Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.
Thomas Jefferson

"We Democrats are determined to restore our nation’s military strength, refocus on the real terrorist threat, bolster security safeguards at home and reestablish the credible standing we once had in the world. That is not defeatist. It is a call to formulate and execute a winning game plan for the War on Terror."
Rep. John Murtha

"In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free."-
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

And if I laugh at any mortal thing
'Tis merely that I may not weep

-George Gordon, Lord Byron

If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy, petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. 'Poor young chap,
I'd say --- 'I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap.'
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die --- in bed.

-Seigfreid Sassoon, WWI vet

[War] might be avoidable were more emphasis placed on
the training to social interest, less on the attainment
of egotistical grandeur.
--Lydia Sicher

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
-- Carl Jung

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
--George Washington

As long as we can talk with people, as long as one can
keep the guns quiet, one has a chance.
--Lydia Sicher

Secretary Rumsfeld’s dismal strategic decisions resulted
in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and
women, our allies, and the good people of Iraq. He was
responsible for America and her allies going to war with
the wrong plan and a strategy that did not address the
realities of fighting an insurgency.
--US Major General John Batiste

If you can dream it,
you can do it.
-- Walt Disney

When the power of love
overcomes the love of power
the world will know peace
Attributed to Jimi Hendrix

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute-I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair-I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none-and whose fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation-This is the kind of America for which our forefathers died.
JOHN F. KENNEDY

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world-a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today- and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill "gooks". They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are racists and hate mongers among us-they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not.
Fuck them.
Hunter S. Thompson 1939 - 2005

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!


Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Sheepdogs

Most humans truly are like sheep
Wanting nothing more than peace to keep
To graze, grow fat and raise their young,
Sweet taste of clover on the tongue.
Their lives serene upon Life’s farm,
They sense no threat nor fear no harm.
On verdant meadows, they forage free
With naught to fear, with naught to flee.
They pay their sheepdogs little heed
For there is no threat; there is no need.

To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries,
Roaming watchful round the peripheries.
These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar
With the fetid reek of the carnivore,
Too like the wolf of legends told,
To be amongst our docile fold.
Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they?
They have no use, not in this day.
Lock them away, out of our sight
We have no need of their fierce might.

But sudden in their midst a beast
Has come to kill, has come to feast
The wolves attack; they give no warning
Upon that calm September morning
They slash and kill with frenzied glee
Their passive helpless enemy
Who had no clue the wolves were there
Far roaming from their Eastern lair.
Then from the carnage, from the rout,
Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!”

Thus is our nature but too our plight
To keep our dogs on leashes tight
And live a life of illusive bliss
Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss.
Until he has us by the throat,
We pay no heed; we take no note.
Not until he strikes us at our core
Will we unleash the Dogs of War
Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath
Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path.
And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown before;
We love our sheep, we Dogs of War.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Never think that war,
no matter how necessary,
nor how justified,
is not a crime.
Ernest Hemingway

"What no one seemed to notice. . .
was the ever widening gap. . .
between the government and the people. . .
And it became always wider. . .
the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway . . .
(it) gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about . . .
and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated . . .
by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. . .
From Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)

COURAGE

Courage doesn't always roar.
Sometimes courage is the little voice at the
end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.
--Mary Anne Radmacher


Courage is resistance to fear,
mastery of fear – not absence of fear.
Except a creature be part coward it is
not a compliment to say it is brave.
--Mark Twain


The courage of life is often a less dramatic
spectacle than the courage of a final moment;
but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.
--John F. Kennedy


Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak;
courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston Churchill


It is curious that physical courage should be so
common in the world and moral courage so rare.
--Mark Twain


Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed
because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson


It was times like these when I thought my father, who
hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the
bravest man who ever lived.
--Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is
an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is
often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes
against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and
unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to
believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something
which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his
instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest
evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. --Bertrand Russell

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If
we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to
reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle
has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over
you, you almost never get it back.
--Carl Sagan

Memorial Day
5-29-07

Unlearned Lesson

Memorial Day
Of every year
The little valiant
Flags appear
On every fallen
Soldier's grave--
Symbol of what
Each died to save.
And we who see
And still have breath--
Are we no wiser
For their death?

~Dorothy Brown Thompson~

If your life is easy and without controversy,
then you do not need to be better, smarter, stronger, or more capable.
Struggle and difficulty forces you to be more than you were.

In the very same way,

If your political party has all the answers and never makes a mistake,
then there is nothing to discuss, and they don't need you!
Me

It is our choices, Harry,
that show what we really are far more than our abilities.
--Albus Dumbledore in one of the Harry Potter books

----------------------------------------------------------

Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is.
The way you deal with it is what makes the difference.
--Virginia Satir

The Charge of the Light Brigade
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.


2.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.


3.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.


4.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.


5.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.


6.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails,
and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them,
neither persons nor property will be safe.
--FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all,
and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies.
What is this safeguard? Skepticism.
This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep this, you need fear no harm.
Demosthenes

While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.
--John Adams

All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the morning to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they dream their dreams with open eyes, and make them come true.
--T.E. Lawrence (AKA Lawrence of Arabia)

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
--Abraham Lincoln

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act but a habit.
--Aristotle

I have learned silence from the talkative,
toleration from the intolerant,
and kindness from the unkind;
yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
--Khalil Gibran

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.

If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.


chinese philospher - lao-tse - 6th century bce

Since wars begin in the minds of men,
it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.
— from the constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), chartered in 1946

To robbery, slaughter, plunder
they give the lying name of empire;
they make a desert and call it peace.
— Cornelius Tacitus (c. 55-117 A,D,), Roman historian

The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the citizen of this plight.
--President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
In a speech made to Columbia University on Nov. 12, 1963
ten days before his assassination.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Melish, 1/13, 1813

Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.
Dean Koontz

Don't wish it was easier; wish you were better.
Don't wish for less problems; wish for more skills.
Don't wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.
--Jim Rohn

Left Edge North
http://leftedgenorth.blogspot.com/


“I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history,”

On Tony Blair - “Abominable, Loyal, blind, apparently subservient.”

“I think that the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world,”

“We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered,”

"The combined support of Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair for the war “has prolonged the war and increased the tragedy that has resulted.”

“For the first time since Israel was founded, we’ve had zero peace talks to try to bring a resolution of differences in the Middle East - That’s a radical departure from the past.”

Nobel PEACE prize recipient Jimmy Carter

The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people. --Justice Hugo L. Black

A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.
--Robert E. Lee, in a letter to his wife, 1864

All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the morning to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they dream their dreams with open eyes, and make them come true.
--T.E. Lawrence (AKA Lawrence of Arabia)

Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news.
Dan Rather

The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than beurocracy. It denounces as public enemies all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.
-- President Abraham Lincoln.

Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild family

Faith is to believe what you do not see;
the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
--St. Augustine

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.
--Alexander Solzehnitsyn

This one is for TJ


Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.
Buddha