Month: February 2011

Contributed by: filbert Friday, February 04 2011 @ 10:41 AM CST

. . . before people can mobilize for collective action, they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant. . . . protesters need targets, preferably local and accessible ones capable of making some kind of response to angry demands.

— Frances Fox Piven, harmless, well-intentioned academic and renowned pacifist

Contributed by: filbert Thursday, February 03 2011 @ 10:36 AM CST

Political tags–such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth–are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

— Robert A. Heinlein

Via PJ Tatler[*1]

[*1] http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/01/22/the-real-political-parties/

Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, February 02 2011 @ 10:33 AM CST

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:
1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.
2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests.
In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.

— Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Henry Lee, 1824)

Via PJ Tatler[*1]

[*1] http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/01/22/the-real-political-parties/

Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, February 01 2011 @ 10:31 AM CST

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

–Robert Heinlein