Sunday Quotes from Dante Alighieri

Quotes from Dante Alighieri

Source

A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.

All hope abandon, ye who enter here!

Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild.

Be as a tower firmly set; Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Follow your own star!

From a little spark may burst a flame.

He listens well who takes notes.

Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from The Eternal.

Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground.

I love to doubt as well as know.

I wept not, so to stone within I grew.

If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.

Nature is the art of God.

No one thinks of how much blood it costs.

O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is a little fault!

Pride, envy, avarice - these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men.

Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always.

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.

The Tent People of today

Who is to Blame
for the Tent People?

By Garda Ghista
May 22, 2009 Hyderabad, India
Source
In America, more and more people are subjected to the humiliation of losing their job, and then when they cannot pay their mortgage they get a fat wad of papers delivered to their door by the local sheriff telling them in brief to pay up or vacate.

And then they have to leave or be thrown out of their own home. And then when no job is forthcoming they cannot even downsize to an apartment. They are forced to go to the lowest level of subsistence. They buy a tent and pitch it near some water, maybe a river or a tap somewhere.

I was becoming more and more appalled living in America in 2008 and up to May 2009 and watching more and more "tent cities" springing up across the country. And then as those tent cities get more and more established, at regular intervals, maybe once a month, the local police invade the area and make a brutal sweep of the premises and drive all those tent people out of their tents and onto the road somewhere. And after the police have gone, the people return to what's left of their tent and their meager possessions.

This is America today. It is "poverty amidst plenty." That phrase is from the 1929 Great Depression. And in 1929 the police conducted the same sweeps that they are doing today across America. Is it not heartbreaking? Or shall we say, does it not make your heart bleed to see this kind of existence of the people?

And now I am in Hyderabad, India. And if you go along Highway 9 which runs through Hyderabad, what do you see? All along the highway, there are vendors selling this and that like nariyal pani - coconut water - or mangoes or colorful little trinkets. But behind those vendors, in a fifteen foot wide corridor running along the wall, are tents. More tents.

And these tents have been there forever. They are not so nice as the American tents. They are made of dark green or black pieces of plastic somehow moulded or stuck together in some shape so as to rise a bit above the ground with one opening. And here is where the people live and sleep and go to the bathroom and take bath - but where do they go to the bathroom and where do they take their bath? And where do they cook and eat?

In the daytime they are lying in front of their "tents" or sitting and chatting happily. That's the amazing part of it. If we visit a tent city in America - the newly created tent city - it is sure we will find severe mental depression. Economist Shrii Prabhat R. Sarkar told us that this new Great Depression will be accompanied by severe mental depression. It is but natural.

But in Hyderabad, along Highway 9, I don't yet see that mental depression. And earlier in the 1990s when I used to visit the slums here or see the women breaking stones with axes in the rock quarries, there was no mental depression.

Why? I think it is because this was their life from birth. They never knew any other life. They never expected any other life. They lived with No Expectations.

But why should anyone, why should even a single person, be relegated to living in a tent, to living without a bathroom, without running water nearby, to keep themselves clean? Who is to blame that people live in tents? In America I was saying that it is the *&^%$ bankers and speculators who have robbed the country blind and are hence directly responsible for the tent people. But what about India where tent people have lived for decades if not longer? Who is to blame?

Is it the sum total of politicians who ruled all those decades and never gave a *&^%$ about the tent people? Then what do we tell to those tent people? Should we not tell them that God never meant for them to live under pieces of plastic along the highway? Should we not tell them that it is the moral responsibility of all political leaders to provide them with food, water, shelter, clothes, soap, health care and education?

How do we tell these simple, sweet tent people that there is a better way? How would you tell them? I want to tell them this now, but I don't know how to start. How do we talk to them in a way that is relevant to their lives? Is it our job then to take away their simple acceptance of their plight and inspire them to demand the minimum necessities from their cold, callous government?

Is that our job? Is it our job to take away their simplicity and raise their political consciousness and make them outraged at the economic injustice of their lives? For some reason, i cannot bear their plight and neither can I bear that they accept their plight so happily.

It reminds me of what Professor Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank founder, wrote in his autobiography regarding the famine of 1970s in Bangladesh. He would be teaching economic theories to his students inside the classroom, and outside, just at the door, starving men, women and children would just lie down and wait to die. They didn't fight. They didn't rebel. They were not even angry with anyone. They accepted everything – even their own vastly premature death.

See how painful also it is to read that 150,000 farmers across India have committed suicide in the past five years to escape the slow and agonizing process of starvation. Easier to die the short agony of poison than the long agony of starvation! But why do they feel no anger? Why don't they rebel? Is it that they do not know whom to rebel against? That they do not know who is responsible for their tortures and humiliations and finally their starvation?

Then again, isn't it our duty to tell them who is responsible? Isn't it our duty to inspire them to fight back? Did wealthy people ever distribute their wealth voluntarily to the downtrodden? No. They only distribute when the poor demand it.

So why not all of us go and meet the tent people and tell them that they do not need to live like this, that the immoral, indifferent, heartless politicians are responsible, and that they should fight those politicians, remove them from power and bring moralists to power who have hearts full of love for the common people. And whoever has a conscience, whoever loves morality should join them in that fight and guide them and become one with them.

Garda Ghista is a freelance journalist and author of The Gujarat Genocide: A Case Study in Fundamentalist Cleansing and Wife Abuse: Breaking It Down and Breaking Out. She is also Founding President of the World Prout Assembly, a non-profit organization dedicated to transferring economic power from corporations to the common people and to fighting injustice in every sphere of life.

The comments from oringinal article are quite interesting, especially the one from "Hide Behind".

Related:
Unite to End Homelessness

GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers committing suicide after using genetically modified crops

Orwell's Hate at a political meeting - excerpt

Coming up for Air (excerpt)
[Or what will the British do about the new fascism?]

Part 3, Chapter 1
...

At the beginning I wasn't exactly listening. The lecturer was
rather a mean-looking little chap, but a good speaker. White face,
very mobile mouth, and the rather grating voice that they get from
constant speaking. Of course he was pitching into Hitler and the
Nazis. I wasn't particularly keen to hear what he was saying--get
the same stuff in the News Chronicle every morning--but his voice
came across to me as a kind of burr-burr-burr, with now and again a
phrase that struck out and caught my attention.

'Bestial atrocities. . . . Hideous outbursts of sadism. . . .
Rubber truncheons. . . . Concentration camps. . . . Iniquitous
persecution of the Jews. . . . Back to the Dark Ages. . . .
European civilization. . . . Act before it is too late. . . .
Indignation of all decent peoples. . . . Alliance of the
democratic nations. . . . Firm stand. . . . Defence of
democracy. . . . Democracy. . . . Fascism. . . . Democracy. . . .
Fascism. . . . Democracy. . . .'

You know the line of talk. These chaps can churn it out by the
hour. Just like a gramophone. Turn the handle, press the button,
and it starts. Democracy, Fascism, Democracy. But somehow it
interested me to watch him. A rather mean little man, with a white
face and a bald head, standing on a platform, shooting out slogans.
What's he doing? Quite deliberately, and quite openly, he's
stirring up hatred. Doing his damnedest to make you hate certain
foreigners called Fascists. It's a queer thing, I thought, to be
known as 'Mr So-and-so, the well-known anti-Fascist'. A queer
trade, anti-Fascism. This fellow, I suppose, makes his living by
writing books against Hitler. But what did he do before Hitler
came along? And what'll he do if Hitler ever disappears? Same
question applies to doctors, detectives, rat-catchers, and so
forth, of course. But the grating voice went on and on, and
another thought struck me. He MEANS it. Not faking at all--feels
every word he's saying. He's trying to work up hatred in the
audience, but that's nothing to the hatred he feels himself. Every
slogan's gospel truth to him. If you cut him open all you'd find
inside would be Democracy-Fascism-Democracy. Interesting to know a
chap like that in private life. But does he have a private life?
Or does he only go round from platform to platform, working up
hatred? Perhaps even his dreams are slogans.

As well as I could from the back row I had a look at the audience.
I suppose, if you come to think of it, we people who'll turn out on
winter nights to sit in draughty halls listening to Left Book Club
lectures (and I consider that I'm entitled to the 'we', seeing that
I'd done it myself on this occasion) have a certain significance.
We're the West Bletchley revolutionaries. Doesn't look hopeful at
first sight. It struck me as I looked round the audience that only
about half a dozen of them had really grasped what the lecturer was
talking about, though by this time he'd been pitching into Hitler
and the Nazis for over half an hour. It's always like that with
meetings of this kind. Invariably half the people come away
without a notion of what it's all about. In his chair beside the
table Witchett was watching the lecturer with a delighted smile,
and his face looked a little like a pink geranium. You could hear
in advance the speech he'd make as soon as the lecturer sat down--
same speech as he makes at the end of the magic lantern lecture in
aid of trousers for the Melanesians: 'Express our thanks--voicing
the opinion of all of us--most interesting--give us all a lot to
think about--most stimulating evening!' In the front row Miss
Minns was sitting very upright, with her head cocked a little on
one side, like a bird. The lecturer had taken a sheet of paper
from under the tumbler and was reading out statistics about the
German suicide-rate. You could see by the look of Miss Minns's
long thin neck that she wasn't feeling happy. Was this improving
her mind, or wasn't it? If only she could make out what it was all
about! The other two were sitting there like lumps of pudding.
Next to them a little woman with red hair was knitting a jumper.
One plain, two purl, drop one, and knit two together. The lecturer
was describing how the Nazis chop people's heads off for treason
and sometimes the executioner makes a bosh shot. There was one
other woman in the audience, a girl with dark hair, one of the
teachers at the Council School. Unlike the other she was really
listening, sitting forward with her big round eyes fixed on the
lecturer and her mouth a little bit open, drinking it all in.

Just behind her two old blokes from the local Labour Party were
sitting. One had grey hair cropped very short, the other had a
bald head and a droopy moustache. Both wearing their overcoats.
You know the type. Been in the Labour Party since the year dot.
Lives given up to the movement. Twenty years of being blacklisted
by employers, and another ten of badgering the Council to do
something about the slums. Suddenly everything's changed, the old
Labour Party stuff doesn't matter any longer. Find themselves
pitchforked into foreign politics--Hitler, Stalin, bombs, machine-
guns, rubber truncheons, Rome-Berlin axis, Popular Front, anti-
Comintern pact. Can't make head or tail of it. Immediately in
front of me the local Communist Party branch were sitting. All
three of them very young. One of them's got money and is something
in the Hesperides Estate Company, in fact I believe he's old Crum's
nephew. Another's a clerk at one of the banks. He cashes cheques
for me occasionally. A nice boy, with a round, very young, eager
face, blue eyes like a baby, and hair so fair that you'd think he
peroxided it. He only looks about seventeen, though I suppose he's
twenty. He was wearing a cheap blue suit and a bright blue tie
that went with his hair. Next to these three another Communist was
sitting. But this one, it seems, is a different kind of Communist
and not-quite, because he's what they call a Trotskyist. The
others have got a down on him. He's even younger, a very thin,
very dark, nervous-looking boy. Clever face. Jew, of course.
These four were taking the lecture quite differently from the
others. You knew they'd be on their feet the moment question-time
started. You could see them kind of twitching already. And the
little Trotskyist working himself from side to side on his bum in
his anxiety to get in ahead of the others.

I'd stopped listening to the actual words of the lecture. But
there are more ways than one of listening. I shut my eyes for a
moment. The effect of that was curious. I seemed to see the
fellow much better when I could only hear his voice.

It was a voice that sounded as if it could go on for a fortnight
without stopping. It's a ghastly thing, really, to have a sort of
human barrel-organ shooting propaganda at you by the hour. The
same thing over and over again. Hate, hate, hate. Let's all get
together and have a good hate. Over and over. It gives you the
feeling that something has got inside your skull and is hammering
down on your brain. But for a moment, with my eyes shut, I managed
to turn the tables on him. I got inside HIS skull. It was a
peculiar sensation. For about a second I was inside him, you might
almost say I WAS him. At any rate, I felt what he was feeling.

I saw the vision that he was seeing. And it wasn't at all the kind
of vision that can be talked about. What he's SAYING is merely
that Hitler's after us and we must all get together and have a good
hate. Doesn't go into details. Leaves it all respectable. But
what he's SEEING is something quite different. It's a picture of
himself smashing people's faces in with a spanner. Fascist faces,
of course. I KNOW that's what he was seeing. It was what I saw
myself for the second or two that I was inside him. Smash! Right
in the middle! The bones cave in like an eggshell and what was a
face a minute ago is just a great big blob of strawberry jam.
Smash! There goes another! That's what's in his mind, waking and
sleeping, and the more he thinks of it the more he likes it. And
it's all O.K. because the smashed faces belong to Fascists. You
could hear all that in the tone of his voice.

But why? Likeliest explanation, because he's scared. Every
thinking person nowadays is stiff with fright. This is merely a
chap who's got sufficient foresight to be a little more frightened
than the others. Hitler's after us! Quick! Let's all grab a
spanner and get together, and perhaps if we smash in enough faces
they won't smash ours. Gang up, choose your Leader. Hitler's
black and Stalin's white. But it might just as well be the other
way about, because in the little chap's mind both Hitler and Stalin
are the same. Both mean spanners and smashed faces.

War! I started thinking about it again. It's coming soon, that's
certain. But who's afraid of war? That's to say, who's afraid of
the bombs and the machine-guns? 'You are', you say. Yes, I am,
and so's anybody who's ever seen them. But it isn't the war that
matters, it's the after-war. The world we're going down into, the
kind of hate-world, slogan-world. The coloured shirts, the barbed
wire, the rubber truncheons. The secret cells where the electric
light burns night and day, and the detectives watching you while
you sleep. And the processions and the posters with enormous
faces, and the crowds of a million people all cheering for the
Leader till they deafen themselves into thinking that they really
worship him, and all the time, underneath, they hate him so that
they want to puke. It's all going to happen. Or isn't it? Some
days I know it's impossible, other days I know it's inevitable.
That night, at any rate, I knew it was going to happen. It was all
in the sound of the little lecturer's voice.

So perhaps after all there IS a significance in this mingy little
crowd that'll turn out on a winter night to listen to a lecture of
this kind. Or at any rate in the five or six who can grasp what
it's all about. They're simply the outposts of an enormous army.
They're the long-sighted ones, the first rats to spot that the ship
is sinking. Quick, quick! The Fascists are coming! Spanners
ready, boys! Smash others or they'll smash you. So terrified of
the future that we're jumping straight into it like a rabbit diving
down a boa-constrictor's throat.

And what'll happen to chaps like me when we get Fascism in England?
The truth is it probably won't make the slightest difference. As
for the lecturer and those four Communists in the audience, yes,
it'll make plenty of difference to them. They'll be smashing
faces, or having their own smashed, according to who's winning.
But the ordinary middling chaps like me will be carrying on just as
usual. And yet it frightens me--I tell you it frightens me. I'd
just started to wonder why when the lecturer stopped and sat down.

Continue reading.

Sunday reading - Quotes from George Orwell

Source

A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

Big Brother is watching you.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

Myths which are believed in tend to become true.

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more of less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun.

We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.

The Open MInd

I finally found a blog that is much more 'Less is more' than mine. The Dreaming Man is one of the more refreshing sites I have found thus far on the net. It reads like a modern existential monologue from an Alaskan John Steinbeck. Smooth like really really old scotch going down.
The articles are as simple and warming as the wisdom of sunshine. An excellent read for those who are weary of the normal verbal chaos of the net.

Open MInd

Saturday, May 9, 2009
Source

It’s hard to avoid bumping up against closed-mindedness. I’m closed minded sometimes, but aspire to be open. If I catch myself closing down, I try to open up.

People do make judgments, saying something is good, bad, weird, boring, positive, negative, and so on. Often the judgments are hastily made, without reflection and without the person being properly informed about the matter. Gustave Flaubert wrote an imbecile’s dictionary, The Dictionary of Received Ideas, a collection of common opinions, predictable, ignorant and downright stupid pronouncements on various topics.

This could be quite amusing, except that one has to deal with such ill-informed people just about every day in a variety of situations. If you question the person, he or she might get emotional, intimidating you into keeping quiet. He might even bully you into playing along with his or her ignorance.

I learned over the years what happens when you try to have a discussion with someone who is not open to discussion. I’ve been punched in the face, spat on and lectured into silence and submission. One time a man literally followed me home from the café, attacking me with an endless monologue. He really wanted to set me straight. I literally had to walk into my house and slam the door in his face. He wouldn’t allow me to interrupt his monologue long enough to say goodbye. It’s amazing to meet people who are so self-assured and who feel they know what is right me and for the universe, a kind of megalomania. Name a topic and he or she has the answer.

Anyway, the question I’m raising: why is it so difficult to be open-minded? Why is it so difficult to examine one’s assumptions and beliefs? Are there certain concepts you hold sacred that you would never be able to question?

The other day I listened to the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour. The album was quite interesting and unconventional when it appeared. A response one gets when mentioning the album: yeah, the Beatles were on LSD when they did those songs. So that’s all there is to it. End of discussion.

Strawberry Fields, I Am the Walrus, Blue Jay Way and similar songs don’t fit the pop song mold. They stretch the genre of popular music, maybe even making some listeners uncomfortable or perplexed. However, the Beatles were sufficiently popular, so people accepted their experimental songs and they too became popular.

It never entered the discussion that one does not have to be on LSD to write something that pushes the boundaries. One merely needs to be open-minded enough to allow the imagination to play, to give oneself permission to explore. Exploration is generally discouraged or curtailed with snide remarks, like: that’s weird, twisted, warped. One might even accuse the artist of deliberately trying to piss off the listener. Some people thought Picasso was deliberately leading people by the nose and laughing as he broke the conventions of painting. They say: that’s not art. I don’t understand it, etc.

Basically such refusal to understand, and such dogmatic statements are based on uptightness and closed-mindedness, in other words, a refusal to be open to what is there, an unwillingness to even give it a chance.

John Lennon appreciated culture. He mentioned the influence of James Joyce, who pushed language, pun and word play to the limit, in a way that John Lennon enjoyed and tried to emulate in some of his song writing. Creativity does not depend on drugs; it depends on having an open mind and giving oneself permission to explore what lies beyond the limit of habit or belief.

It’s amazing what you can do when you give yourself permission to explore, when you’re awake and brave enough to set aside what you’ve been taught, or what you habitually accepted as being the last word on reality.

Posted by John Higham at 7:20 AM

52% say legalise marajuana

"Cannabis by Night"
Colurtesy: geopium.org

New Poll: 52% Say Marijuana Should Be Legal,
Taxed, Regulated

Zogby Poll Commissioned by Conservative Group
Is Similar to Other Recent Surveys.

Salem-News.com
Source
May-06-2009
(WASHINGTON D.C.) - A new Zogby poll commissioned by the conservative-leaning O'Leary Report has found 52 percent voter support for treating marijuana as a legal, taxed, regulated substance.

The survey, published as a full-page ad in today's issue of the political newspaper The Hill, polled a sample of 3,937 voters weighted to match the 2008 presidential outcome -- 54 percent Obama voters and 46 percent McCain supporters.

"This new survey continues the recent trend of strong and growing support for taxing and regulating marijuana and ending the disastrously failed policy of prohibition," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.

Voters were asked: "Scarce law enforcement and prison resources, a desire to neutralize drug cartels and the need for new sources of revenue have resurrected the topic of legalizing marijuana. Proponents say it makes sense to tax and regulate the drug while opponents say that legalization would lead marijuana users to use other illegal drugs. Would you favor or oppose the government's effort to legalize marijuana?"

Documentary on PTSD Needs Help to Reach Completion (VIDEO)

The results showed a decisive majority of 52 percent in favor with 37 percent opposed and 11 percent not sure -- slightly higher than the 46 percent support reported in an ABC News/Washington Post poll released at the end of April.

In California, the respected Field poll recently found 56 percent support for making marijuana a taxed, regulated product that is legal for adults.

"Voters are coming to realize that marijuana prohibition gives us the worst of all possible worlds -- a drug that's widely available but totally unregulated, whose producers and sellers pay no taxes but whose profits often support murderous drug cartels," Kampia said.

"The public is way ahead of the politicians on this."

With more than 27,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.

No more guns in the US for the people - HR 2159

The article and video below this commentary,
document the bills now in the US Congress to disarm the American public.

I don't like guns. I wish noone, including the government had any. And though I fall on the far left side of the political spectrum, these days I often find myself in agreement with some of the positions of the far right: these are confusing times where - Nothing's right, and nothing's left. Yet I do not believe in violence, except as a last, very very last, resort. The People could bring Big Government and Corporatism to its knees begging within one week with the methods of Ghandi. If only people would unite! If I belong to any 'ist' or 'ism' as an adherent, I would have to call myself a Constitutionalist. Only the people can ratify a constitution.


Loss of Constitutional rights, some say, is a slippery slope; and in some aspects, this is true. But the reality today, is this: AMERICANS HAVE NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ANYMORE. The Patriot Act superseded all of them long ago - while America was shopping with mortgage refi money and raising angry fists to bomb them thar evil terrorists in Iraq. Yes they were all gone years ago....but US citizens are just realising this. Americans are in the valley below the slippery slope now.

Sadly, this is not just a US phenomenon. It is happening all over the world. The critical difference is that Europe is on fire with protests and America yawns hoping the bedtime story has a 'happily ever after' ending. While Europeans are fighting the changes they see eroding their human rights in the streets - they are still doing it from 'panic-virus'; hopefully, this will mutate into the realisation that 'together we are stronger', and many countries will unite within Europe to voice their concerns about the EU superstructure growing every moment.

Ironically, the EU machinery itself (as well as the US machinery) provides the very (international) democractic mechanism by which the People can control the Bureaucracy. It is being used now by the Irish in the NO to Lisbon campaign. It will not become our strength until EU citizens pressure their MPs for unification with other national populist movements.

Guns are not the issue here. Evaporation of civil rights which are replaced by an international surveillance and control system of every person's activities is a far more toxic pandemic. The right to bear arms is a Constitutional one in the US, the purpose of which was to ensure that government could never oppress the People with tyranny. However, now, anyone who opposes tyranny is a 'terrorist': even if the tyranny IS the government itself. And you don't have to own a gun....words on a blog such as this can very well designate one as a 'person of interest' nullifying all Consitutional rights by authority of the Patriot Act.

The government now possesses the appropriate “watch lists” and has designated specific categories of Americans as domestic terrorists. If H.R. 2159 becomes law the Obama administration and the Justice Department will go after opponents to their far-reaching plan to disarm the nation and deliver it defenseless into the clutches of bankers and corporatists determined to reduce a once proud constitutional republic to the status of a fuedalist backwater. (Article below)

Whether one is far left, far right or center, this enforceable law described below will be what rules daily life for all. I await the day when Americans wake up and realise that people on the other side of the pond are not the enemy; but, fight for the same right to a decent life that all people from all nations want (this is THE purpose of government, no corporate/banking profitability).

I posted the story of Alistair Lundeby last week here. This is an example of how the Patriot Act defines a 'terrorist'. Yes, this can happen to you your family anytime - it only takes a call from a cranky neighbour or ex-lover reporting you for 'suspicious' activities or associations. Or perhaps you visited some dodgy websites while doing a search online. Hard to believe, isn't it? That the US (and Great Britain) now have the same state mechanisms as Stalin and Hitler. But a fascist but any name stinks as much.

Update on domestic terrorist labels

House Bill Aims to Strip “Rightwing Extremists”
of Second Amendment Right

05-11-2009
By Kurt Nimmo
Source
A sinister bill working its way through the House may eventually serve as a companion piece to the Department of Homeland Security’s “Rightwing Extremist” report that labels veterans and advocates of the Second Amendment as dangerous terrorists — H.R. 2159, The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009, sponsored by Rep. Peter King of New York.


The bill would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist.”

On April 29, with little fanfare or corporate media coverage, H.R. 2159 was introduced and referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. The bill would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist.” The entire bill can be read on the Govtrack website.

A similar bill was introduced in the Senate in 2007 but did not make it out of committee.

As noted above, the DHS has compiled a long list of folks the government considers terrorists. The bill, if enacted, would allow the attorney general, a documented gun-grabber, to deny millions of Americans due process. “[Rep. King] would deny citizens their civil liberties based on no due process,” Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, tells WorldNetDaily.

Pratt worries that the new bill will be used in conjunction with the DHS “Rightwing Extremism” report. “By those standards, I’m one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano’s terrorists,” Pratt continues. “This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they’re all potential terrorists. Actually, we could rename this bill the Janet Napolitano Frenzied Fantasy Implementation Act of 2009.”



On May 1, 2009, Infowars reported on the existence of another DHS document, the “Domestic Extremism Lexicon.” It adds more suspected terrorists to the government’s list, including people working in the alternative media, anarchists, pro-life activists, skinheads, lone terrorists, members of the militia movement, “decentralized” terrorists, and others.

The DHS reports were distributed to “federal, state, local, and tribal counterterrorism and law enforcement officials so they may effectively deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States.”

Earlier this week, a man was stopped in Louisiana and detained by police for the crime of displaying a “Don’t tread one me” bumper sticker on his car. A background check was conducted to determine whether he was a member of an “extremist” group, according to The American Vision website. “Don’t tread on me” was originally displayed on a flag designed by general and statesman Christopher Gadsden during the Revolutionary War. It is depicted as a terrorist symbol in the DHS “Rightwing Extremist” report.


House Bill Aims to Strip Rightwing Extremists of Second Amendment Right


Stephen Halbrook, Independent Institute Research Fellow and author of the book The Founders’ Second Amendment, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to Attorney General nominee Eric Holder.


During Holder’s shoo-in confirmation hearings earlier this year, Stephen Halbrook, Second Amendment attorney, detailed Holder’s vehement opposition to the right to bear arms. Holder’s role in the Waco massacre and Ruby Ridge were expected to be brought up during the hearings but were not.

Shortly after 9/11, Holder penned a Washington Post op-ed entitled “Keeping Guns Away From Terrorists.” In the article, the future Attorney General argues that a new law should give “the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a record of every firearm sale.” He also states that prospective gun buyers should be checked against the secret “watch lists” compiled by various government entities. In order to make his point, Holder makes the ludicrous hypothesis that Osama bin Laden would be able to purchase an unregistered firearm at a gun show in America.

The government now possesses the appropriate “watch lists” and has designated specific categories of Americans as domestic terrorists. If H.R. 2159 becomes law the Obama administration and the Justice Department will go after opponents to their far-reaching plan to disarm the nation and deliver it defenseless into the clutches of bankers and corporatists determined to reduce a once proud constitutional republic to the status of a fuedalist backwater.

Economic quick fix - HA HA HA

The Patriotic Retirement Plan

"How Would You Fix the Economy?"

Source
May 09, 2009
The St. Petersburg Times Newspaper, Business Section asked readers for ideas on "How Would You Fix the Economy?" This guy nailed it!

Dear Mr. President,

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America’s economy. Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force.

Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress and their constituents pay their taxes...
If you think this would work, please forward to everyone you know. If not, please disregard.

Patriot Act - supercedes US Constitution

Yep, the Patriot Act supercedes the Constitution. Hate to say I told you so, but.....

Ashton Lundeby, a Sixteen-Year-Old American,

Has Been Disappeared by Homeland Security

Source

Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby’s bedroom in his mother’s Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.

But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.

The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said.

“Undoubtedly, they were given false information, or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats,” Lundeby said.

Around 10 p.m. on March 5, Lundeby said, armed FBI agents along with three local law enforcement officers stormed her home looking for her son. They handcuffed him and presented her with a search warrant.

“I was terrified,” Lundeby’s mother said. “There were guns, and I don’t allow guns around my children. I don’t believe in guns.”

Lundeby told the officers that someone had hacked into her son’s IP address and was using it to make crank calls connected through the Internet, making it look like the calls had originated from her home when they did not.

Her argument was ignored, she said. Agents seized a computer, a cell phone, gaming console, routers, bank statements and school records, according to federal search warrants.

“There were no bomb-making materials, not even a blasting cap, not even a wire,” Lundeby said.

Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.

Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.

“We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution,” she said. “It wasn’t intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can’t even defend.”

Things I read May 5, 2009

Some days, I read so many interesting articles, I can't decide what to blog. So, a potpourri seems like the perfect solution. Hope you find something that interests you.


Goodbye bloggers, it was a nice run

Curious as to what was cut out of the liberty smashing HR 1913, what is being called the "Hate Crimes Act?"

A little portion that helped keep Freedom of Speech protections in place.... Wonder why that was removed before passage?

Reading the list of sponsors makes one think you've entered a Bar Mitzvah.

Another curious part of this piece of crap is the number, 1913. 1913 is the year that the ADL and the Federal Reserve were created. We're getting this rubbed right into our faces and don't even realize what is going on.

Here's what was cut out of this act before it was voted on, the bold portion. Sure are concerned about Free Speech, aren't they?

Text of H.R.1913 as Reported in House Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009....read more here.


The U.S. Economy: The Musical (Video)


UN pushing Israel toward legal proceedings
Gaza under Israeli fire during the 22-day war.

Tue, 05 May 2009
In pursuit of the case of Israeli war crimes, the United Nations moves to report to the Security Council that UN facilities in Gaza had been targeted willfully.

After the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) compound became the target of GPS-guided Israeli mortars on January 15, the UN set up a commission to bring Israeli human rights violations in Gaza out into the open.

The commission -- led by the former British secretary-general of human rights group Amnesty International, Ian Martin -- assembled a report on Israeli actions in Gaza for submission to the Security Council.

"Israel deliberately fired at UN institutions even though it knew it was forbidden", read the report...read more.

More Americans taking drugs for mental illness

Tue May 5, 2009 8:24am EDT
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Many more Americans have been using prescription drugs to treat mental illness since 1996, in part because of expanded insurance coverage and greater familiarity with the drugs among primary care doctors, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

They said 73 percent more adults and 50 percent more children are using drugs to treat mental illness than in 1996.

Among adults over 65, use of so-called psychotropic drugs -- which include antidepressants, antipsychotics and Alzheimer's medicines -- doubled between 1996 and 2006...read more.


UN demands Israel compensation for strikes in Gaza

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
(05-05) 15:03 PDT UNITED NATIONS, (AP)
A U.N. investigation on Tuesday accused Israel of spreading false statements about its attacks on United Nations schools and other facilities during the Gaza military campaign — including one reported to have killed more than 40 people — and formally demanded compensation.

The investigation ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon found conclusively that Israeli weaponry — some containing white phosphorus — was "the indisputed cause" of attacks on several schools, a health clinic and the world body's Gaza headquarters...read more.


Illinois State Police Seize and Keep Desirable Cars for Personal Use

The Newspaper
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Illinois State Police troopers seized a high-performance muscle car and set it aside for the personal use of an influential police official. The Associated Press reported that a suspected drunk driver in a 2006 Dodge Charger was pulled over in January 2007. The troopers used a state seizure law to confiscate the vehicle.

Once the paperwork was complete, the 425-horsepower vehicle — which had an as-new base price of $38,000 — was handed over for the personal use of Ron Cooley, 56, the Executive Director of the Illinois State Police Merit Board. Taxpayers also pick up the fuel tab for gas-guzzling 6.1 liter V-8 as he drives to and from work each day and on various business trips...read more.

Are WE the most dangerous viral infection on earth?

Check as many boxes as you like;
or, feel free to add some.

Are WE (humans) the most dangerous viral infection on earth?

No, it's pigs and their dirty flu! Have you read the news?

Yes, and we are doomed.

I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?

No. You can't compare humans and viruses: don't you know they are different species, you a leftist idiot?

Yes and No: We do seem to be a destructive infestation to the planet's well-being; but, on the other hand, would a virus be suicidal?

Yes. What's wrong with being a viral infection? May the best virus win.

Ananchist option. I know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

Only God or Allahs knows.

Only some of us. The rest of us are antibodies in the immune system.

Yes. And I am not happy about being a virus: '"I hate this place, this zoo, this prison, this reality, whatever you want to call it." '!

No, we are Masters of the Universe and we WILL survive.

Hmmm...other: Can't we just all get along?

Who cares? Get on with it.

Other

Please Specify:

Black Uggs