President. They had no reason to think Coakley would do anything other than stand down, anything other than roll over.

Brown came across as superficial, dancing around, avoiding, and refusing to meaningfully answer, questions about his past voting record. His being bought-and-paid for by corporate interests was obvious to anyone with an IQ exceeding their age.

Both candidates endorsed the myth of 9/11.

So what was a Massachusetts voter to do? The only candidate worth voting for was Joseph L. Kennedy (no relation to the Kennedy Dynasty). A libertarian, he repeatedly pointed out how Coakley and Brown had no clothes. He took head-on the fact we can't--and shouldn't--keep waging wars for oil and empire around the world. He took the position that not only can't we afford to do that, he stood up and said that we should not do that. He pointed out the obvious, that any "wins" are far outweighed by the additional enemies we make.

For many, it was a judgment call of the lesser of two evils, forgetting or ignoring that the lesser of two evils is still evil.

The corporate press claims that Brown had the support of the "teabaggers". The FauxNews teabaggers, perhaps, but not the genuine-original-legitimate Ron Paul teabaggers who Joseph L. Kennedy was an honorable member of. Memo to Ron Paul supporters: Take your movement back!

Questions about the election being stolen are significant. See Black Box Voting, BradBlog, and Mark Crispin Miller. Like John "Skull & Bones" Kerry before her, Coakley has quickly surrendered, ignoring the many questions about the legitimacy of the "election". Coakley has, like Kerry, served her role as giving the illusion that we live in a two-party state.

TLC

Utterance

"You say that freedom of utterance is not for time of stress, and I reply with the sad truth that only in time of stress is freedom of utterance in danger... Only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed, and when it is needed it is most vital to justice."
--William Allen White (1868-1944) Source: The Editor and his People, 1924

Rarely

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Civilized"

"If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe."
--Simone Weil (1909-1943) French Philosopher, Mystic

Higher

"The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves little more than changing our ideas about what is normal."
--Deepak Chopra

Somebody II

"I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody."
--Lily Tomlin

Allowed

"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them."
--Karl Marx

"Support The Troops"

I support the troops. Don't send them to invade and occupy other nations based on lies.

I support the troops. Don't order them to use predator drones to murder innocent civilians, innocent women and children.

I support the troops. Raise taxes to pay for proper medical and psychological care. It is not enough to drug them for PTSD when they need many hours of one-on-one counseling. It is not enough to given them pain pills, they deserve healing and that doesn't come cheap. Cut out the B.S. when it comes to paying them a pension when they are injured.

I support the troops. Bring back the Draft so they are no longer repeated sent back. Start with the children of FauxNews viewers.

TLC

Never

"[A]s long as we sacrifice millions of cats, dogs, rabbits, primates and other animals in the name of science we'll never be physically or morally healthy".
--National Anti-Vivisection Society

Saddest

"I think one of the saddest days in life is when your child graduates high school and you are left with the realities of an empty home, the distance between you and your child and the burden of having to score your own weed."
--Brad Wilkerson

Chance

"Chance favors those in motion."
--James H. Austin, Professor of Neurology and Author

Beliefs

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."
--Bertrand Russell, "Unpopular Essays"

Skinned

"Failures are like skinned knees, painful but superficial."
--H. Ross Perot (1930-, American Businessman & Politician)

Custom

"Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity".
--George Bernard Shaw·

Paths II

"There are many paths to enlightenment.
Be sure to take one with a heart."
--Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher

Worse II

"I bet it would be a good life being a fly. Buzzing around merrily, throwing your cares to the wind, happy as can be. Until mealtime."
--Travis Ruetenik

Patriotism II

"There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that higher form is not limited by the boundaries of one's country; but by a duty to mankind to safeguard the trust of civilization."
--Oscar S. Strauss

Objectionable

"There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth."
--Agnes Repplier

Glory

"Military glory -- the attractive rainbow
that rises in showers of blood."
--Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 16th US President

Think 1.5

"Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) US novelist and short-story writer

Individual

"The individual has always had to struggle
to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is hard business.
If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened.
But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
--Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)