But Ford […Aaron Ford, the special agent in charge at the FBI’s Newark division] disagreed: “Any time an individual or group uses force or violence to intimidate, coerce or change the mission of a government, that is terrorism and in this case, it’s domestic terrorism.”
–unless it’s the government of the United States, then any opposing this become what they call insurgents.(insert own sarcasm here)
ps. this was written as a draft 5/25/2013
“He writes:
‘The weakness of those of us who take a gaudy satisfaction in our ideas, and battle for them violently, and face punishment for them willingly and even proudly, is that we forget the primary business of the man in politics, which is the snatching and safeguarding of his job. That business, it must be plain, concerns itself only occasionally with the defense and propagation of ideas, and even then it must confine itself to those that, to a reflective man, must usually appear to be insane. The first and last aim of the politician is to get votes, and the safest of all ways to get votes is to appear to the plain man to be a plain man like himself, which is to say, to appear to him to be happily free from any heretical treason to the body of accepted platitudes — to be filled to the brim with the flabby, banal, childish notions that challenge no prejudice and lay no burden of examination upon the mind.
[…]
It seems to me that this fear of ideas is a peculiarly democratic phenomenon, and that it is nowhere so horribly apparent as in the United States, perhaps the nearest approach to an actual democracy yet seen in the world. It was Americans who invented the curious doctrine that there is a body of doctrine in every department of thought that every good citizen is in duty bound to accept and cherish; it was Americans who invented the right-thinker. The fundamental concept, of course, was not original. The theologians embraced it centuries ago, and continue to embrace it to this day. It appeared on the political side in the Middle Ages, and survived in Russia into our time. But it is only in the United States that it has been extended to all departments of thought. It is only here that any novel idea, in any field of human relations, carries with it a burden of obnoxiousness, and is instantly challenged as mysteriously immoral by the great masses of right-thinking men. It is only here, so far as I have been able to make out, that there is a right way and a wrong way to think about the beverages one drinks with one’s meals, and the way children ought to be taught in the schools, and the manner in which foreign alliances should be negotiated, and what ought to be done about the Bolsheviki.'”
–H.L. Mencken
Please view the entire article here: H.L. Mencken on Reclaiming Democracy from the Mob Mentality That Masquerades for It
by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
I cannot be in a city using my voice in protest of such a disgraceful example of a human being, put forth to represent me as leader of my country. So, I shall let my voice be heard here.
“You are your own best friend. You can provide for yourself emotionally and physically. Sometimes we feel frightened and want to get reassurance that everything’s going to be okay. Everything you need is provided to you. I am tuned in to my inner source of direction. I rely upon this inner source to guide me perfectly.”–Guide
Sometimes we dont’ have to persue happiness, we just have to pause and let it catch up.–unknown
“As the dark, cold morning gives way to light,
And the world shows its face dazzling in her nakedness,
So the twigs and leaf-bare branches,
Bow to the passing dance
Of old Jack Frost.
His crystal breath on the earth,
And the corners of houses weep icicles of joy.
But where is the Sun’s warmth?
Where is life?
A small flower, delicate and pure-white,
Looks to the earth,
As if talking to the waiting green,
“Not yet,” it seems to whisper.
“When I fall, then you can return.”
And she nods her head,
as the Lady passes by,
Leaving more flowers in Her wake.”
Elisa's Spot 