Quotes for a Snowy Thursday Morning
Yep, it’s snowing again in Western Washington. Very pretty, just an inch or so here in Chehalis. I expect it will be gone soon, but as daylight appeared, the neighborhood was especially appealing to the eye.
I collect quotes. They are useful in so many ways. Sometimes the author captures something large in very few words. That’s a good feat. Sometimes, the quote reminds us that our current problems may be the same one that we have faced for generations. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the problems aren’t real or worthy of our attention, it may just remind us to be patient, to consider challenges in larger time frames.
I am thinking about unfettered capitalism, the dominant current cultural love affair with free market economics and thinking that Dresden James’ quote below is on the mark. To question capitalism is preposterous and the questioner appears to be a raving lunatic. I am raving these days.
I am also thinking about socialism: medicare – universal health care – public services from garbage pickup/recycling to higher education and thinking that Tallyrand is right about new names. How would we propose economics and public governance as if people mattered without getting isolated as socialists or communists. How did these terms become so odious?
Commune, a couple of definitions:
1. To be in a state of intimate, heightened sensitivity and receptivity, as with one’s surroundings: hikers communing with nature.
2. To receive the Eucharist.
“An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public.” — Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838) 1st Prince de Bénévent, French diplomat
“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?”
— William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.”
— Dresden James
“It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disfranchise the public;
and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind.”
— W. E. B. Du Bois
(1868-1963) Professor, Civil Rights Activist, NAACP Founding Member
“We are not liberated until we liberate others. So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves.”
— Marilyn Ferguson 1938- ) American author, Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy
Get out there and do great things today.
Mike