This Douglas Adams quote from 'The Salmon of Doubt' never stops being relevant, especially in a time where we've witnessed the damage disinformation and hate speech can cause. Lives have been literally lost, both by people spreading lies during the pandemic, and by bigoted rhetoric targeting women and marginalized groups. Legitimizing such views as just "difference of opinion" instead of challenging them for what they are only causes further harm.
Was reminded of this Discworld quote and it holds so much truth. Not because the uber-privileged aren't heavily to blame, they are. But the inclination to mentally place the issue far away from us is also real. We want it to be some other men, some other white people, some other communities that are "bad", not ours, not here, so we are safe from the problem and free of the responsibility. But a major part of change and growth is self-reflection.
“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
Sharing because this is pretty cool and it's making the rounds on several places uncredited, and also because it's spot on and very true and worth remembering.
There is no actual, tangible reason why we allow people to starve, to be homeless, to suffer and die needlessly. Food is plentiful. Empty homes are plentiful. Medicine is plentiful. It's hidden away behind constructs and we pretend those constructs mean something. There is an empty home and a homeless family, give them it. There is a sick child and common medicine to treat it, give it to them. There is a starving person and so much food wasted by corporations or hidden behind a dollar sign, feed them.
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
“The very serious function of racism…is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.”
When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. Saying it makes a living land into "natural resources." If a maple is an it, we can take up the chain saw. If a maple is a her, we think twice.
Listen, maybe I can’t change the world, but I can pass eggs over the fence to my neighbor to save them a few dollars. I can cross the street and fix another neighbor’s cabinets. I can send my kid to the house next door with a can of tomato sauce they need and they’ll come back with a box of cocoa powder they weren’t going to use. We can leave our old furniture at the curb and one of us will drive by and pick it up to fix and sell or keep. I’ll plant a garden since I have the space and time and I’ll share what I can and I’ll get calls from someone else asking if I can use a crate of oranges.
I may not be able to change the world but I can do something
About 90% of those sentenced to prison for a drug offense in Illinois are african-american. White drug users and dealers are rarely arrested, and when they are, they are treated more favorably at every stage of the criminal justice process, including plea-bargaining and sentencing. Whites are consistently more likely to avoid prison and felony charges, even when they are repeatedly caught with drugs.
“We are about to sacrifice our civilization for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money. We are about to sacrifice the biosphere so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.”
― Greta Thunberg
I am learning to live in synchrony with the sun, taking my showers in the afternoon when the solar heater has warmed the water, charging my phone during the day instead of at night, going to bed sooner and rising earlier to save electricity.
I am learning to live in synchrony with the seasons, spending more time outside in the summer, and more time inside studying in the winter, planting my seeds when the time is right, making wild garlic pesto in the spring, picking berries in the summer, collecting chestnuts as laundry detergent in the autumn.
I am learning to live in synchrony with myself, giving myself time to rest, accepting that the downs are a part of life as much as the ups, trusting that a period of low motivation will be followed by periods of inspiration and high energy.
I am learning that viewing life as cyclical instead of linear makes me feel more at ease with the inevitable changes that take place all around me.
Trump is not being "booted off" the Maine ballot or "deprived of access" to it. He has, rather, been found unqualified to appear on the ballot because he orchestrated an attack on the U.S. Constitution. He is, simply, ineligible to run for POTUS because of his own misconduct. — @Delavegalaw#quotes#quote#14thAmendment#Insurrectionist#TrumpCrimes
I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
I don't care what the Founding Fathers would have wanted, I don't care if Jesus was a hippie or not, I don't care what Marx prescribed. I can't take living in a world where we're all servants of long-dead men. You know what happens if you make a law the Founding Fathers wouldn't like? Nothing, they're dead and they're never coming back. I'm genuinely envious of countries that can just make whatever laws they want without worrying about how 18th century agrarian noblemen would have seen it. Stop arguing that Jesus loved the poor too, what he loved or didn't love is irrelevant, he doesn't get a say in any of this. We could have a country that isn't shackled to these ghosts if we collectively wanted to.