Health

If we can accept that our physical health can be shaped by society--by secondhand smoke or a bad diet--then we must accept that our mental health can be too.
--Matt Haig

Refuse

Refuse to be an accomplice. Don't lie--don't keep your eyes shut.
--Simone Weil

Agenda

The crisis is not one of democracy, it is far deeper than that. There are few conservatives any more. A conservative opposes change--any change--as likely to make things worse. "MAGA" is not a conservative rallying cry. It is the slogan of reactionaries--who, as history has shown, can be very dangerous folks when they are not opposed and very dangerous to oppose.

When the reactionary agenda cannot be achieved democratically, the reactionaries don't give up the agenda, they give up democracy. We've seen that already with the gerrymandering in place.

When the reactionary agenda cannot be achieved legally, the reactionaries don't give up the agenda, they subvert the law and the legal system. We've seen that through the attacks on law enforcement, the DOJ, and the attempts both to stack the courts and to pardon those (Arpaio) who ignore them and are convicted of criminal contempt.

When reactionaries cannot achieve their agenda constitutionally, they don't give up the agenda, they give up the constitution. We've seen just about every amendment except the Second being attacked. The latest is the Fourth.

When reactionaries can't achieve their agenda humanely, they don't give up the agenda, they surrender their humanity. That's played out on the border.

What remains is what happens when they can't achieve the agenda peacefully--it is then that they give up on peace. We aren't there. Yet. But do you really think there are any limits they won't go to in pursuit of MAGA?
--Nick Grande Prairie

Nice

Nice people made the best Nazis. Or so I have been told. My mother was born in Munich in 1934, and spent her childhood in Nazi Germany surrounded by nice people who refused to make waves. When things got ugly, the people my mother lived alongside chose not to focus on "politics," instead busying themselves with happier things. They were lovely, kind people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away.
--Naomi Shulman

Woe

Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed.
--The Bible, Isaiah 10:1-3

Monster

When faced with human monsters, we want to believe that they think like we do. We tell ourselves: "Surely they wouldn't...surely they won't..."

But they would. And they will.

What defines a "monster"? The absence of the capacity for empathy.
--Leah McElrath

Believe

If you believe in God, how can you believe in religion?
--Claudia Cohl

Moral

Hitting kids as a disciplinary tool probably seems normal to most Americans. It's part of American culture. But lots of forms of violence and discrimination have been part of our culture. Familiarity is not a moral argument.
--David Roberts

Exploit

Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen....By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.
--Lynn White Jr. (historian, Science magazine; 1967)

Truth

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.
--Flannery O'Connor

Don't Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)
--Mary Oliver

Imitation

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
--Eric Hoffer

Demand

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
--Frederick Douglass

Kill Him

Master Lincoln, he's a great man, and I am a poor negro; but the negro can tell master Lincoln how to save the money and the young men. He can do it by setting the negro free. Suppose that was an awful big snake down there, on the floor. He bite you. Folks all scared, because you die. You send for a doctor to cut the bite; but the snake, he rolled up there, and while the doctor doing it, he bite you again. The doctor dug out that bite; but while the doctor doing it, the snake, he spring up and bite you again; so he keep doing it, till you kill him. That's what master Lincoln ought to know.
--Harriet Tubman (1862)

Quest

You should always be willing to join with those who say they are on a quest for the truth. And you should always run from those who claim to have found it.
--Vaclav Havel

True

For years, the far Christian Right has been warning us about Godless hordes coming to destroy America and it turns out this was true--it's just that the words were autobiographical.
--John Pavlovitz

Progress

For the sake of human progress, the best thing we could possibly do would be to diminish, to the point of eliminating, religious faiths.
--E. O. Wilson

Wouldn't Want

Doesn't it strike you as mildly ironic that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place?
--George Carlin

Mundane

Happiness is every mundane task completed--leaves raked, a report completed at work, the dishwasher loaded, a phone call or email from a child or a friend. Happiness is all around, I do not need to seek it. I just have to open my heart and mind to it.
--Jana New York

Triage

In this new era of triage, as democratic institutions and social safety nets are increasingly considered dispensable luxuries, the task of governance will be to lower the political and economic expectations of the masses without inciting full-fledged revolt.
--Ando Arick (March 2010)