Entries by tag: citizenship
--H.L. Mencken
One fifth of the people are against everything all the time.
--Robert Kennedy
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant threat winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
--Isaac Asimov
Democracy if four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
--Ambrose Bierce
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
--Winston S. Churchill
The main problem in any democracy is that the crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy -- then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards than the tube for a nickel apiece.
--Hunter S. Thompson
Quotes from page 18 of the Funny Times, September 2017
From a poster seen in the holocaust museum:
Early Warning Signs of Fascism
Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Disdain For Human Rights
Identification of Enemies
As a unifying cause
Supremacy of the military
Rampant Sexism
Controlled Mass Media
Obsession With National Security
Religion and Government Intertwined
Corporate Power Protected
Labor Power Suppressed
Disdain For Intellectuals & and the Arts
Obsession With Crime & Punishment
Rampant Cronyism & Corruption
Fraudulent Elections
( For contemplation...Collapse )Reason Rally 2016: A Bloc Party that Counts
by Lyz Liddell
Executive Director
Reason Rally 2016
The latest polls show that the percentage of people who don’t care about a candidate's religion is increasing, and that “nones” are an ever-growing segment of the under-45 population — key voters! That’s great news for those who support separation of church and state, critical thinking, and just plain good sense. As the Pew Research report [http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/] states:
“Meanwhile, the number of religiously unaffiliated adults has increased by roughly 19 million since 2007. There are now approximately 56 million religiously unaffiliated adults in the U.S., and this group – sometimes called religious ‘nones’ – is more numerous than either Catholics or mainline Protestants, according to the new survey. Indeed, the unaffiliated are now second in size only to evangelical Protestants among major religious groups in the U.S.”
We all have the opportunity to celebrate our increasing numbers — and build our power as a voting bloc — by attending Reason Rally 2016, June 4, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. You’ll hear great speakers and entertainers — Carolyn Porco, Bill Nye, Julia Sweeney and more — as well as comedians, lots of music, and a good time for all.
It’s a Voting Bloc Party for those who believe that public policy should be made based on scientific evidence, not religious beliefs. It’s also an opportunity to take the message of science-driven public policy directly to your own members of Congress on the lobbying days that precede Reason Rally 2016. The focus of the lobbying will be sex education and the wasted money devoted to abstinence-only curricula that have been shown to be counter-productive. IN fact, abstinence-only sex ed correlates with increased teen pregnancy!
So check out the speakers, hotel and travel deals, and sign up to lobby at our website, reasonrally.org. Bring your friends, then go home and vote in every election, from school board to president. Let’s Speak Up for Reason! Let’s make the media and politicians court us as much as they court the religious right.
( text of speech thanks to Fresh BrainsCollapse )
It appears to me that most of us do very little. I fill out a few petitions, and send a little bit of money sometimes, and put some effort into researching my votes, but that's about it. I haven't been putting any real energy into the project. I feel like congress should take care of this stuff for me, that I'm no expert and somebody more expert than me should be making the decisions. I don't really want to OWN my part in a democracy because it's a whole lot of work. But as our nation suffers increasing challenges, people are noticing, and activism seems to be on the rise. I was heartened when I heard support for Audit the Fed on an Occupy youtube video. The new activism is less party oriented than at any time in my political consciousness. There is a chance that we might be able to get something done.
( ruminationsCollapse )
and you help them become what they are capable of being.
--Goethe
The corporate powers that be would like our current congress to push it through but Senator Coburn and a few others have held it up, because they realize that it needs their full attention. It probably won't be debated until the new congress is formed, after the election. Last year they passed the House version of this bill (HR 1279) in spite of considerable citizen action against it. We can allow the corporations to control and run our nation. It will take concerted citizen action to stop it. I am not sure enough people are awake yet to see what is happening, I'm not sure enough people care to stop it. And in the final reckoning, the government can no more stop people from growing tomatoes in their yards than they can stop people from growing and smoking pot. But they can make it illegal and inconvenient and underground. They can make us into criminals by passing laws that do not serve the people, they serve only big business. This is no democracy, as long as the people are lazy overfed sheep. This is a giant corporate farm and we are the product.
Bill Text:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-510
Stop S. 510 Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1057.php
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=6719
S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US. It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/s-510-is-hissing-in-the-grass/
Track the Bill:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510
Actually, I obediently filled it out. I'm 44 years of age and I think that may be the first time I've been counted. Unless my parents counted me sometime and I didn't know it.
I do find it amusing how riled up people get about it. I mean sure, worry about it if you're an illegal alien. It's worth worrying about. Fill it out so that the census taker man doesn't come to your door? Or don't fill it out and hide when the man comes. There are a lot of people in the US who want to chase out aliens just like those rednecks chased off the census taker.
I hear that 2010 will be the first year that nonwhite births outnumber white births in the US.
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