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Event Reminders: Edward Snowden - Person of the Year 2013Friday, 01/03/2014 As I began writing my end of the year editorial on the Person of the Year 2013, and had selected Edward Snowden as first choice and the new Pope Francis as 2nd choice, I discovered that the columnist Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post made the same choices, but makes more compelling justification than I, so the Progressive Post totally endorses the following writing of Robinson: [JHC - Editor] Worst drought on record for California NSA intercepts laptop deliveries to install spywar List of Democratic events in San Diego County To read the best progressive newsletter west of the Mississippi, click on Jellison's EZINE hereThis 'N ThatThe law of violence is not a law, but a simple fact which can only be a law when it does not meet with protest and opposition. It is like the cold, darkness and weight, which people had to put up with until recently when warmth, illumination and leverage were discovered....- Leo Tolstoy I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do. The problems of this world are so gigantic that some are paralysed by their own uncertainty. Courage and wisdom are needed to reach out above this sense of helplessness. Desire for vengeance against deeds of hatred offers no solution. An eye for an eye makes the world blind. If we wish to choose the other path, we will have to search for ways to break the spiral of animosity. To fight evil one must also recognize one's own responsibility. The values for which we stand must be expressed in the way we think of, and how we deal with, our fellow humans. The world cannot continue to wage war like physical giants and to seek peace like intellectual pygmies Sensitivity to the immense needs of humanity brings with it a spontaneous rejection of the arms race, which is incompatible with the all out struggle against hunger, sickness, under-development and illiteracy. The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and errors, its successes and setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned. No one is so foolish as to prefer to peace, war, in which, instead of sons burying their fathers, fathers bury their sons. A large group of us were crowded into the Gestapo hall, and at that moment the circumstances of all our lives were the same. All of us occupied the same space, the men behind the desk no less than those about to be questioned. What distinguished each of us was only our inner attitude. To save one life, it is as if you had saved the world. In all things it is better to hope than to despair. What is the revolution that we need? We need to dissolve the lie that some people have a right to think of other people as their property. And we need at last to form a circle that includes us all, in which all of us are seen as equal... We do not belong to the other, but our lives are linked; we belong in a circle of others. In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us: 'That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God's creatures. Belief in God is to love one's fellow men.' To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold - brothers who know now they are truly brothers. What all men fear, I too must fear - how barren and pointless a thought! The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. Through Gandhi and my own life experience, I have learned about nonviolence. I believe that human life is a very special gift from God, and that no one has a right to take that away in any cause, however just. I am convinced that nonviolence is more powerful than violence. To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting. When I have money, I get rid of it quickly, lest it find a way into my heart. The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. ... Only reverence can restrain violence - reverence for human life and the environment . The non-violent technique does not depend for its success on the goodwill of the oppressor, but rather on the unfailing assistance of God. Peace we want because there is another war to fight against poverty, disease and ignorance. Angry heart -- you have no chance against my prayers. The ultimate measure of a person is not where one stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where one stands in times of challenge and controversy. When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be. Many oppressors are also oppressed. Nonviolent confrontation is the only confrontation that allows us to respond realistically to such complexity. Peace is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions. It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at a rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundredth blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it but all that had gone before. Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction. When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist. Mounting an expedition to actualize a Compassionate Commonwealth of all peoples...is the great spiritual challenge of our time. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are, if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time. To resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek. The most effective action both resorts to power and engages conscience. Nonviolent actions does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences. Nor does it have to petition those in power to do something about a situation. It can face the authorities with a new fact and say: Accept this new situation which we have created. If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how? A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human. When the people fear the government you have tyranny...when the government fears the people you have liberty. We do not inherit the earth from our fathers. We borrow it from our children. In the struggle rewards are few. In the fact, I know of only two, loving friends and living dreams. These rewards are not so few it seems. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war. No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise. War would end if the dead could return. They make a desert and call it peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love. The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis. Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash, your picture in the paper nor money in the bank, neither. Just refuse to bear them. Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared. The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has a need to be forgiven. In all the ways you can, He who can control his rising anger as a coachman controls his carriage at full speed, this man I call a good driver; others merely hold the reins. If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say "No" to war. For one does not create human society on mounds of corpses. An act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of the pain of the world, increases the courage and love and hope of all. We can’t become nonviolent on the basis of intellectual conviction. Commitment to nonviolence demands a very profound conversion of mind and heart. If we take the time to pray with Jesus, we too will be converted in mind and heart. It won’t work if we try to reason it out. The only way is through a change of heart, a coming into a way of being that is the way of Jesus. It is in the shelter of each other that the people live. It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace. In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations . . . If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa . . . the independence movement in India . . .) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world. Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace. Gandhi once declared that it was his wife who unwittingly taught him the effectiveness of nonviolence. Who better than women should know that battles can be won without resort to physical strength? Who better than we should know all the power that resides in noncooperation? | Articles & News: Black Santas and a brown Jesus Article Actor and comedian John Fugelsang wrote the following Happy Birth message to Jesus: Sen. Warren sponsors Equal Employment Act
Senator Warren's interview on MSNBC's "All in with Chris Hayes" about the Equal Employment for All Act. The legislation would prohibit employers from requiring potential employees to disclose their credit history as part of the job application process. It was previously thought that credit history may provide insight into an individual's character, but research has shown that an individual's credit rating has little to no correlation with his or her ability to be successful in the workplace. -- "A bad credit rating is far more often the result of unexpected medical costs, unemployment, economic downturns, or other bad breaks than it is a reflection on an individual's character or abilities," Senator Warren said. Energy Sec Told To Shut Up About Global Warming
Energy Secretary,Steven Chu, told to shut up about global warming after he was asked a question about rising sea levels and the Caribbean islands and nations. Yes, team Obama actively muzzled Energy Secretary Stephen Chu and many others on climate change in its first term, as we've long reported. But in a lengthy piece, "Locked in the Cabinet," Politico explains that the West Wing put the leash on almost all of their cabinet secretaries. WHY? -- Because Obama had taken over $2 million in campaign bribe money from the Energy industry. 2013 Year of great victories for marriage equality NSA 'hacking unit' infiltrates world's computers France approves 75% tax on millionare income L.A. bans plastic grocery bags eff. Jan. 1 Paul Ryan lectures pope on compassion, economics Elizabeth Warren: "Why Republicans are losers"
There's a reason Sen. Warren is the face of the party's liberal wing and your cousin Erma isn't, and it's all in the delivery. The money quote is this one: "These threats may continue, but they are not working, and they will never work, because this is democracy. And in a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t win their fights through elections, can't win their fights in Congress, can't win their fights for the presidency, and can't win their fights in the courts. For this right-wing minority, hostage taking is all they have left, a last gasp for those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy." -- It's skillful because it casts the far-right Republicans as sore losers, and frames the debate as one between a radical wing of the Republican party and a bipartisan coalition of more reasonable people. It helps her brand because she portrays herself as a source of normalcy in a whirlwind of Washington crazy. Eliz. Warren: Do not cut Soc. Security. EXPAND IT
Sen. Elizabeth Warren: "Don't Cut Social Security, EXPAND It." -- Add Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to the growing chorus of voices calling for the expansio of Social Security benefits. The champion of the working middle class and of retirees and the poor, implored Democrats on the Senate floor Monday not to chain Social Security benefits to the rate of inflation or the rise in prices, which is known in shorthand as the Consumer Price Index... She believes the vast economic resources of this nation should be returned to the middle class, and their investments in Social Security be protected from Wall Street vultures. Anti-Frackers Cheer Court Ruling in Pennsylvania Cartoons of the Week Obama, the negotiatorTEA Party LooniesUnions & the Middle ClassObama plays poker with GOP No austerity for military budget in 2014 Saving Civilization: The Zeitgeist Revolution
Abby Martin speaks with Peter Joseph, founder to the Zeitgeist Movement about the philosophy behind the organization, the unsustainability of the current economic system and the model proposed by the movement for a sustainable future that works harmoniously with nature. How an enlightened 99% Occupy movement can put a check on the 1% profiteers of the current unsustainable economic system which leads eventually to collapse. The new system uses increasingly fewer natural and economic resources to achieve ever greater productivity and richer living. Late-breaking news: This just in ...
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You must not ever forget this incident at U.C. Davis: Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis. The militarization of our local police, the War on our Youth, the fascist oppression of peaceful assembly, protest and free speech in America. During peacefully Occupy Movement,(Nov. 2011) police came in to tear down tents and proceeded to arrest students who stood in their way. Once students peacefully demanded the release of the arrested, a police officer unnecessarily pepper sprays the students to open a path for the rest of the officers. -- The officer who sprayed the students was UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike. -- Notice all the other police just standing around watching, as if nothing abnormal or outrageous is happening. This is a day that will forever live in ignominy in America.
3 Big events coming to San Diego in 2014
News
The Veterans for Peace National Convention is coming to San Diego the summer of 2015, which is also the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and the 150th anniversary of the Panama Exposition in San Diego, with huge crowds anticipated. Opportunities abound. Join us! -- Jim Summers, President, San Diego Veterans for Peace, Chapter 91 (The Hugh Thompson Memorial Chapter).
Warren EMBARRASSES Bank Regulators At Hearing
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren questioned top government regulators from the alphabet soup that is the nation's financial regulatory structure: the FDIC, SEC, OCC, CFPB, CFTC, Fed and Treasury. The Democratic senator from Massachusetts had a straightforward question for them: When was the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial? It was a harder question than it seemed. The regulator bureaucrats fumbled, mumbled and stumbled, unable to answer her simple question: When was the last time you sent a banker to jail?
Eliz. Warren: Do not cut Soc. Security. EXPAND IT
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren: "Don't Cut Social Security, EXPAND It." -- Add Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to the growing chorus of voices calling for the expansio of Social Security benefits. The champion of the working middle class and of retirees and the poor, implored Democrats on the Senate floor Monday not to chain Social Security benefits to the rate of inflation or the rise in prices, which is known in shorthand as the Consumer Price Index... She believes the vast economic resources of this nation should be returned to the middle class, and their investments in Social Security be protected from Wall Street vultures.
The speech that brought the wrath of war mongers
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"The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war", spoke Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1967. This abbreviated version of perhaps his greatest speech, "Beyond Vietnam", was so powerful it shook the Pentagon and the war machine of America. It drew violent condemnation and spread virulent hatred of him for speaking the Truth. Today we have a new generation speaking the truth, and once again the dark fascist forces are seeking to silence them. These word from Dr. King are immortal.
Manning Video:American troops slaughter civilians
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Video depicts a US Apache attack helicopter killing 12 civilians and wounding two children on the ground in Baghdad in 2007. The helicopter then fired on and killed the people trying to rescue the wounded. Finally, a US tank drove over one of the bodies, cutting the man in half. These acts constitute three separate war crimes. All with calloused video-game contempt for human life. - Manning fulfilled his legal duty to report war crimes. He complied with his legal duty to obey lawful orders but also his legal duty to disobey unlawful orders. -- The Army covered up the evidence and declared the war crime "justified". Now they say that exposing the massacre is criminal.
INFO CLICK HERE:
Manning Video:American troops slaughter civilians
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Video depicts a US Apache attack helicopter killing 12 civilians and wounding two children on the ground in Baghdad in 2007. The helicopter then fired on and killed the people trying to rescue the wounded. Finally, a US tank drove over one of the bodies, cutting the man in half. These acts constitute three separate war crimes. All with calloused video-game contempt for human life. - Manning fulfilled his legal duty to report war crimes. He complied with his legal duty to obey lawful orders but also his legal duty to disobey unlawful orders. -- The Army covered up the evidence and declared the war crime "justified". Now they say that exposing the massacre is criminal.
INFO CLICK HERE:
Sen. Warren sponsors Equal Employment Act
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Senator Warren's interview on MSNBC's "All in with Chris Hayes" about the Equal Employment for All Act. The legislation would prohibit employers from requiring potential employees to disclose their credit history as part of the job application process. It was previously thought that credit history may provide insight into an individual's character, but research has shown that an individual's credit rating has little to no correlation with his or her ability to be successful in the workplace. -- "A bad credit rating is far more often the result of unexpected medical costs, unemployment, economic downturns, or other bad breaks than it is a reflection on an individual's character or abilities," Senator Warren said.
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