Agora Metaphora: December 2019

Quotes

Il y a eu des gens qui ont dit autrefois: Vous croyez des choses incompréhensibles, contradictoires, impossibles, parce que nous vous l’avons ordonné; faites donc des choses injustes parce que nous vous l’ordonnons. Ces gens-là raisonnaient à merveille. Certainement qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde est en droit de vous rendre injuste. Si vous n’opposez point aux ordres de croire l’impossible l’intelligence que Dieu a mise dans votre esprit, vous ne devez point opposer aux ordres de malfaire la justice que Dieu a mise dans votre coeur. Une faculté de votre âme étant une fois tyrannisée, toutes les autres facultés doivent l’être également. Et c’est là ce qui a produit tous les crimes religieux dont la terre a été inondée. --Voltaire
There are certain things in which one is unable to believe for the simple reason that he never ceases to feel them. Things of this sort - things which are always inside of us and in fact are us and which consequently will not be pushed off or away where we can begin thinking about them - are no longer things; they, and the us which they are, equals A Verb; an IS. - e.e. cummings
But when fascism comes it will not be in the form of an anti-American movement or pro-Hitler bund, practicing disloyalty. Nor will it come in the form of a crusade against war. It will appear rather in the luminous robes of flaming patriotism; it will take some genuinely indigenous shape and color, and it will spread only because its leaders, who are not yet visible, will know how to locate the great springs of public opinion and desire and the streams of thought that flow from them and will know how to attract to their banners leaders who can command the support of the controlling minorities in American public life. The danger lies not so much in the would-be Fuhrers who may arise, but in the presence in our midst of certainly deeply running currents of hope and appetite and opinion. The war upon fascism must be begun there. - John Thomas Flynn
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. – Carl Sagan
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. -- A. Einstein
There's nothing more remote from what we have been discussing than a conspiracy theory. If I give an analysis of, say the economic system, and I point out that GM tries to maximize profit and market share - that's not a conspiracy theory; that's an institutional analysis. It has nothing to do with conspiracies. That's precisely the sense in which we've been talking about the media. The phrase "conspiracy theory" is one of those that's constantly brought up, and I think it's effect simply is to discourage institutional analysis. -- Noam Chomsky
I think people are beginning to realize that you can't have pockets of prosperity in one part of the world and huge deserts of poverty and deprivation and think that you can have a stable and secure world. -Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi
A city is maintained by proportionate reciprocity. People seek to return either evil for evil, since otherwise (their condition) seems to be slavery, or good for good, since otherwise there is no exchange: and they are maintained (in an association) by exchange. — Aristotle
A competitive culture endures by tearing people down. -- Jules Henry
Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production. -- Edward Bellamy
Conservatives complain that we have thrown billions at our socioeconomic problems with no results. From this correct observation they mistakingly conclude that since little can be done about these problems within the present system, then the problems are insoluble. For the elites who own this country, if wiping out widespread poverty and starvation entails changing the entire system and jeopardizing elite class positions, then better to have poverty and starvation. -- Michael Parenti
It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. -- Steinbeck
Many people take the absence of competition to mean that one must be wandering aimlessly, without any goals. But competing simply means that one is working toward a goal in such a way as to prevent others from reaching their goals. -- Alfie Kohn
Many were increasingly of the opinion that they ’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. -- Douglas Adams
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us. -- Kurt Vonnegut
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. --Albert Einstein
Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor roam free. -- Arundhati Roy
The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress. -- Joseph Joubert
The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder. -- Richard J. Daley
The prevailing mode of competition in American culture thus continues despite convincing evidence that it is damaging to physical, spiritual, emotional, and social health. And what is the reaction of members of the helping professions? Are we creative agents of social change or are we dispensers of Band-Aids to the injured and facilitators of adjustment to "the way things are"? -- Vera J. Elleson
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. - -Bertrand Russell.
The world is out of its mind with stupidity and the worship of stupidity. You’re either willing to be part of all time, or you’re going to limit yourself to being part of the current time. -- Sean Penn
There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. --Arthur Schopenhauer
We destroy the ... love of learning in children, which is so strong when they are small, by encouraging and compelling them to work for petty and contemptible rewards - gold stars, or papers marked 100 and tacked on the wall, or A's on report cards, or honor rolls, or dean's lists, or Phi Beta Kappa keys - in short, for the ignoble satisfaction of feeling that they are better than someone else. -- John Holt
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. -- Abraham Lincoln(?)

11 December 2019

i want you to have this this piece of me

i want you to have this
this piece of me
i thought of going there once
i thought of you when i was leaving
there isn't much time
as much time as each of us has
you'd say given
but there is no giver

in between breaths on the cliff
above the water
looking down at the jutted bolders
shoulders of giants
waves energy charge
flames flickering across the pass
and i know that they go on

the hunt steadies on
all on
all the time
on the buses and the streets
soldiering on
they are the brave ones
they are hound masters

for i am selfish
welcome back from the dead cloudy monday
i am the solipsistic impulse
i am the cake and then i am nothing
and it matters little whether i stand or fall
winds puncture my skin
bolts pierce the side
blood under skin long and lean
scriveners historical
acquiescence
acceptance
and it comes

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11 December 2019

i want you to have this this piece of me

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