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Post by Tamrin on Jan 10, 2014 7:54:06 GMT 10
The Burnum Burnum Declaration: Justice with Honour I, Burnum Burnum, being an aristocratic nobleman of ancient Australia, do hereby take possession of England on behalf of the Aboriginal Crown.
In doing so we wish no harm to you natives, but assure you that we are here to bring you good manners, refinement and an opportunity to make a Koompartoo — a fresh start.
Henceforth, my face shall appear on your coins and stamps to signify our sovereignty over this domain.
At the end of two hundred years, we Will make a Treaty to validate occupation by peaceful means and not by conquest.
For the more advanced, we bring the complex language of the Pitjantjatjara, we will teach you how to have a spiritual relationship with the Earth and show you how to get food from the bush.
We do not intend to souvenir, pickle and preserve the heads of 2000 of your people, nor to publicly display the skeletal remains of your Royal Highness, as was done to our Queen Truganinni for eighty years.
Neither do we intend to poison your water holes, lace your bread with strychnine or introduce you to highly toxic drugs. We acknowledge the need to preserve the Caucasian race as of interest to antiquity, although we may be inclined to conduct experiments by measuring the size of your skulls for levels of intelligence. We pledge not to sterilise your young women.
We solemnly promise not to make a quarry of England and export your valuable minerals back to the old country Australia, but to encourage Earth Repair Action to unite people, communities and religions in a common, productive, peaceful purpose.
Finally, we give an absolute undertaking that you shall not be placed into the mentality of govern- ment handouts for the next five generations but you will enjoy the full benefits of Aboriginal equality.Burnum Burnum, Woiworrung and Yorta Yorta man (christened "Harry Penrith") Australian Aboriginal activist, actor and author (Born this day 1936) Burnum Burnum made this solemn declaration standing on a rock at the base of England’s White Cliffs of Dover on January 26th, 1988 — the bicentennial of the official British invasion of the Great Southland Integration as far as we are concerned is accepting white man's law and yet at the same time retaining our own culture within the structure of modern society. Ideally both black and white will enjoy and appreciate to the fullest extent the very best aspects of each culture. What could be more beautiful than a Namatjira painting or more relaxing than the pastoral scene in Beethoven's 6th Symphony?
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 10, 2014 7:55:01 GMT 10
Love that stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the love that loves best
Love beauty it is the shadow of God on the universe
You shall create beauty not to excite the senses but to give sustenance to the soul
The beauty you create shall be known as compassion and shall console the hearts of men
Each act of creation shall leave you humble, for it is never as great as your dream and always inferior to that most marvelous dream of God which is Nature
We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’ his name is today
The treasure at the heart of the rose is your own heart's treasure. Scatter it as the rose does: your pain becomes hers to measure. Scatter it in a song, or in one great love's desire. Do not resist the rose lest you burn in its fireGabriela MistralChilean Nobel Laureate, poet, educator, diplomat and feminist (Died this day 1957) All the valley is dancing together under the sun, and the heart of him who joins us not is turned to dust, to dust
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 10, 2014 7:55:52 GMT 10
The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter
The face she made at me was probably meant for a smile. Whatever it was, it beat me. I was afraid she'd do it again, so I surrendered
We didn't exactly believe your story, Miss O'Shaughnessy, we believed your 200 dollars. I mean you paid us more than if you had been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it alright
The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all
“You always have a very smooth explanation ready.” “What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?”
“Who shot him?” I asked. The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: “Somebody with a gun”
My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinerySamuel Dashiell Hammett American author ( Maltese Falcon) (Died this day 1961) I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. But, well, if you lose a son, it’s possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 11, 2014 7:56:19 GMT 10
Saturday’s Quotes:I think the first duty of society is justice
In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will
In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government
Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal
Those who stand for nothing fall for anythingAlexander HamiltonAmerican politician, statesman, journalist, lawyer, and soldier (Born this day 1755 or 1757) Learn to think continentally
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 11, 2014 7:57:39 GMT 10
There are patriots and Freemasons all over the Island; they should come together and commit themselves to working for their country's well-being; those with the influence to do so should make them come together and commit themselves
What I can advise my compatriots in general, my friends in particular, the people en masse, and each man individually, is that they have one single decision for each need that is addressed, and not a triple series of reasons to lean toward three different choices at the same time
Under every social skin there lurks some barbarism
If there is someone to be educated and education needs permission, then he is already condemned not to be a man
The schools of the League cannot be founded in a country which, at this time, is masked by senseless favoritism
Mysterious justice! Only you are omnipresent! You give strength to the unhappy African, ripped from his jungles and enslaved by force. Use that strength to break his chains: with the iron, he makes weapons; and with weapons, an empire
When Puerto Rico needs me, let her call meBro. Eugenio María de Hostos (The Citizen of the Americas) Puerto Rican educator, philosopher and independence advocate (The Scientific Education of Women) (Born this day 1839) I wish that they will say: In that island (Puerto Rico) a man was born who loved truth, desired justice, and worked for the good of men (self-written epitaph)
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 11, 2014 7:58:41 GMT 10
Man can alter his life by altering his thinking
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does
When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible
We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood
New habits can be launched … on condition of there being new stimuli and new excitements
I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I singWilliam JamesUS psychologist & philosopher ( “Psychologist's fallacy”) (Born this day 1842) These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 11, 2014 8:03:07 GMT 10
Mr. President how long must women wait to get their liberty? Let us have the rights we deserve
We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote
I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality
I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end
The Woman's Party is made up of women of all races, creeds and nationalities who are united on the one program of working to raise the status of women
It is better, as far as getting the vote is concerned, I believe, to have a small, united group than an immense debating society
When you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the rowAlice PaulUS feminist, ERA advocate and founder of the National Woman's Party (Born this day 1885) There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 11, 2014 8:04:42 GMT 10
The oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect
Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land
We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations, the important thing is not to achieve but to strive
Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left
Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwiseAldo LeopoldUS founder of the Wilderness Society (Born this day 1887) One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 11, 2014 8:05:36 GMT 10
Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear
To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man
There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man
Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom
But the one thing that has power completely is love, because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power
You ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?Alan PatonSouth African author and anti-apartheid activist ( Cry, The Beloved Country) (Born this day 1903) God forgives us ... who am I not to forgive?
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 11, 2014 8:06:34 GMT 10
Religion is critique of all satisfaction. Its end is joy, but its beginning is discontent, detesting boasts, smashing idols … The ultimate is a challenge, not an assertion. Dogmas are allusions, not descriptions
In the realm of the ineffable, God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light
The time for the kingdom may be far off, but the task is plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt
Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that man is more than man, that in doing the finite he may perceive the infinite
One must forget many clichés in order to behold a single image. Insight is the beginning of perceptions to come rather than the extension of perceptions gone by
We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers
Feeling becomes prayer in the moment in which we forget ourselves and become aware of GodAbraham Joshua Heschel IPolish-born American rabbi (Born this day 1907) We manipulate what is available on the surface of the world; we must also stand in awe before the mystery of the world
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