“Even when we do feel strongly, it’s generally about such petty things: about personal and family security, about the flag, about some religious or political leader. Our feeling is always for or against something; it isn’t like a fire that burns brightly, without smoke.”
Ralph Nader, March 19,...
"Democrats Ushered in an Era of Corporate Fascism"
"Democrats are on an infinite journey towards cowardliness"
We are at a stage that I would call a corporate state, that is exactly the definition of fascism conveyed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a 1938 message to the U.S. Congress. He said when private power takes over government, that is fascism. And it keeps getting deeper and more dominant with every four years of presidential election, and every two years of Congressional election…
"Staggering concentration of wealth and obscene avarice of the very rich"
The staggering concentration of wealth and obscene avarice of the very rich now dwarfs the hedonism and excesses of the world’s most heinous despots and wealthiest capitalists of the past…The longer wealth is funneled upwards into the hands of a tiny, oligarchic cabal, who put Biden into office and whose interests he assiduously serves, we are doomed.
"I am this, because you are that"
"Mechanical Man and Organization Man"
"Venezuelans Fleeing Crisis Face Desperate Hike to 12,000 Feet"
"Everyone Has Fallen for the Lies About Venezuela"
"The U.S. is watching from the sidelines as Venezuela destabilizes the region"
"Qualifications for a Peace Brigade"
"This messenger of peace must have equal regard for all the principal religions of the earth. Thus, if he is a Hindu, he will respect the other faiths current in India. He must, therefore, possess a knowledge of the general principles of the different faiths professed in the country." Gandhi is speaking about the qualifications for the 'peace brigade' he envisioned. The Gandhi Reader, page 342, from Harijan, 1938. Qualifications for a Peace Brigade (1) He...
"Netanyahu to Macron: Your shame will reverberate long after"
Netanyahu to Macron: Israel will win with you or without you, your shame will reverberate long after. As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilized countries should be standing firmly by Israel's side. Yet President Macron and some other Western leaders are now calling for an arms embargo against Israel.
"Can you be sensitively be aware of conflict?"
“When you give your attention completely, that is, with your mind, with your eyes, with your heart, with your nerves – when you give complete attention, you will find there is no center at all, there is no observer and therefore there is no division between the observed and the observer, and you eradicate conflict totally, this conflict brought about by separation, by division.”
"If you are greedy and envious you will create hate"
“If you are greedy for power, if you are envious, you are bound to produce a society which will result in destruction. So again it depends upon you and not on the leaders – not on so-called politicians and all the rest of them.”
"A sublime hope that souls exist which we can love"
“I saw a gracious gentleman who adapts his conversation to the form of the head of the man he talks with! I had fancied that the value of life lay in its inscrutable possibilities; in the fact that I never know, in addressing myself to a new individual, what may befall me. I carry the keys of my castle in my hand, ready to throw them at the feet of my lord, whenever and in what disguise soever he shall appear. I know he is in the neighborhood, hidden...
"There will be real cooperation on the part of each one"
“Those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because...
"Love all people, love everything"
“Brothers, have no fear of men’s sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything.”
"Put an end to war in yourself"
“Obviously what causes war is the desire for power, position, prestige, money; also the disease called nationalism, the worship of a flag; and the disease of organized religion, the worship of a dogma. All these are the causes of war; if you as an individual belong to any of the organized religions, if you are greedy for power, if you are envious, you are bound to produce a society which will result in destruction. So again it depends upon you and not...
"Alaska is dying a slow death. Here’s how we can change course."
Anchorage Daily News, April 21, 2025 3
"Ask the most urgent questions. Yearn for the ultimate."
“Ask the most crying, urgent question: What is the secret of existence? Wherefore and for whose sake do we live? Only those who have not tasted the terror of life, only those who claim that it is a pleasure to live and that more and only pleasure is in store for the generations to come, can deny the essential necessity of asking: Wherefore? For whose sake?”
"It doesn’t matter if that city exists now, or every will exist"
“It doesn’t matter if that city exists now, or ever will exist. The important thing is to always hold the image of it up before oneself, and, thus beholding it, constitute oneself its citizen.”
"A new ardor consume pettiness and hardness"
“The new ardor which burns in his breast consumes in its glow the lower ‘noes’ which formerly beset him, and keeps him immune against infection from the entire groveling portion of his nature. Magnanimities once impossible are now easy; paltry conventionalities and mean incentives once tyrannical hold no sway. The stone wall inside of him has fallen, the hardness in his heart has broken down.” 267 (See pages 265-267)
"Find the spiritual meaning of what you do"
“Though you are for the most part unconscious of the spiritual meaning of what you say, the instinctive satisfaction you have in saying it is as much a real movement of the spirit within you, as the beating of your heart is a real movement of the body, though you are unconscious of that also, till you put your hand on it. Put your hand also, so to speak, upon the source of the satisfaction with which you use this curse; and ascertain the law of it.”...
"Dismiss whatever insults your own soul"
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of menTo Him that was Crucified MY spirit to yours, dear brother;Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you;I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others also;)I specify you with joy, O my comrade, to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since—and those to come also,That we all labor together, transmitting the same charge and succession;We few,...
"The roots of our feelings and thoughts are in a higher, heavenly world"
“Of the pride of Satan I think this: it is hard for us on earth to comprehend it, and therefore it is so easy to fall into error and to share it, even imagining that we are doing something grand and fine. Indeed on earth, we cannot comprehend many of the strongest feelings and movements of our nature. Let not that be a stumbling block, and think not that it may serve as a justification to you for anything…Much on earth is hidden from us, but to make...
"Offer yourself as a candidate for that covenant"
“He who offers himself a candidate for that covenant, comes up, like an Olympian, to the great games, where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes himself for contests where Time, Want, Danger are in the lists.”
"Dream the impossible dream"
To dream the impossible dreamTo fight the unbeatable foeTo bear with unbearable sorrowTo run where the brave dare not goTo right the unrightable wrongTo love pure and chaste from afarTo try when your arms are too wearyTo reach the unreachable starThis is my quest, to follow that starNo matter how hopeless, no matter how farTo fight for the rightWithout question or pauseTo be willing to marchInto hell for a heavenly causeAnd I know if I'll only be trueTo...
"Cure your own blindness"
"There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life."
"“If I take anything that I do not need for my own immediate use and keep"
I suggest that we are thieves in a way. If I take anything that I do not need for my own immediate use, and keep it, I thieve it from somebody else. I venture to suggest that it is the fundamental law of Nature, without exception, that Nature produces enough for our wants from day to day, and if only everybody took enough for himself and nothing more, there would be no pauperism in this world, there would be no man dying of starvation in this world. But...
"Take less from the poor"
“The urgent challenge facing the world is not to give more to the poor, but to take less from the poor; the rich have to get off the backs of the poor and get out of their way so that they can look after themselves…Poverty will never be eliminated unless we eliminate injustice…Poverty is not the problem: injustice is the problem. We need to make a fundamental shift, a paradigm shift, a shift from ownership to relationship…Nature is a gift to...
Let’s create a vision for the city together. Do you want to be part of it?Can you imagine the future of this city?The future is approaching fast and we need to be ready for it!The way we live will change. The way we work will change. The way we move will change. And: the way we treat the environment has to change. But: Change has to happen in a local way – maintaining the cities unique identity. There are a lot of different choices to be made....
To dream the impossible dreamTo fight the unbeatable foeTo bear with unbearable sorrowTo run where the brave dare not go
"The Barbarians are among us, celebrating murder"
Hatred of Jews has become mainstream among youths and young adults in some Arab communities.
Hundreds gather in SF to rally for freedom for Palestine in wake of Middle East conflict
"Israel’s Culture of Deceit"
Israel, which always seeks to blame Palestinians for the atrocities it carries out, is the least trustworthy source about the bombing of the hospital in Gaza.
"Jon Voight slams daughter Angelina Jolie’s stance on Israel-Hamas war"
Jon Voight has shared a video criticising his daughter Angelina Jolie's stance on the Israel-Hamas war. The actor, stood in front of an American flag, called Jolie's views and those who share them 'lies'. Jolie had shared a post on Instagram which criticised Israel's actions in the war in Gaza.
"How to Use Chat GPT For Beginners 2023"
In this video, I'm going to give you a complete course on how to use the AI tool ChatGPT, and I guarantee that you'll become an expert user of the platform by the end of this video. We'll be diving deep into 15 really powerful command prompts that you can use to maximize the output of artificial intelligence. If you watch this short 27 minute course, you will leave extremely comfortable with using Chat GPT and how you can weave it into your personal and...
"The machine is an empty vessel"
“A.I. will never be able to do what I can do because A.I. has never felt what I’ve felt. It will never move through the emotional matrix of living a singular, individual life.”
"If We Go Ahead on This Everyone Will Die"
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"This is going to change everything about how we do everything."
This is going to change everything about how we do everything. I think that it represents mankind’s greatest invention to date. It is qualitatively different — and it will be transformational.
"A.I. can’t write my cat story because it hasn’t felt what I feel"
A.I. will never feel the sense of mortality that forms around…the illogic and contradictions of the human condition, and the cosmic unification of pain and joy.
“Often we think what we have done is good, but it may not actually be so. When we become old, we are often very proud of what we have done. When others listen to someone proudly telling something which he has done, they will feel funny, because they know his recollection is one-sided. They know that what he has told them is not exactly what he did. Moreover, if he is proud of what he did, that pride will create some problem for him. Repeating his...
Child's Question: How old are you?Thay: Well, how old are you first?Child: I am six, almost seven.Thay: Listen, I am going to give you a good answer. I am the continuation of the Buddha, so I am 2,600 years old.Child: Oh!Thay: I am also the continuation of my father, so I am 110 years young. I know that you are my continuation and I feel that I am in you, so at the time I am six years old also. That is true, because I have been reborn in that child. He...
"Do not go gentle into that good night"
Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too...
"When this world is ever ablaze, why this laughter, why this jubilation?"
Those who have not practiced spiritual disciplines in their youth pine away like old cranes in a lake without fish. Like worn-out bows they lie in old age, sighing over the past.
"There’s no essential difference between the old and the young"
Age is the accumulation of memory"What is age? Is it the number of years you have lived? That is part of age; you were born in such and such a year, and now you are fifteen, forty or sixty years old. Your body grows old and so does your mind when it is burdened with all the experiences, miseries and weariness of life; and such a mind can never discover what is truth. The mind can discover only when it is young, fresh, innocent; but innocence is not a...
"The soldier’s sense of humanity has to be erased"
What had to happen to us before we "good guys" could accept to become killers of fellow humans? What force or rationale could transform our very nature from benevolence to malevolence?It is crystal clear to me now at age 88. We first have to be systematically and brutally humiliated.
"Soldiers in different armies meet with each other"
“As the first year of the First World War neared its end, British and German soldiers faced one another along twenty-seven miles of trenches, at some places with only thirty yards of open ground between them. As Christmas drew near, the deadly absurdity of the situation became increasingly clear to many.On Christmas Eve, German soldiers sent a chocolate cake across ‘No-Man’s Land’ to their British opposite, with a message announcing a concert of...
"The soldier’s trade is not slaying, but being slain"
“I have already alluded to the difference hitherto existing between regiments of men associated for purposes of violence, and for purposes of manufacture; in that the former appear capable of self-sacrifice – the latter, not; which singular fact is the real reason of the general lowness of estimate in which the profession of commerce is held, as compared with that of arms. Philosophically, it does not, at first sight, appear reasonable…that a...
"War is the only adventure the average person may expect to have in his life"
“Another important factor for the possibility of war is the deeply ingrained feeling of respect for and awe of authority. The soldier had traditionally been made to feel that to obey his leaders was a moral and religious obligation for the fulfillment of which he should be ready to pay with his life. It took about three to four years of the horror of life in the trenches and growing insight into the fact that they were being used by their leaders for...
"War is the only adventure the average person may expect to have"
“Another important factor for the possibility of war is the deeply ingrained feeling of respect for and awe of authority. The soldier had traditionally been made to feel that to obey his leaders was a moral and religious obligation for the fulfillment of which he should be ready to pay with his life. It took about three to four years of the horror of life in the trenches and growing insight into the fact that they were being used by their leaders for...
"The danger of violent, commercial, savage art"
There must be a lot of resources on this elsewhere“Watching a bad TV program, we the TV program. We are what we feel and perceive. If we are angry, we are the anger. If we are in love, we are love. If we look at a snow-covered mountain peak, we are the mountain. We can be anything we want, so why do we open our windows to bad TV programs made by sensationalist producers in search of easy money, programs that make our hearts pound, our fists tighten,...
"I am this because you are that"
No one of us can claim it is not our responsibility. The girl in Manila is that way because of the way we are. Looking into the life of that young prostitute, we see the non-prostitute people. And looking at the non-prostitute people, and at the way we live our lives, we see the prostitute. This helps to create that, and that helps to create this.
"Why don’t homeless people just get jobs?"
"We’re watching civilization collapse in real time"
"Police officer rapes and murders woman"
"One has to understand what it is to be alone, for beauty is aloneness."
To be alone means you can get to know yourself and that you are not under the influence of anybody. Or rather, you are trying to understand the influence of propaganda, newspapers, magazines, television, teachers, your mother and father, or the group around you. You begin to learn. You are independent, and you are free. From this comes the peculiar quality of inner discipline.
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“It is a sign of the love of God that a mystery is always separated from man by a layer of silence. And that is a reminder that man should also keep a silence in which to approach the mystery. Today, when there is only noise in and around man, it is difficult to approach the mystery.” The Quaker Reader, 527
"Loneliness is one of the fundamental experiences of the modern era"
"Do you know what help is?"
Superficial: ‘In the afflictions, misfortunes and tribulations of life, only he who actively helps us is our friend.’ Deep: ‘Study whether you know what help is. Enlightenment is necessary before the wild one knows it.’ Idries Shah, The Sufis, 406-407The virtuous man may be compared to a large leafy tree which, while it is itself exposed to the heat of the sun, gives coolness to others by covering them with its shade. (Superficial view). The...
"There’s a strange frenzy in my head"
There's a strange frenzy in my head, of birds flying, each particle circulating on its own. Is the one I love everywhere?
"Indifference to health, wealth and the self"
“One has to be indifferent to health, to loneliness, to what people say or do not say, indifferent to whether one succeeds or does not succeed, indifferent to authority. Indifference comes into being when you listen to that noise, ride on that noise infinitely. Then that noise does not affect you, does not pervert you. You listen to it completely with indifference and therefore with understanding.” J. KrishnamurtiSuccess is mediocrity“My whole...
"A man is free in proportion to his non-possession of power"
But, insists Tolstoy, a man is free in proportion to his non-possession of power. And the most powerful are the most unfree. "The strongest, most indissoluble, most burdensome, and constant bond with other men, is what is called power over others, which in its real meaning is only the greatest dependence on them." “History is made by men of power, so historians write of the activities of statesmen, generals, kings and diplomatists, men who are visibly...
"Find in what sense the contrary is true"
Find in what sense the contrary is true (Simone Weil)"Best of all exercises for the finding of truth is the confrontation of statements that seem absolutely to contradict each other. 'Method of investigation –' Simone Weil once jotted down in a note to herself, 'as soon as one has arrived at any position, try to find in what sense the contrary is true.' …Her deliberate strategic emphases, her desire to 'throw the counterweight' on the side of a...
"Sufism is the ‘secret doctrine’ of essential unity."
When apparent opposites are reconciled, the individuality is not only complete, it also transcends the bounds of ordinary humanity as we understand them.
"The desire for sensation makes us cling to music and possess beauty"
Dependence on outward line and form only indicates the emptiness of our own being, which we fill with music, with art, with deliberate silence. Does not music offer us, in a very subtle way, a happy release from what is? Good music takes us away from ourselves, from our daily sorrows, pettiness and anxieties, it makes us forget; or it gives us strength to face life, it inspires, invigorates and pacifies us. It becomes a necessity in either case, whether...
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"The arts must have a noble motive"
Sir, you have this gift, and a mighty one; see that you serve your nation faithfully with it. It is a greater trust than ships and armies: you might cast THEM away, if you were their captain, with less treason to your people than in casting your own glorious power away, and serving the devil with it instead of men. Ships and armies you may replace if they are lost, but a great intellect, once abused, is a curse to the earth for ever.
"Creativity comes from responsive merging with the eternal in reality, not from an ambition to say something"
“The pattern of life of a people is more significant than the pattern of its art. What counts most is not expression, but existence itself. The key to the source of creativity lies in the will to cling to spirituality, to be close to the inexpressible, and not merely in the ability of expression. What is creative comes from responsive merging with the eternal in reality, not from an ambition to say something.” Abraham Heschel, The Earth is the Lord's,...
"Creativity is virtuoso display in the arts"
For us moderns, virtuoso technique is used to create imaginary worlds, in fiction and in movies, to express intense emotions, with music, painting and dance. But still, one fundamental trait of the ancestral personality persists in our aesthetic cravings: the beauty we find in skilled performances. From Lascaux to the Louvre to Carnegie Hall, human beings have a permanent innate taste for virtuouso displays in the arts.We find beauty in something done...
"Creativity is an opiate of the masses"
The vocabulary of self, culture, and creativity pretty much sums up the effects of what Rousseau began. It expresses the dissatisfactions with the scientific and political solutions of the Enlightenment…" Creativity and personality "have no specific content, are a kind of opiate of the masses…Creativity and personality take the place of older words like virtue, industry, rationality and character, affect our judgments, provide us with educational...
"Our sensual desires promise us a promenade, but deliver us only a dragon"
“Our sensual desires promise us a promenade, but deliver us only a dragonnade. A sprightly step in the forenoon turns into a draggled tail in the afternoon. All-nighters of roister-doistery lead only to mornings of huggermuggery; that is to say, of sickness and sadness. Need I speak of it? Every carnal joy begins with a caress, but in the end curls up into a ball and dies. I ask the question again. What can you see outside the monastery walls that you...
"Only the mind that is free can be creative"
"So, to find out what is true, the mind must first be free, and to be free is extraordinarily hard work, harder than all the practices of yoga. Such practices merely condition your mind, and it is only the free mind that can be creative. A conditioned mind may be inventive; it may think up new ideas, new phrases, new gadgets; it may build a dam, plan a new society, and all the rest of it; but that is not creativity. Creativity is something much more than...
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"Spirituality is an explosive state of creation"
"The religious mind does not function from a center of authority, whether it is accumulated knowledge as tradition, or it is experience which is really the continuation of tradition, the continuation of conditioning. The religious spirit does not think in terms of time, the immediate results, the immediate reformation within the pattern of society. We said the religious mind is not a ritualistic mind; it does not belong to any church, to any group, to any...
"Spirituality is the transcendent in our own existence"
“Nothing exists for its own sake, nothing is valid by its own right. What seems to be a purpose is but a station on the road. All is set in the dimension of the holy. All is endowed with bearing on God…This is what we mean by the term ‘spiritual’: It is the reference to the transcendent in our own existence, the direction of the Here toward the Beyond…It is impossible to grasp spirit in itself. Spirit is a direction, the turning of all beings to...
"Destructive and irresponsible freedom is boundless"
Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus...
"We live in a security and surveillance state"
The machinery of the security and surveillance state, the use of special terrorism laws and the stripping of civil liberties become ubiquitous. The lofty rhetoric of liberty and the reality of the chains readied for the public creates magic realism. Reality and the language describing reality are soon antipodal. The pseudo-democracy is populated with pseudo-legislators, pseudo-courts, pseudo-journalists, pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-citizens. Nothing...
"We who believe in freedom"
We who believe in freedom cannot restWe who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sonsIs as important as the killing of white men, white mothers’ sons That which touches me most is that I had a chance to work with peoplePassing on to others that which was passed on to me To me young people come first, they have the courage where we failAnd if I can but shed some light as they carry us through the...
"We need to develop a sense of the oneness of humanity"
We need to develop a sense of the oneness of humanity by considering other human beings as brothers and sistersI have been deeply saddened by the conflict in Ukraine.Our world has become so interdependent that violent conflict between two countries inevitably impacts the rest of the world. War is out-dated – non-violence is the only way. We need to develop a sense of the oneness of humanity by considering other human beings as brothers and sisters. This...
"The purpose of the Ukraine crisis is to herd sheeple back into line"
“Unfortunately, World War 3 has already begun, almost exactly two years ago when the world was locked down in a state of siege to a false flag flu engineering populations into the new 9/11 war of bioterror, necessitating techno-tyranny for our safety and general welfare by the state-of-emergency war powers and health of the state. And conveniently, for our rulers of course, especially as rising resistance to that war was unfolding across nations, our...
"Putin’s original statement"
"Chris Hedges, Chronicle of a war fortold"
"We must stand up for truths Putin disdains"
"Many predicted Nato expansion would lead to war."
"‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes"
"We Are All Living in Vladimir Putin’s World Now"
"Man of La Mancha - This is My Quest"
To dream the impossible dreamTo fight the unbeatable foeTo bear with unbearable sorrowTo run where the brave dare not go
National Endowment for...
"The Complicated Role of the Modern Public Library"
"10 Common Root Causes of Poverty"
Poverty is a global problem. According to the World Bank in 2015, over 700 million people were living on less than $1.90 a day. While that represents a milestone (in 1990, it was over one billion) that’s still way too many people. That number also includes extreme poverty that is defined by the UN as “a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter,...
"Beauty which is acquired at the cost of justice is an abomination"
"Beauty is where God and the devil join battle"
"Resource in ‘What is freedom?’"
"Vaccinated America Has Had Enough"
"Not wearing masks is a failure of our social obligation"
In the context of a deadly and often debilitating contagion, where the unchecked spread of infection has consequences for the entire society, vaccination is not a personal decision. And inasmuch as the United States has struggled to achieve herd immunity against Covid-19 through vaccination, it is because we refuse to treat the pandemic for what it is: a social problem to solve through collection action.
"Never in the history of man have we quarantined and isolated the healthy for the sake of the vulnerable"
Can we construct a practical spirituality for the disaffected modern life?
Valentine’s Day, Mother’s and Father’s Day champion a limited form of love. Don't cut yourself short. There is an even better kind of relationship.
Are you fed up with politics, but still want to be involved in the issues of the day? Is government that recognizes heart and soul possible?
