Humble Warrior
By Finder
Motherbird.com
June 30, 2015
Long ago in the days of the ancestors there was a warrior,
named Running Through Forest.
Many seasons ago Running Through Forest received his
name from his people.
Long since any of his people could remember, there was
not one foot race through the forest that he did not win.
Running Through Forest was not a famous warrior and did
not own any war feathers, yet all the people treated him
as one of their own relations.
Running Through Forest loved his people and through all
the many seasons of his life he used his swift feet to hunt,
protect, and to bring happiness to his people.
His people loved to give gifts to each other and because Running
Through Forest had so many friends, he owned many many things.
One day the shaman of the people approached Running Through
Forest and said, “Running Through Forest, I have overheard some
young warriors talking about you. What they are saying is not good.
They say that you are not a warrior and the only reason you own so
much is because all the people give you things.”
Running Through Forest was very concerned. He said, “I know
these young warriors. They are brave and hard working. Why
would they say such things about me?”
To this the shaman replied, “When these warriors were younger
their fathers were killed defending our village and so the fathers
were not there to teach their sons the ways of honor.”
Running Through Forest asked the shaman, “What can I do?”
The shaman carefully asked, “Running Through Forest, these
things that you own, how important are they to you?”
Running Through Forest did not have to think long. He said,
“Nothing is more important to me than the love I have for
my people and everything that I own reminds me of the love
they have for me.”
The shaman was happy to hear this.
The next day he went to the chief and asked him to call a
meeting of the people.
The chief knew the best way to gather his people together
and he immediately announced a Pow Wow.
The people loved Pow Wows, especially the children. They loved
the drumming, dancing, telling of stories. News of the coming Pow
Wow traveled fast throughout the people.
When the Chief had gathered his people together he said,
“Our shaman has something important to say.”
The shaman told of his overhearing the young braves talking about
Running Through Forest and called them forward in front of the
people.
The young warriors were ashamed. They did not think anyone
had overheard them talking in the forest.
The shaman asked all the people to be quiet because Running
Through Forest had something to say to the young warriors.
As the shaman handed Running Through Forest the talking stick,
the people became silent, even the children sat down and were
very still.
“When I was young,” Running Through Forest started, “our
people suffered many seasons where the Great Spirit sent us
very little water. Because of this drought the wolves used to
attack our village.”
All the people were quiet and there were many who remembered
those bad times and shook their heads in agreement.
Running Through Forest continued, “During those bad times my
father and I were protecting a group of children gathering water
when we were attacked by wolves. My father was killed while I
led the children safely back to the village. Because not one child
was harmed getting back to our village, I was given the place
among the people to always protect the children. So when the
other warriors ride out to battle or hunt, I do not ride with them.
My place is to stay in the village and protect it from attack while
our warriors are gone.”
When Running Through Forest paused, the young warriors,
as one, let out a sigh.
No one had told them about the place Running Through Forest
had among his people.
All the elders of the people held their breath for they knew
what was going to happen next.
As Running Through Forest continued, all eyes of the elders
were on him.
“You young warriors think that everything I own is important
to me.”
They shook their heads yes.
He told them, “I can give away everything that I own, and I give
it all to you to divide up between you. However, the one thing I
cannot give you is the love that was given me with these gifts.”
All at once the people jumped up.
A quick little child grabbed the talking stick from Running
Through Forest’s hand.
The people started to get quiet and before long everyone,
including the children, became silent again.
Everyone listened to the little boy as he told of the gift
he gave to Running Through Forest for helping him.
He did not want Running Through Forest to give it away.
One by one many people took the talking stick and told stories
of why they had given Running Through Forest a gift.
When everyone had told their stories the shaman asked Running
through Forest, “Did you receive any gifts from these young
warrior’s fathers? And do you remember which gifts they gave
you?”
“Of course,” Running Through Forest answered. “I grew up
with all of their fathers and even though they are no longer
with us, I remember them through the gifts they gave me.”
The shaman said, “It seems the people do not want you to
give everything away that you own to these young warriors,
yet everything now belongs to them.”
The shaman turned to the young warriors and asked, “All the things
that once belonged to Running Through Forest now belong to you.
What will you do with them?”
Now the eyes of the elders were focused on the young warriors
as they decided to walk into the forest to talk about what to do.
Not one word was spoken among the people while the young
warriors were gone.
When they returned from the forest, the oldest took the talking
stick and began, “We do not want these things that belong to
Running Through Forest. But we do want to learn about our fathers,
and the ways of honor from the stories that Running Through Forest
could tell us.”
When they heard this the elders let out a sigh of relief because
they knew the young warriors were being tested by the shaman
and that the warriors were being honorable young men.
And so it was agreed by all the people that each warrior would
keep the things that once belonged to their fathers and Running
Through Forest would tell them the stories behind every gift.
Also the young warriors returned all the gifts that Running
Through Forest had received from his people.
All the young warriors knew they had just learned a great lesson.
They also knew that even though Running Through Forest did
not wear very many feathers he was truly a great warrior for
his people; a ‘humble warrior”.
http://www.motherbird.com/humble.html
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Monday, June 29, 2015
How To Overcome The Hegelian Dialectic
How To Overcome The Hegelian Dialectic
By Ethan ‘Indigo’ Smith
Waking Times.com
Monday, June 29, 2015
“Is the universe eternal? Or not? Or both? Or neither?
Is the universe finite? Or not? Or both? Or neither? Is
the self identical with the body? Or is the self different
from the body? Does the Tathagata* exist after death?
Or not? Or both? Or neither?”
~ The Fourteen Unanswered Questions of Buddha
* Tathagata is the name Buddha used for himself, meaning,
“the one who has thus come and the one who has thus gone”.
The theories of special relativity and general relativity,
as theorized by Albert Einstein, state in part that reality
is four dimensional, made up of time, length, width and
depth.
Also he states there are four forms of fundamental force
in the universe; weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force,
electromagnetism and gravity.
A fifth force is thought to exist and yet is undiscovered.
Four is representative of completion in numerous systems, from our
physical composition to the laws of the four dimensional universe
and its four forces.
Without the balance of these four forces, life as we know it would
not be possible.
The matrix of four is physically and naturally exemplified in our
inner microcosm and the celestial macrocosm, and is spiritually
and mentally recognized by many people’s throughout history,
across cultures and subjects.
The Imponderables
Our minds are wired to question, only frequently we ask limited questions.
Curiosity is a quality shared by all people, only many people are trained not to be curious.
We are capable of questioning everything in the four dimensions.
Some questions are of physics and nature while others are about
spiritual or mental applications.
There are a few questions which all people have all posed since
time immemorial.
Some of the same questions have been asked, like those posed to
and unanswered by Buddha, for millennia.
They reveal our nature to question everything, even and perhaps
especially the unanswerable.
Sometimes answers are found.
Einstein found many answers to his questions about the universe.
Normally when questions are answered though, new questions arise.
Some questions however are not worth asking and not worth
pursuing, like the fourteen unanswered questions of Buddha,
also known as the imponderables.
The Fourteen Questions are actually four questions,
three with four aspects and one with two.
Despite Buddha’s refusal to answer the questions, they were still
posed in the most developed manner possible in hopes of getting
an answer, in four ways to form completion.
Buddha believed people existed in either two states; in existence
or non-existence.
Many people visited him with questions and these were said to be
the only questions he did not answer.
It is believed he thought the imponderables could never truly
be answered and that they led to states of negativity and non-
existence, ultimately inconsequential to our earthly predicament
of eliminating suffering and attaining enlightenment.
Many questions are worth deliberation and elaboration because they are pertinent to our earthly predicament.
But at least these four questions, the imponderables,
are inconsequential.
Questions are posed completely in four ways, as illustrated
in the formation of the imponderables.
The formation of the questions are valuable on their own,
and indicative of the matrix of four and the duality of polarity.
Buddha is asked these four questions in the philosophical
formation of the duality of polarity, with four important
parts.
Is it so? Is it not so? Is it both? Is it neither?
The very inquiry into the origins of human thinking and being
is posed through the duality of polarity, and yet it’s most
often considered a singular polarity.
Why are we the way we are? Is it the result of nature or nurture?
The debate of nature versus nurture is posed in a single distinct polarization.
Yet the best answer supersedes the singular polarity.
Traditionally, it is philosophically viewed as a trinity of options, it being the synthesis of one and the other, of thesis and antithesis.
And yet this is actually the matrix of four and the duality of polarity with the fourth part missing.
It should be asked in the same philosophical formation as the imponderables, which despite Buddha’s refusal to answer, were still posed in the most developed manner possible, in hopes of an answer.
Is human thinking and being the result of nature? Or nurture?
Or both? Or neither?
This idea may be explored in multiple ways and has roots among many disciplines.
We question our thinking and seek evidence of an actual answer, however the pinnacle purpose of such debate is to understand the possibilities, the in-betweens, through the duality of polarity.
Whenever the either/or option is put forth, options are limited, for there are always four possible answers; one, the other, both and neither.
In the case of ‘nature versus nurture’, the most sensible answer
is both nature and nurture makes us who we are.
But perhaps it is neither, perhaps other systems rather than
biological or experiential are at play, like astrological systems
for instance.
Does art reflect life or does life reflect art?
This similarly philosophical question is aimed at its own answers, but yet is primarily based on understanding possibilities via the duality of polarity.
There are four basic forms of answers to this question and those like it, and yet in typical form, only two or three aspects are normally explored; ‘one, the other or the combination of both’, philosophically known as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
There are the obvious two answers posed, one contrasting
the other and a mixture is the third choice.
The distinct fourth option, which is seemingly always left out – possibly because of its ability to shake the status quo – is the unlimited alternative, the nullisis.
Does art reflect life or does life reflect art? Or both? Or neither?
The Nullisis
In the philosophical set of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, the ‘neither’ option is missing, the distinct possibility, the unlimited alternative.
The nullisis answer is outside the box, or outside the cave, of our thinking.
Nullisis can be compared to and understood through the four human blood types.
In every dialectical discussion there is thesis, antithesis, synthesis and nullisis or A, B, AB, and O.
Nullisis, ‘neither’, the unlimited alternative is complicated for it opens every dialectic to any alternative.
Consideration of alternatives is typically limited to ‘one, the other and the combination’, because the next option, ‘neither’, opens up the door to anything else.
And entities seeking to control societies, during every time period everywhere, prefer to eliminate the fourth option; it represents the unlimited alternative, while the either/or situation usually results in controllable back and forth combinations.
The origin of the celebrated triad of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, is often attributed to Georg Wilhelm Hegel, however he criticized what is now often called Hegelian Dialectic.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte actually formed the original presentation.
Hegel is known to have called the triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis ‘boring’ and a ‘lifeless schema.’
Without nullisis, ‘neither’, the unlimited alternative, the commonly referenced philosophical triad is a lifeless schema, for if one combines a wrong answer with the right answer, a half correct solution might result.
Hegel did use and note a similar extrapolation of three; immediate, mediated and concrete.
Critics note this trinity to be limited by way of assumptions and errors, and in what is assumed to be concrete.
Without nullisis or new information, one could possibly begin with information which is then countered by disinformation and ends up misinformation.
Nullisis is needed.
Nullisis is the distinct and developed fourth philosophical part which today often goes unconsidered.
The Mathematics Of The Nullisis
If mathematics can be considered beautiful, nullisis can be beautifully illustrated through the most mysterious and elusive of all arithmetic equations, an imponderable of sorts.
It is represented in one of the most mysterious equations of the most complicated of all numbers; zero.
In fact there is no zero.
Zero can never be physically represented and in the entire universe there is not one.
Even in nothingness there is something.
And through its cancellation is its verification; there are in fact zero zeros.
Zero represents uncertainty, uncertainty similar to that of the unlimited alternative.
Mathematics seeks clear answers, and there are clear answers in practically all arithmetic.
But there is only one arithmetic equation that represents uncertainty and unlimited possibility, the nullisis.
0 + 0 = 0
0 – 0 = 0
0 x 0 = 0
But the answer to 0 divided by 0 is unlimited possibility, an undefined unknown.
0 à· 0 = ?
The answer to zero divided by zero is reflective of the nullisis.
It is the only simple arithmetic equation to which the answer is unknown.
A valid answer to this equation could be anything from zero to infinity, just like the nullisis, the unlimited alternative.
It is notable that in arithmetic, division is the distinct operation.
It represents sharing for one, and not necessarily what has come to be known as divisiveness.
Applying The Matrix Of Four
The most sensible answers to both the debate of ‘nature versus nurture’ and the question of ‘art reflecting life or life reflecting art’ is synthesis, or ‘both’.
It is a combination of nature and nurture that makes us who we are.
It is a balance of influences in art and life which influence one another.
Art contains a spark of life, while life is artful.
Nature and nurture, art and life, are inseparable; like a swirling
Yin Yang, contrasting syntheses.
Both contain interrelated and interdependent contrasts.
Synthesis is the answer to these two questions, and to many questions.
But sometimes the answer to questions and dialectics are in the nullisis.
Otherwise systems would be lifeless schemas, without alternative, development or invention.
Socially and politically speaking, when an either/or question is presented, one must always take into account the four possibilities of thesis, antithesis, synthesis and nullisis.
Question the validity of the thesis.
Question what is being heralded as an antithesis and if it is truly anti at all.
Equally question how the thesis and antithesis are being presented as synthesized, for frequently the synthesis is not a true mix but a mere adjustment, a euphemism or exaggeration aimed at steering perspective.
And especially question the aspect of nullisis, for it not only means ‘neither’, it is the unlimited alternative.
The dialectic of large scale energy sources is currently typically limited to either the burning of fossil fuels or the ignition of nuclear fuels and both.
Examples within the nullisis in this dialectic is solar power or wind and water power generation, harnessing geothermal energy (Japan is one of the most active geothermal places on the planet and now the most ruined from nuclear experimentation) ocean current/tidal energy.
The alternatives are unlimited, however petrol and nuclear maintain thee societal status quo.
There is always more than one, its counter and the combination
of the two; there is always nullisis, the unlimited alternative.
Nullisis is the enigma wrapped in the riddle of the matrix of four and the philosophy of the duality of polarity.
Embrace the consideration of nullisis.
Apply the matrix of four.
The examination of situations through the contemplation of thesis, antithesis, synthesis and nullisis will open minds around you, and your own.
Activist, author and Tai Chi teacher, Ethan Indigo Smith was born on a farm in Maine and lived in Manhattan for a number of years before migrating west to Mendocino, California. Guided by a keen sense of integrity and humanity, Ethan’s work is both deeply connected and extremely insightful, blending philosophy, politics, activism, spirituality, and meditation.
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/06/25/how-to-overcome-the-hegelian-dialectic
By Ethan ‘Indigo’ Smith
Waking Times.com
Monday, June 29, 2015
“Is the universe eternal? Or not? Or both? Or neither?
Is the universe finite? Or not? Or both? Or neither? Is
the self identical with the body? Or is the self different
from the body? Does the Tathagata* exist after death?
Or not? Or both? Or neither?”
~ The Fourteen Unanswered Questions of Buddha
* Tathagata is the name Buddha used for himself, meaning,
“the one who has thus come and the one who has thus gone”.
The theories of special relativity and general relativity,
as theorized by Albert Einstein, state in part that reality
is four dimensional, made up of time, length, width and
depth.
Also he states there are four forms of fundamental force
in the universe; weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force,
electromagnetism and gravity.
A fifth force is thought to exist and yet is undiscovered.
Four is representative of completion in numerous systems, from our
physical composition to the laws of the four dimensional universe
and its four forces.
Without the balance of these four forces, life as we know it would
not be possible.
The matrix of four is physically and naturally exemplified in our
inner microcosm and the celestial macrocosm, and is spiritually
and mentally recognized by many people’s throughout history,
across cultures and subjects.
The Imponderables
Our minds are wired to question, only frequently we ask limited questions.
Curiosity is a quality shared by all people, only many people are trained not to be curious.
We are capable of questioning everything in the four dimensions.
Some questions are of physics and nature while others are about
spiritual or mental applications.
There are a few questions which all people have all posed since
time immemorial.
Some of the same questions have been asked, like those posed to
and unanswered by Buddha, for millennia.
They reveal our nature to question everything, even and perhaps
especially the unanswerable.
Sometimes answers are found.
Einstein found many answers to his questions about the universe.
Normally when questions are answered though, new questions arise.
Some questions however are not worth asking and not worth
pursuing, like the fourteen unanswered questions of Buddha,
also known as the imponderables.
The Fourteen Questions are actually four questions,
three with four aspects and one with two.
Despite Buddha’s refusal to answer the questions, they were still
posed in the most developed manner possible in hopes of getting
an answer, in four ways to form completion.
Buddha believed people existed in either two states; in existence
or non-existence.
Many people visited him with questions and these were said to be
the only questions he did not answer.
It is believed he thought the imponderables could never truly
be answered and that they led to states of negativity and non-
existence, ultimately inconsequential to our earthly predicament
of eliminating suffering and attaining enlightenment.
Many questions are worth deliberation and elaboration because they are pertinent to our earthly predicament.
But at least these four questions, the imponderables,
are inconsequential.
Questions are posed completely in four ways, as illustrated
in the formation of the imponderables.
The formation of the questions are valuable on their own,
and indicative of the matrix of four and the duality of polarity.
Buddha is asked these four questions in the philosophical
formation of the duality of polarity, with four important
parts.
Is it so? Is it not so? Is it both? Is it neither?
The very inquiry into the origins of human thinking and being
is posed through the duality of polarity, and yet it’s most
often considered a singular polarity.
Why are we the way we are? Is it the result of nature or nurture?
The debate of nature versus nurture is posed in a single distinct polarization.
Yet the best answer supersedes the singular polarity.
Traditionally, it is philosophically viewed as a trinity of options, it being the synthesis of one and the other, of thesis and antithesis.
And yet this is actually the matrix of four and the duality of polarity with the fourth part missing.
It should be asked in the same philosophical formation as the imponderables, which despite Buddha’s refusal to answer, were still posed in the most developed manner possible, in hopes of an answer.
Is human thinking and being the result of nature? Or nurture?
Or both? Or neither?
This idea may be explored in multiple ways and has roots among many disciplines.
We question our thinking and seek evidence of an actual answer, however the pinnacle purpose of such debate is to understand the possibilities, the in-betweens, through the duality of polarity.
Whenever the either/or option is put forth, options are limited, for there are always four possible answers; one, the other, both and neither.
In the case of ‘nature versus nurture’, the most sensible answer
is both nature and nurture makes us who we are.
But perhaps it is neither, perhaps other systems rather than
biological or experiential are at play, like astrological systems
for instance.
Does art reflect life or does life reflect art?
This similarly philosophical question is aimed at its own answers, but yet is primarily based on understanding possibilities via the duality of polarity.
There are four basic forms of answers to this question and those like it, and yet in typical form, only two or three aspects are normally explored; ‘one, the other or the combination of both’, philosophically known as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
There are the obvious two answers posed, one contrasting
the other and a mixture is the third choice.
The distinct fourth option, which is seemingly always left out – possibly because of its ability to shake the status quo – is the unlimited alternative, the nullisis.
Does art reflect life or does life reflect art? Or both? Or neither?
The Nullisis
In the philosophical set of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, the ‘neither’ option is missing, the distinct possibility, the unlimited alternative.
The nullisis answer is outside the box, or outside the cave, of our thinking.
Nullisis can be compared to and understood through the four human blood types.
In every dialectical discussion there is thesis, antithesis, synthesis and nullisis or A, B, AB, and O.
Nullisis, ‘neither’, the unlimited alternative is complicated for it opens every dialectic to any alternative.
Consideration of alternatives is typically limited to ‘one, the other and the combination’, because the next option, ‘neither’, opens up the door to anything else.
And entities seeking to control societies, during every time period everywhere, prefer to eliminate the fourth option; it represents the unlimited alternative, while the either/or situation usually results in controllable back and forth combinations.
The origin of the celebrated triad of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, is often attributed to Georg Wilhelm Hegel, however he criticized what is now often called Hegelian Dialectic.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte actually formed the original presentation.
Hegel is known to have called the triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis ‘boring’ and a ‘lifeless schema.’
Without nullisis, ‘neither’, the unlimited alternative, the commonly referenced philosophical triad is a lifeless schema, for if one combines a wrong answer with the right answer, a half correct solution might result.
Hegel did use and note a similar extrapolation of three; immediate, mediated and concrete.
Critics note this trinity to be limited by way of assumptions and errors, and in what is assumed to be concrete.
Without nullisis or new information, one could possibly begin with information which is then countered by disinformation and ends up misinformation.
Nullisis is needed.
Nullisis is the distinct and developed fourth philosophical part which today often goes unconsidered.
The Mathematics Of The Nullisis
If mathematics can be considered beautiful, nullisis can be beautifully illustrated through the most mysterious and elusive of all arithmetic equations, an imponderable of sorts.
It is represented in one of the most mysterious equations of the most complicated of all numbers; zero.
In fact there is no zero.
Zero can never be physically represented and in the entire universe there is not one.
Even in nothingness there is something.
And through its cancellation is its verification; there are in fact zero zeros.
Zero represents uncertainty, uncertainty similar to that of the unlimited alternative.
Mathematics seeks clear answers, and there are clear answers in practically all arithmetic.
But there is only one arithmetic equation that represents uncertainty and unlimited possibility, the nullisis.
0 + 0 = 0
0 – 0 = 0
0 x 0 = 0
But the answer to 0 divided by 0 is unlimited possibility, an undefined unknown.
0 à· 0 = ?
The answer to zero divided by zero is reflective of the nullisis.
It is the only simple arithmetic equation to which the answer is unknown.
A valid answer to this equation could be anything from zero to infinity, just like the nullisis, the unlimited alternative.
It is notable that in arithmetic, division is the distinct operation.
It represents sharing for one, and not necessarily what has come to be known as divisiveness.
Applying The Matrix Of Four
The most sensible answers to both the debate of ‘nature versus nurture’ and the question of ‘art reflecting life or life reflecting art’ is synthesis, or ‘both’.
It is a combination of nature and nurture that makes us who we are.
It is a balance of influences in art and life which influence one another.
Art contains a spark of life, while life is artful.
Nature and nurture, art and life, are inseparable; like a swirling
Yin Yang, contrasting syntheses.
Both contain interrelated and interdependent contrasts.
Synthesis is the answer to these two questions, and to many questions.
But sometimes the answer to questions and dialectics are in the nullisis.
Otherwise systems would be lifeless schemas, without alternative, development or invention.
Socially and politically speaking, when an either/or question is presented, one must always take into account the four possibilities of thesis, antithesis, synthesis and nullisis.
Question the validity of the thesis.
Question what is being heralded as an antithesis and if it is truly anti at all.
Equally question how the thesis and antithesis are being presented as synthesized, for frequently the synthesis is not a true mix but a mere adjustment, a euphemism or exaggeration aimed at steering perspective.
And especially question the aspect of nullisis, for it not only means ‘neither’, it is the unlimited alternative.
The dialectic of large scale energy sources is currently typically limited to either the burning of fossil fuels or the ignition of nuclear fuels and both.
Examples within the nullisis in this dialectic is solar power or wind and water power generation, harnessing geothermal energy (Japan is one of the most active geothermal places on the planet and now the most ruined from nuclear experimentation) ocean current/tidal energy.
The alternatives are unlimited, however petrol and nuclear maintain thee societal status quo.
There is always more than one, its counter and the combination
of the two; there is always nullisis, the unlimited alternative.
Nullisis is the enigma wrapped in the riddle of the matrix of four and the philosophy of the duality of polarity.
Embrace the consideration of nullisis.
Apply the matrix of four.
The examination of situations through the contemplation of thesis, antithesis, synthesis and nullisis will open minds around you, and your own.
Activist, author and Tai Chi teacher, Ethan Indigo Smith was born on a farm in Maine and lived in Manhattan for a number of years before migrating west to Mendocino, California. Guided by a keen sense of integrity and humanity, Ethan’s work is both deeply connected and extremely insightful, blending philosophy, politics, activism, spirituality, and meditation.
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/06/25/how-to-overcome-the-hegelian-dialectic
Sunday, June 28, 2015
White Fragility
White Fragility
By Tim Wise
Via - Curtis Buckanaga
Sunday, June 28, 2015
For those people who have always wanted to know -- and it's a
reasonable question -- why people with privilege (be it based
on race, class, sex, sexuality, gender identity, religion or any
other category) would ever want to give up that privilege, let
today be a lesson.
Today what have we seen?
We have seen people who were led to believe all of their lives
that they were special, superior, and more worthy of certain
rights and opportunities (and who were treated that way by law)
descend into an absolute existential crisis at the realization that
they are going to just have to exist as equals, and that their
days of hegemonic status are coming to an end, however slowly,
and however much farther we have to go.
That is the irony of privilege, and its downside: even as it provides
immense advantages, it creates and sustains an unrealistic kind of
narcissism, a sense of expectation and entitlement, which, when it
finally meets reality (or a more humane interpretation of the
Constitution), or changing demographics, is threatened beyond
belief.
This is part of what I think Robin DiAngelo was getting at with
her "White Fragility" Thesis, and it applies to men, straight
and cisgendered folks, the wealthy, Christians etc., equally
well.
When you're the dominant "norm" for so long, you become weak and
fragile and unable to deal with change, with setback, with anything
that challenges your sense of specialness...how incredibly ironic
and pathetic.
Had we in those dominant groups been required to accept
equity, democracy and pluralism from the jump, maybe
we'd be emotionally healthier...
- Tim Wise
By Tim Wise
Via - Curtis Buckanaga
Sunday, June 28, 2015
For those people who have always wanted to know -- and it's a
reasonable question -- why people with privilege (be it based
on race, class, sex, sexuality, gender identity, religion or any
other category) would ever want to give up that privilege, let
today be a lesson.
Today what have we seen?
We have seen people who were led to believe all of their lives
that they were special, superior, and more worthy of certain
rights and opportunities (and who were treated that way by law)
descend into an absolute existential crisis at the realization that
they are going to just have to exist as equals, and that their
days of hegemonic status are coming to an end, however slowly,
and however much farther we have to go.
That is the irony of privilege, and its downside: even as it provides
immense advantages, it creates and sustains an unrealistic kind of
narcissism, a sense of expectation and entitlement, which, when it
finally meets reality (or a more humane interpretation of the
Constitution), or changing demographics, is threatened beyond
belief.
This is part of what I think Robin DiAngelo was getting at with
her "White Fragility" Thesis, and it applies to men, straight
and cisgendered folks, the wealthy, Christians etc., equally
well.
When you're the dominant "norm" for so long, you become weak and
fragile and unable to deal with change, with setback, with anything
that challenges your sense of specialness...how incredibly ironic
and pathetic.
Had we in those dominant groups been required to accept
equity, democracy and pluralism from the jump, maybe
we'd be emotionally healthier...
- Tim Wise
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Marriage Equality
Marriage Equality
By U.S. Rep. Justin Amash
Saturday, June 27, 2015
On June 26, 2015 the Supreme Court of the United States of
America ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that the Constitution guarantees
a right to, "Same-Sex Marriage" and below, is Third District of
Michigan U.S.Representative Justin Amash's written response
in regards to this particular and historic ruling and even though
I am not personally gay, I fully support this ruling by the U.S.
Supreme Court and I also fully agree, and fully share in, U.S.
Representative Justin Amash's thoughts, and words, below:
Throughout history, different cultures have defined marriage
according to their own customs and practices.
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics,
and atheists do not share identical views on marriage.
In fact, significant differences regarding marriage exist
even within Christianity.
What makes marriage traditional is not its adherence to a universal
definition but rather that it is defined by personal faith, not by
government.
For thousands of years, marriage flourished without a universal
definition and without government intervention.
Then came licensing of marriage.
In recent decades, we've seen state legislatures and ballot
initiatives define marriage, putting government improperly
at the helm of this sacred institution.
Those who care about liberty should not be satisfied
with the current situation.
Government intervention in marriage presents new threats
to religious freedom and provides no advantages, for gay or
straight couples, over unlicensed (i.e., traditional) marriage.
But we shouldn't blame the Supreme Court for where things
stand.
To the extent that Americans across the political spectrum view
government marriage as authoritative and unlicensed marriage
as quaint, our laws must treat marriage—and the corresponding
legal benefits that attach—as they would any other government
institution.
So, while today's Supreme Court opinion rests upon the false
premise that government licensure is necessary to validate the
intimate relationships of consenting adults, I applaud the
important principle enshrined in this opinion: that government
may not violate the equal rights of individuals in any area in
which it asserts authority.
U.S. Rep. Justin Amash • Third District of Michigan
By U.S. Rep. Justin Amash
Saturday, June 27, 2015
On June 26, 2015 the Supreme Court of the United States of
America ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that the Constitution guarantees
a right to, "Same-Sex Marriage" and below, is Third District of
Michigan U.S.Representative Justin Amash's written response
in regards to this particular and historic ruling and even though
I am not personally gay, I fully support this ruling by the U.S.
Supreme Court and I also fully agree, and fully share in, U.S.
Representative Justin Amash's thoughts, and words, below:
Throughout history, different cultures have defined marriage
according to their own customs and practices.
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics,
and atheists do not share identical views on marriage.
In fact, significant differences regarding marriage exist
even within Christianity.
What makes marriage traditional is not its adherence to a universal
definition but rather that it is defined by personal faith, not by
government.
For thousands of years, marriage flourished without a universal
definition and without government intervention.
Then came licensing of marriage.
In recent decades, we've seen state legislatures and ballot
initiatives define marriage, putting government improperly
at the helm of this sacred institution.
Those who care about liberty should not be satisfied
with the current situation.
Government intervention in marriage presents new threats
to religious freedom and provides no advantages, for gay or
straight couples, over unlicensed (i.e., traditional) marriage.
But we shouldn't blame the Supreme Court for where things
stand.
To the extent that Americans across the political spectrum view
government marriage as authoritative and unlicensed marriage
as quaint, our laws must treat marriage—and the corresponding
legal benefits that attach—as they would any other government
institution.
So, while today's Supreme Court opinion rests upon the false
premise that government licensure is necessary to validate the
intimate relationships of consenting adults, I applaud the
important principle enshrined in this opinion: that government
may not violate the equal rights of individuals in any area in
which it asserts authority.
U.S. Rep. Justin Amash • Third District of Michigan
Friday, June 26, 2015
A Brief History of False Flag Terror
A Brief History of False Flag Terror
By James Corbett
Waking Times
June 26, 2015
In naval warfare, a “false flag” refers to an attack where a vessel
flies a flag other than their true battle flag before engaging their
enemy.
It is a trick, designed to deceive the enemy about the true nature
and origin of an attack.
In the democratic era, where governments require at least a
plausible pretext before sending their nation to war, it has
been adapted as a psychological warfare tactic to deceive a
government’s own population into believing that an enemy
nation has attacked them.
In the 1780s, Swedish King Gustav III was looking for a way to unite
an increasingly divided nation and raise his own falling political
fortunes.
Deciding that a war with Russia would be a sufficient distraction
but lacking the political authority to send the nation to war
unilaterally, he arranged for the head tailor of the Swedish Opera
House to sew some Russian military uniforms.
Swedish troops were then dressed in the uniforms and sent to
attack Sweden’s own Finnish border post along the Russian border.
The citizens in Stockholm, believing it to be a genuine Russian
attack, were suitably outraged, and the Swedish-Russian War
of 1788-1790 began.
In 1931 the Japan was looking for a pretext to invade Manchuria.
On September 18th of that year, a Lieutenant in the Imperial
Japanese Army detonated a small amount of TNT along a Japanese-
owned railway in the Manchurian city of Mukden.
The act was blamed on Chinese dissidents and used to justify
the occupation of Manchuria just six months later.
When the deception was later exposed, Japan was diplomatically
shunned and forced to withdraw from the League of Nations.
In 1939 Heinrich Himmler masterminded a plan to convince the
public that Germany was the victim of Polish aggression in order
to justify the invasion of Poland.
It culminated in an attack on Sender Gleiwitz, a German radio
station near the Polish border, by Polish prisoners who were dressed
up in Polish military uniforms, shot dead, and left at the station.
The Germans then broadcast an anti-German message in Polish
from the station, pretended that it had come from a Polish military
unit that had attacked Sender Gleiwitz, and presented the dead
bodies as evidence of the attack.
Hitler invaded Poland immediately thereafter,
starting World War II.
In 1954 the Israelis hired a number of Egyptian Jews to plant bombs
in American and British cinemas, libraries, and other civilian targets
to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood or other malcontents.
The plan, known as the Lavon Affair, was part of an effort
to convince the British to retain their military presence in
the occupied Suez Canal zone.
Several bombings took place, but the British were ultimately
forced out after Nasser nationalized the canal in 1956.
In 1962 the US Joint Chiefs of Staff authored a document called Operation Northwoods calling for the US government to stage a series of fake attacks, including the shooting down of military or civilian US aircraft, the destruction of a US ship, sniper attacks in Washington, and other atrocities, to blame on the Cubans as an excuse for launching an invasion.
President Kennedy refused to sign off on the plan and was
killed in Dallas the next year.
In August 1964 the USS Maddox, a US destroyer on patrol in the
Gulf of Tonkin, believed it had come under attack from North
Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats, engaging in evasive action and returning fire.
The incident led to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing President Johnson to begin open warfare in Vietnam.
It was later admitted that no attack had occurred, and in 2005 it was revealed that the NSA had manipulated their information to make it look like an attack had taken place.
In June 1967 the Israelis attacked the USS Liberty, a US Navy technical research ship, off the coast of Egypt.
The ship was strafed relentlessly for hours in an apparent attempt to blame the attack on Egypt and draw the Americans into the Six Day War, but amazingly the crew managed to keep it afloat.
In 2007 newly released NSA intercepts confirmed that the Israelis
knew they were attacking an American ship, not an Egyptian ship
as their cover story has maintained.
In the fall of 1999, a wave of bloody apartment bombings swept through Russian cities, killing 293 people and causing widespread panic.
Although blamed on the Chechen terrorists that the Russians were fighting in the Second Chechen War, FSB agents were caught planting the exact same type of bombs as in the other blasts later that month.
The government claimed that the bomb was part of a security exercise and Vladimir Putin came to power as the next Russian President on the back of the terror wave later that year.
In 2001, attacks in New York and Washington are blamed
on Al Qaeda as a pretext for invading Afghanistan.
In the months leading up to the event, American negotiators had warned Afghanistan’s Taliban that they were interested in securing right of way for proposed pipeline projects, and the US would achieve this with either a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs.
The Bush administration’s first major national security directive, NSPD-9, a full-scale battle plan for the invasion of Afghanistan, including command and control, air and ground forces, and logistics, was drafted and sitting on the President’s desk to be signed off on September 4, 2001, seven days before the 9/11 attacks.
The invasion proceeded as planned in October.
These are but a few of the hundreds of such incidents that have been staged over the centuries to blame political enemies for attacks that they did not commit.
The tactic remains in common use today, and will continue to be employed as long as populations still blindly believe whatever their governments tell them about the origins of spectacular terror incidents.
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/06/23/a-brief-history-of-false-flag-terror
By James Corbett
Waking Times
June 26, 2015
In naval warfare, a “false flag” refers to an attack where a vessel
flies a flag other than their true battle flag before engaging their
enemy.
It is a trick, designed to deceive the enemy about the true nature
and origin of an attack.
In the democratic era, where governments require at least a
plausible pretext before sending their nation to war, it has
been adapted as a psychological warfare tactic to deceive a
government’s own population into believing that an enemy
nation has attacked them.
In the 1780s, Swedish King Gustav III was looking for a way to unite
an increasingly divided nation and raise his own falling political
fortunes.
Deciding that a war with Russia would be a sufficient distraction
but lacking the political authority to send the nation to war
unilaterally, he arranged for the head tailor of the Swedish Opera
House to sew some Russian military uniforms.
Swedish troops were then dressed in the uniforms and sent to
attack Sweden’s own Finnish border post along the Russian border.
The citizens in Stockholm, believing it to be a genuine Russian
attack, were suitably outraged, and the Swedish-Russian War
of 1788-1790 began.
In 1931 the Japan was looking for a pretext to invade Manchuria.
On September 18th of that year, a Lieutenant in the Imperial
Japanese Army detonated a small amount of TNT along a Japanese-
owned railway in the Manchurian city of Mukden.
The act was blamed on Chinese dissidents and used to justify
the occupation of Manchuria just six months later.
When the deception was later exposed, Japan was diplomatically
shunned and forced to withdraw from the League of Nations.
In 1939 Heinrich Himmler masterminded a plan to convince the
public that Germany was the victim of Polish aggression in order
to justify the invasion of Poland.
It culminated in an attack on Sender Gleiwitz, a German radio
station near the Polish border, by Polish prisoners who were dressed
up in Polish military uniforms, shot dead, and left at the station.
The Germans then broadcast an anti-German message in Polish
from the station, pretended that it had come from a Polish military
unit that had attacked Sender Gleiwitz, and presented the dead
bodies as evidence of the attack.
Hitler invaded Poland immediately thereafter,
starting World War II.
In 1954 the Israelis hired a number of Egyptian Jews to plant bombs
in American and British cinemas, libraries, and other civilian targets
to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood or other malcontents.
The plan, known as the Lavon Affair, was part of an effort
to convince the British to retain their military presence in
the occupied Suez Canal zone.
Several bombings took place, but the British were ultimately
forced out after Nasser nationalized the canal in 1956.
In 1962 the US Joint Chiefs of Staff authored a document called Operation Northwoods calling for the US government to stage a series of fake attacks, including the shooting down of military or civilian US aircraft, the destruction of a US ship, sniper attacks in Washington, and other atrocities, to blame on the Cubans as an excuse for launching an invasion.
President Kennedy refused to sign off on the plan and was
killed in Dallas the next year.
In August 1964 the USS Maddox, a US destroyer on patrol in the
Gulf of Tonkin, believed it had come under attack from North
Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats, engaging in evasive action and returning fire.
The incident led to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing President Johnson to begin open warfare in Vietnam.
It was later admitted that no attack had occurred, and in 2005 it was revealed that the NSA had manipulated their information to make it look like an attack had taken place.
In June 1967 the Israelis attacked the USS Liberty, a US Navy technical research ship, off the coast of Egypt.
The ship was strafed relentlessly for hours in an apparent attempt to blame the attack on Egypt and draw the Americans into the Six Day War, but amazingly the crew managed to keep it afloat.
In 2007 newly released NSA intercepts confirmed that the Israelis
knew they were attacking an American ship, not an Egyptian ship
as their cover story has maintained.
In the fall of 1999, a wave of bloody apartment bombings swept through Russian cities, killing 293 people and causing widespread panic.
Although blamed on the Chechen terrorists that the Russians were fighting in the Second Chechen War, FSB agents were caught planting the exact same type of bombs as in the other blasts later that month.
The government claimed that the bomb was part of a security exercise and Vladimir Putin came to power as the next Russian President on the back of the terror wave later that year.
In 2001, attacks in New York and Washington are blamed
on Al Qaeda as a pretext for invading Afghanistan.
In the months leading up to the event, American negotiators had warned Afghanistan’s Taliban that they were interested in securing right of way for proposed pipeline projects, and the US would achieve this with either a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs.
The Bush administration’s first major national security directive, NSPD-9, a full-scale battle plan for the invasion of Afghanistan, including command and control, air and ground forces, and logistics, was drafted and sitting on the President’s desk to be signed off on September 4, 2001, seven days before the 9/11 attacks.
The invasion proceeded as planned in October.
These are but a few of the hundreds of such incidents that have been staged over the centuries to blame political enemies for attacks that they did not commit.
The tactic remains in common use today, and will continue to be employed as long as populations still blindly believe whatever their governments tell them about the origins of spectacular terror incidents.
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/06/23/a-brief-history-of-false-flag-terror
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Facing America’s Great Evils
Facing America’s Great Evils
By Robert Parry
Consortiumnews.com
June 24, 2015
The latest gun massacre – this time at a historic black church in
Charleston, South Carolina and apparently driven by racial hatred
reminds Americans how we all live at the forbearance of the next
nut with easy access to weapons that can efficiently kill us, our
neighbors or our children.
Yet, we remain politically powerless to take even the smallest
step to stop this madness.
We also remain in political denial about one of America’s original
sins, the cruel enslavement of blacks for the first quarter
millennium of white settlement of this continent, followed by
another century of brutal racial segregation, the residues of which
we refuse to scrub from the corners of our national behavior –
fearing that doing so will get some pro-Confederate white people
mad.
In Arlington, Virginia, where I live, the political leadership can’t
even find the will or courage to remove the name of Confederate
President Jefferson Davis from state roads that skirt Arlington
Cemetery, which was founded to bury Union soldiers, and that pass
near historic black neighborhoods in South Arlington, sending them
an enduring message of who’s boss.
Davis’s name was added to Southern sections of Route 1 in 1920
at the height of the Ku Klux Klan’s power and amid an upsurge
in lynchings – and to Route 110 near the Pentagon in 1964 as a
counterpoint to the Civil Rights Act.
Besides leading the secessionist slave states in rebellion, Davis
signed an order authorizing the execution of captured black soldiers
fighting for the Union, a practice that was employed in several
battles near the end of the Civil War.
Some of the victims of Davis’s order were even trained at Camp
Casey in what is now Arlington County before those U.S. Colored
Troops marched south to engage General Robert E. Lee’s army
around the Confederate capital of Richmond.
I’ve often wondered what message Arlington County and
the state of Virginia think they’re sending by honoring Davis.
Are they saying that it’s all right to murder and subjugate
black people?
The Charleston Murders
Of course, South Carolina, the heart of the South’s slave system and
the instigator of the war to defend slavery, has its own messages
conveyed to its youth, including its proud display of the
Confederate battle flag and its endless promotion of “the boys in
gray,” including dressing up tour guides in Confederate uniforms for
visitors to Charleston.
Some of those messages appear to have sunk in for Dylann Roof,
a 21-year-old white supremacist who is charged with entering a
Bible study class at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church
on Wednesday night, sitting with the black parishioners for an
hour and then executing nine of them with a .45-caliber pistol
before uttering a racial epithet as he left.
The New York Times reported that, according to friends, Roof
“voiced virulently racist views and had talked recently about
starting a new civil war — even about shooting black people.
Photographs of him wearing patches with the flags of the former
white supremacist governments of South Africa and Rhodesia,
and leaning against a car with Confederate States of America
on its license plate, drew millions of views online.”
Yet, besides the usual handwringing that follows one of these
gun tragedies, there is little sign that anything of substance
will change, either in making firearms less promiscuously
available to pretty much anyone who wants them or in
addressing the legacy of slavery, the ensuing century of
terror that enforced racial segregation, or the more recent
experience of police violence directed disproportionately at
African-Americans.
What Came Be Done?
While the idea of reparations for slavery sends many American
whites through the roof in fury, there are substantive actions that
government and private industry could undertake, including major
investments in the infrastructure of predominantly black or brown
communities, to make these neighborhoods more inviting areas to
live and invest.
Instead, the opposite generally occurs.
Though the current Tea Party dominance of the Republican
Party makes any government spending on anything – including
maintenance of existing transportation services – almost impossible,
what spending that does get approved goes mostly to white areas,
using public funds to widen, not narrow, economic disparities.
In Arlington County, for instance, billions of dollars in public
money have been invested in two underground Metro lines
(Orange and Silver) through overwhelmingly white North
Arlington, while a far more modest above-ground Streetcar
for racially diverse South Arlington was terminated by large
majorities of voters in North Arlington.
The racial mix of Arlington’s schools have also shifted back toward
the days of segregation with some North Arlington schools nearly all
white – and the County lacking the political will to reverse these
trends.
It’s true that the problems of a wealthy county like Arlington
representing the original land of the 100-square-mile District
of Columbia that spilled over the Potomac River and was later
ceded back to Virginia – pale by comparison to conditions in
other urban areas, such as Baltimore or Charleston where racial
and police violence has recently flared.
But the point is that racial and ethnic discrimination remains
part of the American way, in big ways and small.
For that to change, there would have to be a transformation
of the American spirit, a recognition that past injustices must
not be forgotten or even just lamented but rather must become
an inspiration for remedial action.
Then, these disgraceful gun tragedies and our long history of
racial violence would not just be a source of frustration and
a sign of impotence, but a motivation for a national rebirth
that addresses past wrongs and lifts up the nation as a whole.
Robert Parry is a Investigative Reporter and he broke many of
the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek
in the 1980s.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/20/facing-americas-great-
evils
By Robert Parry
Consortiumnews.com
June 24, 2015
The latest gun massacre – this time at a historic black church in
Charleston, South Carolina and apparently driven by racial hatred
reminds Americans how we all live at the forbearance of the next
nut with easy access to weapons that can efficiently kill us, our
neighbors or our children.
Yet, we remain politically powerless to take even the smallest
step to stop this madness.
We also remain in political denial about one of America’s original
sins, the cruel enslavement of blacks for the first quarter
millennium of white settlement of this continent, followed by
another century of brutal racial segregation, the residues of which
we refuse to scrub from the corners of our national behavior –
fearing that doing so will get some pro-Confederate white people
mad.
In Arlington, Virginia, where I live, the political leadership can’t
even find the will or courage to remove the name of Confederate
President Jefferson Davis from state roads that skirt Arlington
Cemetery, which was founded to bury Union soldiers, and that pass
near historic black neighborhoods in South Arlington, sending them
an enduring message of who’s boss.
Davis’s name was added to Southern sections of Route 1 in 1920
at the height of the Ku Klux Klan’s power and amid an upsurge
in lynchings – and to Route 110 near the Pentagon in 1964 as a
counterpoint to the Civil Rights Act.
Besides leading the secessionist slave states in rebellion, Davis
signed an order authorizing the execution of captured black soldiers
fighting for the Union, a practice that was employed in several
battles near the end of the Civil War.
Some of the victims of Davis’s order were even trained at Camp
Casey in what is now Arlington County before those U.S. Colored
Troops marched south to engage General Robert E. Lee’s army
around the Confederate capital of Richmond.
I’ve often wondered what message Arlington County and
the state of Virginia think they’re sending by honoring Davis.
Are they saying that it’s all right to murder and subjugate
black people?
The Charleston Murders
Of course, South Carolina, the heart of the South’s slave system and
the instigator of the war to defend slavery, has its own messages
conveyed to its youth, including its proud display of the
Confederate battle flag and its endless promotion of “the boys in
gray,” including dressing up tour guides in Confederate uniforms for
visitors to Charleston.
Some of those messages appear to have sunk in for Dylann Roof,
a 21-year-old white supremacist who is charged with entering a
Bible study class at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church
on Wednesday night, sitting with the black parishioners for an
hour and then executing nine of them with a .45-caliber pistol
before uttering a racial epithet as he left.
The New York Times reported that, according to friends, Roof
“voiced virulently racist views and had talked recently about
starting a new civil war — even about shooting black people.
Photographs of him wearing patches with the flags of the former
white supremacist governments of South Africa and Rhodesia,
and leaning against a car with Confederate States of America
on its license plate, drew millions of views online.”
Yet, besides the usual handwringing that follows one of these
gun tragedies, there is little sign that anything of substance
will change, either in making firearms less promiscuously
available to pretty much anyone who wants them or in
addressing the legacy of slavery, the ensuing century of
terror that enforced racial segregation, or the more recent
experience of police violence directed disproportionately at
African-Americans.
What Came Be Done?
While the idea of reparations for slavery sends many American
whites through the roof in fury, there are substantive actions that
government and private industry could undertake, including major
investments in the infrastructure of predominantly black or brown
communities, to make these neighborhoods more inviting areas to
live and invest.
Instead, the opposite generally occurs.
Though the current Tea Party dominance of the Republican
Party makes any government spending on anything – including
maintenance of existing transportation services – almost impossible,
what spending that does get approved goes mostly to white areas,
using public funds to widen, not narrow, economic disparities.
In Arlington County, for instance, billions of dollars in public
money have been invested in two underground Metro lines
(Orange and Silver) through overwhelmingly white North
Arlington, while a far more modest above-ground Streetcar
for racially diverse South Arlington was terminated by large
majorities of voters in North Arlington.
The racial mix of Arlington’s schools have also shifted back toward
the days of segregation with some North Arlington schools nearly all
white – and the County lacking the political will to reverse these
trends.
It’s true that the problems of a wealthy county like Arlington
representing the original land of the 100-square-mile District
of Columbia that spilled over the Potomac River and was later
ceded back to Virginia – pale by comparison to conditions in
other urban areas, such as Baltimore or Charleston where racial
and police violence has recently flared.
But the point is that racial and ethnic discrimination remains
part of the American way, in big ways and small.
For that to change, there would have to be a transformation
of the American spirit, a recognition that past injustices must
not be forgotten or even just lamented but rather must become
an inspiration for remedial action.
Then, these disgraceful gun tragedies and our long history of
racial violence would not just be a source of frustration and
a sign of impotence, but a motivation for a national rebirth
that addresses past wrongs and lifts up the nation as a whole.
Robert Parry is a Investigative Reporter and he broke many of
the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek
in the 1980s.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/20/facing-americas-great-
evils
Saturday, June 20, 2015
War, Murder And The American Way
War, Murder And The American Way
By Robert C. Koehler
Common Dreams.org
June 20, 2015
He sat with them for an hour in prayer.
Then he pulled his gun out and started shooting.
And today our national numbness is wrapped in a Confederate flag.
The young man who killed nine members of Charleston’s Emanuel
African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday night was an
old-school racist.
“I have to do it,” Dylann Storm Roof is said to have explained. “You
rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have
to go.”
Roof’s roommate told ABC News the next day that he was “big into
segregation and other stuff” and “he wanted to start a civil war.”
And this is America, where we have the freedom to manifest our
lethal fantasies.
But this is bigger than racism and the pathetic monster of white
supremacy.
Racism is a name for one of the currents of righteous hatred that
coils through our collective unconscious, and over the decades
and centuries it has motivated terrible crimes against humanity.
But the, “civil war” that Roof participated in is, I think,
much larger and much more meaningless.
And not all the participants are loners.
“In a pattern that has become achingly familiar to him and the
nation,” the New York Times reported, “Mr. Obama on Thursday
strode down to the White House briefing room to issue a statement
of mourning and grief as he called on the country to unify in the
face of tragedy.”
Indeed, it’s the fourteenth time, according to The Guardian,
he has done this since he’s been in office.
It’s the fourteenth time he has said words like: “I am confident
that the outpouring of unity and strength and fellowship and love
across Charleston today from all races, from all faiths, from all
places of worship indicates the degree to which those old vestiges
of hatred can be overcome.”
America, America, land of the mass murderer.
Mass murders have increased fourteenfold in the United States
since the 1960s, sociologist Peter Turchin wrote two and a half
years ago, after the Sandy Hook killings.
In his essay, called, “Canaries in a Coal Mine” Turchin made a
disturbing comparison:
Mass murderers kill the same way soldiers do, without personal
hatred for their victims but to right some large social wrong.
He called it the “principle of social substitutability” — substituting
a particular group of people for a general wrong.
“On the battlefield,” Turchin wrote, “you are supposed to try to
kill a person whom you’ve never met before. You are not trying to
kill this particular person, you are shooting because he is wearing
the enemy uniform. . . . Enemy soldiers are socially substitutable.”
“That is to say,” I noted at the time, “the definition and practice
of war and the definition and practice of mass murder have eerie
congruencies. Might this not be the source of the social poison? We
divide and slice the human race; some people become the enemy,
not in a personal but merely an abstract sense — ‘them’ — and we
lavish a staggering amount of our wealth and creativity on devising
ways to kill them. When we call it war, it’s as familiar and
wholesome as apple pie. When we call it mass murder, it’s not so
nice.”
Dylann Roof had a toxic “cause” — to reclaim the Old South, to
reclaim the country, from an unwelcome human subgroup — but
the solidarity in which he acted wasn’t so much with his fellow
racists as with the strategists and planners of war.
Any war. Every war.
Perhaps this is why, when I hear Obama laud, “the outpouring
of unity and strength and fellowship and love” in the wake of
the Charleston murders, I feel only despair: despair as deep as
a knife wound.
War, not love, is structured into the nation’s economic
and social fabric.
We invest trillions of dollars into its perpetuation, across Central
Asia and the Middle East and wherever else the strategists and
planners see evil, which is to say, opportunity.
Every murderer believes the violence he is wielding is,
“good violence.”
Think Timothy McVeigh, whose fertilizer bomb killed 168 people
at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
He called his victims, “collateral damage” co-opting the official
language of the Gulf War in which he served.
Mass murderers mimic and find their inspiration in the official
wars we wage as a nation.
Take away the massive public relations machinery that surrounds
these wars and the deaths they cause are just as cruel, just as
wrong.
The abstract “enemy” dead, in every case, turn out to be human
beings, who deserved to live.
And every war and every mass murder spread fear and hatred
and inspiration — in their aftermath.
We can’t go to war without spawning imitators.
The next day, USA Today reported, the vigils at two South Carolina
churches, in Charleston and Greenville, were disrupted by bomb
threats and the churches had to be evacuated.
So did Charleston’s county building.
“At some point” Obama said, “we as a country will have to reckon
with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in
other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with
this kind of frequency — and it is in our power to do something
about it.”
Until we begin demilitarizing our relationship with the world, such
words uttered by presidents are as empty as the words Dylann Roof
uttered in prayer at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on
Wednesday night.
Robert Koehler is an Award-Winning, Chicago-based Journalist
and Nationally Syndicated Writer.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/20/war-murder-
and-american-way
By Robert C. Koehler
Common Dreams.org
June 20, 2015
He sat with them for an hour in prayer.
Then he pulled his gun out and started shooting.
And today our national numbness is wrapped in a Confederate flag.
The young man who killed nine members of Charleston’s Emanuel
African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday night was an
old-school racist.
“I have to do it,” Dylann Storm Roof is said to have explained. “You
rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have
to go.”
Roof’s roommate told ABC News the next day that he was “big into
segregation and other stuff” and “he wanted to start a civil war.”
And this is America, where we have the freedom to manifest our
lethal fantasies.
But this is bigger than racism and the pathetic monster of white
supremacy.
Racism is a name for one of the currents of righteous hatred that
coils through our collective unconscious, and over the decades
and centuries it has motivated terrible crimes against humanity.
But the, “civil war” that Roof participated in is, I think,
much larger and much more meaningless.
And not all the participants are loners.
“In a pattern that has become achingly familiar to him and the
nation,” the New York Times reported, “Mr. Obama on Thursday
strode down to the White House briefing room to issue a statement
of mourning and grief as he called on the country to unify in the
face of tragedy.”
Indeed, it’s the fourteenth time, according to The Guardian,
he has done this since he’s been in office.
It’s the fourteenth time he has said words like: “I am confident
that the outpouring of unity and strength and fellowship and love
across Charleston today from all races, from all faiths, from all
places of worship indicates the degree to which those old vestiges
of hatred can be overcome.”
America, America, land of the mass murderer.
Mass murders have increased fourteenfold in the United States
since the 1960s, sociologist Peter Turchin wrote two and a half
years ago, after the Sandy Hook killings.
In his essay, called, “Canaries in a Coal Mine” Turchin made a
disturbing comparison:
Mass murderers kill the same way soldiers do, without personal
hatred for their victims but to right some large social wrong.
He called it the “principle of social substitutability” — substituting
a particular group of people for a general wrong.
“On the battlefield,” Turchin wrote, “you are supposed to try to
kill a person whom you’ve never met before. You are not trying to
kill this particular person, you are shooting because he is wearing
the enemy uniform. . . . Enemy soldiers are socially substitutable.”
“That is to say,” I noted at the time, “the definition and practice
of war and the definition and practice of mass murder have eerie
congruencies. Might this not be the source of the social poison? We
divide and slice the human race; some people become the enemy,
not in a personal but merely an abstract sense — ‘them’ — and we
lavish a staggering amount of our wealth and creativity on devising
ways to kill them. When we call it war, it’s as familiar and
wholesome as apple pie. When we call it mass murder, it’s not so
nice.”
Dylann Roof had a toxic “cause” — to reclaim the Old South, to
reclaim the country, from an unwelcome human subgroup — but
the solidarity in which he acted wasn’t so much with his fellow
racists as with the strategists and planners of war.
Any war. Every war.
Perhaps this is why, when I hear Obama laud, “the outpouring
of unity and strength and fellowship and love” in the wake of
the Charleston murders, I feel only despair: despair as deep as
a knife wound.
War, not love, is structured into the nation’s economic
and social fabric.
We invest trillions of dollars into its perpetuation, across Central
Asia and the Middle East and wherever else the strategists and
planners see evil, which is to say, opportunity.
Every murderer believes the violence he is wielding is,
“good violence.”
Think Timothy McVeigh, whose fertilizer bomb killed 168 people
at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
He called his victims, “collateral damage” co-opting the official
language of the Gulf War in which he served.
Mass murderers mimic and find their inspiration in the official
wars we wage as a nation.
Take away the massive public relations machinery that surrounds
these wars and the deaths they cause are just as cruel, just as
wrong.
The abstract “enemy” dead, in every case, turn out to be human
beings, who deserved to live.
And every war and every mass murder spread fear and hatred
and inspiration — in their aftermath.
We can’t go to war without spawning imitators.
The next day, USA Today reported, the vigils at two South Carolina
churches, in Charleston and Greenville, were disrupted by bomb
threats and the churches had to be evacuated.
So did Charleston’s county building.
“At some point” Obama said, “we as a country will have to reckon
with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in
other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with
this kind of frequency — and it is in our power to do something
about it.”
Until we begin demilitarizing our relationship with the world, such
words uttered by presidents are as empty as the words Dylann Roof
uttered in prayer at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on
Wednesday night.
Robert Koehler is an Award-Winning, Chicago-based Journalist
and Nationally Syndicated Writer.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/20/war-murder-
and-american-way
Sunday, June 14, 2015
State Citizen
State Citizen
By Jaro Kole
Via Rick Briand
June 14, 2015
Unbeknownst to most people, the class termed, "US citizen" did
not exist as a political status until 1866.
It was a class and, "Political Status" created for the newly freed
slaves and did not apply to the people inhabiting the States of
The Union who were at that time, "State Citizens."
The Founding Fathers were, "State Citizens" not, "US citizens."
The class of people identified as, "US citizens" were the, "Newly
Freed Slaves Only" as was the intent of the drafters of the so-called
14th Amendment.
After being recognized as, "People" rather than,
"Animate Property", they needed to be brought within
the "Naturalization Process" and afforded some rights.
As anyone well knows, property has no rights.
"On the other hand, there is a significant historical fact in all of this. Clearly, one of the purposes of the 13th and 14th Amendments
and of the 1866 act and of section 1982 was to give the Negro
citizenship. . ."Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1967), 379 F.2d 33, 43.
"The object of the 14th Amendment, as is well known, was
to confer upon the colored race the right of citizenship."
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 692.
There is a, "Citizenship" of the United States and, "Citizenship"
of a State.
“The government of the United States is a foreign corporation with
respect to a State.” In re Merriam, 36 N. E. 505, 141 N. Y. 479,
affirmed 16 S. Ct. 1073, 163 U. S. 625, 41 L.Ed. 287
The District of Columbia is not a State. There is no star on the
American flag representing the District of Columbia.
“We have in our political system a government of the United States
and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these
governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of
it’s own…” United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)
“…he was not a citizen of the United States, he was a citizen and
voter of the State,…” “One may be a citizen of a State an yet not
a citizen of the United States”. McDonel v. The State, 90 Ind. 320 (1883)
“That there is a citizenship of the United States and citizenship
of a state,…” Tashiro v. Jordan, 201 Cal. 236 (1927)
“A citizen of the United States is a citizen of the federal
government …” Kitchens v. Steele, 112 F.Supp 383
The Importance Of State Citizenship
Why is this important?
Because the rules that apply to, "US citizens" may be different that
the rules that apply to, "State Citizens", and the rights of one are
not the same as the other.
For example, the, "State Citizen" is NOT required to have a driver
license to legally use their car to go to the store to buy food or to
attend their place of worship, but the, "US citizen" is required to
have a license to do the same thing.
“The governments of the United States and of each state of the
several states are distinct from one another. The rights of a citizen
under one may be quite different from those which he has under
the other”. Colgate v. Harvey, 296 U.S. 404; 56 S.Ct. 252 (1935)
“There is a difference between privileges and immunities belonging
to the citizens of the United States as such, and those belonging to
the citizens of each state as such”. Ruhstrat v. People, 57 N.E. 41 (1900)
“The rights and privileges, and immunities which the fourteenth
constitutional amendment and Rev. St. section 1979 [U.S. Comp.
St. 1901, p. 1262], for its enforcement, were designated to protect,
are such as belonging to citizens of the United States as such, and
not as citizens of a state”. Wadleigh v. Newhall 136 F. 941 (1905)
“...rights of national citizenship as distinct from the fundamental
or natural rights inherent in state citizenship”. Madden v.
Kentucky, 309 U.S. 83: 84 L.Ed. 590 (1940)
SUI JURIS. One who has all the rights to which a freemen
is entitled; one who is not under the power of another,
as a slave, a minor, and the like.2. To make a valid contract,
a person must, in general, be sui juris. Every one of full age
is presumed to be sui juris. Story on Ag. p. 10. Bouvier's Law
Dictionary, 1856
INGENUI, civ. law. Those freemen who were born free. Vicat,
vocab. 2. They were a class of freemen, distinguished from
those who, born slaves, had afterwards legally obtained their
freedom the latter were called at various periods, sometimes
liberti, sometimes libertini. An unjust or illegal servitude
did not prevent a man from being ingenuus. Bouvier's Law
Dictionary, 1856
JURIS ET DE JURE. A phrase employed to denote conclusive
presumptions of law, which cannot be rebutted by evidence.
The words signify of law and from law. Best on Presumption,
Sec. 17. Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1856
By Jaro Kole
Via Rick Briand
June 14, 2015
Unbeknownst to most people, the class termed, "US citizen" did
not exist as a political status until 1866.
It was a class and, "Political Status" created for the newly freed
slaves and did not apply to the people inhabiting the States of
The Union who were at that time, "State Citizens."
The Founding Fathers were, "State Citizens" not, "US citizens."
The class of people identified as, "US citizens" were the, "Newly
Freed Slaves Only" as was the intent of the drafters of the so-called
14th Amendment.
After being recognized as, "People" rather than,
"Animate Property", they needed to be brought within
the "Naturalization Process" and afforded some rights.
As anyone well knows, property has no rights.
"On the other hand, there is a significant historical fact in all of this. Clearly, one of the purposes of the 13th and 14th Amendments
and of the 1866 act and of section 1982 was to give the Negro
citizenship. . ."Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1967), 379 F.2d 33, 43.
"The object of the 14th Amendment, as is well known, was
to confer upon the colored race the right of citizenship."
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 692.
There is a, "Citizenship" of the United States and, "Citizenship"
of a State.
“The government of the United States is a foreign corporation with
respect to a State.” In re Merriam, 36 N. E. 505, 141 N. Y. 479,
affirmed 16 S. Ct. 1073, 163 U. S. 625, 41 L.Ed. 287
The District of Columbia is not a State. There is no star on the
American flag representing the District of Columbia.
“We have in our political system a government of the United States
and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these
governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of
it’s own…” United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)
“…he was not a citizen of the United States, he was a citizen and
voter of the State,…” “One may be a citizen of a State an yet not
a citizen of the United States”. McDonel v. The State, 90 Ind. 320 (1883)
“That there is a citizenship of the United States and citizenship
of a state,…” Tashiro v. Jordan, 201 Cal. 236 (1927)
“A citizen of the United States is a citizen of the federal
government …” Kitchens v. Steele, 112 F.Supp 383
The Importance Of State Citizenship
Why is this important?
Because the rules that apply to, "US citizens" may be different that
the rules that apply to, "State Citizens", and the rights of one are
not the same as the other.
For example, the, "State Citizen" is NOT required to have a driver
license to legally use their car to go to the store to buy food or to
attend their place of worship, but the, "US citizen" is required to
have a license to do the same thing.
“The governments of the United States and of each state of the
several states are distinct from one another. The rights of a citizen
under one may be quite different from those which he has under
the other”. Colgate v. Harvey, 296 U.S. 404; 56 S.Ct. 252 (1935)
“There is a difference between privileges and immunities belonging
to the citizens of the United States as such, and those belonging to
the citizens of each state as such”. Ruhstrat v. People, 57 N.E. 41 (1900)
“The rights and privileges, and immunities which the fourteenth
constitutional amendment and Rev. St. section 1979 [U.S. Comp.
St. 1901, p. 1262], for its enforcement, were designated to protect,
are such as belonging to citizens of the United States as such, and
not as citizens of a state”. Wadleigh v. Newhall 136 F. 941 (1905)
“...rights of national citizenship as distinct from the fundamental
or natural rights inherent in state citizenship”. Madden v.
Kentucky, 309 U.S. 83: 84 L.Ed. 590 (1940)
SUI JURIS. One who has all the rights to which a freemen
is entitled; one who is not under the power of another,
as a slave, a minor, and the like.2. To make a valid contract,
a person must, in general, be sui juris. Every one of full age
is presumed to be sui juris. Story on Ag. p. 10. Bouvier's Law
Dictionary, 1856
INGENUI, civ. law. Those freemen who were born free. Vicat,
vocab. 2. They were a class of freemen, distinguished from
those who, born slaves, had afterwards legally obtained their
freedom the latter were called at various periods, sometimes
liberti, sometimes libertini. An unjust or illegal servitude
did not prevent a man from being ingenuus. Bouvier's Law
Dictionary, 1856
JURIS ET DE JURE. A phrase employed to denote conclusive
presumptions of law, which cannot be rebutted by evidence.
The words signify of law and from law. Best on Presumption,
Sec. 17. Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1856
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Faster Than They Thought
Faster Than They Thought
By Erial Secas
Via - Nick Smith
June 9, 2015
Here is the outcome of a little experiment which consisted of
asking Google for the quote, "faster than previously thought."
These are some of the Headlines:
-Global Sea levels are rising faster than previously thought.
-Global Warming's effects are coming on faster than
previously thought.
-Arctic Sea ice is thinning faster than previously thought.
-Tropical Forests are vanishing faster than previously thought.
-Global Sea levels have risen significantly faster than
previously thought
-Greenland Ice Sheet melting faster than previously thought.
-Icebergs are breaking away from Antarctica faster than
previously thought.
-Antarctica's ice discharge could raise sea level faster than
previously thought.
-The Ocean's surface layer has been warming faster than
previously thought.
-Mass Extinction occurred much faster than previously thought.
-Deadly super volcanic eruptions may occur faster than
previously thought.
-Antarctic Permafrost melting faster than previously thought.
-Scientists say Venice is sinking faster than previously thought.
-Mammals becoming extinct faster than previously thought.
-A new report says the world's Oceans are changing faster than
previously thought.
-Permafrost melt will release climate-warming carbon dioxide
gas into the atmosphere much faster than previously thought.
-Galveston Island is sinking faster than previously thought.
-Amblyomma Aureolatum Ticks transmit disease faster than previously thought.
-Climate Change could happen much faster than previously
thought.
-Permian Mass Extinction may have happened 10X faster than previously thought.
-Snails move faster than previously thought.
-The Titanic took just five minutes to sink – much faster than
previously thought.
By Erial Secas
Via - Nick Smith
June 9, 2015
Here is the outcome of a little experiment which consisted of
asking Google for the quote, "faster than previously thought."
These are some of the Headlines:
-Global Sea levels are rising faster than previously thought.
-Global Warming's effects are coming on faster than
previously thought.
-Arctic Sea ice is thinning faster than previously thought.
-Tropical Forests are vanishing faster than previously thought.
-Global Sea levels have risen significantly faster than
previously thought
-Greenland Ice Sheet melting faster than previously thought.
-Icebergs are breaking away from Antarctica faster than
previously thought.
-Antarctica's ice discharge could raise sea level faster than
previously thought.
-The Ocean's surface layer has been warming faster than
previously thought.
-Mass Extinction occurred much faster than previously thought.
-Deadly super volcanic eruptions may occur faster than
previously thought.
-Antarctic Permafrost melting faster than previously thought.
-Scientists say Venice is sinking faster than previously thought.
-Mammals becoming extinct faster than previously thought.
-A new report says the world's Oceans are changing faster than
previously thought.
-Permafrost melt will release climate-warming carbon dioxide
gas into the atmosphere much faster than previously thought.
-Galveston Island is sinking faster than previously thought.
-Amblyomma Aureolatum Ticks transmit disease faster than previously thought.
-Climate Change could happen much faster than previously
thought.
-Permian Mass Extinction may have happened 10X faster than previously thought.
-Snails move faster than previously thought.
-The Titanic took just five minutes to sink – much faster than
previously thought.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
America The Hypocritical
America The Hypocritical
By Joe Murray
Via - Kathy Koperwhats
June 6, 2015
Bradley Manning exposed deadly war crimes committed by his own
government where innocent civilians where killed.
He knowingly told the truth in the face of great personal risk to
himself so that the truth would be at the very least told.
He/she now wanting to be called Chelsea is paying the ultimate
price.
I call him/her COURAGEOUS!
No ground swell support came from the average brain dead, talking
point following American sheeple, even though many celebrities
launched a huge campaign to motivate them.
Justice was not served and the average American could care less.
Now comes Bruce Jenner with full media support and stamp
of approval.
The brain dead public suddenly cares.
They gush over how beautiful his airbrushed
and movie magic photos and videos look.
They defend transgenderism with new found vigor.
They argue vehemently about his courage.
No real mention is made to the fatal car crash that he caused
and blamed the dead victim for, though it was clearly his fault.
The talking points become that if you don't love Caitlyn Jenner
(a non legal name by the way) then you're a bigot, a homophobe,
or a transgenderphobe if such a word exists.
The issue was never about gender or surgery
or any other nonsensical divisive talking point.
It's about courage and doing the right thing.
That is what needs to be celebrated in America today now more
than ever.
Bradley Manning took responsibility for what his country did.
Bruce Jenner couldn't even take responsibility for his own actions.
WHO'S COURAGEOUS?
By Joe Murray
Via - Kathy Koperwhats
June 6, 2015
Bradley Manning exposed deadly war crimes committed by his own
government where innocent civilians where killed.
He knowingly told the truth in the face of great personal risk to
himself so that the truth would be at the very least told.
He/she now wanting to be called Chelsea is paying the ultimate
price.
I call him/her COURAGEOUS!
No ground swell support came from the average brain dead, talking
point following American sheeple, even though many celebrities
launched a huge campaign to motivate them.
Justice was not served and the average American could care less.
Now comes Bruce Jenner with full media support and stamp
of approval.
The brain dead public suddenly cares.
They gush over how beautiful his airbrushed
and movie magic photos and videos look.
They defend transgenderism with new found vigor.
They argue vehemently about his courage.
No real mention is made to the fatal car crash that he caused
and blamed the dead victim for, though it was clearly his fault.
The talking points become that if you don't love Caitlyn Jenner
(a non legal name by the way) then you're a bigot, a homophobe,
or a transgenderphobe if such a word exists.
The issue was never about gender or surgery
or any other nonsensical divisive talking point.
It's about courage and doing the right thing.
That is what needs to be celebrated in America today now more
than ever.
Bradley Manning took responsibility for what his country did.
Bruce Jenner couldn't even take responsibility for his own actions.
WHO'S COURAGEOUS?
Thursday, June 4, 2015
I Walk Alone...
I Walk Alone...
By Eric Cockrell
Poem Hunter.com
June 4, 2015
I am the last rebellion,
the fire you cannot control.
I am the faces of lost bodies,
names written in blood.
I am the call to battle,
armed by the heart.
I am the silence that knows,
the darkness that takes.
I am poverty's shadow,
and the language of need.
I am the anger of the beaten,
I am the field forsaken.
I am the tint of skin,
and the color of the eyes....
the song of the shovel and whip.
I am the bones of the old ones,
shaking with rage,
the tears of the grandmothers,
the dirty hands of small children.
I am the soldier imprisoned,
on the streets of despair.
I am the conscience of the murderer,
that haunts the night.
I am the bodies of lovers,
glistening with passion.
I am the child born,
neath a sky with no star.
I am the crucifix and prayer beads,
the hymn known only by trees.
I am the dog abandoned,
rain falling without remorse.
I am the monk self-immoliated,
the cry for freedom unheard.
I am human dignity,
and I walk alone...
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-walk-alone-28
By Eric Cockrell
Poem Hunter.com
June 4, 2015
I am the last rebellion,
the fire you cannot control.
I am the faces of lost bodies,
names written in blood.
I am the call to battle,
armed by the heart.
I am the silence that knows,
the darkness that takes.
I am poverty's shadow,
and the language of need.
I am the anger of the beaten,
I am the field forsaken.
I am the tint of skin,
and the color of the eyes....
the song of the shovel and whip.
I am the bones of the old ones,
shaking with rage,
the tears of the grandmothers,
the dirty hands of small children.
I am the soldier imprisoned,
on the streets of despair.
I am the conscience of the murderer,
that haunts the night.
I am the bodies of lovers,
glistening with passion.
I am the child born,
neath a sky with no star.
I am the crucifix and prayer beads,
the hymn known only by trees.
I am the dog abandoned,
rain falling without remorse.
I am the monk self-immoliated,
the cry for freedom unheard.
I am human dignity,
and I walk alone...
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-walk-alone-28
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