The Basic Con

Those who can’t find anything to live for,
always invent something to die for.

Then they want the rest of us to
die for it too.

Lew Welch

"Freedom is a state of mind that each of us must discover for ourselves. In so doing, we will find that there is nothing that anyone in authority can do to make our world more peaceful orderly, or free. There are no institutional reforms, or ideologies, or more fashionable gurus to save us: such thinking only continues our sense of irresponsibility."

Butler Shaffer | The Wizards of Ozymandias

G 8 by Andrei Molodkin

"‘These people,’ Cicero complained to me one morning, ‘are a warning of what happens to any state which has a permanent staff of officials. They begin as our servants and end up imagining themselves our masters!’"

Robert Harris, Imperium (2006)

"Politics is a country idiot, and capable of concentrating on only one thing at a time."

Robert Harris, Imperium (2006)

Albert Einstein Institution - Publications - Self-Liberation

Self-Liberation

A Guide to Strategic Planning for Action to End a Dictatorship or Other Oppression

by Gene Sharp, with the assistance of Jamila Raqib 

Self-Liberation (Download PDF) 

(You may also order hard copies.) 

This strategic planning guide is intended to assist people who wish themselves to plan a grand strategy, or super plan, to achieve their liberation from oppression and to build a more free and democratic system.

(via drwh0) 

"Think about the strangeness of today’s situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it’s much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism."

Slavoj Žižek

officialssay:

A tweet from WikiLeaks, whose website was kicked off of Amazon’s host servers today after congressional staff questioned Amazon about its relationship with the organization. AP reports that the group has reverted to its previous Swedish host, Bahnhof.

"Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being, as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner."

James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat (1838)

Politics by Oswald Cromheecke

"The esthete stands in the same relation to beauty as the pornographer stands to love, and the politician stands to life."

Karl Kraus - Die Fackel

monicagellerb:

I’m doing the Rally to Restore Sanity, and basically the idea is “Let’s disagree but try not to call each other Hitler”. You know, you go to this rally and there’s always a guy in the back, “Bush is Hitler”, “Obama is Hitler”…and it’s just, it’s offensive, even to Hitler. Here’s a guy, who worked his whole life to be Hitler […]. You know, Obama is gonna raise the tax rate to 39.6, “HE’S HITLER!”, and Hitler’s like “No, it’s not me! It’s not about taxes! I was a bad guy!”

Jon Stewart on David Letterman

"Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle."

Thomas Hardy - The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)

Be Angry At The Sun

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante’s feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

Robinson Jeffers

"Better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

Abraham Lincoln (via sunset-to-star-rise)

Quite a change from today’s politics, huh?