Howard Zinn’s new documentary, “THE PEOPLE SPEAK", tonight, 8 p.m. EST, The History Channel Options

[believe_it]

“I’m a big believer that history is not the story of millions, but that history is a million stories,” Ms. Dubuc said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/arts/tel...tml?_r=1&em

December 12, 2009

New Boss, Same as the Old Boss: Howard Zinn Traces Social Change

By BRIAN STELTER

In Howard Zinn’s new documentary, “The People Speak,” the actress Marisa Tomei is shown reading aloud an essay by a worker at a 19th-century textile mill in Lowell, Mass., who led other women to protest wage reductions and demand better working conditions.

In the woman’s description of oppression at the hands of a company, Mr. Zinn, the left-wing historian, hears both past and present tense. “She says the same thing of the 1830s that we hear today — that you are at the mercy of your employer,” Mr. Zinn said in an interview.

So much of Mr. Zinn’s career, reflected in his “People’s History of the United States” book, has been about the struggle for social change. With “The People Speak,” which has its premiere on the History Channel on Sunday (at 8 p.m., Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time), he is having a raft of celebrities recount that effort through the words of people who were there. “It’s the people’s point of view of history,” said the actor Josh Brolin, an executive producer of the film.

Onstage and on camera, Benjamin Bratt reads a farmer’s grievances during Shays’s Rebellion. Matt Damon reads from “The Grapes of Wrath.” Morgan Freeman reads from “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” a speech by Frederick Douglass.

“Once you get the actors reading these things, it really brings the history alive,” Mr. Damon said in an interview last month, amid a college tour to promote the film.

Some of the readings, like Ms. Tomei’s, are especially resonant now, given the perceptible anger in the country about banks and bailouts. “That’s by design,” Mr. Damon said. “What they were up against oftentimes are exactly the same things we’re up against now.”

One scene in the two-hour film tells the story of an organizer who encouraged tenants to protest evictions during the Great Depression. Similarly, in the current economic downturn, “We’ve seen examples of people rebelling,” Mr. Zinn, 87, said. “We’ve seen tenants rebelling against foreclosures. This is the kind of thing that happened in a much larger scale in the 1930s.”

He added, “If this spreads — the idea of fighting foreclosures, the idea of workers going on strike — it’s possible this can lead into a larger movement for economic justice.”

The film most closely correlates with Mr. Zinn’s “Voices of a People’s History of the United States,” a five-year-old compilation of primary-source material. The readings were selected from the book and recorded at sites across the country.

At the performances “there were a lot of readings that really struck a chord because of the way that people are feeling right now,” Mr. Damon said.

Other contributors included Viggo Mortensen, Sean Penn and Kerry Washington. Between readings, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, John Legend and other artists performed historical songs.

The project appealed to the History Channel partly because “primary sources are a real driving force for us right now,” said Nancy Dubuc, the channel’s president and general manager.

For History, “People Speak” is part of a big-event series strategy to increase viewership. In 2008 the channel’s eyewitness recounting of the Sept. 11 attacks, “102 Minutes That Changed America,” set ratings records for it. More recently, History showed the 10-hour “WWII in HD” on five consecutive nights and drew an average of 2.4 million viewers per night.

Next year History plans a 12-hour series called “America: The Story of Us,” which is intended to “tell the entire history” of the country, Ms. Dubuc said.

“The People Speak” is more intimate. For the filmmakers it is about the fight for equality; Chris Moore, a producer, said the film embodies the phrase “democracy is not a spectator sport.” The filmmakers are developing school curriculum materials for the film and releasing an extended version on DVD.

“I’m a big believer that history is not the story of millions, but that history is a million stories,” Ms. Dubuc said. “This illustrates that better than anything we’ve ever done.”


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This post has been edited by believe_it: Dec 13 2009, 11:26 AM

[believe_it]

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/t...ry_channel.html

The People Speak' about democracy on History Channel
By Cristina Kinon
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, July 29th 2009, 11:22 PM


Brown/Getty
Actor Matt Damon as executive producer Chris Moore speaks during the History Channel documentary 'The People Speak' panel.

Matt Damon has been trying to get the documentary "The People Speak" onto the small screen for 10 years and through multiple networks.

This year, it will finally air on the History Channel, which Damon says is "the right channel for us."

"The People Speak," a film inspired by Howard Zinn's 2004 book of the same name and his popular "A People's History of the United States," features dramatic readings of historical documents such as letters and diaries by celebrities like Damon, Marisa Tomei, Josh Brolin, Viggo Mortensen, Kerry Washington and many more.

The film will air later this year.

Its purpose is to explore the concept of democracy, through the lives, experiences and words of ordinary Americans who changed the course of history.

The film will also feature musical performances by Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and John Legend, among others.

"I grew up next door to Howard [Zinn] and had one of the first copies of ['A People's History']. It had a huge impact on my life and that's why I stayed involved with the project for so long," Damon, who also executive-produced the film, told members of the Television Critics Association yesterday.

The project morphed in form as both Fox and HBO mulled it over, before it landed at History, "and its third incarnation is the most sensible way of doing it because it's using the actual words [of historical figures], which makes it so much more powerful," said Damon. "Everything that's being read has quotations around it."

Tomei says that during the actual stage readings, which were recorded for the film, audiences rose to their feet by the end because they were so moved by what was being said.

"There's this heart swell," she said. "People feel empowered. It's ordinary people getting activated. Sometimes in protests and things that I've been involved with on any level, after a while it's like, 'I'm tired of this. Isn't this battle over?' But what this film is talking about is that it's our right and our duty to engage, as Howard says, in an antagonistic discussion with the powers that be."

Zinn himself admits that he knows what this project sounds like - a bunch of people just getting up on stage and reading historical documents - but that the end product is truly "fantastic."

"If you have terrific actors reading very exciting and dramatic accounts of history, let me tell you, the performance audiences have loved it," said Zinn.

"People really connect to this because it's real people [who wrote those documents]," added executive producer Chris Moore. "They may have been living in a different time, but they went through a lot of the same things. That's one of the things that I find very inspiring, is that people realize that they're not alone."
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[believe_it]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/226328

Free Radicals

Will a new documentary help historian Howard Zinn break through into the mainstream?

By Kristi York Wooten | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Dec 10, 2009

For Howard Zinn, some things never change. Backstage at the Atlanta Film Festival, after screening his new documentary, The People Speak, to a crowd of conservative Southerners, former civil-rights leaders, and a handful of rock stars, the 87-year-old historian waxes philosophical about bombs in Baghdad and the new president's promise of change: "Obama's [the one who] said, 'We must not just get out of Iraq, but we must get out of the mindset that got us into Iraq,' " he says. "Well, Obama himself has not yet gotten out of that mindset. He's asking for money for health care and education, so he is going in the right direction. But you have to be a lot more bold than that." (Article continued below…)

Being bold was never an issue for Zinn; he's been protesting wars since he returned home from World War II. Yet mainstream acceptance has eluded him, thanks in part to a perspective so leftist that even many of the longtime Boston University professor's outspoken Hollywood supporters appear moderate by comparison. The Dec. 13 television premiere of The People Speak on the History Channel—based on the source documents Zinn used for his controversial 1980 revisionist textbook, A People's History of the United States—aims to change all that. The activism-themed documentary's arrival toward the end of Obama's first year in office couldn't be more timely: in the midst of economic woes and health-care debates that have regular citizens on both sides of the aisle up in arms, The People Speak hits at a time when few Americans are inclined to believe everything that those in power tell them.

But can a celebrity-heavy documentary about the untold stories in American history have a real impact on the way Americans view both the history of their country and their right as free citizens to organize in protest when they disagree with official policies? Or will Zinn's work continue to languish in cult status while other, more contrarian left-wingers, like filmmaker Michael Moore, get all the glory?

It might be easy for actor Josh Brolin, one of the stars and executive producers of the film, or for History Channel president and general manager Nancy Dubuc, who was a student of Zinn's at Boston University, or even for actor Matt Damon, who also executive-produced the project and grew up in the house right next door to Zinn's, to connect with the film's tag line and message: "Democracy is not a spectator sport." But will Middle Americans—who may only know Zinn as a Vietnam-era crony of Noam Chomsky's or as one of the writers Damon's character extols in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, if they know him at all—find the spoken-word passages, songs, and archival footage in The People Speak eye-opening? For their part, Damon and the other actors and musicians involved in the film believe they will.

With readings from letters, speeches, and even the Declaration of Independence, The People Speak brings both traditional and little-known historical figures like Sojourner Truth, John Brown, and Cindy Sheehan to life in raw performances by Damon, Brolin, Marisa Tomei, Don Cheadle, Kerry Washington, and others.

"You're seeing actors read these incredibly dramatic passages in the history of our country, so it's not at all about, 'Oh, it's Sean Penn reading this,' " Damon says. "It's more like, 'Wow, this is Kevin Tillman talking.' Or it's David Strathairn, but he's now John Brown. These are all speeches and letters and diary entries and things that were actually said by regular people. That's what's so moving about it."

And while it's likely that the participation of big names will shine some light on Zinn, the stars are equally happy to be involved with such an iconic (and iconoclastic) figure.

"When you have someone [like Zinn] who's charismatic, who's intelligent, and who has a book that actually sells more copies every year since its release, you want to attach yourself to him, because that makes you look cool or whatever," Brolin says. "But if you really believe in the book … it's not just a vanity thing. I read A People's History for the first time when I was 16 or 17. And before I even met Howard, the reason my daughters go to the school that they do is because they use his book as part of the curriculum."

Assembled from clips of more than 60 live stage adaptations of A People's History performed around the country since 2003, The People Speak is part of a larger movement to bring the unsung heroes of American history, and Zinn, broader recognition. Interest in Zinn's work has been growing—though it remains largely a favorite of liberals and academics, A People's History has sold more than 1 million copies since 2000, as many as it had sold in the two decades before that—and led to the formation of Voices, a nonprofit arts, education, and social-justice organization, in 2007. The History Channel is also producing 24 short films based on The People Speak for educational use in schools around the country in conjunction with existing resources, such as the abridged textbook, A Young People's History of the United States.

"To be on History is huge for [Zinn's] material, because it's such a compelling presentation and it can reach so many people who would not have heard of the book," Damon says, "and hopefully get people thinking critically about the history they're being told, and about their own role in shaping the country."

A lack of hype may have kept Zinn out of the spotlight, but he's nonetheless racked up a long list of folks who appreciate his unwavering dedication to activism. "He's been a constant source of hope and empowerment to so many," says Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, who first met Zinn in the 1990s and contributed a cover of Bob Dylan's song "Masters of War" to The People Speak. "He's taught me so much. Not just about what's in books and history, but also about how to live."

With The People Speak, it looks like Howard Zinn may finally get his close-up. As for the term "radical," Zinn doesn't mind it. "After all," he says, "peace is a radical idea. But it's an idea whose time has come."

The People Speak premieres on The History Channel on Dec. 13 at 8 P.M. ET. Check your local listings for details. For the DVD and soundtrack or to get more information about live events surrounding The People Speak, visit http://www.peopleshistory.us or http://www.thepeoplespeak.com/ .

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[believe_it]

http://www.thepeoplespeak.com/



—Frederick Douglass

DVD: http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=11104..._slide_1_button
Availability: Ships on Jan 15

CD: http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=25479...ks_new-releases

This post has been edited by believe_it: Dec 14 2009, 01:54 PM

[believe_it]

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories...d-and-ten-book/
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009/2010

Nice club here, not a subject which has particularly interested me, however, article helps provide an explanation for some confusing Obama appointments.

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories...ommission-team/

Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team

#22 in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010

Source:
August Review.com, January 30, 2009
Title: “Obama: Trilateral Commission Endgame”
Author: Patrick Wood

Student Researcher: Sarah Maddox
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips
Sonoma State University

Barack Obama appointed eleven members of the Trilateral Commission to top-level and key positions in his administration within his first ten days in office. This represents a very narrow source of international leadership inside the Obama administration, with a core agenda that is not necessarily in support of working people in the United States.

Obama was groomed for the presidency by key members of the Trilateral Commission. Most notably, Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, has been Obama’s principal foreign policy advisor.

According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only eighty-seven members from the United States (the other 337 members are from other countries). Thus, within two weeks of his inauguration, Obama’s appointments encompassed more than 12 percent of Commission’s entire US membership.

Trilateral appointees include:

• Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geithner
• Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice
• National Security Advisor, Gen. James L. Jones
• Deputy National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon
• Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee, Paul Volker
• Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair
• Assistant Secretary of State, Asia & Pacific, Kurt M. Campbell
• Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg
• State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Haass
• State Department, Special Envoy, Dennis Ross
• State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Holbrooke

There are many other links in the Obama administration to the Trilateral Commission. For instance, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is married to Commission member William Jefferson Clinton.
Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner’s informal group of advisors include E. Gerald Corrigan, Paul Volker, Alan Greenspan, and Peter G. Peterson, all members. Geithner’s first job after college was with Trilateralist Henry Kissinger at Kissinger Associates.

Trilateralist Brent Scowcroft has been an unofficial advisor to Obama and was mentor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. And Robert Zoelick, current president of the World Bank appointed during the G.W. Bush administration, is a member.

According to the Trilateral Commissions’ website, the Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system. The website says, “The membership of the Trilateral Commission is composed of about 400 distinguished leaders in business, media, academia, public service (excluding current national Cabinet Ministers), labor unions, and other non-governmental organizations from the three regions. The regional chairmen, deputy chairmen, and directors constitute the leadership of the Trilateral Commission, along with an Executive Committee including about 40 other members.”

Since 1973, the Trilateral Commission has met regularly in plenary sessions to discuss policy position papers developed by its members. Policies are debated in order to achieve consensuses. Respective members return to their own countries to implement policies consistent with those consensuses. The original stated purpose of the Trilateral Commission was to create a “New International Economic Order.” Its current statement has morphed into fostering a “closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system.”

Since the Carter administration, Trilateralists have held these very influential positions: Six of the last eight World Bank Presidents; Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the United States (except for Obama and Biden); over half of all US Secretaries of State; and three quarters of the Secretaries of Defense.

Two strong convictions guide the Commission’s agenda for the 2009-2012 triennium. First, the Trilateral Commission is to remain as important as ever in maintaining wealthy countries’ shared leadership in the wider international system. Second, the Commission will “widen its framework to reflect broader changes in the world.” Thus, the Japan Group has become a Pacific Asian Group, which includes Chinese and Indian members, and Mexican members have been added to the North American Group. The European Group continues to widen in line with the enlargement of the EU.

Update by Patrick Wood
The concept of “undue influence” comes to mind when considering the number of Trilateral Commission members in the Obama administration. They control the areas of our most urgent national needs: financial and economic crisis, national security, and foreign policy.

The conflict of interest is glaring. With 75 percent of the Trilateral membership consisting of non-US individuals, what influence does this super-majority have on the remaining 25 percent?
For example, when Chrysler entered bankruptcy under the oversight and control of the Obama administration, it was quickly decided that the Italian carmaker Fiat would take over Chrysler. The deal’s point man, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is a member of the Trilateral Commission. Would you be surprised to know that the chairman of Fiat, Luca di Montezemolo, is also a fellow member?

Congress should have halted this deal the moment it was suggested.

Many European members of the Trilateral Commission are also top leaders of the European Union. What political and economic sway do they have through their American counterparts?
If asked, the vast majority of Americans would say that America’s business is its own, and should be closed to foreign meddlers with non-American agendas.

But, the vast majority of Americans have no idea who or what the Trilateral Commission is, much less the power they have usurped since 1976, when Jimmy Carter became the first Trilateral member to be elected president (Project Censored Story #1, 1976).

In light of today’s unprecedented financial crisis, they would be abhorred if they actually read Zbigniew Brzezinski’s (co-founder of the Commission with David Rockefeller) statement from his 1971 book, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, which states that, “The nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.”

Yet, this is exactly what is happening. The global banks and corporations are running circles around the nation state, including the United States. They have no regard for due process, Congress, or the will of the people.

Why have the American people been kept in the dark about a subject so great that it shakes our country to its very core?
The answer is simple: The top leadership of the media is also saturated with members of the Trilateral Commission who are able to selectively suppress the stories that are covered. They include:

• David Bradley, Chairman, Atlantic Media Company
• Karen Elliot House, former Senior Vice President, Dow Jones & Company, and Publisher, the Wall Street Journal
• Richard Plepler, Co-president, HBO
• Charlie Rose, PBS
• Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek
• Mortimer Zuckerman, Chairman, US News & World Reports

There are many other top-level media connections due to corporate directorships and stock ownership.

For more information, this writer’s original 1978 book, Trilaterals Over Washington, is available in electronic form at no charge at http://www.AugustReview.com. This site also has many papers analyzing various aspects of the Trilateral Commission’s hegemony in the United States and elsewhere, since it’s founding in 1973.


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http://www.projectcensored.org/about/

About Project Censored
The mission of Project Censored is to teach students and the public about the role of a free press in a free society - and to tell the News That Didn’t Make the News and Why...

Between 700 and 1000 stories are submitted to Project Censored each year from journalists, scholars, librarians, and concerned citizens around the world. With the help of more than 200 Sonoma State University faculty, students, and community members, Project Censored reviews the story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources and national significance. The university community selects 25 stories to submit to the Project Censored panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. Current or previous national judges include: Noam Chomsky, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally, Frances Moore Lappe, Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike Wallace and Howard Zinn. All 25 stories are featured in the yearbook, Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News...
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This post has been edited by believe_it: Dec 20 2009, 11:10 PM

[believe_it]

Post 5 is irrelevant to how I view the world. 'The people speak' by how they spend their money, by voting, by protesting. All of that is described below.

Replying to
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...113209&st=0
Who Then Will Lead us?

I think retreating into total self sufficiency at this point is a wrong move unless it's a hobby because it requires too much time and commitment better spent engaged in actions where 'the people speak.' Assuming money is available, circulating it by spending on other people's services rather than stuff is advisable. And although it may not be necessary to grow our own food at this time, simple, healthy cooking is essential since food is so important to health and processed foods are problematic.

Here's a good article, spinning out these issues.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19887.cfm

The High Costs of So-Called "Cheap Food"

By Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association, December 23, 2009


We Won't Buy Obama Care!
Join the Boycott of Forced, For-Profit Health Insurance! GO: http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issue...296&type=ML

Over the past 65 years, chemical agriculture, factory farms, and now genetic engineering have devastated public health, wrecked the environment, and destabilized the climate.

The U.S. public now spends $2.4 trillion dollars a year on health care, $800 billion of which is directly attributable to consuming chemical-laden junk food. In only 15 years unregulated and unlabeled genetically engineered foods and crops (GMOs) have been planted on millions of acres of farm land, on soil which is then repeatedly doused with toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers. GMO corn, cotton, canola and soy are currently laced into 80% of (non-organic) supermarket foods and restaurant items.

The bodies of the majority of American adults and children contain so-called agricultural commodities: high fructose corn syrup (GMO corn), trans-fats (GMO cotton, canola and soy oil), and meat and dairy foods derived from factory farmed animals fed and reared on GMO and pesticide tainted grains, antibiotics, hormones, and slaughterhouse waste.

As a direct result of chemical and GMO agriculture, most American consumers are ill-fed and disease-prone.

Overall, diet-related diseases are the cause of an estimated 580,000 deaths every year.

OBESITY. In the U.S. nearly 100 million people are seriously and dangerously overweight. Obesity kills thousands and costs taxpayers and employers $147 billion annually.
HEART DISEASE. In 2010, heart disease will kill hundreds of thousands (in 2006, 831,272 people died of cardiovascular disease) and cost the US $503 billion.
DIABETES. The number of people with diabetes in the US is expected to increase from 23.7 million to 44.1 million in the next 25 years. The cost of treating diabetes is expected to triple in that time from $113 billion per year to $336 billion per year.
CANCER. Cancer has reached epidemic proportions, with 48% of men and 38% of women now stricken during their lifetimes. 35% percent of cancers are diet related. Diet-related cancers now out-pace smoking-related cancers (30% are smoking related).
FOOD POISONING. The U.S. industrial, factory farm food system is responsible for 76 million cases of food-poisoning reported every year that result in over 300,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. Food poisoning costs are substantial, estimated at up to $22 billion each year.
ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE. In part because of the routine overuse of antibiotics on factory farms - in the US, animals consume 70% of the antibiotics - more than 63,000 people die in the US each year from hospital-acquired infections resistant to at least one antibiotic. This financial costs of this public health emergency are up to $5 billion dollars a year.

Overall, over $2.2 trillion is spent on health care in the US. (That's the 2007 figure.)

After poisoning us with cheap food and destroying the environment, Big Food Inc. turns us over to Big Pharma and the Industrial Health Complex to repair the damage, or rather to keep us alive long enough to extract maximum profits. But from the warped perspective of the for-profit health insurance industry, overweight and diseased people aren't very profitable. That's why health insurance corporations spend $350 billion per year trying to avoid coverage and deny claims. The vast, paper-pushing bureaucracy the for-profit insurance industry has created to help them avoid providing services soaks up 31% of all health care spending!

If we shifted the 31% of health care spending taken up by the administrative costs of the for-profit health insurance industry to a single-payer, universal health care system, we could cover the uninsured without increasing total health-care spending. The Organic Consumers Association supports single-payer, universal health care, with a focus on preventive health, diet, nutrition and stress-reduction.

However: IF PRESIDENT OBAMA SIGNS A BILL THAT TAKES AWAY OUR HEALTH RIGHTS, THAT FORCES AMERICANS TO BUY OVERPRICED, INADEQUATE COVERAGE FROM THE FOR-PROFIT HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY, OCA WILL LAUNCH A BOYCOTT!

Forced health insurance is not health care reform, it's corporate welfare and it is a direct result of the nearly 1 billion dollars that the health care industry is projected to have spent to shape the bill.

Not only does the for-profit health insurance industry spend 31 cents of every health insurance dollar pushing paper and avoiding claims, but the for-profit "health" system has become almost as deadly as the chemical and GMO food and farming system...

Reforming our health care system is literally a matter of life or death. Eventually, we have to stop arguing over who's going to pay for out-of-control health care costs and restore public health!

The real solution to our health care crisis is to stop subsidizing chemical and GMO food and farming, along with the destruction of our environment and our climate, and make the long overdue transition to organics. Then, under universal health care or Medicare for all we can shift from health care that treats sickness caused by unhealthy food and an unhealthy environment and lifestyle to health care that promotes wellness.

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This post has been edited by believe_it: Dec 24 2009, 12:41 AM

[ProblemSolver]

Post 5 is irrelevant to how I view the world. 'The people speak' by how they spend their money, by voting, by protesting. All of that is described below.

So what do record firearms sales tell you ?

[believe_it]

Post 5 is irrelevant to how I view the world. 'The people speak' by how they spend their money, by voting, by protesting. All of that is described below.

So what do record firearms sales tell you ?

Oh, forget firearms. Buttons and signs, that's the ticket. Check out this entrepreneurial American spirit.

http://counterpunch.org/mcconnell12282009.html

December 28, 2009
Who Will Organize the Organizers?

"Sure, Stick It In"

By ALAN McCONNELL

One tip that Mark Rudd left out of his interesting article on organizing on the weekend CounterPunch site: one has to recognize when the movement is all there, ready to go, and just needs a little impetus.

For the past eleven months, on weekend mornings, I've been selling our "NO AFGHAN WAR" buttons at Farmers Markets and elsewhere in the D.C. area. The buttons cost $275 per 1000, I sell them for a dollar. If the market is active, I bring in $35-$45 per hour. Obviously the profits are considerable.

What do I do with the profits? I buy elegant yard signs saying: "NO WAR IN AFGHANISTAN" -- they cost $364 for 100 -- and go around neighborhoods in the D.C. area, knocking on doors of houses with yards and saying: "Look at this gorgeous sign! It would look great on your lawn, no? Absolutely free!" And one out of five owners says, "Sure, stick it in!"

An account of this, with pictures of buttons and signs, can be found at http://www.waifllc.org/ and http://www.waifllc.org/afghanistan/afghanistan.html

I'm on my third order of 1000 buttons and about ready for my fourth order of signs. This is easy pleasant work, and the signs make a big hit.

Thus far my successes. My failure is mammoth, and easy to describe: I am, up till recently, the only person doing this work. This is not for lack of trying. I've appealed to ANSWER, to Worldcantwait, to Quakers, to CodePink, to Vets for Peace. I say to them: If ten people would do what I do, we'd change the face of the D.C. area. They reject this, sometimes with a smile (They are doing much more important stuff), often quite rudely. Just recently a couple of people have signed on.

We'll see.

Perhaps Mr Rudd has suggestions about how to organize the organizers? Chomsky recognized a decade ago that in many ways we are way ahead of where we were at the end of WW II, or the beginning of Vietnam, so what is sketched above is simply following his insights.

Alan McConnell can be reached at: http://patriot.net/users/alan
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This post has been edited by believe_it: Dec 30 2009, 04:26 PM

[Frenchy]

I would rather sell veggies!

[believe_it]

I would rather sell veggies!

Or both?

[believe_it]

Link to Howard Zinn's Myspace tonight from: http://www.democraticunderground.com//disc...ess=389x7360027

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseact...logId=205206091

Thursday, December 14, 2006

If History is to be Creative

Excerpted from A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
by Howard Zinn; December 09, 2006


America's future is linked to how we understand our past. For this reason, writing about history, for me, is never a neutral act. By writing, I hope to awaken a great consciousness of racial injustice, sexual bias, class inequality, and national hubris. I also want to bring into the light the unreported resistance of people against the power of the Establishment: the refusal of the indigenous to simply disappear; the rebellion of black people in the anti-slavery movement and in the more recent movement against racial segregation; the strikes carried out by working people all through American history in attempt to improve their lives.

To omit these acts of resistance is to support the official view that power only rests with those who have the guns and possess the wealth. I write in order to illustrate the creative power of people struggling for a better world. People, when organized, have enormous power, more than any government. Our history runs deep with the stories of people who stand up, speak out, dig in, organize, connect, form networks of resistance, and alter the course of history.

I don't want to invent victories for people's movements. But to think that history-writing must aim simply to recapitulate the failures that dominate the past is to make historians collaborators in an endless cycle of defeat. If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, and occasionally to win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.

History can help our struggles, if not conclusively, then at least suggestively. History can disabuse us of the idea that the government's interests and the people's interests are the same. History can tell how often governments have lied to us, how they have ordered whole populations to be massacred, how they deny the existence of the poor, how they have lead us to our current historical moment-the "Long War," the war without end.

True, our government has the power to spend the country's wealth as it wishes. It can send troops anywhere in the world. It can threaten indefinite detention and deportation of twenty million immigrant Americans who do not yet have green cards and have no Constitutional rights. In the name of our "national interest," the government can deploy troops to the U.S.-Mexican border, round up Muslim men from certain countries, secretly listen in on our conversations, open our emails, examine our bank transactions, and try to intimidate us into silence. The government can control information with the collaboration of a timid mass media. Only this accounts for the popularity-waning by 2006 (33% of those polled), but still significant-of George W. Bush. Still, this control is not absolute. The fact that the media are 95% in favor of continuing the occupation of Iraq (with only superficial criticism of how it is done), while over 50% of the public are in favor of withdrawal, suggests a common-sense resistance to official lies. Consider also the volatile nature of public opinion, how it can change with dramatic suddenness. Note how the large majority of public support for George Bush the elder quickly collapsed once the glow of victory from the first Gulf War faded and the reality of economic trouble set in.

Think of how, at the start of the Vietnam War in 1965, two-thirds of Americans supported the war. A few years later, two-thirds of Americans opposed the war. What happened in those three or four years? A gradual osmosis of truth seeped through the cracks of the propaganda system-a realization of having been lied to and deceived. That is what is happening in America as I write this in the summer of 2006. It is easy to be overwhelmed or intimidated by the realization that the warmakers have enormous power. But some historical perspective can be useful, because it tells us that at certain points in history governments find that all their power is futile against the power of an aroused citizenry.

There is a basic weakness in governments, however massive their armies, however vast their wealth, however they control images and information, because their power depends on the obedience of citizens, of soldiers, of civil servants, of journalists and writers and teachers and artists. When the citizens begin to suspect they have been deceived and withdraw their support, government loses its legitimacy and its power.

We have seen this happen in recent decades all around the globe. Awaking one morning to see a million angry people in the streets of the capital city, the leaders of a country begin packing their bags and calling for a helicopter. This is not fantasy; it is recent history. It's the history of the Philippines, of Indonesia, of Greece, Portugal and Spain, of Russia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Rumania. Think of Argentina and South Africa and other places where change looked hopeless and then it happened. Remember Somoza in Nicaragua scurrying to his private plane, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos hurriedly assembling their jewels and clothes, the Shah of Iran desperately searching for a country that would take him in as he fled the crowds in Tehran, Duvalier in Haiti barely managing to put on his pants to escape the wrath of the Haitian people.

We can't expect George Bush to scurry off in a helicopter. But we can hold him accountable for catapulting the nation into two wars, for the death and dismemberment of tens of thousands of human beings in this country, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and for his violations of the U.S. Constitution and international law. Surely these acts meet the constitutional requirement of "high crimes and misdemeanors" for impeachment.

Indeed, people around the country have begun to call for his impeachment. Of course we cannot expect a craven Congress to impeach him. Congress was willing to impeach Nixon for breaking into a building, but will not impeach Bush for breaking into a country. They were willing to impeach Clinton because of his sexual shenanigans, but will not impeach Bush for turning the wealth of the country over to the super-rich.

There has been a worm eating at the innards of the Bush Administration's complacency all along: the knowledge of the American public-buried, but in a very shallow grave, easy to disinter-that this government came to power not by popular will but by a political coup. So we may be seeing the gradual disintegration of the legitimacy of this administration, despite its supreme confidence. There is a long history of imperial powers gloating over victories, becoming over-extended and overconfident, and not realizing that power is not simply a matter of arms and money. Military power has its limits-limits created by human beings, their sense of justice, and capacity to resist. The United States with 10,000 nuclear weapons could not win in Korea or Vietnam, could not stop a revolution in Cuba or Nicaragua. Likewise, the Soviet Union with its nuclear weapons and huge army was forced to retreat from Afghanistan, and could not stop the Solidarity movement in Poland.

A country with military power can destroy but it cannot build. Its citizens become uneasy because their fundamental day-to-day needs are sacrificed for military glory while their young are neglected and sent to war. The uneasiness grows and grows and the citizenry gathers in resistance in larger and larger numbers, which become too many to control; one day the top-heavy empire collapses. Change in public consciousness starts with low-level discontent, at first vague, with no connection being made between the discontent and the policies of the government. And then the dots begin to connect, indignation increases, and people begin to speak out, organize, and act.

Today, all over the county there is growing awareness of the shortage of teachers, nurses, medical care, and affordable housing, as budget cuts take place in every state of the union. A teacher recently wrote a letter to the Boston Globe: "I may be one of 600 Boston teachers who will be laid off as a result of budget shortfalls." The writer then connects it to the billions spent for bombs, for, as he puts it, "sending innocent Iraqi children to hospitals in Baghdad."

When we become overwhelmed at the thought of the enormous power that governments, multinational corporations, armies, and police have to control minds, crush dissent, and destroy rebellion, we should consider a phenomenon that I have always found interesting. Those who possess enormous power are surprisingly nervous about their ability to hold on to their power. They react almost hysterically to what seem to be puny and unthreatening signs of opposition.

We see the American government, armored with its thousand layers of power, work strenuously to put a few pacifists in jail or keep a writer or an artist out of the country. We remember Nixon's hysterical reaction to a solitary man picketing in front of the White House: "Get him!"

Is it possible that the people in authority know something we don't know? Perhaps they know their own ultimate weakness. Perhaps they understand that small movements can become big ones, that an idea that takes hold in the population can become indestructible. People can be induced to support war, to oppress others, but that is not their natural inclination. There are those who talk of "original sin." Kurt Vonnegut challenges that and talks of "original virtue."

There are millions of people in this country opposed to the current war. When you see a statistic "40% of Americans support the war," that means that 60% of Americans do not. I am convinced that the number of people opposed to the war will continue to rise while the number of war supporters will continue to sink. Along the way, artists, musicians, writers, and cultural workers lend a special emotional and spiritual power to the movement for peace and justice. Rebellion often starts as something cultural.

The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth. Truth has a power of its own. Art has a power of its own. That age-old lesson-that everything thing we do matters-is the meaning of the people's struggle here in United States and everywhere. A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think. When we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress.

We live in a beautiful country. But men who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back.
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[believe_it]

http://www.truthout.org/109102Pitt

Go

Saturday 09 January 2010
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

I've been writing about unbelievably bad news for more than a decade now, so when the New Year came around this time, I made up my mind to try and come up with something to write about that was optimistic, positive, more upbeat, or something. It's all been so grim for so long now, with recent events providing no exception - a less-than-half-a-loaf health care "reform" process, underwear bombers and a new nascent war in Yemen, the Afghan escalation, more suicide attacks in Iraq, bad housing stats, bankers running banking "reform" and a bunch of Congressional Democrats whose imminent retirement could put Congress back in the hands of the people who lined up behind George W. Bush like ducks on a pond, which matters less thanks to the stark level of spinelessness evinced by those aforementioned Democrats and their ilk - and the first chore I gave myself after the holidays was to turn that frown upside down.

Press play to listen to author William Rivers Pitt read his column, "Go": see link

Ha.

The term "blood from a stone" leaps nimbly to mind. I tried, for the better part of a week, to come up with something, some angle, to argue that all is not as bleak as it so readily seems. No soap. A lot of the air has gone out of the hope and change balloon, and as for the Left in general, well, let's just say disarray and despair are the most optimistic of outlooks lately. A lot of people seem to be stuck in the mud these days; progressive voters are furious with President Obama, Democratic voters are furious with progressive voters for being furious with President Obama, and everyone else is kind of standing around waiting for someone to get off the mark and start leading.

But then I remembered something.

I remembered how a halfwit Texan and his Supreme Court allies jobbed the electorate and snatched the presidency away from the rightful winner of the 2000 election, and two years later, parlayed their own failure to defend the homeland from terrorism into a push toward war in Iraq.

By comparison, the war in Vietnam had been churning along for many, many years before its opponents were able to organize public protests of any size or import. George W. Bush's Iraq debacle was still five months away from becoming a reality in October of 2002, but that didn't stop the Left from organizing one of the largest and most important antiwar protests in American history. Washington, DC, San Francisco, and cities all across the nation saw hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets on October 26 to stop a war that hadn't even started yet. I saw it. I was there.

In February of 2003, one month before the start of the Iraq war, the single largest protest in the history of humanity took place. Tens of millions of people in dozens of countries across the world spoke with one voice to say "No!" to Mr. Bush and his plans. The war happened anyway, because nothing short of God Herself denouncing Bush from the Capitol Dome was going to stop the damned thing, but what the Left accomplished before the war even started beggars likeness. I saw it. I was there.

The Left has a reputation, partially deserved, for being a motley collection of scatterbrained, cause-of-the-week, ego junkies who never really get anything done. But I saw what the Left was able to do when confronted with the criminal ambitions of the Bush administration, and it didn't stop after the war got going. Groups sprung up in every corner of the country and kept the heat on until they made a difference. Whatever one may think about the Democratic Party today, there is no doubt the fortunes of that party were turned in 2006 and 2008 because of the tireless efforts of millions of people to push popular opinion and understanding away from the yawning precipice of national neoconservatism.

So, here's what I think: do it again.

If you're disappointed in Mr. Obama, go back to your anti-Bush roots and put together some concerted activism. Organize a protest, or a letter-writing campaign or find a Congressional candidate you like and volunteer to help them. Raise money, raise issues and start pushing back against what you believe to be wrong. If you support Mr. Obama and the Democrats, get back on your '08 horse and ride to the rescue, because for sure they need all the help you can provide. Get back into the game, and stop being paralyzed and demoralized because politicians aren't doing the right thing.

The Left has done some truly amazing things in the last ten years, things that took great effort, concentration, passion and will. The need for those qualities did not evaporate with the election of the "good guys." Indeed, those qualities are needed more than ever before.

I wanted to write about some good news for the New Year. That good news? You faced harder challenges than this before, and can do it again. As Congressman Dennis Kucinich said many times, you are the one you've been waiting for. He was right. I saw it. I was there. So were you.

Go.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.


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[believe_it]

I haven't listened yet.

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/1/8/...three_holy_wars

HOWARD ZINN: “Holy Wars”
January 08, 2010

Howard Zinn is an American historian, social critic, and activist. He is best known as author of the best-seller A People’s History of the United States. He spoke at Boston University on November 11, on the subject of American “Holy Wars.”

Thanks to Robbie Leppzer for filming this event.

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[believe_it]

Post #12 reminded me of this favorite.

"It is your task to see this through to a conclusion that makes sense to all concerned and that reflects credit on this poem, your species, and yourself. Now go."
- Kenneth Koch, Some General Instructions.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/9298
Volume 21, Number 21 & 22 · January 23, 1975

Some General Instructions
By Kenneth Koch

Do not bake bread in an oven that is not made of stone
Or you risk having imperfect bread. Byron wrote,
"The greatest pleasure in life is drinking hock
And soda water the morning after, when one has
A hangover," or words to that effect. It is a
Pleasure, for me, of the past. I do not drink so much
Any more. And when I do, I am not in sufficiently good
Shape to enjoy the hock and seltzer in the morning.
I am envious of this pleasure as I think of it. Do not
You be envious. In fact I cannot tell envy
From wish and desire and sharing imperfectly
What others have got and not got. But envy is a good word
To use, as hate is, and lust, because they make their point
In the worst and most direct way, so that as a
Result one is able to deal with them and go on one's way.
I read Don Juan twenty years ago, and six years later
I wrote a poem in emulation of it. I began
Searching for another stanza but gave in
To the ottava rima after a while, after I'd tried
Some practice stanzas in it; it worked so well
It was too late to stop, it seemed to me. Do not
Be in too much of a hurry to emulate what
You admire. Sometimes it may take a number of years
Before you are ready, but there it is, building
Inside you, a constructing egg. Low-slung
Buildings are sometimes dangerous to walk in and
Out of. A building should be at least one foot and a half
Above one's height, so that if one leaps
In surprise or joy or fear, one's head will not be injured.
Very high ceilings such as those in Gothic
Churches are excellent for giving a spiritual feeling.
Low roofs make one feel like a mole in general. But
Smallish rooms can be cosy. Many tiny people
In a little room make an amusing sight. Large
Persons, both male and female, are best seen out of doors.
Ships sided against a canal's side may be touched and
Patted, but sleeping animals should not be, for
They may bite, in anger and surprise. Of all animals
The duck is seventeenth lowliest, the eagle not as high
On the list as one would imagine, rating
Only ninety-fifth. The elephant is either two or four
Depending on the author of the list, and the tiger
Is seven. The lion is three or six. Blue is the
Favorite color of many people because the sky
Is blue and the sea is blue and many people's eyes
Are blue, but blue is not popular in those countries
Where it is the color of mold. In Spain blue
Symbolizes cowardice. In America it symbolizes "Americanness."
The racial mixture in North America should
Not be misunderstood. The English came here first,
And the Irish and the Germans and the Dutch. There were
Some French here also. The Russians, the Jews, and
The Blacks came afterwards. The women are only coming now
To a new kind of prominence in America, where "Liberation"
Is their byword. Giraffes, which people ordinarily
Associate with Africa, can be seen in many urban zoos
All over the world. They are an adaptable animal,
As Greek culture was an adaptable culture. Rome
Spread it all over the world. You should know,
Before it did, Alexander spread it as well. Read
As many books as you can without reading interfering
With your time for living. Boxing was formerly illegal
In England, and also, I believe, in America. If
You feel a law is unjust, you may work to change it.
It is not true, as many people say, that
That is just the way things are. Or, Those are the rules,
Immutably. The rules can be changed, although
It may be a slow process. When decorating a window, you
Should try to catch the eye of the passerby, then
Hold it; he'or she should become constantly more
Absorbed in what is being seen. Stuffed animal toys should be
Fluffy and a pleasure to hold in the hands. They
Should not be too resistant, nor should they be made
With any poisonous materials. Be careful not to set fire
To a friend's house. When covering over
A gas stove with paper or inflammable plastic
So you can paint the kitchen without injuring the stove,
Be sure there is no pilot light, or that it is out.
Do not take pills too quickly when you think you have a cold
Or other minor ailment, but wait and see if it
Goes away by itself, as many processes do
Which are really part of something else, not
What we suspected. Raphael's art is no longer as popular
As it was fifty years ago, but an aura
Still hangs about it, partly from its former renown.
The numbers seven and eleven are important to remember in dice
As are the expressions "hard eight," "Little Joe," and "fever,"
Which means five. Girls in short skirts when they
Kneel to play dice are beautiful, and even if they
Are not very rich or good rollers, may be
Pleasant as a part of the game. Saint Ursula
And her eleven thousand virgins has
Recently been discovered to be a printer's mistake;
There were only eleven virgins, not eleven thousand.
This makes it necessary to append a brief explanation
When speaking of Apollinaire's parody Les
Onze Mille Verges, which means eleven thousand
Male sexual organs—or sticks, for beating. It is a pornographic book.
Sexual information should be obtained while one is young
Enough to enjoy it. To learn of cunnilingus at fifty
Argues a wasted life. One may be tempted to
Rush out into the streets of Hong Kong or
Wherever one is and try to do too much all in one day.
Birds should never be chased out of a nature sanctuary
And shot. Do not believe the beauty of people's faces
Is a sure indication of virtue. The days of
Allegory are over. The Days of Irony are here.
Irony and Deception. But do not harden your heart. Remain
Kind and flexible. Travel a lot. By all means
Go to Greece. Meet persons of various social
Orders. Morocco should be visited by foot,
Siberia by plane. Do not be put off by
Thinking of mortality. You live long enough. There
Would, if you lived longer, never be any new
People. Enjoy the new people you see. Put your hand out
And touch that girl's arm. If you are
Able to, have children. When taking pills, be sure
You know what they are. Avoid cholesterol. In conversation
Be understanding and witty, in order that you may give
Comfort and excitement at the same time. This is the
high road to popularity
And social success, but it is also good
For your soul and for your sense of yourself. Be supportive of others
At the expense of your wit, not otherwise. No
Joke is worth hurting someone deeply. Avoid contagious diseases.
If you do not have money, you must probably earn some
But do it in a way that is pleasant and does
Not take too much time. Painting ridiculous pictures
Is one good way, and giving lectures about yourself is another.
I once had the idea of importing tropical birds
From Africa to America, but the test cage of birds
All died on the ship, so I was unable to become
Rich that way. Another scheme I had was
To translate some songs from French into English, but
No one wanted to sing them. Living outside Florence
In February, March, and April was an excellent idea
For me, and may be for you, although I recently revisited
The place where I lived, and it is now more "built up";
Still, a little bit further out, it is not, and the fruit trees
There seem the most beautiful in the world. Every day
A new flower would appear in the garden, or every other day,
And I was able to put all this in what I wrote. I let
The weather and the landscape be narrative in me. To make money
By writing, though, was difficult. So I taught
English in a university in spite of my fear that
I knew nothing. Do not let your fear of ignorance keep you
From teaching, if that would be good for you, nor
Should you let your need for success interfere with what you love,
In fact, to do. Things have a way of working out
Which is nonsensical, and one should try to see
How that process works. If you can understand chance,
You will be lucky, for luck is what chance is about
To become, in a human context, either
Good luck or bad. You should visit places that
Have a lot of savour for you. You should be glad
To be alive. You must try to be as good as you can.
I do not know what virtue is in an absolute way,
But in the particular it is excellence which does not harm
The material but ennobles and refines it. So, honesty
Ennobles the heart and harms not the person or the coins
He remembers to give back. So, courage ennobles the heart
And the bearer's body; and tenderness refines the touch.
The problem of being good and also doing what one wishes
Is not as difficult as it seems. It is, however,
Best to get embarked early on one's dearest desires.
Be attentive to your dreams. They are usually about sex,
But they deal with other things as well in an indirect fashion
And contain information that you should have.
You should also read poetry. Do not eat too many bananas.
In the springtime, plant. In the autumn, harvest.
In the summer and winter, exercise. Do not put
Your finger inside a clam shell or
It may be snapped off by the living clam. Do not wear a shirt
More than two times without sending it to the laundry.
Be a bee fancier only if you have a face net. Avoid flies,
Hornets, and wasps. Clasp other people's hands firmly
When you are introduced to them. Say "I am glad to meet you!"
Be able to make a mouth and cheeks like a fish. It
Is entertaining. Speaking in accents
Can also entertain people. But do not think
Mainly of being entertaining. Think of your death.
Think of the death of the fish you just imitated. Be
artistic, and be unfamiliar.
Think of the blue sky, how artists have
Imitated it. Think of your secretest thoughts,
How poets have imitated them. Think of what you feel
Secretly, and how music has imitated that. Make a moue.
Get faucets for every water outlet in your
House. You may like to spend some summers on
An island. Buy woolen material in Scotland and have
The cloth cut in London, lapels made in France.
Become religious when you are tired of everything
Else. As a little old man or woman, die
In a fine and original spirit that is yours alone.
When you are dead, waste, and make room for the future.
Do not make tea from water which is already boiling.
Use the water just as it starts to boil. Otherwise
It will not successfully "draw" the tea, or
The tea will not successfully "draw" it. Byron
Wrote that no man under thirty should ever see
An ugly woman, suggesting desire should be so strong
It affected the princeliest of senses; and Schopenhauer
Suggested the elimination of the human species
As the way to escape from the Will, which he saw as a monstrous
Demon-like force which destroys us. When
Pleasure is mild, you should enjoy it, and
When it is violent, permit it, as far as
You can, to enjoy you. Pain should be
Dealt with as efficiently as possible. To "cure" a dead octopus
You hold it by one leg and bang it against a rock.
This makes a noise heard all around the harbor,
But it is necessary, for otherwise the meat would be too tough.
Fowl are best plucked by humans, but machines
Are more humanitarian, since extended chicken
Plucking is an unpleasant job. Do not eat unwashed beets
Or rare pork, nor should you gobble uncooked dough.
Fruits, vegetables, and cheese make an excellent diet.
You should understand some science. Electricity
Is fascinating. Do not be defeated by the
Feeling that there is too much for you to know. That
Is a myth of the oppressor. You are
Capable of understanding life. And it is yours alone
And only this time. Women who appeal to you
Should be told so, and loved, if you can, but no one
Should be able to shake you so much that you wish to
Give up. The sensations you feel are caused by outside
Phenomena and inside impulses. Whatever you
Experience is both "a person out there" and a dream
As well as unwashed electrons. It is your task to see this through
To a conclusion that makes sense to all concerned
And that reflects credit on this poem, your species, and yourself.
Now go. You cannot come back until these lessons are learned
And you can show that you have learned them for yourself.

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This post has been edited by believe_it: Jan 10 2010, 07:27 PM