...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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Which of our last five Presidents increased the U.S. debt the most?
Ronald Reagan – 189% U.S. debt increase from Jan 1981 – Jan 1989 George H. W. Bush – 55% from Jan 1989 – Jan 1993
Bill Clinton – 37% Jan 1993 – Jan 2001 George W. Bush – 115% from Jan 2001 – Jan 2009
Barak Obama – 16% from Jan 2009 – May 2011
Three Republicans increased the debt 359% in 20 years while two Democrats increased it 53% in 11 years.
Republicans increased the debt 696% faster than the Democrats.
Or on a yearly basis, Republicans screwed us with a 18.5% yearly increase while the Democrats overspent 4.8% per year.
The Republicans are hypocrites who run for office promising less government and a balanced budget, yet every time they get in they run up the debt and increase government.
Plus every time they get power they use it to attack women’s rights, non-whites, and any oil producing country.
Republicans also murder a LOT more brown-skinned people worldwide than do their Democratic brethren.
I find the Democrats to be criminal, cowardly, and crooked . . . but the Republican politicians and pundits and preachers make them look positively angelic.
Why is anyone even listening to these liars anymore? Republicans belong in jail, not government.
Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Simple-minded Santorum and Ron Paul should be applying for Clown School, not the Presidency of the U.S.
Indict a Republican for Christ.
National Debt
Huddled beneath behind
Green metal stalls
The tile encrusted
Yellow, he sews an
Empty money bag
To his crotch, watches
His reflection mirrored
In regimented urinals
five six seven
Decaying down the wall
Cradling his existence
Fraying five to seven
In staid erotic fear
Small spider woven
Through uninforming ears
Tired of heaven he sews
His money to his crotch
He huddles
What kind of man advocates murder to make a better world?
I had a disturbingly weird converstaion last month that’s still eating at me, except it wasn’t a conversation so much as a snake in the grass with an apple saying “Take a bite, it’ll be good for you; and if not a nibble, how about a little lick just to test the texture and taste; or at least hold it a bit and admire its sweet round redness awhile. (Book of Genesis, Garden of Eden anyone?)
I was standing in a crowd enjoying the sun and feeling good about seeing such a large outpouring of the young in their articulate awareness protesting all that’s wrong with our current economic and ecological systems, when a dude behind me said this is all well and good, but it won’t accomplish anything because working inside the system will never bring fairness and equality; in fact even letting us vote was just a trick to make us believe we had a voice in the process. (Unfortunately he has a point.)
I said we at least had to try, and that there were some encouraging signs of hope — for example, the Occupy Wall Street movement was growing explosively around America as well as the world, and it was already changing the minds and perceptions of millions; he poo-poohed it, said the cities will shut them down for their rich masters (again, he has a point), that the very system had to go — we needed a revolution to first destroy the current unworkable system, then rebuild a fair and equitable society.
Told him violence was not necessary, especially now that the internet and social media were wakening people to what’s going on, both the good and the bad of it all, and that the good was expanding. He said no, the government can cut off social media anytime they want (which is true — Egypt did it, as did San Fransisco). He went back to insisting we had no choice but to bring down the system, then rebuild.
I explained that even as angry as I was at the system, I was non-violent and tried (with great difficulty) to walk the path of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Then I asked him the obvious question: “Won’t your revolution kill thousands, maybe even millions of people?” ‘Yes,” he replied, “but not as many as would die if we don’t, so actually we’d be saving lives”.
“So basically you’re advocating murder.”
“I don’t like to use that word, it has such negative implications. I prefer to say killing.” Oh great, that’s supposed to make me feel better? I told him killing IS murder, even when sanctioned by governments, and he was just playing word games. He saw I was disgusted and moved on.
But his statement still chills me. How can anyone rationalize murdering people to make a more moral world?
Even if you set morality aside (as our Government seems to have no trouble doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Latin America, the USA, etc), exactly how do you go about killing a government composed of millions of people, an armed forces of millions, cops of millions? Do you kill their secreteries and chauffers too? What about their wives and kids and pets? Who chooses who dies, who decides who lives? And just where and when and how does your more moral and better world result from you becoming the very thing you’re fighting? How can a pure and fair Utopia rise from your neighbor’s decaying flesh? It certainly hasn’t worked very well in Libya.
Yet I can see his point. In one way, it’s simple self-defense.
I think I could kill a person who was attacking my wife; and I would defend myself were I physically attacked, be the attacker robber, rapist, soldier, policeman, or random chanced upon mentally disturbed individual. I can’t know this for sure untill I’m put in such a situation, so on one level it’s all a mind game; but no one has the moral or legal right to harm my wife or myself, so morally I believe I could would and should defend my family from actual immediate attack.
And as a people, we ARE being attacked. The corporations are killing us with their products, their processes, their prophets of profit, their purchased prostitution of our government which keeps sending our soldiers overseas to kill brown-skinned people for their oil and political beliefs.
So yes, our system is literally killing us, and killing the earth as well with greed and corporate global toxins. But you can’t fight force with force, especially when they have a much bigger force than you do because then you’ve changed nothing . . . you’ve either just been wiped out yourself, or else you’ve successfully killed them and then you become them and then you await the next them-to-bes who will come after you when they don’t like the way you’re running things.
You can’t defeat force with force because when you use force to overcome force you become the very force you’re opposing, as the past 3,000 years more than adequately proves.
No, you oppose wrong with awareness, education. You open people’s minds with words and actions and examples and humor and being the change you seek.
It is our job — the artists and poets and musicians and singers and activists — to open people’s eyes, to expand their minds and hearts, to help unite spirit and flesh, to raise their moral awareness and get them in touch with their inner Buddha/Christ/Cosmic Consciousness within each of us.
This is the real revolution, the revolution of minds opening, eyes seeing, ears hearing, hearts listening, people helping, sharing, coming together in tribe community family friendship patience compassion hope need and consensus.
You cannot enforce morality with a gun. You cannot make you, the world, or another better by killing people. This is true whether you’re government, soldier, policeman, or revolutionary. As we’ve seen over and over again, when our soldiers overseas kill people in government sanctioned murder, they damage something essential inside themselves, warp their basic humanity, making them shells of shame and rage when they return to the “civilized” societry that hired them to kill.
It’s scary because things are getting more complicated much faster, maybe approaching bad beyond fixing, and if we don’t come together immediately and start doing something right now, then the dude will get his wish – there will be blood in the streets in a vicious violant class war clash and the whole mess will start all over again because power and ego will continue to corrupt the winners and we’re back to “Go Directly To Jail, Do Not Pass GO.”
You don’t fight evil with evil. You don’t fight wrong with wrong. You don’t fight killing with killing. You can’t create a paradise while sleeping with slime.
And yet it looks to me like that’s where we’re heading. And all the blood and violence and death and destruction will not do one iota to help solve our problems of greed, ego, financial inequality, racism, worshipping Mammon, and global warming.
Or wait, I may be wrong. Maybe if we do hasten the process and start killing each other off in the name of right and God and morality, we’ll rid poor Mother Earth of our diseased stench that much faster and she and whatever animals we haven’t yet extincted can get on with healing themselves.
So maybe the dude’s right.
But count me out. As much rage as I have within due to the crimes against humanity and Mother Earth constantly committed by our Cioporate controlled Governments, I still have to try to walk the path of light and right, just so I can bear to look at myself in the mirror.
Dear Friends New and Old, Family, Artists & Poets…
On behalf of the spirit of compassion, kindness, unity (yet with infinite individual voices), I ask for your help (via direct participation, spreading the word, and/or thinking and meditating) on three events pertaining to two seemingly distinct movements:
1) The Climate Issue, especially at this moment the Keystone XL Pipeline(stopping the building of and very soon, the extraction of oil from tar sands).March and Rally Sunday, 1 pm, starting at CSU.
And please, there’s this event Monday from 6-9 pm near Case Western to help people understand nonviolent civil disobedience (the event Sunday probably does not involve civil disobedience). Even if not planning civil disobedience in the future, if you have a friend or family member who might be, this training is useful because people who do participate in civil disobedience benefit from having help if they are incarcerated.
2) The #OccupyCleveland movement today and/or tonight, Friday, Oct. 21.
Please Occupy Today and/or Tonight. Occuping Tonight helps, as the “permit” for using Public Space is being expired by people who have no actual authority to expire it, as all space is Public Space, particularly Public Square. There is a group of overnight occupiers who need our support as there is the possibility that they might be arrested tonight for civil disobedience. Main events start at 1 p.m. and include food, music, and speakers. At 10 p.m. the curfew at Public Square starts.
And if you are not able to Occupy Public Square tonight (like me), then Occupy Today. And if you are not able to be seemingly physically present in Public Square today, please spread Word. And if you are too shy to spread Word, please think kindly about everyone on the planet.
A value of the Occupy Movement is that it tends to maintain a visible, persistent presence of concern. The people who are actively participating in this presence ask for time and for consideration of the complexity of this unity in which we live. I ask on behalf of you as my friends and acquaintances to please understand that we who identify immediately with the Occupy Movement and who are working for it are working with two main ideals of process which might seem to at first to be opposing poles. The two main ideals of process are individuality and unity. The end results desired are happiness, health and sanity. The intermediate vista involves as much kindness as possible while grappling with complexity and seeming contradictions, such as how does one deal with the concepts of unity and class consciousness simultaneously. The bounds are time and practical deadlines of effective thresholds with respect to particular tangible issues the movement can help.
Fundamentally, at a scientific level, all this that “you” see before you is unity–buzzing unity
We can see ourselves not only as margins, but as centers. We are each at the center of a canvas. We are the centers. We are the center of a moving canvas. Our skins are illusions which trap identity temporarily. Skin is just a focal point for movement of temporary persistence. Fundamentally, we are very much interconnected, very much one. Even if talking about spirituality makes one nervous, one must admit that the human animal is a bundle that extends into the air, into the water, that the human bundle is not so much a bundle as a smear of leaf in rain. That the smear is a pigment dot in a pixelist painting. That the smear is related to all the other smears. That if one opens ears and sees with eyes and remembers and perceives, one can see that the wind of sentiment is a universal wind with currents and eddies and turbulence–or maybe even a river. Many metaphors apply.
Having said all this shtuff, I feel that it is our very real responsibility to deal with the news that a person might have been raped by another person while staying overnight last Saturday night.
I believe in the ideal of truth and transparency, and I believe in full disclosure to an ethical threshold based on faith and reason.
I also believe in appealing to a greater understanding of complexity and human frailty.
I ask for compassion and help.
I ask for compassion and help and I have witnessed much compassion on the part of people who are participating daily and nightly in the Occupy Cleveland movement. I visit the overnighters every morning to bring hot water and sometimes food, and to get news for the daily digest as best I can given the complexities of humans.
I’ve witnessed overnight occupiers give homeless people shelter under the main tent so that homeless people can get out of the wind. I’ve witnessed overnight occupiers helping homeless be part of the movement and regain responsibility and participation.
Tonight is Robert Ritchie a.k.a. Dickhead’s celebration of life service. Smith and I are attending. Robert Ritchie was a friend of Daniel Thompson. Daniel Thompson was intimately involved in humanitarian issues and grappled with complexity. There are metaphors that apply to this situation–some themes: involvement, passion, heart, complexity and simplicity, and life and death. LIVE!
I ask you all, poets and artists, to be part of this movement in a very tangible way. LIVE!
Poets and artists are part of the divine, and a tradition of the divine, and a tradition of being carrier waves and ways of change. Be part of this voice and action, and understand it, and grapple with complexity. LIVE!
This is my personal appeal on behalf of the universal and immediate.
Moving on doesn’t mean moving away,
‘cept from apathay
‘cept from moving up
Moving on is lateral
Moving on is not up or down
Moving on is like being in this plane where you found
you had no retirement savings,
suddenly.
Moving on is like you woke up out of this
dream where you had your sofa and your van
and your mortgage and your busy kid life
Moving on is like you woke up out of this dream
and you found yourself skimmed
skinned
blood in the mud
all that comfort you thought you had
all that comfort that was something for you
that dental plan
the perfect teeth
the skin problems, treated
And then they sold this, they sold that
They sold this and that and told you it was
all for jobs and progress and global stuff
like 99 points of light
They sell this and they sell that and they say
oh, it’s all free trade, they thinking
oh maybe we’ll think it’s fair trade they’re talking
about like those expensive but ethical chocolate bars
in the checkout line we you dare
to care…
Fair, free? Freedom, liberty?
What?
Who are “they,” anyways?
They are “them.”
They are them, sure, that 1% with mouthpieces
They are them, sure, that 1% who’ve equipped
our sons with guns
They are them, sure, that 1%
Where are they in their fine houses with
their long driveways and shaded yards
quiet living room after living room
with all these cabinets
with all this glass
with all these things
but no one is living in the living rooms
except for people who clean them from
time to time and maybe little collections
of dogs who shit on the carpets.
Them and Us, Us and Them. And, is the thing.
And, is the thing and it’s like glue.
Without us, no them.
Without them, no us?
Hm.
99% plus 1% equals 100%.
53% plus 25% plus 22% plus 1% equals 100%.
100% – 1% = 99% but that would be 100% again.
100% – 53% = 47%, which still equals 100%.
100% – 25% = 75%, which still equals 100%.
The math of violence.
100% can equal 1% distilled and detoxed.
This country needs a colonoscopy, doc!
This country needs a vegan diet, doc!
What is the one hundred percent?
The one hundred percent is ONE.
The one hundred percent is a vessel
The one hundred percent is a vessel that contains
ninety-nine percent and one percent
The one percent swishes around in the ninety-nine percent
The one percent swishes around in the ninety-nine percent
and becomes saturated with the ninety-nine percent
The sentiment of the ninety-nine percent,
so I hear,
at this point,
is 53% plus some 25% plus some 21%
This equals ninety-nine percent
And there is the ingredient of the broad swath of opinion
in the sentiment of this ninety-nine percent
It’s not, “this too shall pass.”
The sentiment of the ingredient of the broad swath of opinion
of this 53% plus some 25% plus some 21% is
“We cannot bear this anymore.”
We cannot bear this anymore
like that movie title “Something’s gotta give”
Something’s gotta give doesn’t mean giving up
Giving up gave up a long time ago
Giving up gave up and got up
Giving up gave up, got up, and is moving around
Giving up had a position which was flat on the ground
Giving up said, “What? I’m still here?”
And it saw that it was on the ground.
And giving up saw it needed to eat and drink
and got up and started moving around.
Giving up gave up while got got more
Got got more until there was no more got to be get
Got to be get was got by the ones who could no longer be bought
by the ones who were skimmed by their chins
and when there was no more left to trim
when austerity made even them, thin
when rice was no longer an option
when mud became the option
Giving up found itself in the mud
Giving up found itself in the mud in the position
which was flat on the ground
and Giving up said, “What? I’m still here?”
And Giving up got up and saw that it needed to eat and dring
and Giving up got up and started moving on.
Moving on never moved away, moving on stayed.
Moving on is a solution that works within
the vessel within which it whishes,
within which it is contained,
within which is is captured,
within which it is occupied.
It is occupied by virtue of being.
It is occupied by virtue of being 100%
no matter what
Because trimmed here and there
it is still 100%
It is always 100%
We the 99% and we the 1%
are the hundred percent.
We are the one hundred percent.
We are the one hundred percent.
We are whole.
We are ONE.
This is a reposting of information compiled by ironboltbruce (he said anyone can repost). He’s mentioned this list of 15 issues that the Occupy Movement has created and has had a creative, personalized take on each of the issues. Am very glad to see this kind of thinking and would like us to think locally in addition to nationally and globally. So I’d like to create my own take on the issues following his example (coming soon). But meanwhile, here’s what he’s said:
The steering committee of the “October 2011 Movement” – the patriots presently occupying Freedom Plaza in Washington DC – published a summary of the 15 issues which are the focus of their protest here:
ISSUE #1. “Corporatism – firmly establish that money is not speech, corporations are not people, only people have Constitutional rights, end corporate influence over the political process, protect people and the environment from damage by corporations.”
ISSUE #2. “Wars and Militarism – end wars and occupations, end private for-profit military contractors, reduce the national security state and end the weapons export industry. War crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace must be addressed and those responsible held accountable under international law.”
ISSUE #3. “Human Rights – end exploitation of people in the US and abroad, end discrimination in all forms, equal civil rights and due process for all people.”
ISSUE #4. “Worker Rights and jobs – all working-age people have the right to safe, just, non-discriminatory and dignified working conditions, a sustainable living wage, paid leave and economic protection.”
ISSUE #5. “Government – all processes of the three branches of government should be accountable to international law, transparent and follow the rule of law, people have the right to participate in decisions which affect them.”
ISSUE #6. “Elections – all citizens 18 and older have the right to vote without barriers, all candidates have the right to be heard and to run and all votes should be counted.”
ISSUE #7. “Criminal justice and prisons – end private for-profit prisons, adopt evidence-based drug policy, prisoners have the right to humane and just conditions with a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, abolish the death penalty.”
ISSUE #9. “Education – all people have the right to a high quality, publicly-funded and broad education from pre-school through vocational training or university.”
ISSUE #11. “Environment – adopt policies which effectively create a carbon-free and radio-active free energy economy and that respects the rights of nature.”
ISSUE #12. “Finance and the economy – end policies which foster a wealth divide and move to a localized and democratic financial system, reform taxes so that they are progressive and provide goods, monetary gain and services for the people.”
PUBLIC NOTICE: No talking heads on Comcast/GE’s NBC/CNBC/MSNBC speak for us. No talking heads on Murdoch’s Faux News speak for us. No talking heads at the Kleptocracy’s Compliant News Network (CNN) speak for us (no matter how dull, deliberate or subtle their delivery). No talking heads in the lamestream media speak for us, period. And neither do ANY of the 537 bought-and-paid-for Kleptocracy puppets in Washington DC who will soon be joining our legions of unemployed!
I ask you to please help make recommendations for cuts to defense spending rather than cutting discretionary spending, and please encourage your supercommittee members to do the same, especially Patty Murray and John Kyl.
His Cleveland-area office number is 216-522-7095 and his D.C. number is 202-224-3353.
. . .
Other news:
#OccupyCleveland welcomes people to take part in a march from the Cleveland Free Stamp (Willard Park) to Public Square today at noon. This is in support of the ideas surrounding the Occupy Wall Street movement:
We are the 99%. We are the Americans who wake up every day and go to work in the worst economy since the Great Depression. We have witnessed the slow erosion of America and it’s promises of equal opportunity and equal rights under law. Individuals and corporations whose extraordinary wealth ordinary citizens cannot even begin to comprehend have abused their positions in society and have shown through their actions a complete disregard for the welfare, safety, and stability of their fellow citizens throughout the United States.
Our city, Cleveland, has seen the effects of this disregard. Our factories are closed because their owners would rather draw their labor from brutalized populations living under dictatorships halfway across the world than pay an American a fair wage for a fair day’s work. Our neighborhoods are crumbling as banks file foreclosures on the same sub-prime mortgages they offered with full knowledge to people who could not afford them. Using legal smoke and mirrors these institutions have sought to avoid any accountability for their negligence, fraud, and unethical behavior.
I am upset that due process was not followed, and I can not understand how you, a liberal, compassionate man, can let “Realpolik” dictate your actions to this extent such that you seem very much like the previous administration with its war-mongering ways.
Please find your heart and compass and restore meaning to the concept of “hope” on which you campaigned. This is why I voted for you.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights – foto by Smith
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted December 10, 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
(I’m going to have to come up with a sneaky snappy title for the blog or else no one will even stop by.)
~ ~ ~
These 30 articles (which I’ve posted below) written by fair, thoughtful, moral humans 63 years ago enumerating the universal rights of every single person on earth seem intuitive, logical and self-evident.
Unfortunately I cannot think of a single government or corporation who honor them in spirit or deed.
These words are also serious and numerous without any laugh tracks or applause signs or mind-candy graphics, which means most who need these protections will not read them because they shy from the educative since it is boring.
Too many of us look up the class money chain and salivate with envy while looking down the money class chain with contempt and disgust.
We forget we’re all human, all portions of the great all . . . whatever affects a single human or animal or any portion of the planet affects everything we have and are as well as the very ground upon which we live and the ecosystem from which we seek substance and shelter.
Seems to me we’re all pissing upstream and then complaining about the taste and color of the water we drink downstream.
In the long run, doing right is better for the planet, better for each of us, and actually cheaper over the long haul.
Plus if there is an after-life called Heaven and Hell, most of us are seriously Hell-fluxed for the greedy thoughtless selfish ways we’ve lived, thought and taught because far too many of us accept this current “is” over possible “could” and moral “should”. After all, the “would” IS up to us.
~ ~ ~
ARTICLE 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
ARTICLE 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
ARTICLE 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
ARTICLE 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
ARTICLE 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
ARTICLE 6.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
ARTICLE 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
ARTICLE 8.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
ARTICLE 9.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
ARTICLE 10.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
ARTICLE 11.
(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
ARTICLE 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
ARTICLE 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
ARTICLE 14.
(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
ARTICLE 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
ARTICLE 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
ARTICLE 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
ARTICLE 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
ARTICLE 20.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
ARTICLE 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
ARTICLE 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
ARTICLE 23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
ARTICLE 24.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
ARTICLE 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
ARTICLE 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
ARTICLE 27.
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
ARTICLE 28.
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
ARTICLE 29.
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
Ten years ago when I first watched the hijackers crash two airplanes into the World Trade Center Towers, my first response was awe at how people with no army, no money, no war equipment and few soldiers had turned the might of the mightiest military power on the planet against itself by simply using our own commercial airplanes to attack one of the world’s biggest symbols of capitalism.
I’m not forgetting or forgiving their murder of almost 3.000 civilians. Killing civilians is an abomination no matter who does it and is to be condemned whether done by terrorists, drug dealers, armies, nations, world organizations, corporations, the police, or legalized prison executioners.
But their terrorist tactics themselves were brilliant. Now I know this kind of thinking is not going to read well with the corporate-news fed, but if the situation were reversed and we’d successfully attacked the world’s biggest arms supplier terrorist nation who had been bombing our civilians, we’d be making movies and hit records about it.
Fact is, since 1950, the USA has been the major aggressor in the world — we’ve continuously bombed and invaded sovereign nations without declaring war, we’ve assassinated other country’s leaders, we’ve kidnapped citizens of foreign countries and tortured them, we’ve fomented coups, we’ve declared illegal embargoes on entire nations and killed half a million children in the process.
The USA is the biggest maker and seller of weapons of mass destruction in the world; ipso facto, we’re the largest terrorist organization. And yet our defense budget is bigger than the rest of the world’s defense budgets combined.
Recent government cables revealed U.S. soldiers in Iraq handcuffed 10 citizens — a 70 year old woman, a 5 month baby, 4 toddlers under 5 and 4 civilians — then shot them in the head and called down an air strike to destroy evidence of their actions. The Iraqi government complained and we ignored them.
If other countries did this to us, we’d fight back. So I understand why we were attacked — it was simple retribution for all the brown-red-yellow-black-skinned people we have killed and are still killing around the world ever since we moved to North America and started in on the Indians and the Mexicans.
The bad joke here is fewer than 3,000 Americans died in the towers . . . George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have killed more than 3,000 Americans in their retaliation, not to mention murdering over one million Iraqi civilians which is exceptionally perverse because Iraq had nothing to do with either 9-1-1 or weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Gonzalez, Yoo, Rice, Tenant and scores more should be on trial right now for torture and war crimes and crimes against humanity. Instead most of them are on book tours raking in big bucks and yucks.
As for me, the sound of Americans cheering the deaths of yellow-brown-red-black skinned people causes unpleasant tension between what I see and what I was taught to believe we stood for as a people. Christians who kill and then strut in blood step bragging strike me as somewhat hypocritical.
You know, for a book whose main tenant is Thou Shalt Not Kill, there’s certainly a lot of blood shed under its aegis.
