Twice

"We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to make all people understand that animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves... The basis for peace is respecting all creatures... That's the basis, the beginning for peace. ...We know we cannot defend or be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them - exploiting them in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food."

--Cesar Chavez
Accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award from In Defense of Animals in 1992.

Answer II

"I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building."
--Charles M. Schulz

Excesses

"Judicial minds have systematically rejected arguments that clashed with their ideologies. Consequently, the forum of last resort has not checked the excesses of the executive and legislative branches."
--Robert Dowlut
General Counsel for the National Rifle Association
Source: Arms: A Right to Self-Defense Against Criminals and Despots, 8 STANFORD L. & POL’Y REV. 25 (1997).

Darkerside

"I have found out when it comes to politics and the darkerside of life...that when things seem inconceivable, insane and unreal,...they're 'reality', cold, raw and in your face."
--Lady Gray

Terms II

"If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you."
--T.S. Eliot

Standing II

"What, Sir, is the use of a militia?
It is to prevent the establishment
of a standing army, the bane of liberty. ...
Whenever Governments mean to invade
the rights and liberties of the people,
they always attempt to destroy the militia,
in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
--Rep. Elbridge Gerry
(1744-1814) of Massachusetts, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Member of the Constitutional Convention

Source: spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789

Understanding IV

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends on him not understanding it."
-- Upton Sinclair
Source: 1935, "I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked"

Senior

A SENIOR'S PRAYER

One by One, they pass by my cage,
They say, "Too worn, too broken, too old of age.
Way past his time, he can't run and play."
Then they shake their heads and go on their way.

Whatever excuse they made in their head,
Can't justify how they left me for dead.
Now I sit in this cage, where day after day,
The younger dogs get adopted away.

When I had almost come to the end of my rope,
You saw my face, and I finally had hope.
You saw through the grey, and the legs bent with age,
And felt I still had life beyond this cage.

You took me home, gave me food and a bed,
And shared your own pillow with my poor tired head.
We snuggle and play, and you talk to me low,
You love me so dearly, you want me to know.

I may have lived most of my life with another,
But you outshine them with a love so much stronger.
And I promise to return all the love I can give,
To you, my dear person, as long as I live.

I may be with you for a week, or for years
We will share many smiles, you will no doubt shed tears.
And when the time comes that I must leave,
I know you will cry and your heart, it will grieve.

And when I arrive at the Bridge, all brand new,
My thoughts and my heart will still be with you.
And I will brag to all who will hear,
Of the person who made my last days so dear.

--Author Unknown

Twist

"[W]e continue to evolve a cute little concept of a changing legal accommodation named the 'Living Constitution Theory' which is only a perversion stating, 'To heck with what our Constitution says; we in power will twist it to suit our ideas anytime and every time we so choose.'"


--Dr. Jack Down Ph.D., Pres. of Citizens Against Repressive Zoning
Source: Turning common citizens into criminals is perverse, THE UNREPORTED NEWS, p. 4, September 16, 1995. (The UnReported News, Box 22036, Lansing, MI, 48909)

Machines

"Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor."
--Karl Marx

Tool

"In the hands of the state, compulsory public education becomes a tool for political control and manipulation -- a prime instrument for the thought police of the society. And precisely because every child passes through the same indoctrination process—learning the same “official history,” the same “civic virtues,” the same lessons of obedience and loyalty to the state -- it becomes extremely difficult for the individual soul to free himself from the straightjacket of the ideology and values the political officials wish to imprint upon the population under its jurisdiction. For the communists, it was the class struggle and obedience to the Party and Comrade Stalin; for the fascists, it was the worship of the nation-state and obedience to the duce; for the Nazis, it was race purity and obedience to the Fuhrer. The content has varied, but the form has remained the same. Through the institution of compulsory state education, the child is to be molded like wax into the shape desired by the state and its educational elite."


--Jacob G. Hornberger American author, journalist, politician, founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation Source: The Nazi Mind-Set in America, The Tyranny Of Gun Control, 58 (Future of Freedom Foundation 1997).

Awareness

"Awareness is the enemy of sanity, for once you hear the screaming, it never stops."
--Emilie Autumn

Most IV

"Most people were raised to think they are not worthy. School is a process of taking beautiful kids who are filled with life and beating them into happy slavery. That's as true of a twenty-five-thousand-dollar-a-year executive as it is for the poorest."
--Bill Talcott - Organizer
Quoted in Studs Terkel's "Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do"

Worrying

"If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?"
--Shantideva

Abolish

Something III

"There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem."
--Gore Vidal

Urge

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it."
--H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
American Journalist, Editor, Essayist, Linguist, Lexicographer, and Critic

Power V

"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."
--John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987

Reenactments

"Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reenactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Wayles Eppes, 1813

One Ambassador To Libya Equals...

So this morning we all know the name of the US Ambassador to Libya who was killed.  You know, Libya, one of the countries the US invaded using the usual tactics and set up an oppressive puppet government subservient to the international oil companies and US foreign policy?  Yeah, that Libya.  Take over a country, throw out its' native government, the natives get ticked off.  Who'daguessed, right?

Now the challenge: Name any one of the last thousand Libyan citizens (other than members of the Gaddafi family) who were killed during the "revolution".

Oh heck, I'll be sporting--name just one of the last five thousand.

Take your time...

Yup.

Chains

"Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them."
--Jean Jacques Rousseau,

Aging III

"Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging."
--Maya Angelou

Cure

"The only cure for grief is action."
--George Henry Lewes

Swarm

"The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants."

--Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

(1884-1943) Japanese Naval Marshal General and commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II, a graduate of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and a student of Harvard University (1919–1921)
Source: Statement in opposition of the planned construction of the Yamato class battleships, as quoted in Scraps of paper: the disarmament treaties between the world wars (1989) by Harlow A. Hyde

Depart

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."
--H.L. Mencken

IMF

Hold

"Hold on, my friends,
to the Constitution and
to the Republic for which it stands.
Miracles do not cluster
and what has happened once in 6,000 years,
may not happen again.
Hold on to the Constitution,
for if the American Constitution should fail,
there will be anarchy throughout the world."
--Daniel Webster
(1782-1852), US Senator
1851

Bill Clinton At The DNC

CNN as usual is over-the-top, with Wolf Blitzer, David Gergen, and Anderson Cooper collectively wetting their pants over Slick Willie's speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

Of course, one acronym you won't hear at the DNC is "NAFTA".

Hey slickster--how many millions of American jobs were lost due to that scam?  How many workers in Mexico were thrown into even deeper poverty?

Another Inconvenient Truth the corporate media will conveniently ignore...

That giant sucking sound Ross Perot warned us about overwhelms any snowjob you will ever hear from the Clintons...or the current corporate puppet Obama who has done absolutely nothing to change NAFTA one whit...

TLC

Swallow

"We recognize the force of the argument that the effects of war under modern conditions may be felt in the economy for years and years, and that if the war power can be used in days of peace to treat all the wounds which war inflicts on our society, it may not only swallow up all other powers of Congress but largely obliterate the Ninth and the Tenth Amendments as well."
--Justice William O. Douglas
(1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Source: delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co., 333 U.S. 138, 143-144 (1948).

Freedom VIII

"Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong."
--John G. Diefenbaker
(1895-1979) Prime Minister of Canada

Original

"Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased."
--Adam Smith

Enlarged

"History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them."
--Martin Luther King Jr.

Keeper

Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man’s business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked; ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.


Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death.

--Eugene V. Debs