Shakespeare knew it

How much more would Shakespeare have written if he had a typewriter? Thirty-seven, extant, credited plays, and the other poetry, of verbally dense work are studded with a myriad of gems. There are so many famous quotations, and beyond that many important insights of thought that are overlooked in the vast bounty.

In this one sentence, that has not been memorised by millions, Shakespeare destroys a baseline argument of the busheviks and the condoners of torture:

PORTIA: Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforced do speak anything. — The Merchant of Venice III. ii. 33-4.

Perhaps, every person literate in english should be familiar with about a dozen plays of Shakespeare. He is meant to be read out loud. Film adaptations of his plays are not all that common, but some of them are excellent, and can be viewed while having the text near by.

Some versions can compare to each other, film to film, film to print, and less at hand--live version to film, print or another live performance. As You Like It was filmed in 1936 and 2006. Elisabeth Bergner and Bryce Dallas Howard played Rosalind. Leon Quartermaine and Kevin Kline played Jacques. Bergner was a european german, and even though, she clearly pronounced each word, one could hear the teutonic tone from a distance, while Howard was brilliant and quite fetching. Quartermaine spoke the seven ages of man speech, in, virtually, the same tone, emotion and rhythm as I did off the page. It was almost unison, i was vainly impressed. Kline played the role far more lackadaisical.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1935 was a delight, and one highlight was the hilarity of James Cagney as Bottom turning into an ass. Kline played the part in 1999. There are several fine, and great, actors appeared on film in Shakespeare. The wonderful part is, that, one can see the performances again and again. Richard Burton’s live performances on stage are not so recoverable for another look and listen. Film on disc is a great service.

But, back to the rack, the elizabethan english employed the rack and other forms of torture, and Shakespeare was fully aware. He had relatives tortured and killed. He himself was occasionally imperiled. Come Rack! Come Rope! (1912), a novel by Robert Hugh Benson, was written concerning that late elizabethan and early stuart time. Men could be broken to say anything true, imagined or fantastic; or for the pleasure of the torturers.

Salt march

                               Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi *1869,†1948.
(some one thought the Cleveland winter cold, and placed a muffler about the neck)

It is becoming common for many large cities and moderate cities to have a statue of Gandhi. There is one in London, the capital of the empire he defeated, other cities, that, have no connexion to him, Moscow and New York City.

During the last depression, in one of Franklin Roosevelt’s projects, there was built, in Cleveland, on then Liberty (now M. L. King) Blvd., Cultural Gardens. They have not been finished. In the new Indian Garden, a bronze statue of Gandhi, by Gautam Pal, was installed in 2006.

Gandhi so impressed his fellow nationals, they acclaimed him ― Mahatma (great soul) ― for what he did, and how he did it. The english empire held south Asia and South Africa. Gandhi was familiar with how the english ruled.

There is a passage from Luke first half of vi. 29:

And to him that striketh thee on the one cheek, offer also the other.

This was the key passage to Lev Nikolajevič Tolstoj and to Gandhi. They corresponded.

I want to tell others what I feel so particularly keen about, namely what is called non-resistance, but what is essentially nothing other than the teaching of love undistorted by false interpretations…This law has been proclaimed by all the world's sages, Indian, Chinese, Jewish, Greek, and Roman. I think it has been expressed most clearly of all by Christ…―Tolstoy to Gandhi, 7 September 1910.

That, and the Golden Rule:

And as you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner. ― Luke vi. 31.
All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. ― Matthew vii. 12.
See thou never do to another what thou wouldst hate to have done to thee by another. ― Tobiæ iv.16.
Seek not revenge, nor be mindful of the injury of thy citizens. Thou shalt love thy friend as thyself...― Leviticus xix.18.

But there is evil, and injustice in the world, and people want better. As Aristotle taught ― man is a political animal. How to act? Non coöperation with evil and injustice. The irish under the english used the boycott. Labor refused to labor. In using a variation of the golden rule, ahimsa (non-injury), and non coöperation Gandhi confronted the empire again and again.

In America, the bostonians dressed as red indians, and dumped british tea in the harbor, to protest british taxation. They did this secretly, and in dark, and in disguise. Gandhi and his indians protested british taxation of salt. They marched 24 days, beginning on 12 March 1930, peacefully, in the open, from Ahmadabad to Dandi on the Arabian sea, and made salt. The british responded brutally. They arrested Gandhi, again. They ran a world wide campaign of black propaganda against him and his people. The campaign of peaceful refusal began. The english lost, eventually [they did not want to leave France either 500 years previous].

Gandhi had campaigns against the evil of his people. He opposed the caste system and the treatment of dalits, the untouchables. The laws to-day are in their favor, but not the actions of indian society.

Slowly the world is beginning to commemorate his presence, if not his ideas. The little dedication ceremony in Cleveland did not have much hoopla. The indian community recognised one of their own. Congressman Kucinich, a war opponent, was in attendance. The Quakers had given him a Gandhi prize for peace*. Many people admire Gandhi in the US, but few politicians, and fewer will act in his fashion. Peace does not win votes here.

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I am being led to my religion through Truth and Non-Violence, i.e., love in the broadest sense. I often describe my religion as the religion of Truth. Of late, instead of saying God is Truth I have been saying Truth is God, in order more fully to define my religion.

Gentle Jesus, the greatest passive resister the world has seen.

Live simply, that others may simply live.

Those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics, do not know what religion means.... Spirituality that has no bearing on and produces no effect on everyday life is an ‘airy nothing.’

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Nonviolence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evildoer, but it means putting of one’s whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honor, his religion, his soul, and lay the foundation for that empire’s fall or its regeneration.

Jesus gave mankind, in these lessons and in his life, the great goal toward which to aspire. It is because there is such a goal, and because there was such a figure as that of Jesus, that I cannot be pessimistic, but instead am hopeful and confident of the future. And it is because his life has this significance and meaning for me that I do not regard him as belonging to Christianity alone, but rather to the whole world, to all its peoples, no matter under what name they worship.

...to be a good Hindu also meant that I would be a good Christian. There was no need for me to join your creed to be a believer in the beauty of the teachings of Jesus or try to follow His example...
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* Gandhi did not win a Nobel prize for peace, Kissinger did though.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt *30 January 1882

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Monument. District of Columbia.
Every country’s leader would like to promise peace and prosperity. gwbjr, aka chimpy, did so and brought the opposite, he brought war and depression. He created war, so as, to be ‘a war president’. Chimpy was a typical, delusional Republican. The greatest bugbear, the greatest villain in the history of the country, perhaps the world, for them, is Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Then, after twelve years of unchecked, unregulated ‘free market’* economics, that the Republicans stood for and by, delved this nation into the Great Depression. Roosevelt understood, that, there was a great impetus to really do something. Then, when world fascism and militarism forged an axis of aggression and evil, the United States was attacked by imperial Japan.

Now, many years later (1984 Dallas Republican convention, if memory serves) Ronnie Reagan forgave Hitler and blamed Roosevelt for the war. The hatred for Roosevelt has never subsided, on the part of rabid, Republican partisans. Chimpy after the 2004 election was determined to dismantle Social Security. That one programme, which perhaps, is the one, great, enduring legacy, that, Roosevelt, and the New Deal, accomplished, and is remembered, by the nation is Social Security.

Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency, to the great alarum of the Republicans. He won honestly and greatly. America was in a condition, everyone, recognised as not prosperous. War was begun by the world’s, imperialist, anti-democrat fascists that over ran Poland, and attacked the United States.

The words of FDR at the beginning of his presidential mandate, concerning the first great crisis:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. ― First Inaugural Address (4 March 1933)

The initial words of FDR, concerning the second great crisis:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Now, Roosevelt was in the habit of using the more polite term ‘economic royalist’ for fascist, and these economic royalists, supply siders, welfare capitalists, those who privatise profit, and want to wrest government, to do their will, are with us still. Roosevelt is the sort of man these Republicans hate. Here are some of the other words, which, raises the rancor, and inflames the ire of these people:

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. ― on the National Industrial Recovery Act (16 June 1933)
***
Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference. ― Speech to the Democratic National Convention (27 June 1936)
***
Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power.
The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing. ― Simple Truths message to Congress (29 April1938)
***
We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization. ― Greeting to the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born, Washington, D.C. (9 January 1940)
***
But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.
***
Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.
***
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
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I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all.
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I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
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If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do is join a union.
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It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.
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It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
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More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.
***
One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... If it doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.
***
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.
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There is nothing I love as much as a good fight.
***
Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.
***
War is a contagion.
***
I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

There has been some controversies about the Roosevelt Memorial Park. What I have not read, or heard about, is the popularity of the statue group above. People are taking, especially, their small hounds, and photographing them next to Fala. Mister Fala of the White House was Roosevelt’s war time companion. Earlier, I wrote of man and dog; this continues the thought: Whosoever loveth me loveth my hound. Conversely, those who hateth me hateth my hound.

These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks — but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him — at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or 20 million dollars — his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since! I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself — such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog. — (23 September 1944)

Fala was a scottish terrier. The Roosevelts had a succession of scotties. In the film, Wizard of Oz (1939), Dorothy had a, similar highland terrier, a cairn terrier. The Wicked Witch said, “I’ll get you my pretty ... and your little dog too!”. Yes, the venom people have for you, will, also, be given your dog.
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*Now, the reaganistas and the busheviks were against regulation of industries and commerce. Something, that the Constitution mandates, which has never been changed in the wording of the Constitution: Article I. Section 8. ― The Congress shall have power ... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes ...

Albert Camus

Albert Camus, *1913, †1960, with iconic trenchcoat and cigarette, is the philosophic writer that personifies the cinematic image of Humphrey Bogart. He was an impoverished pied noir, who was a scholarship student. He was a member of the french resistance. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature. On a January 4th, his life ended in an automobile crash.

In his varied writings ― journalism, philosophy, plays and novels ― he was profoundly and deeply concerned with moral order. The individual man against absurd authority. The world crushes people, and the moral man rebels against this cruelty. This moral man duels all oppression.

Camus claimed the world was without God, but many of the french saw him coming closer to catholicism, a very socially active catholicism. This sisyphean struggle is more poignant then. Camus recognised, that, a man became a man by saying one word, one strong and defiant word. The man says, ‘No’.
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What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man. That they should get away from the abstraction and confront the blood-stained face history has taken on today.

There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.

The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." ...
Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if
we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.

Cars and competition

“The effects of the Industrial Revolution prove that free competition may produce wealth without producing well-being. We all know the horrors that ensued in England before it was restrained by legislation and combination.” ― Arnold Toynbee, †1883.

“The stronger side will dictate its own terms; and as a matter of fact, in the early days of competition the capitalists used all their power to oppress the labourers, and drove down wages to starvation point.” ― Arnold Toynbee, †1883.

We may be in an early phase of georgebushjunior’s depression. Now, the Senate has not allowed a vote on the car company loan. Sixty percent is needed, 52 to 35 does not meet the threshold. The House voted passage.

Now, four Republican senators: Bob Corker of Tennessee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Jim DeMint of South Carolina have publicly announced their displeasure for the bill.* What do they share in common? Southern Republicans with heavily, subsidised, foreign, car, plants in their states, who all despise labor unions and the rights of laboring men.

“... unions, but they appear to be an antiquated concept in today's economy, and if a company cannot be competitive with the union structure that they have, then we have to recognize that. The taxpayers should not be obligated to prop up these union bosses who have put the American car companies against a wall, with these contracts and the threat of strikes over the last several decades, that have essentially put them out of business. And they want the taxpayers to pay for that ... barnacles of unionism wrapped around their necks.” ― DeMint, All Things Considered, 10 December

This financial and economic depression has been with us a year, and it has been denied, by the executive branch and their party, for most of that year. Henry Merritt Paulson, Junior has been Treasury Secretary since the middle of 2006. Before that, he was with Goldman Sachs, since 1974. His compensation for his last full year was, in the neighborhood of, $37 millions. Before that, he was assistant to John Ehrlichman, during Watergate. Now, his public announcements swiveled on a dime. First, all was fine, then $700 billions were needed RIGHT NOW, NO QUESTIONS. He had to expand on that, a first House vote failed, and then the bill was larded up to pass.

The credit and money situation has not freed up. The american car companies are in trouble. The United Auto Workers are being defamed and slandered. At the negotiating table, by management, and then, the shills of capitalism, the Wall Street Journal editorial staff, and zealous, delusional and dishonest Republicans. Sometimes this nonsense is called out:

“We’ve heard this garbage about 73 bucks an hour. It’s a total lie. I think some people have perpetrated that deliberately, in a calculated way, to mislead the American people about what we’re doing here.” ― Senator Bob Casey

This is how that figure is calculated: pay + insurance + pension + retirees’ benefits (legacy cost of a century doing business, are there any american retirees at all from the foreign companies’ scab labor?) Adding all that together, it is about 10% of a car’s cost.

Well, the highest car management (it was reported, that one of the three had a $21 million a year pay) flew in on private aeroplanes to ask for money, pretty much without oversight. They were surprised to be rebuffed, by the House. They regrouped and tried a second time, with some humility. bushjr did not want to use a portion of the Wall Street bail-out, but rather money already allocated for development of new fueled cars. Now, bushjr may have to use the big bank bail-out.
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*We certainly know, that, it is not laissez-faire liberalism of pure capitalism. Eighteen Republican senators (Corker and McConnell, chief among them), and two Democratic, voted for the money socialising the banks and the failures of Wall Street, while voting Detroit to get lost.
noto bene: add to the roll call of despicables:
Bob Corker
Richard Shelby
Mitch McConnell
Jim DeMint

Saint Teresa of Avila

Gianlorenzo Bernini. Ecstasy of St Teresa.1645 -52. Santa Maria della Vittoria. Rome.

She, that we know as, Saint Teresa of Ávila, was known in religious life as, Saint Teresa of Jesus, was born, Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, in 1515, immediately before the religious revolt, that did not touch Spain. Spain was the world power then. Spain was finally free of all foreign occupation. Spain sought to maintain one religion only. The centuries of moorish mohammedanism and their jewish intermediaries were not appreciated. Spain was christian, and christian meant catholic. Spain was first in Europe and first in the world.

Teresa’s father’s father, was a converso, and a wealthy man, that, married well. Her mother was very religious. In this atmosphere, it was not surprising, that as children, Teresa and a brother, Rodrigo, were caught running away from home, by their uncle. They were going to moorish Africa to become martyrs. Why? she was asked,“I want to see God, and I must die before I can see Him.”

She entered her heavenly reward on the 4th of October 1582. The next day was the 15th of October, hence to-day is Saint Teresa of Ávila’s day. Yes, the next day was the 15th, this was when the Julian calendar gave way to he Gregorian.

In between, she lived her life. She and Saint John of the Cross were founders of the Discalced Carmelites. She was a great mystic and an important spiritual writer on prayer ( The Life of St Teresa by Herself, The Way of Perfection, The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila, Letters). She was recognised as the first female Doctor of the Church. She was so recognised, in Spain, centuries before, although she did suffer opposition, and periods of illness. During the illnesses she lived this important prayer life.

She is remembered for experiencing deep spiritual ecstasies. After her death and burial, she was found to be bodily incorrupt and having the odor of sanctity. Her heart was transverberated. Transverberation, is the wound imparted by an angelic arrow.

She had a sense of humor and exasperation:

Dear Lord, if this is how You treat Your friends, it is no wonder You have so few!

To argue over who is the more noble is nothing more than to dispute whether dirt is better for making bricks or for making mortar.

From silly devotions and from sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us.

Some of her other thoughts:

Prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.

Granting that we are always in the presence of God, yet it seems to me that those who pray are in His presence in a very different sense; for they, as it were, see that He is looking upon them, while others may go for days on end without even once recollecting that God sees them.

Take care not to miss this wonderful opportunity. Say the 'Our Father' slowly without rushing. He is listening very close to you. This is the best way to praise and honor His name.

Let him never cease from prayer who has once begun it, be his life ever so wicked, for prayer is the way to amend it, and without prayer such amendment will be much more difficult.

With the help of our guardian angel we can try to see it reflected in God as in a mirror, for we will never come to know ourselves if we do not try to know God.

Whenever I read in the lives of Saints of how they converted souls, I seem to feel much more devout, more tender, and more envious of them than when I read of all the martyrdoms that they suffered. This is an inclination given me by Our Lord; and I think He prizes one soul, which by His mercy and through our diligence and prayer we have gained, for him, more than all the other services we can render Him.

We know only that we are living in these bodies and have a vague idea, because we have heard it, and because our faith tells us so, that we possess souls. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or who dwells within them, or how precious they are, those are things which seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty.

Each of us has a soul, but we forget to value it. We don’t remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We don’t understand the great secrets hidden inside of us.

Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and there is only one glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.

regulation, responsibility and republicans

Al Capone advised not to invest in the stock market. “It’s a racket”, he maintained to all. He knew businessmen, he was one himself, and quite successful, until he had tax trouble. He along with Henry Ford, John Rockefeller, and others were the financial celebrities of the booming ’20s.

This American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you will, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it. — Al Capone

Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class. — Al Capone

The roaring ’20s was a time of unregulated excess for those whom had access to wealth. Three Republican administrations allowed business interests to govern. Harding knew he was incompetent, and some of his cabinet was incredibly corrupt. Coolidge’s main occupation was sleeping. This culminated in Herbert Hoover, by far the most able of the three, and collapse. The greatest economic disaster, so far, in the history of this nation tumbled through his four years.

Franklin Roosevelt was then elected four times. The hatred that was given, to this man, by the Republicans and the moneyed interests was virtually boundless. He brought this country out of disaster and saved democracy. Those vengeful and vicious interests, even, at first attempted a putsch. It failed.

Mister Roosevelt was willing to experiment. He did not worship Mammon, under the avatar of “free market capitalism”. The man was not a socialist. He was a pragmatic politician, and acted as a shrewd statesman, and achieved success. This success was a boon to humanitarianism and the american nation. Franklin Roosevelt was a patriot. Some people believed, that, the party of Hoover and the bankers would never regain power, merely, because they should not; so as to avoid the inevitable disaster and failure that would return.

The stock market and the banks were greedy and corrupt in the 1920s. The rich and the Republicans were in high spirits. Their avarice and immoral practices brought ultimate ruin. At first Robert Taft emerged as the point man to overturn the entire New Deal, the reaganistas and the busheviks were successful in that endeavor, and by doing so, were the architects that laid the foundation, and executed the blueprints, for the current economic crisis.

The second Glass-Steagall Act*, the Banking Act of 1933 regulated the financial business. It included the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, but more importantly, it separated brokers from bankers, it created regulation and reform to prevent speculation. These measures reassured the country, and allowed for recovery from the policies of the Republicans, and the Wall Street clique. Now, this, as all elements of social and economic justice and financial regulation is, and has been, anathema to the moneyed interests, the economic royalists and the Republican party.

In the recent generation, the protections of Glass-Steagall have been cancelled and repealed. The last part of it was destroyed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. That Gramm, was the Republican senator from Texas, and presidential candidate, and professor of economics at Texas A&M, and McCain’s economic advisor, Phil Gramm. We now have what the Republicans wanted: the reforms of Roosevelt repealed, a return to the orgy of the ’20s. We also have a bill to pay for it. History repeated, because the nation did not remember what it meant to live under the success of the Republican party and their masters.

We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. — September 2008 Republican Party Platform

Prosperity is just around the corner. — 1932 Herbert Hoover

Corporation: n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. — Ambrose Bierce

The Congress shall have Power ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes ... — Article I. Section 8. Constitution

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* Democratic Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, and Democratic Representative Henry B. Steagall of Alabama.

Cesar Chavez —‘¡Sí, Se Puede!’

‘¡Sí, Se Puede!’ “Yes, It can be done!” (yes we can), has been borrowed to be Obama's slogan.
Cesar Estrada Chavez was born near Yuma, Arizona on 31 March 1927. Chavez’s family were cheated out of their home and ended up as migrant farm laborers in California. He became a community organiser and eventually founded, with Dolores Huerta, the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, which became the United Farm Workers (UFW).

In 1966 there was a strike of grape pickers and a 340 mile march, from Delano to Sacramento, from the fields to the state capital. In front of all his marches there was the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a pilgrimage for justice. The strike lasted five years and people were asked to boycott grapes. There followed government investigations and legislation. Senator Bobby Kennedy became an ally, and friend, to Cesar Chavez.

More strikes, more organising, Tejas, Wisconsin and Ohio. He fasted for the cause. Later, he protested the use of pesticides on grapes. Higher wages, better, safer and healthier conditions through peaceful action to attain these modest goals was his mission. Even before, this active work for labor, citizen and political rights, he became an enthusiast of Saint Francis of Assisi and Mohandas Gandhi. A Father Donald McDonnell* introduced catholic social and labor literature to Cesar starting in 1952, in San Jose. Before the UFW, Cesar was a member of the Community Service Organization, and then the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee.

By the early ’70s there was much success for the movement. Counter-resistance was organised, by the fascist power structure: the landowners, police forces, moneyed power, their political representatives — the Republican party. Bringing in strikebreakers from across the border being a favorite and successful tactic. This created a lower payed and more pliable workforce than unionised, citizen labor.

“Oh, the grape boycott? Well, I’ve classified it in the past as immoral. And I think it is.” — Ronnie Reagan, 1968.

“A symbol is an important thing. That is why we chose an Aztec eagle. It gives pride ... When people see it they know it means dignity.”

Chavez showed that peacefully, united people could win. Fasting was both a spiritual practice, and an active practice, as was marching and speaking.

“A fast is first and foremost personal. It is a fast for the purification of my own body, mind, and soul. The fast is also a heartfelt prayer for purification and strengthening for all those who work beside me in the farm worker movement. The fast is also an act of penance for those in positions of moral authority and for all men and women activists who know what is right and just, who know that they could and should do more. The fast is finally a declaration of non­cooperation with supermarkets who promote and sell and profit from California table grapes.”

Cesar Chavez died on the night/morning of 22-23 April 1993 near where he was born. During that last day, he was at a frivolous, yet expensive lawsuit trial where a California grower was suing for boycott damages, sustained in California, but in an Arizonan court friendly to moneyed interests.

Chavez was married with eight children, and he was a fervent, believing and practicing Catholic. Cardinal Roger Mahoney presiding at his funeral, said Cesar was “a special prophet for the worlds’ farm workers.” A cause may be opened up for him one day. The Bishop of Monterey, California, Richard Garcia may be supportive of the idea. And there will be celebrated the 8th Annual César Chávez Mass this Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 3:30 p.m. at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, California.

****
“Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak... Non-violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.”

“We maintain that you cannot really be effective in anything you are doing if you are so loaded with violence that you cannot think rationally about what you have to do. We know that violence works. I’m not going to say it doesn’t work. Total violence still works and is working many places. I disagree that it has long-lasting good results. I disagree with that. But violence works only when it’s total violence, and non-violence works only when it’s total non-violence. And you can’t have anything in between.”

“The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.”

“If you want to remember me, organize!”

“Who gets the risks? The risks are given to the consumer, the unsuspecting consumer and the poor work force. And who gets the benefits? The benefits are only for the corporations, for the money makers.”

“I had a dream that the only reason the employers were so powerful was not because they in fact had that much power, in terms of dealing with the lives of their workers at will, but what made them truly powerful was that we were weak. And if we could somehow begin to develop some strength among ourselves, I felt that we could begin to equal that, balancing their power in agriculture. ”

“From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.”

“We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.”

“We shall strike. We shall organise boycotts. We shall demonstrate and have political campaigns. We shall pursue the revolution we have proposed. We are sons and daughters of the farm workers’ revolution, a revolution of the poor seeking bread and justice”.

“...when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration Service has removed strikebreakers. . . .The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking.”

“The whole idea of the union, it’s not only the union, but it represents, together with you and me, all our brothers, Chicano and white and black and everything, represents an idea that poor people can get together and win. Because they, if we build a union in agriculture today, the balance of power is going to turn around, because, in the rural areas, the growers have undisputed power, and the fight is to keep the workers from organizing so they could equal that. If we could organize the workers, without interruptions from the Teamsters Union, I bet you in 5, 6 years, we will be electing state legislators from the rural area, we’ll be electing judges, we’ll be electing city councilmen, and those workers will be taking hold of governmental agencies through their organization. That’s the fight. Because the moment the worker gets a union and feels secure with his job and his income, what is the next step that he thinks of? Automatically he thinks about politics. ”
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*“Father McDonnell sat with me past midnight telling me about social justice and the Church’s stand on farm labor and reading from the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII in which he upheld labor unions. I would do anything to get the Father to tell me more about labor history. I began going to the bracero camps with him to help with Mass, to the city jail to talk with prisoners...”

noto bene: John Steinbeck, in 1936, released In Dubious Battle, about a strike in the California apple orchards. Compare the settings and contrast the socialist Jim Nolan’s devotion to the cause and his fate, to that of Cesar Chavez’s. The cause of the workers was as desperate, but the motivation of the organisers was different. Chavez’s starting point was christian witness in fellowship, though their opponents were on the same page.

Saint Thomas Aquinas

The childlike question is asked, "who's the smartest/wisest man in history?". Some think Albert Einstein, who pointed to thermonuclear bombs. Solomon, whose vast concubinage, brought the worship of new false religions into his Kingdom, which fell in two upon his death.

I am a Thomist. Aquinas brought greek philosophy and methods into christian thought most fruitfully. The foremost of all theologians, the man who in open, come all debates, on any subject, at the university of Paris, was the winner.

He was also a poet. His favorite subject was the Eucharist. His poems became hymns, Panis angelicus, O salutarius Hostia, Tantum ergo and Adoro te devote, latens Deitas. A quatrain taken from the last, written c.1264, impressed me a long time ago.


















Pie pellicane Jesu Domine,
Me immundum munda tuo sanguine,
Cujus una stilla salvum facere
Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.

This has many translations, even in english, I found this one in a missal. I am not sure if this is the one I first read. I typed a copy and placed it in the typewriter case. Later, I could not find it, perhaps someone used the machine and tidied the case. The metaphor of Jesus as pelican strikes others too. In a mediæval art history class, back at Ohio University, we had a discussion on christian iconography. I did not know the religious background of my comrades, but they all seem quite surprised and taken with that mental and spiritual conception. A few of them, took it as their project and made a stained glass window, which they presented to Professor Marilyn Hunt. I would have liked to have a photograph of it.

O loving Pelican, Jesus Lord,
cleanse me, unclean, in Thy Blood,
one drop of which hath power to save
the whole world from all its sin.



















Christ as Pelican, the Eucharistic Succour struck me deeply.

Others reading Saint Thomas also found gems. Monsignor Ronald Knox, in 1925, found a limerick embedded in an Aquinas selection withtin the Breviary. One often thinks of a limerick as a short, funny, sometimes bawdy poem. In Thomas there is innocence.

Sit vitiorum meorum evacuatio
Concupiscentae et libidinis exterminatio,
Caritatis et patientiae,
Humilitatis et obedientiae,
Omniumque virtutum augmentatio.

Let my viciousness be emptied,
Desire and lust banished,
Charity and patience,
Humility and obedience,
And all the virtues increased.

In the Summa, Thomas in unpoetic, extremely clear, point by point, by counterpoint explains, in crystalline logic and syllogism, many of the most important concepts of thought: Quinque via (5 proofs of God), just and unjust wars, just and unjust laws and many other matters. So much genius, and so much humility.


Student's Prayer

Creator of all things, true source of Light and Wisdom, lofty source of all Being, graciously let a ray of Your Brilliance penetrate into the darkness of my understanding and take from me the double darkness in which I have been born, sin and ignorance.

Give me a sharp sense of understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally. Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations, and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm.

Point out the beginning, direct the progress, help in the completion.

Through Christ, Our Lord. Amen. ― St. Thomas Aquinas
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*noto bene. 100th post

And the revolution works itself out ...

On this day, in 1793, the king of France, Louis XVI, the citizen Louis Capet met the guillotine. The Terror was on. Throughout France people were accused, tried and executed as enemies of the revolution. The terrorists were the government. Those who represented the old order, or not enthusiastic about the new, were targets.

Studying history comparatively, there is much that can be paralleled between the French and Russian revolutions. On this day, in 1924, Vladimir Ilič Uljvanov, Lenin died. Immediately Stalin began in the successful, ruthless, machiavellian, machinations to gain all control of the state.

Now, Lenin and Stalin were noms de querre. Stalin before being a revolutionary, was a street criminal and used many, many aliases. People often do not realize how few of the bolsheviks were russians. Stalin spoke with a caucasian accent, russians knew this immediately by ear. There is an anecdote, that partly suggests this to us, though it is more to his cold alienation:

"Apparently, father was a Georgian when he was younger." ― Vasilij Josifovič to Svetlana Josifovna

Stalin was the murderer of finite, but incalculable millions. Easily the statement, "one death is a tragedy; a million deaths is just a statistic", or variants thereof, was attached to him. This was probably redirected from Erich Maria Remarque's novel, "Der schwarze Obelisk, (The black obelisk)", of 1956.

"Aber das ist wohl so, weil ein einzelner immer der Tod ist — und zwei Millionen immer nur eine Statistik." "Of course this is certainly so, since one death is always isolated — and two million are always only a statistic."

Stalin is russian for made of steel, his real name was Josif Vissarionnovič Džugašvili. This steel was the image he cultivated; he was a paranoid, brutal, vengeful, and cunning monster, showing no ruth, no compassion. He was an operator and had a cold understanding of how the world worked.

• Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs. ― quoted in Vospominanija Bjvshego Sekretarja Stalina (1992), Memoirs of Boris Bažanov, Stalin's former secretary.
• The Pope! How many divisions has he got? ― to Pierre Laval (13 May 1935) as quoted by Winston Churchill, in response of a request to tolerate catholicism.
• Hitlers come and go, but Germany and the German people remain. ― "The Order #55 of the National Commissar for the Defense" (23 February 1942).
• So the bastard's dead! Too bad we didn't capture him alive! ― quoted in The Memoirs of Georgij Konstantinovič Žukov referring to the death of Hitler.
• In the Soviet Army, it takes more courage to retreat than advance. ― to Averrell Harriman, american ambassador.
• Tsar Alexander reached Paris. ― to an american who remarked about Russian troops in Berlin, mentioned in Kissinger's, "Diplomacy".
  

Some of these observations are philosophical, some refer to specific historical events, others are directly applicable to the american political situation today, especially the last eight years. Comrade Stalin has eager appartchniks, some are busheviks.

• Cadres decide everything! ― Address to the Graduates from the Red Army Academies. (4 May 1935).
• Those who cast the votes, they decide nothing. Those who count the votes, they decide everything.― quoted in The Memoirs of Boris Bažanov.
• Beat, beat and beat again! ― Nikita Sergejevič Khruščjev's Secret Speech "On the Personality Cult and its Consequences" (25 February 1956), on how to get information from political prisoners.

Göring, call me Meier, was not always wrong

Hermann Wilhelm Göring, *12 January 1893, succeeded Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, as commander of the flying circus in the Great War. An aerial hero, he had downed 22 confirmed enemy aircraft. As the only blonde nazi, he was a natural to command the Luftwaffe. He was a strutting sensualist, who delighted in the uniform and splendor.

He was also the second man on the nazi totem pole. He was the Reichstag's President from 1932 to 1933. Göring was involved in the Gleichschaltung, where for example, all Catholic newspapers he banned in 1933.

Immediately the nazi program began Gleichschaltung*¹, equivalent replacement, the process of nazification and co-opting and abolition of individuals and organizations. Dachau was opened as a bullpen for those not deemed agreeable to change, the irredeemable, bad and troublesome citizens. Everything was to be reformed, ancient and contrary freedom was eliminated, no more kulturkampf.

Göring liked to boast, and on 9 August 1939, Göring said, "The Ruhr will not be subjected to a single bomb. If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Hermann Göring: you can call me Meier!" He used common, idiomatic cliches, as, "If x happens, then ― you can call me Meier." Black sarcasm had Berlin's air raid sirens called "Meier's trumpets" and "Meier's hunting horns" by the end of the war. He was correct, in seeing that war against Russia would be a disaster.

After the war ended, the surviving, prominent nazis were put on trial in Nuremberg (Nürnberg). Dr. Gustave Gilbert was an american born german fluent jew. Gilbert had access to speak to these men. 18 April 1946 Gilbert talked to Göring in his cell and records in his book, Nuremberg Diary, on pages 278-9:

[Hermann Göring] "Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

[Gustave Gilbert] "There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

[Hermann Göring] "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

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*¹ "forcible coordination" is a phrase some academics employ.

Debasement of language

The debasement of american english: conservative, military and even ...


Republicans say they are conservatives with conservative values. I, posit, that I am a conservative and no Republican. Very few Republicans follow conservative principles*, they are merely Republicans (approaching fascism). There are principles that are what they are, irrespective of whom abides by them. This absolute loyalty to one's party or class does not respect principle. The Republicans are loathe to criticize or acknowledge the transgressions of their own. To be consistent with one's stated position necessitates open disagreement with others who are not. Reagan may have, jocularly, issued an eleventh commandment, but it holds stronger than the other ten .

Edmund Burke portrait. Joshua Reynolds studio. c.1768. London.
A political thinker that is recognized as a conservative is Edmund Burke (1729-97). Compare this list of his aphorisms with today's established power and george junior, and see, to what degree, are Republicans conservative? And if I, were to, give you more quotes from Saint Augustine and other men of conservative principle, would that drive the point home?

• Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
• Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
• But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
• But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
• Falsehood is a perennial spring.
• Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
• I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
• If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
• In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
• It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
• It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
• Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.
• Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
• Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
• No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
• One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
• Our patience will achieve more than our force.
• People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.
• The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
• The march of the human mind is slow.
• The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
• The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
• There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.
• Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
• Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
• To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

Air Force Colonel David Opfer is the spiritual founder of Fox News [sic]. Fox's premise is that the establishment media is liberally biased [sic], so it presents "the news" for you to decide. David Opfer, is an individual, that, I know virtually nothing about, but he is emblematic for the one sentence he spoke in a fit of perturbence. He was upset about the reporting on the war he was involved in, and he complained, "You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing, it's air support".

Here it is in miniature. The accuracy and truth of observation should be suppressed to support the goal and programs of those in power. Military euphemism is quite de rigeur in today's America, death and destruction is replaced with words that connotate reality obliquely. The logic of Christ tells us,"But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil". --Matthew v.37. This language of creative euphemism is dishonest. Once in America, some military men spoke honestly -- "War is hell" -- General Wm. T. Sherman. Now, this logic leads directly to: that the preparations for warring are the preparations for hell. And who in the press and in the public says such things?

Alexander Haig tortured english into gobbledygook. This he picked up in the military, between jargon, acronyms, euphemisms, et cetera. He brought this into the executive branch. Honest language describes and illuminates clarity; it does not obscure and make nebulous. When it does the latter, you must be sceptically curious and on guard.

Words mean what they mean. Their definitions are not determined by the hearer or speaker, and certainly, not by the least knowledgeable. If words are misused or misunderstood that should not be the accepted usage. Words do change overtime, I admit, but that change is gradual and was greater prior to mass printing than now. The more literate a nation is, the more stable are the meanings of words and the fallback position is that of the more ancient usage as the standard.

Enemies of language are bureaucracy -- military, government, business. The language of advertising can be simply analyzed by its deviousness and trickery as being grievously suspect. When this spreads to journalism and conversation, we are debased and maliciously used.

One particularly telling usage is that of the word -- even-- as an adverb. Even is meant to be an emphatic intensifier. In advertising and every day on the local "news reporting" it is used to list the third member of that list, when it can only be synonymous with "and" or "also" or "and this too". This false emphasis is to make hype of the mundane and to mislead that the trivial is vital or extraordinary.

Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.--F. Scott Fitzgerald

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* Chuck Hagel, Ron Paul, Bruce Fein

Saint Augustine's Day MMVII

Today is Saint Augustine's Day. I have read that there is a spanish statement that every sermon can use a quotation from St. Augustine. Today, I will defer and instead post these quotations worth considering, perhaps meditating upon:

"At the Day of Judgment, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done." --- Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ, I.iii. 1418

"The difficulty of explaining 'why I am a Catholic' is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true."
--- G.K. Chesterton, "Why I am a Catholic," 1926

"For if the movement of the world were irrational, and the world rolled on in random fashion, one would be justified in disbelieving what we say. But if the world is founded on reason, wisdom, and science, and is filled with orderly beauty, then it must owe its origin and order to none other than the Word of God." --- St. Athanasius

"With a Mass I not only secure for myself innumerable blessings, but I confer the most important benefits on my kingdom. Many more than I could possibly do in any other way." --- Saint Louis King of France

The Republican party since Lincoln

It is doubtful, in the extreme, that if Abraham Lincoln was alive today that he would be accepted, or would want to be a Republican. He certainly could not be their candidate.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." -- Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.

"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

-- letter from Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864.


Lincoln saw the danger of the moneyed interests controlling government. The contractors for the war became rich and so began the era of robber barons that lasted to the twentieth century. To secure (steal) a presidential victory in 1876, the Republicans ended Reconstruction in exchange for Florida's electoral votes and turned their backs on the negro. At the turn of the century the McKinley - Theodore Roosevelt government made the country an internationalist and imperialistic empire through wars with Spain and the Philippines. The bearer of the Democracy*, William Jennings Bryan, lost three presidential elections, the first probably stolen. The progressive era lasted for only a few years before the Great War†. The 1920s were a return to robber republican hegemony. Calvin "Silent Cal" Coolidge uttered the essential fascistic statement, "The business of government is business.". The Republican party has shown a remarkable consistency since the death of Lincoln. Not a new thought in a century.
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*at the time, many Democrats called the party -- the Democracy
†World War I