"Kindness and compassion towards all living beings is a mark of a civilized society. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cock fighting, bullfighting and rodeos are all cut from the same defective fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves.” ~ Cesar Chavez

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men~Frederick Douglass

[T]hose who claim to care about the well-being of human beings and the preservation of our environment should become vegetarians for that reason alone. They would thereby increase the amount of grain available to feed people elsewhere, reduce pollution, save water and energy, and cease contributing to the clearing of forests.…

[W]hen nonvegetarians say that “human problems come first” I cannot help wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals.
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 1990

"The hunger of the world is related to injustice in trade, it is not a problem of production, it never has been" ".. our sources of freedom are being defined as slavery, our slavery has now got a new name called free trade"
~ Vandana Shiva

“Burden Sharing in an Age of Migration,” the 2007-2008 James A. Thomas Lecture at Yale Law School
http://cs.law.yale.edu/blogs/...



http://ucsusa.org/assets/docu...
http://ucsusa.org/food_and_en...



Put away the flags
Put away the flags
By Howard Zinn

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession."

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day."

On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."

It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to
war.

We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, "to civilize and Christianize" the Filipino people.

As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: "The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness."

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government's lies.

How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for "liberty," for "democracy"?

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.
We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.
Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier,
































"There could never really be justice on stolen land" KRS-1






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GO VEGAN/VEGETARIAN!

Big Sur, cycling, running, camping, travel, music, animals, reading, acoustic guitar, good game of tennis, didgeridoo, kora, foreign films, art, photography, podcasting, snowboarding, live theatre, opera, book stores, libraries, eating good food (indian/mediteranian), drinking vietnamese coffee and fine wine, and sometimes just plain ole Silence.

jobim &; gilberto, drum &; base, lounge, mary's danish, cat stevens, r&;b, jazz, ella, dinah sarah vaughn, nina simone, edith piaff, betty carter, karen carpenter, celia cruz, mary j., dreamgirls (original soundtrack), world music, calico soul, mozart, dubussy, bizet, stevie wonder, santana, slydell, pretenders, bob dylan, frans joli, rosa passos, classic rock, international, brazilian, hasta manana rebecca (song played in battle of algiers), ms.joplin, doors, cowboy junkies, chandra, vervs remixs, placido, andre bochelli, billie &; jennifer holliday, talia, beth hart, rilo kiley, frank sinatra, sublime, cheap trick, no thanks, no doubt, dixie chicks, patsy cline, hank williams, terry clark, shania twain, faith hill, early tupac, rage against the machine, quetzal, kinky, los amigos invisibles, brand new heavies, buena vista social club, Pink, pink floyd, rod stewart, anyone who transfers the sounds from their soul, and most everything on beatport kcrw, kpfk &; kjazz, whew!

PBS, Peoples Court, KCET, Nature, Cold Case, Boston Legal.

Harold and Maude-Hal Ashby w/Ruth Gordon & Bud Cort. A Women Under The Influence-John Cassavetes w/gena roland & peter falk. The Tenth Victim-Elio Petri w/Marcello Mastroianni & Ursula Andress. Battle Of Algiers-Gillo Pontecorvo w/most non actors. Don Juan (If Don Juan were a women)-Roger Vadim w/Bridgette Bardot. Thumb Wars-Steve Oedekerk w/thumbs Classic! Scar Face starring you know who, ......

A people's history of the united state-Howard Zinn. Civil Disobedience~Henry David Thoreau. Any of Noam Chomsky's books. The Holocaust Industry-Norman G. Finkelstein. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man~John Perkins. Don Quixote-Cervantes. Zorba the greek-Nikos Kazantzakis. Animal Farm-George Orwell. Occupied America: A History Of Chicanos, The Mexicano Political Experience In Occupied Aztlan-Rodolfo Acuna. Racial Formation In The United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (Critical Social Thought)-Michael Omi &; Howard Winant. Finding Darwin's God: a Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution-Kenneth R. Miller. The Selfish Gene-Richard Dawkins. Savage Inequalities-Jonathan Kozol. Forgetful Nation: on Immigration and Cultural Identity in the United States-Ali Behdad. Sexus, Nexus, Plexus-Henry Miller. The Idiot-Dostoevsky. The Prince-Niccolo Machiavelli. Ordinary Madness-Charles Bukowski. Economic Hitman-John Perkins. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
–Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop

"Kindness and compassion towards all living beings is a mark of a civilized society. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cock fighting, bullfighting and rodeos are all cut from the same defective fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves.” ~ Cesar Chavez

Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.
-- Emma Goldman


The Great Spirit is in all things, he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us, that which we put into the ground she returns to us....
-Big Thunder(Bedagi)(Wabanaki Algonquin)

"....taking a weekend course, or attending one sweatlodge does not a 'Native' make" ~ unknown.

"There is no such thing as 'part-Cherokee.' Either you're Cherokee or you're not.
It isn't the quantity of Cherokee blood in your veins that is important, but the quality of
it . . . your pride in it. I have seen full-bloods who have virtually no idea of the great
legacy entrusted to their care. Yet, I have seen people with as little as 1/500th blood
quantum who inspire the spirits of their ancestors because they make being Cherokee a proud part of a their everyday life."
 ~Jim Pell: Principal Chief of the North Alabama Cherokee Tribe ~


I have no sense of nationalism, only a cosmic consciousness of belonging to the human family.
-- Rosika Schwimmer

The voice of intelligence ... is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance~Karl Menninger

“A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither”~Thomas Jefferson

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”~Howard Zinn

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." ~Thomas Jefferson

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
-- Baha'u'llah

In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity~Konrad Adenauer

It is not always easy to diagnose. The simplest form of stupidity - the mumbling, nose-picking, stolid incomprehension - can be detected by anyone. But the stupidity which disguises itself as thought, and which talks so glibly and eloquently, indeed never stops talking, in every walk of life is not so easy to identify, because it marches under a formidable name, which few dare attack. It is called Popular Opinion... ~Robertson Davies

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
-- Theodore Roosevelt (1918)


Treat the earth well,
It was not given to you by your parents,
It was loaned to you by your children.
Indian Proverb

The more I see of men the more I like dogs. - Madame De Stael

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich-- Napoleon

"As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love" -Pythagorus


The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. -Mahatama Gandhi

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat~Mother Teresa

"A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persist in it, will at length ever become the laughing-stock of the world" ~Henry David Thoreau

Indeed, you serve your country poorly if you do so by suppressing your conscience in favor of the law — your country needs consciences more than it needs conscienceless robots. Henry David Thoreau

"America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future"
Frederick Douglass

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.
Alice Walker

"Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy it is absolutely essential to it" ~Howard Zinn

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning..."~Frederick Douglass

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion~Frederick Douglass

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism" ~ George Washington

"The things they disliked the most were to have their long hair cut, to give up wearing their blankets, and to cease smoking. But no white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man's clothes, eats the white man's food, speaks the white man's language, and professes the white man's religion"~Booker T. Washington

"The white people, who are trying to make us over into their image, they want us to be what they call "assimilated," bringing the Indians into the mainstream and destroying our own way of life and our own cultural patterns. They believe we should be contented like those whose concept of happiness is materialistic and greedy, which is very different from our way.

We want freedom from the white man rather than to be intergrated. We don't want any part of the establishment, we want to be free to raise our children in our religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish and live in peace. We don't want power, we don't want to be congressmen, or bankers....we want to be ourselves. We want to have our heritage, because we are the owners of this land and because we belong here.

The white man says, there is freedom and justice for all. We have had "freedom and justice," and that is why we have been almost exterminated. We shall not forget this."

"we swore, ABOVE ALL, to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foriegn and domestic. When the leaders who control us as a military begin to assault and userp the very Constitution we swore to defend, they become an enemy of it, and a domestic enemy is far more dangerous than a foriegn one" ~Hef

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 purposeand you allow him to make war at pleasure. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. Abraham Lincoln

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers” Voltaire

"When they want a broad with balls they call me." Bette Davis

I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody-Lilly Tomlin
The problem with winning the rat race is you're still a rat-Lilly Tomlin

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons-Bertrand Russell

There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"It's time for us to open our hearts and mind to other peoples suffering" Maryla Husyt Finkestein, survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, Maidanek concentration camp, two slave-labor camps and mother of Professor Norman G. Finkelstein. Professor Finkelstein received his doctorate in 1988 from the Department of Politics, Princeton University, for a thesis on the theory of Zionism. Prolific scholar, his writings are noted for their support of the Palestinian cause.

Albert Einstein
Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. (1879 - 1955)

“One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain”
Thomas Sowell

No one is free when others are oppressed. ~Author Unknown

“…. we have to dismiss this totally spurious notion that Israel is maintaining it’s occupation of the west bank in Gaza for security reasons, it has very good reasons to maintain the occupation but I’m afraid to say they have precious little to do with security” ~Norman G Finkelstein

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross" - Sinclair Lewis

Gloria Steinem:
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.

“Fear is the thought of admitted inferiority.”~Elbert Hubbard

The quantity of consonants in the English language is constant. If omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian "pahks" his "cah," the lost r's migrate southwest, causing a Texan to "warsh" his car and invest in "erl wells." ~Author Unknown

George Orwell:
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

Voltaire
"One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say”

Marylin Manson
One hates what one fears.

Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the conquest of it. Anonymous

"Don't be officious. You're not yourself when you're officious. That's the curse of a government job." Harold & Maude

You don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing. ?

"I have a question. Why do we all speak in british accents when we come from space and there is no Britain?"
-ThumbWars-

My Parents. Children, Vegan, & Environmental Activist, ALF, Soldaderas, Frida, Rosa Parks, Dolores Huerta, Norman G. Finkestein, Che, Hector P. Garcia, Gandhi, Poncho Villa,Chomsky and Zinn, MLK, Benito Juarez, Pete Seeger, Zapata, Marcos, Ceasar & Hugo Chavez, Henry David Thoreau, Indigenous Peoples of the world in occupied lands, Vaclav Havel, and everyone who stands up for injustices.