Union Motivational Quotes

Be a worthy worker and work will come.

Do not Speak for Anyone. Just let them know their Right to Speak.

To fall in love for any reason does cause fires of emotion. When we are in love, we ride on a positive energy as compared to not being in love. When we are love, we transcend conditional love to that of unconditional and we are now flowering in consciousness. Love is a very important element of consciousness as it becomes purer with Source union even as our consciousness is expanded further. Consciousness is love that is light.

Married people should be best friends; no relationship on earth needs friendship as much as marriage...Friendship in a marriage is so important. It blows away the chaff and takes the kernel, rejoices in the uniqueness of the other, listens patiently, gives generously, forgives freely. Friendship will motivate one to cross the room one day and say 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.' it will not pretend perfection nor demand it. It will not insist that both respond exactly the same in every thought and feeling, but it will bring to the union honesty, integrity. There will be repentance and forgiveness in every marriage--every good marriage--and respect and trust.

...There is no greater dividing force in this world than self-interest...

Shiloh showed him what he could ask of his men, and indeed what he MUST ask of them.

When we confess a sin, we are not asking that God or others see it from our point of view, from the vantage point of our intentions or our motives. Instead, we use God’s point of view. We submit to the righteous hand of God. We consent that the Bible is true and that the law of God condemns us. And this either drives us into mad depression or into the open arms of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The implications are far-reaching. Confession of sin is meant to drive us to Christ, for our good and for his glory.

Nothing cuts the nerve of the desire to pursue holiness as much as a sense of guilt. On the contrary, nothing so motivates us to deal with sin in our lives as does the understanding and application of the two truth that our sins are forgiven and the dominion of sin is broken because of our union with Christ.

The human desire to experience union with others is rooted in the specific conditions of existence that characterize the human species and is one of the strongest motivators of human behavior.

Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft not the audience, that should be the greatest motivating factor. For me, at least, I can declare that when I wrote THINGS FALL APART I couldn't have told anyone the day before it was accepted for publication that anybody was going to read it. There was no guarantee; nobody ever said to me, Go and write this, we will publish it and we will read it; it was just there. But my brother-in-law who was not a particularly voracious reader, told me that he read the novel through the night and it gave him a terrible headache the next morning. And I took that as an encouraging endorsement! The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn deep into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures and situations.

Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control. For we cannot alter our heart; its basis is determined by motives; and our head deals with objective facts, and applies to them rules which are immutable. Any given individual is the union of a particular heart with a particular head.

Whenever the communists are under fire, it [the term "red-baiter"] has served to divert attention from the subject matter to futile discussion of personal motives, the critic’s private life and other deliberate tricks of befuddlement.

No true power can be founded among men which does not depend upon the free union of their inclinations; and patriotism and religion are the only two motives in the world which can permanently direct the whole of the body politic to one end.

We are truly human when we live for a purpose far above ourselves; but most people prefer to identify with an entity for the sake of belonging; thereby subjecting themselves to the spirit of collective selfishness that is only found in groups.

Old ocean, the different species of fish that you nurture have not sworn brotherhood among themselves. Each species lives apart, on its own. The varying temperaments & conformations of each one satisfactorily explain what at first appears an anomaly. So it is with man, who has not the same motives as excuse. If a piece of land be occupied by thirty million human beings, they consider they have no obligation to concern themselves with the existence of their neighbors who are settled like roots in the adjacent patch of land. And descending from the general to the particular, each man lives like a savage in his den & rarely leaves it to visit his fellow --crouching alike in another lair. The great universal human family is a utopia worthy of the most paltry logic. Besides, from the spectacle of your fecund breasts emerges the notion of ingratitude, for one thinks immediately of those innumerable parents ungrateful enough towards the Creator to abandon the fruit of their sorry unions. I hail you old ocean!

That is the thing you notice about second-mountain people. There’s been a motivational shift. Their desires have been transformed. If you wanted to generalize a bit, you could say there are six layers of desire: Material pleasure. Having nice food, a nice car, a nice house. Ego pleasure. Becoming well-known or rich and successful. Winning victories and recognition. Intellectual pleasure. Learning about things. Understanding the world around us. Generativity. The pleasure we get in giving back to others and serving our communities. Fulfilled love. Receiving and giving love. The rapturous union of souls. Transcendence. The feeling we get when living in accordance with some ideal.

He preserved the union and freed the slaves.

a person who tries to use reasoning to explain faith gets lost in the wilderness of incomprehension.

Tell them how important they are to you. Tell them often.

People. They're not all bad, but do you really want to risk it? Perhaps that was the unofficial motto of the Soviet Union...

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Civil War armies were the most literate in history to that time. More than 90 percent of white Union soldiers and more than 80 percent of Confederate soldiers were literate, and most of them wrote frequent letters to families and friends... I am convinced that [their letters and diaries] bring us closer to the real thoughts and emotions of those men than any other kind of surviving evidence.

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes. But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.

I use “anticapitalist” because conservative defenders of capitalism regularly say their liberal and socialist opponents are against capitalism. They say efforts to provide a safety net for all people are “anticapitalist.” They say attempts to prevent monopolies are “anticapitalist.” They say efforts that strengthen weak unions and weaken exploitative owners are “anticapitalist.” They say plans to normalize worker ownership and regulations protecting consumers, workers, and environments from big business are “anticapitalist.” They say laws taxing the richest more than the middle class, redistributing pilfered wealth, and guaranteeing basic incomes are “anticapitalist.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist.” They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anticapitalist.” In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin; the freedom to assassinate unions; the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom not to pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to commodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle-income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism—of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resources and rights—bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.

...Past joys and achievements give us the outlines of how to get to a state of happiness again. That memory is a treasure that can never be taken away. At least we know where we were, what we have lost, what we miss and what more to add to our experiences.

For Paul, a new creation meant a total renovation of the inner self, a change of mind and heart. It meant far more than the passive union achieved in water baptism. To be “in Christ,” he told the Philippians, means to have in you the mind of Christ Jesus, to think as Christ thought, to have the ideals Christ had, to throb with the desires that filled Christ’s heart, to replace all your natural actions to persons, events and circumstances with the response of Jesus Christ. In a word, a christocentric life means to live in the heart of Jesus, to share His tastes and aversions, to have the same interests, affections and attitudes, to be motivated in everything by His loving compassion. It means making the habitual thought patterns of Jesus Christ so completely your own that truly “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

What must be discovered is a way out of the motivation/demotivation binary, so that disidentification from the control program registers as something other than dejected apathy. One strategy would be to shift the political terrain – to move away from the unions’ traditional focus on pay and onto forms of discontent specific to post-Fordism. Before we analyse that further, we must consider in more depth what post-Fordism actually is.

In August 1917, white, Black, and Muskogee tenant farmers and sharecroppers in several eastern and southern Oklahoma counties took up arms to stop conscription, with a larger stated goal of overthrowing the US government to establish a socialist commonwealth. These more radically minded grassroots socialists had organized their own Working Class Union (WCU), with Anglo-American, African American, and Indigenous Muskogee farmers forming a kind of rainbow alliance. Their plan was to march to Washington, DC, motivating millions of working people to arm themselves and to join them along the way. After a day of dynamiting oil pipelines and bridges in southeastern Oklahoma, the men and their families created a liberated zone where they ate, sang hymns, and rested. By the following day, heavily armed posses supported by police and militias stopped the revolt, which became known as the Green Corn Rebellion.

The people’s hero does not only have to be someone in possession of the scepter of power. It can be anyone capable of giving unity, prosperity, security, peace and a sense of worthiness to his people. Such a figure gets elevated to the status of a revered hero with the human touch if he imparts a sense of oneness on a multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-religious group; especially a diverse people who have been fighting one another for years and centuries...

Passionate love, on the other hand, which serves no real interest of individuals and more often than not disdains these in its determination to achieve its own impersonal end, forms the basis of the least stable and most unhappy unions of wedlock, because its interests are not those of the individuals immediately concerned. We nevertheless, sensing the overwhelming importance of the ultimate end and the relative insignificance of those who are its means, approve this passion as the only proper motive.

To the degree that we feel we are on a legal or performance relationship with God, to that degree our progress in sanctification is impeded. A legal mode of thinking gives indwelling sin an advantage, because nothing cuts the nerve of the desire to pursue holiness as much as a sense of guilt. On the contrary, nothing so motivates us to deal with sin in our lives as does the understanding and application of the two truths that our sins are forgiven and the dominion of sin is broken because of our union with Christ.

Language reflects the monopoly of the industrial mode of production over perception and motivation. The tongues of industrial nations identify the fruits of creative work and of human labor with the outputs of industry. The materialization of consciousness is reflected in Western languages. Schools operate by the slogan "education!" while ordinary language asks what children "learn." The functional shift from verb to noun highlights the corresponding impoverishment of the social imagination. People who speak a nominalist language habitually express proprietary relationships to work which they have. All over Latin America only the salaried employees, whether workers or bureaucrats, say that they have work; peasants say that they do it: "Van a trabajar, pero no tienen trabajo." Those who have been modernized and unionized expect industries to produce not only more goods but also more work for more people. Not only what men do but also what men want is designated by a noun. "Housing" designates a commodity rather than an activity. People acquire knowledge, mobility, even sensitivity or health. They have not only work or fun but even sex.

What I’ve learned from these long voyages of ours is that, in the end, we all strive for our own good. It does not matter what race we are, who we are… We have that one thing in common – the wish to live this life the best way possible. Hence, our definitions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ always remain subjective – no matter how many perspectives we consider, no matter how objective we try to be, we still judge according to our own beliefs, principles, and opinions – things that we develop throughout our entire life. In truth, nothing is either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but is both good and bad, all at the same time, depending on the perspective and the relation with other matters. This world is much more versatile than we thought it was. The only universal truth is the energy of life and love – the unending circle, and the undying emotion – interconnected for eternity. Life bears love, and love bears life. Hence, I believe that whatever era may come, major concepts shall never change. We should pave our way and live to our content, staying harmonious with ourselves, because in the end, we shall never know what is right and what is wrong. We interrelate just like the tiniest substances – molecules, atoms, etc. – and the biggest substances – planets, galaxies, universes… During these interrelations, there shall be unions as well as collisions, destructions as well as creations… As long as we live, there shall be both oppositions and friendships. There shall be peace, there shall be war, and then peace again. This shall not change. Hope will motivate us, mind shall guide us, love shall rejoice us, death shall sadden us, but life will go on. Life is always moving and ardent, never to stop or pause. This is the only universal truth that exists in this world – the energy of ardour and life.

I have always thought love the only foundation of happiness in a married state, as it can only produce that high and tender friendship which should always be the cement of this union; and, in my opinion, all those marriages which are contracted from other motives are greatly criminal; they are a profanation of a most holy ceremony, and generally end in disquiet and misery: for surely we may call it a profanation to convert this most sacred institution into a wicked sacrifice to lust or avarice: and what better can be said of those matches to which men are induced merely by the consideration of a beautiful person, or a great fortune?

Soul and body, body and soul—how mysterious they were! There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality. The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. Who could say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began? How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists! And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various schools! Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin? Or was the body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought? The separation of spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery also. He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy.

PHYSIOLOGY 1. Sex 2. Age 3. Height and weight 4. Color of hair, eyes, skin 5. Posture 6. Appearance: good-looking, over- or underweight, clean, neat, pleasant, untidy. Shape of head, face, limbs. 7. Defects: deformities, abnormalities, birthmarks. Diseases. 8. Heredity SOCIOLOGY 1. Class: lower, middle, upper. 2. Occupation: type of work, hours of work, income, condition of work, union or nonunion, attitude toward organization, suitability for work. 3. Education: amount, kind of schools, marks, favorite subjects, poorest subjects, aptitudes. 4. Home life: parents living, earning power, orphan, parents separated or divorced, parents’ habits, parents’ mental development, parents’ vices, neglect. Character’s marital status. 5. Religion 6. Race, nationality 7. Place in community: leader among friends, clubs, sports. 8. Political affiliations 9. Amusements, hobbies: books, newspapers, magazines he reads. PSYCHOLOGY 1. Sex life, moral standards 2. Personal premise, ambition 3. Frustrations, chief disappointments 4. Temperament: choleric, easygoing, pessimistic, optimistic. 5. Attitude toward life: resigned, militant, defeatist. 6. Complexes: obsessions, inhibitions, superstitions, phobias. 7. Extrovert, introvert, ambivert 8. Abilities: languages, talents. 9. Qualities: imagination, judgment, taste, poise. 10. I.Q.

Thus the Mother of Death joins the Mother of Life in lamenting the dying god, and, as an outward token of their union, Mary kisses the cross and is reconciled.155 In ancient Egypt this union of opposite tendencies was naively preserved in the Isis mother-imago. The separation of the son from the mother signifies man’s leavetaking from animal unconsciousness. It was only the power of the “incest prohibition”156 that created the self-conscious individual, who before had been mindlessly one with the tribe; and it was only then that the idea of the final death of the individual became possible. Thus through Adam’s sin, which lay precisely in his becoming conscious, death came into the world. The neurotic who cannot leave his mother has good reasons for not doing so: ultimately, it is the fear of death that holds him there. It seems as if no idea and no word were powerful enough to express the meaning of this conflict. Certainly the struggle for expression which has continued through the centuries cannot be motivated by what is narrowly and crudely conceived as “incest.” We ought rather to conceive the law that expresses itself first and last in the “incest prohibition” as the impulse to domestication, and regard the religious systems as institutions which take up the instinctual forces of man’s animal nature, organize them, and gradually make them available for higher cultural purposes.

Foreign nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that support Russian democratic civic groups are a particular target of Russian accusations of foreign economic intrigue. In 2004, President Putin accused Russian NGOs of pursuing "dubious group and commercial interests" for taking foreign money. FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev told the Russian State Duma in 2005 that the FSB had uncovered spies working in foreign-sponsored NGOs. He further claimed, "Foreign secret services are ever more actively using non-traditional methods for their work and, with the help of different NGOs educational programs, are propagandizing their interests, particularly in the former Soviet Union." Patrushev accused the United States of placing spies undercover within the Peace Corps, which was expelled from Russia in 2002, the Saudi Red Crescent, and the Kuwaiti NGO Society for Social Reform. Patrushev attributed an economic motive to these perceived foreign plots, alleging that industrialized states did not want "a powerful economic competitor like Russia." Echoing Soviet-era accusations of nefarious Western economic intent, he claimed that Russia had lost billions of dollars per year due to U.S., EU, and Canadian "trade discrimination. Pushing for stronger regulation of NGOs, Patrushev said, "The imperfectness of legislation and lack of efficient mechanisms for state oversight creates a fertile ground for conducting intelligence operations under the guise of charity and other activities. In 2012, Putin signed the "foreign agent law," which ordered Russian civil rights organizations that received any foreign funding to register as "foreign agents.

Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned

The American republic now extended across a third of a continent, and was unlikely to stop there. How then could the British time bomb of generosity—the ocean of land ceded in 1783—fail to revive familiar protests of “no taxation without representation”? Where, if that happened, would Hamilton’s “UNION” be? Madison solved these issues of time and space by shifting scale. In doing so he drew, knowingly or not, 65 on Machiavelli. For only in republics, the Florentine had observed, could the “common good” be “looked to properly.” By expanding the number who benefited, the influence of the few who didn’t could be reduced: not all parts, submerged in wholes, need drown. 66 Scale could be the life preserver. There were, Madison acknowledged, dangers in this: By enlarging too much the number of electors [voters], you render the representative too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. But surely there existed “a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie.” In this way balancing factions—a Burkean enterprise—could put “inconveniences” to good use: Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. The proposed Constitution “forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures.” 67

He began by expressing his gratitude to those “whom no partizan malice, or partizan hope, can make false to the nation’s life,” then passed at once, since peace seemed uppermost in men’s minds nowadays, to a discussion of “three conceivable ways” in which it could be brought about. First, by suppressing the rebellion; “This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed.” Second, by giving up the Union; “I am against this. Are you for it? If you are, you should say so plainly.” Third, by negotiating some sort of armistice based on compromise with the Confederates; but “I do not believe any compromise, embracing the maintenance of the Union, is now possible. All I learn leads to a directly opposite belief.” After disposing thus, to his apparent satisfaction, of the possibility of achieving peace except by force of arms, he moved on to another matter which his opponents had lately been harping on as a source of dissatisfaction: Emancipation. “You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save the Union. I issued the Proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes. I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do, as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise, being made, must be kept.

Some years ago I saw a documentary on dying whose main theme was that people die as they lived. That was Jimmy. For five years, since he began undergoing operations for bladder cancer and even after his lung cancer was diagnosed, he continued the activities that he considered important, marching against crackhouses, campaigning against the demolition of the Ford Auditorium, organizing Detroit Summer, making speeches, and writing letters to the editor and articles for the SOSAD newsletter and Northwest Detroiter. In 1992 while he was undergoing the chemotherapy that cleared up his bladder cancer, he helped form the Coalition against Privatization and to Save Our City. The coalition was initiated by activist members of a few AFSCME locals who contacted Carl Edwards and Alice Jennings who in turn contacted us. Jimmy helped write the mission statement that gave the union activists a sense of themselves as not only city workers but citizens of the city and its communities. The coalition’s town meetings and demonstrations were instrumental in persuading the new mayor, Dennis Archer, to come out against privatization, using language from the coalition newsletter to explain his position. At the same time Jimmy was putting out the garbage, keeping our corner at Field and Goethe free of litter and rubbish, mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors, picking cranberries, and keeping up “his” path on Sutton. After he entered the hospice program, which usually means death within six months, and up to a few weeks before his death, Jimmy slowed down a bit, but he was still writing and speaking and organizing. He used to say that he wasn’t going to die until he got ready, and because he was so cheerful and so engaged it was easy to believe him. A few weeks after he went on oxygen we did three movement-building workshops at the SOSAD office for a group of Roger Barfield’s friends who were trying to form a community-action group following a protest demonstration at a neighborhood sandwich shop over the murder of one of their friends. With oxygen tubes in his nostrils and a portable oxygen tank by his side, Jimmy spoke for almost an hour on one of his favorite subjects, the need to “think dialectically, rather than biologically.” Recognizing that this was probably one of Jimmy’s last extended speeches, I had the session videotaped by Ron Scott. At the end of this workshop we asked participants to come to the next session prepared to grapple with three questions: What can we do to make our neighborhoods safe? How can we motivate people to transform? How can we create jobs?

[...]Many of those friends were self-declared socialists - Wester socialists, that is. They spoke about Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Salvador Allende or Ernesto 'Che' Guevara as secular saints. It occurred to me that they were like my father in this aspect: the only revolutionaries they considered worthy of admiration had been murdered.[...]ut they did not think that my stories from the eighties were in any way significant to their political beliefs. Sometimes, my appropriating the label of socialist to describe both my experiences and their commitments was considered a dangerous provocation. [...] 'What you had was not really socialism.' they would say, barely concealing their irritation. My stories about socialism in Albania and references to all the other socialist countries against which our socialism had measured itself were, at best, tolerated as the embarrassing remarks of a foreigner still learning to integrate. The Soviet Union, China, the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cuba; there was nothing socialist about them either. They were seen as the deserving losers of a historical battle that the real, authentic bearers of that title had yet to join. My friends' socialism was clear, bright and in the future. Mine was messy, bloody and of the past. And yet, the future that they sought, and that which socialist states had once embodied, found inspiration in the same books, the same critiques of society, the same historical characters. But to my surprise, they treated this as an unfortunate coincidence. Everything that went wrong on my side of the world could be explained by the cruelty of our leaders, or the uniquely backward nature of our institutions. They believed there was little for them to learn. There was no risk of repeating the same mistakes, no reason to ponder what had been achieved, and why it had been destroyed. Their socialism was characterized by the triumph of freedom and justice; mine by their failure. Their socialism would be brought about by the right people, with the right motives, under the right circumstances, with the right combination of theory and practice. There was only one thing to do about mine: forget it. [...]But if there was one lesson to take away from he history of my family, and of my country, it was that people never make history under circumstances they choose. It is easy to say, 'What you had was not the real thing', applying that to socialism or liberalism, to any complex hybrid of ideas and reality. It releases us from the burden of responsability. We are no longer complicit in moral tragedies create din the name of great ideas, and we don't have to reflect, apologize and learn.

See? I long to be your spiritual guide. I really do, and I will. Love is my motive, rather than any elevated belief in my own knowledge, contemplative work, experience, or maturity. And may God correct what I get wrong. For he knows everything, and I only know in part.1 Now to satisfy your proud intellect, I will praise the work of contemplation. You should know that if those engaged in this work had the linguistic talent to express exactly what they’re experiencing, then every scholar of Christianity would be amazed by their wisdom. It’s true! In comparison, all theological erudition would look like total nonsense. No wonder, then, that my clumsy human speech can’t describe the immense value of this work to you, and God forbid that the limitations of our finite language should desecrate and distort it. No, this must not and will not happen. God forbid that I would ever want that! For our analysis of contemplation and the exercise itself are two entirely different things. What we say of it is not it, but merely a description. So, since we can’t define it, let’s describe it. This will baffle all intellectual conceit, especially yours, which is the sole reason I’m writing this letter. I want to start off by asking you a question. What is the essence of human spiritual perfection, and what are its qualities? I’ll answer this for you. On earth, spiritual perfection is only possible through the union between God and the human soul in consummate love. This perfection is pure and so sublime that it surpasses our human understanding, and that’s why it can’t be directly grasped or observed. But wherever we see its consequences, we know that the essence of contemplation abounds there. So, if I tell you that this spiritual discipline is better than all others, then I must first prove it by describing what mature love looks like. This spiritual exercise grows virtues. Look within yourself as you contemplate and also examine the nature of every virtue. You’ll find that all virtues are found in and nurtured by contemplation with no distortion or degeneration of their purposes. I’m not going to single out any particular virtue here for discussion. I don’t need to because you can find them described in other things I’ve written.2 I’ll only comment here that contemplative prayer, when done right, is the respectful love and ripe fruit that I discuss in your little Letter on Prayer. It’s the cloud of unknowing, the hidden love-longing offered by a pure spirit. It’s the Ark of the Covenant.3 It’s the mystical theology of Dionysius, the wisdom and treasure of his “bright darkness” and “unknown knowing.” It takes you into silence, far from thoughts and words. It makes your prayer very short. In it, you learn how to reject and forget the world.

gave up on the idea of creating “socialist men and women” who would work without monetary incentives. In a famous speech he criticized “equality mongering,” and thereafter not only did different jobs get paid different wages but also a bonus system was introduced. It is instructive to understand how this worked. Typically a firm under central planning had to meet an output target set under the plan, though such plans were often renegotiated and changed. From the 1930s, workers were paid bonuses if the output levels were attained. These could be quite high—for instance, as much as 37 percent of the wage for management or senior engineers. But paying such bonuses created all sorts of disincentives to technological change. For one thing, innovation, which took resources away from current production, risked the output targets not being met and the bonuses not being paid. For another, output targets were usually based on previous production levels. This created a huge incentive never to expand output, since this only meant having to produce more in the future, since future targets would be “ratcheted up.” Underachievement was always the best way to meet targets and get the bonus. The fact that bonuses were paid monthly also kept everyone focused on the present, while innovation is about making sacrifices today in order to have more tomorrow. Even when bonuses and incentives were effective in changing behavior, they often created other problems. Central planning was just not good at replacing what the great eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith called the “invisible hand” of the market. When the plan was formulated in tons of steel sheet, the sheet was made too heavy. When it was formulated in terms of area of steel sheet, the sheet was made too thin. When the plan for chandeliers was made in tons, they were so heavy, they could hardly hang from ceilings. By the 1940s, the leaders of the Soviet Union, even if not their admirers in the West, were well aware of these perverse incentives. The Soviet leaders acted as if they were due to technical problems, which could be fixed. For example, they moved away from paying bonuses based on output targets to allowing firms to set aside portions of profits to pay bonuses. But a “profit motive” was no more encouraging to innovation than one based on output targets. The system of prices used to calculate profits was almost completely unconnected to the value of new innovations or technology. Unlike in a market economy, prices in the Soviet Union were set by the government, and thus bore little relation to value. To more specifically create incentives for innovation, the Soviet Union introduced explicit innovation bonuses in 1946. As early as 1918, the principle had been recognized that an innovator should receive monetary rewards for his innovation, but the rewards set were small and unrelated to the value of the new technology. This changed only in 1956, when it was stipulated that the bonus should be proportional to the productivity of the innovation. However, since productivity was calculated in terms of economic benefits measured using the existing system of prices, this was again not much of an incentive to innovate. One could fill many pages with examples of the perverse incentives these schemes generated. For example, because the size of the innovation bonus fund was limited by the wage bill of a firm, this immediately reduced the incentive to produce or adopt any innovation that might have economized on labor.

Growth was so rapid that it took in generations of Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen

Catholic activists have always insisted that the laws they seek to enact or preserve—such as laws protecting innocent human life, or those defining marriage as a lifetime union between a man and a woman—reflect moral norms that can be explained without reference to any specific religious beliefs, norms that are inscribed on the human heart. So Catholics engaged in public debate, acting from the best of motives, have sought to couch their arguments in purely secular terms. Ironically, Catholics might have had more success in the world of politics if, instead of trying to make moral norms more palatable to a secular audience, we had devoted our attention to turning secularists into Catholics—putting our primary emphasis on religious conversions and letting political matters take care of themselves. We thought we were following a subtle strategy, hoping to change minds without first changing hearts. But that approach has failed. Pure evangelization would have been more effective, even from a purely political perspective.

Throughout history there have been populations that have lived in desperation, and none of them have resorted to the intentional targeting and murder of children as an officially practiced and widely praised mode of achieving political ends. When extremist elements of otherwise legitimate liberation movements such as the Republican Sinn Fein have committed such atrocities, their actions have been unconditionally condemned by the civilized world, and their political objectives have been discredited by their vile crimes. This is not so with the Palestinians. Once upon a time there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now that place is in the pantheon of Palestinian heroes. Now that behavior is legitimized as ‘armed struggle’ against Israeli ‘occupation’ by, among others, the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Commission, and the European Union. Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the rise of Hamas in 1987, the campaign to destroy Israel has taken on an ugly, fanatic religious tone. Holy obligation reinforces (and is replacing) Palestinian nationalism as the motivation for committing terrorist murder. As we have seen the secular, ‘moderate’ factions of the Palestinian nationalist movement (such as Abbas’s Fatah Party) will shrink into insignificance, and is replaced by terrorist Islamic factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hamas receives financial and material support from the same sources as al Qaeda, and from al Qaeda directly. Islamic Jihad receives financial and material support from Iran, directly and through Hezbollah. These are the same international criminal entities that wage religion-based terror war against the United States. They do it for the same reason and by the same means: to make Islam supreme in the world, by the sword or the suicide bomb.

My patria vera or true fatherland is the place that enriches my soul.

The purpose of life is to nurture joy, which involves those aspects of humanity that enrich the soul.

psychological sense of spirituality is a feeling of union and transcendence, motivated by compassion, awe, or joy.

St. John would say that the natural working of the faculties is not adequate to attain to union with God, and the beginner is drawn to spiritual exercises as much by the satisfaction as by any purely spiritual motives. For the psychologist, even while he is refraining from making any judgment about the religious object, is often painfully aware that if interior experiences are viewed as if they had nothing to do with the overall dynamics of the psyche, then their recipient runs the risk of damaging his psychic balance. If temptations must be seen only as the direct working of the devil and inspirations and revelations the direct working of the Holy Spirit, then the totality of the psyche and the flow of its energy will be misunderstood. The biggest danger to the beginner experiencing sensible fervor, or any other tangible phenomenon, is that they will equate their experience purely and simply with union with God. The very combination of genuine spiritual gifts and how these graces work through the psyche creates a sense of conviction that this, indeed, is the work of God, but this conviction is often extended to deny the human dimension as if any participation by the psyche is a denial of divine origin. The beginner, then, can become impervious to psychological and spiritual advice. The sense of consolation, the feeling of completion, the visions seen, or the voices heard, the tongue spoken, or the healings witnessed, are all identified with the exclusive direct action of God as if there were no psyche that received and conditioned these inspirations. This same attitude is then carried over into daily life and how God's action is viewed in this world. If God is so immediately present, miracles must be taking place daily. God must be intervening day-by-day, even in the minor mundane affairs of the recipients of His Spirit. This does not mean that genuine miracles do not take place, nor that genuine inspirations do not play a role in daily life, but rather, if we believe that they are conceptually distinguishable from the ordinary working of consciousness, we run the risk of identifying God's action with our own perceptions, feelings and emotions. The initial conversion state, precisely because of the degree of emotional energy it is charged with, is often clung to as if the intensity of this energy is a guarantee of its spiritual character. As beginners under the vital force of these tangible experiences we take up an attitude of inner expectancy. We look to a realm beyond the arena of the ego and assume that what transpires there is supernatural. We reach and grasp for interior messages. Thus arises a real danger of misinterpreting what we perceive. What Jung says about the inability to discern between God and the unconscious at the level of empirical experience is verified here. We run the risk of confusing the spiritual with the psychic, our own perceptions with God Himself. An even greater danger is that we will erect this kind of knowledge into a whole theology of the spiritual life, and thus judge our progress by the presence of these phenomena. “The same problem can arise in a completely different context, which could be called a pseudo-Jungian Christianity. In it the realities of the psyche which Jung described are identified with the Christian faith. Thus, at one stroke a vivid sense of experience, even mysticism, if you will, arises. The numinous experience of the unconscious becomes equivalent to the workings of the Holy Spirit. Dreams and the psychological events that take place during the process of individuation are taken for the stages of the life of prayer and the ascent of the soul to God by faith. But this mysticism is no more to be identified with St. John's than the previous one of visions and revelations.

And what about what is happening in Afghanistan? The Soviet Union there invading a Muslim country. You think the Communists are so pure in their motives but they’re just as imperialist as the U.S. They are just as greedy.’ This was from the only woman in the circle. She was wearing a headscarf and drinking a bottle of malt.

Lack of internal union also makes itself known in the increased suffering, magnification of anxiety, absence of motivation, and lack of pleasure that accompany indecision and uncertainty. The inability to decide among ten things, even when they are desirable, is equivalent to torment by all of them. Without clear, well-defined, and noncontradictory goals, the sense of positive engagement that makes life worthwhile is very difficult to obtain. Clear goals limit and simplify the world, as well, reducing uncertainty, anxiety, shame, and the self-devouring physiological forces unleashed by stress. The poorly integrated person is thus volatile and directionless—and this is only the beginning. Sufficient volatility and lack of direction can rapidly conspire to produce the helplessness and depression characteristic of prolonged futility. This is not merely a psychological state. The physical consequences of depression, often preceded by excess secretion of the stress hormone cortisol, are essentially indistinguishable from rapid aging (weight gain, cardiovascular problems, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s).

The ethnics caught up in the racial struggies oi the post-war period in Chicago were in the unenviable position of people who had the rules changed on them in mid-game. The Poles who settled Calumet Park as Sobieski Park had created their neighborhood enclaves under certain assumptions, all of which got changed when the environmentalist East Coast WASP internationalist establishment took power in 1941. Not only hadn’t they been informed of the rule change, they were doubly vulnerable because compared to their opponents who were further along on the scale of assimilation, they didn’t have a clear sense of themselves as Poles or Catholics or Americans or “white” people. They also feared the sexual mores of the invading black hordes but could not articulate this fear in polite language. As a result, each attempt to explain their position drove them further beyond the pale of acceptable public discourse. More often than not, the only people who were articulating their position were the American Civil Liberties Union and American Friends Service Committee agents sent into their neighborhoods to spy on them. One AFSC spy reported that fear of intermarriage “caused the intensity of feelings” in Trumbull Park.* Black attempts to use the community swimming pool were similarly seen in a sexual light. The ACLU agent who was paid to infiltrate bars in South Deering reported that the real motivation behind Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision mandating desegregation of Southern schools, was to move “niggers into every neighborhood” to intermarry and thereby send the “whole white race . . . downhill.” Deprived of their ethnic designation as Catholic by a Church that was either hostile (as in the case of Catholic intellectuals) or indifferent (as in the case of the bishops and their chancery officials), Chicago ethnics, attempting to be good Americans, chose to become “white” instead, a transformation that not only guaranteed that they would lose their battle in the court of public opinion, but one which also guaranteed that they would go out of existence as well, through the very assimilation process being proposed by their enemies.

I rise, Mr President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her people in convention assembled, has declared her separation from the United States. Under these circumstances, of course, my functions terminate here. It has seemed to me proper, however, that I should appear in the Senate to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but very little more.” His voice faltered at the outset, but soon it gathered volume and rang clear—“like a silver trumpet,” according to his wife, who sat in the gallery. “Unshed tears were in it,” she added, “and a plea for peace permeated every tone.” Davis continued: “It is known to senators who have served with me here, that I have for many years advocated, as an essential attribute of State sovereignty, the right of a State to secede from the Union.… If I had thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation … I should still, under my theory of government, because of my allegiance to the State of which I am a citizen, have been bound by her action.” He foresaw the founding of a nation, inheritor of the traditions of the American Revolution. “We but tread in the paths of our fathers when we proclaim our independence and take the hazard … not in hostility to others, not to injure any section of the country, not even for our own pecuniary benefit, but from the high and solemn motive of defending and protecting the rights we inherited, and which it is our duty to transmit unshorn to our children.” England had been a lion; the Union might turn out to be a bear; in which case, “we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in God and in our own firm hearts and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may.

Avec étonnement j’ai ressenti l’affection de Pippo, mais je ne parvenais pas à deviner sa motivation jusqu’au jour où il a lancé le diagnostic d’une justesse extrême dans lequel je me suis reconnu : “Georges, on t’aime parce que tu n’es ni tout à fait français, ni tout à fait roumain.” Je me suis reconnu dans un tel statut et j’ai accepté cet entre-deux d’une hybridation assumée… sans aucun terme occulté, mais les deux associés dans une union impure, comme ses spectacles.

Marriages built on greed and materialism, where individuals seek to exploit each other's wealth, are constructed on shifting sands. God witnesses the intentions of the heart and will not perpetuate unions founded on selfishness and exploitation. True love and commitment are the cornerstones of a blessed union, not financial gain. Such marriages may flourish temporarily, but ultimately, they shall wither and perish under the weight of their own moral bankruptcy.

The problem goes further than Zuma. Ordinary citizens will have to get out of the slump of dependency that so many of us have fallen into. Trade unions will have to stomach the idea that things have to change, and that the unemployed are as important as the employed. Principals and teachers will have to accept that supervision of schools will be stepped up. Business will have to accept that, without ethical leadership and participation in South Africa as a corporate citizen, the profit motive alone is just not good enough. It is bitter medicine, but it is medicine that we have to take. Reading the NDP document, it is clear that we could become a prosperous country within a relatively short period of time. But we need resolve at leadership level, we need non-partisanship, and we need to understand that this is the crossroads.

Marriage is the most sacred union in which much respect is given in society to those who treat it as such.

Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen

The situation was similar in the Soviet Union, with industry playing the role of sugar in the Caribbean. Industrial growth in the Soviet Union was further facilitated because its technology was so backward relative to what was available in Europe and the United States, so large gains could be reaped by reallocating resources to the industrial sector, even if all this was done inefficiently and by force. Before 1928 most Russians lived in the countryside. The technology used by peasants was primitive, and there were few incentives to be productive. Indeed, the last vestiges of Russian feudalism were eradicated only shortly before the First World War. There was thus huge unrealized economic potential from reallocating this labor from agriculture to industry. Stalinist industrialization was one brutal way of unlocking this potential. By fiat, Stalin moved these very poorly used resources into industry, where they could be employed more productively, even if industry itself was very inefficiently organized relative to what could have been achieved. In fact, between 1928 and 1960 national income grew at 6 percent a year, probably the most rapid spurt of economic growth in history up until then. This quick economic growth was not created by technological change, but by reallocating labor and by capital accumulation through the creation of new tools and factories. Growth was so rapid that it took in generations of Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy.

I can make you a promise, Eve Windham. Several promises, in fact.” “Just not vows, please. I cannot abide the thought of vows.” “If we marry, we will consummate the union for legal purposes and to put the compulsory obligations behind us. Thereafter, I will not press you for your attentions until such time as you indicate you are willing to be intimate with me in a marital sense.” She peered over at him. His cheeks were the same color now. “You would leave me in peace after one night?” “Not entirely. For appearances, we will live together as man and wife, share chambers, and go down to breakfast together. We will dote and fawn in public and make calf eyes at each other across the ballrooms, but I will not importune you.” The small, guttering flame of hope burned a trifle brighter. His plan had potential to avoid disaster. She did not know what motivated his foolish generosity, but the plain fact was, after the wedding night, he might not want to have anything to do with her. “And if I never indicate that I’m interested in my conjugal duties?” “Never is a long time, and I am a very determined man who is quite attracted to you. Also a man in need of heirs, and I am confident you’ll not deny me those.” The flame nearly went out. Of course he’d need heirs. “Unfair, Lucas.” Except, he was compromising, while Eve was practically loading four sets of dueling pistols and aiming them at Deene’s chest. “You have an heir.” “Who is unmarried, older than me, and for reasons not relevant to the current discussion, not a good candidate for marriage. The succession is my obligation, Eve, and I’ve avoided it long enough.” She had at least ten childbearing years left, possibly twenty. That was a long time to muddle through with a man who had been nothing but considerate toward her. And an impossibly long time to mourn him, should the worst occur. “On the conditions you’ve stated—that following the wedding night you will not exercise your rights unless and until I’m comfortable with the notion, we can be married, but, Lucas, when you hate the choice you’ve made—when you hate me—don’t say I didn’t warn you.” “I will not hate you, I will not hate my choice. That I do vow.” His

A marriage built on monetary motives is a transaction, not a union. Love and respect can't be bought or sold, no matter the price tag.

For a study in contrast, consider the European Union’s venture interventions. In 2001, the European Commission allocated more than €2 billion ($1.9 billion) for venture subsidies. But it failed to pair this capital with the design features underpinning Israel’s success. Europe did not recognize limited partnerships. It did not address burdensome labor-market regulations. It failed to build startup-friendly stock markets to facilitate VC exits. As a result, rather than crowding in private venture operators, the European initiative crowded them out: given the limited entrepreneurial opportunities in Europe, commercial VC partnerships were not interested in competing with subsidized public investors.54 Worse, because government-sponsored investors were less skilled and motivated than private ones, this displacement reduced the quality of European VC: deal selection and post-investment coaching deteriorated. From the beginning of the industry through the end of 2007, the average European venture fund generated a return of minus 4 percent.

Vote wisely, not blindly, to change the world into prosperity, harmony, justice, equality, and peace and empower humanity, not the political beasts and their evil interests to raise and encourage wars and kill innocent people.” "Overcome your covetous ambitions to have peace of mind and satisfaction; do not let your covetous ambitions overcome you; otherwise, they will bury you in grievous consequences.” Israel shamelessly rejected the order by the judges of the International Court of Justice that Israel must halt its attack on the southern Gaza city of Rafah; thus, the ICJ order and the United Nations resolutions did not impact Israel’s genocide. I know how the ICJ, the United Nations, and the world will react to such bare violations, breaching and even disregarding international law by the Israeli bloody beast of this century., encouraged and motivated by the USA and European Union, avoiding and ignoring their laws that only apply to weak and needy countries. It is not only a significant insult to the ICJ verdict, which has been declined and trashed as well. Israeli attacks show and prove that they neither respect nor value the international law and communities of civilised democracies. The question is not this, but how the ICJ and the United Nations will take the next steps to stop the inhuman behaviour and genocide in Palestine by Israel since October 2023, and how and why the United States, the West, and the world have remained silent and are deliberately closing their eyes on Israeli inhumanity and genocide. Where is humanity, where is international law, where is transparent justice, fairness, equality, and the worth of human lives for small and large states and communities regardless of any distinctions, according to the charter of the United Nations? — Who will decide: genocide or the last resort of Israel dropping atom bombs on Palestine? It usually seems that the ICJ has become like the third-world courts, run by the political or armed forces mafia; their verdicts never prevail. Where are the experts and scholars of international law? What damn they think about the behaviour and declination of the ICJ verdict by Israel? It will be too late. There will be nothing and no one superpower. The world is heading towards the doom of the devil. Awaken, open your eyes, and stop it before we can say sorry.

Vance Muse was explicit about the racial motivation of the attack on unions via right-to-work laws: “From now on white women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.

…I am a storyteller. From barstools to back porches, from kitchen tables to campfires, from podiums to park benches, I have spun my yarns to audiences both big and small, both rapt and bored. I didn’t start out that way. I was just a dreamer, quietly imagining myself as something special, as someone who would “make a difference” in the world. But the fact is, I was just an ordinary person leading an ordinary life. Then, partly by design, partly by happenstance, I was thrust into a series of adventures and circumstances beyond anything I had ever dreamed. It all started when I ran away from home at eighteen and hitchhiked around the country. Then I joined the Army, became an infantry lieutenant, and went to Vietnam. After Vietnam, I tried to become a hippie, got involved with Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and became a National Coordinator for the organization. I was subsequently indicted for conspiracy to incite a riot at the Republican Convention in 1972—the so-called Gainesville Eight case—and one of my best friends turned out to be an FBI informant who testified against me at the trial. In the early eighties, I was involved with the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission, which built a memorial for Vietnam veterans in New York City and published the book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. In the late eighties, I was part of a delegation of Vietnam veterans who went to the Soviet Union to meet with Soviet veterans of their Afghanistan War. I fell in love with a woman from Russia, married her, and spent nine years living there, during which I fathered two children, then brought my family back to the U.S. and the suburban middle-class life I had left so many years before. The adventures ultimately, inevitably perhaps, ended, and like Samwise Gamgee, I returned to an ordinary life once they were over. The only thing I had left from that special time was the stories… I wrote this book for two reasons. First and foremost, I wrote it for my children. Their experience of me is as a slightly boring “soccer dad,” ordinary and unremarkable. I wanted them to know who I was and what I did before I became their dad. More importantly, I hope the book can be inspiring to the entire younger generation they represent, who will have to deal with the mess of a world that we have left them. The second reason is that when I was young, I had hoped that my actions would “make a difference,” but I’m not so sure if they amounted to “a hill of beans,” as Humphry Bogart famously intoned. If my actions did not change the world, then I dream that maybe my stories can.

We must make a heroic effort to rid our lives of all but one motive, that “impractical” spirituality of the saints, a life in union with God.

All the ancient dissimilarities, conflicts and antagonisms were solely due to the fragmentary fashion in which people had been content, until then, to study the universe. When all these divergent rays of thought had found their common focal point in the four-dimensional synthesis, natural variations were no longer anything but harmonic manifestations of a single common thought. And from matter, formerly judged inert, to the noblest speculations of the human mind, the world was now no more than a single soul, living the same life, an emanation of a single diverse thought that was named, in memory of the naïve beliefs of old, the Golden Eagle. This union of minds, of the same time and all times, by the direct path of the fourth dimension—by the subconscious, as one would once have put it—had nothing blissful or passive about it, though, although no one had believed otherwise in the times when humankind still dreamed of naïve celestial sentimentality and eternal paradisal adoration. More than ever, contradiction engendered an intense intellectual life in which opposition alone, as in all the mind’s operations, was able to motivate thought. What ensured that all effort became useful and positive, however, was that each individual action of intelligence concurred with the same continuous whole—just as, in a statue, all the lines, because they are opposed, unite to perfect a single masterpiece—and that love had replaced hatred since the language of the four-dimensional soul had been substituted for the fragmentary hypocrisies of three-dimensional modes of expression: hypocrisies contained in the concrete words of language as in the relative formulas of science. After overturning all human traditions and mores, sincerity, imposed by the direct reading of thoughts, had engendered love and created, in the spiritual domain, a sort of state of nature, this time transcendental, that marked the definitive liberation of the human mind. Every man understood, in the Age of the Golden Eagle, that he was but one fragment of a single statue—whether an eye, nose or finger did not matter—that he was only one act of the same intelligence, and that he desired the beauty of the whole with all his heart, his duty was to devote all his strength to make the part that was confided to him as beautiful as possible. That detail of the whole, his personality, immortal as the whole outside time, was the art-work signed with his name for all eternity within the universal art-work; it was the “I” marking his place in the universal continuum. It was not important whether the act was one of intelligence, faith, revolt or kindness, provided it was worthy of the whole; on the contrary, woe betide the man if his “I” was nothing but a defect, a lack or a fault, forever.

Pletho, a neo-pagan, had an ulterior motive in pitting Plato against Aristotle. As an opponent of the proposed union between the Latins and the Greeks, he hoped to demolish the intellectual edifice of the Roman Catholic Church, which he quite rightly recognized had been raised, thanks to Aquinas and others, on Aristotelian foundations. Upending the traditional philosophical hierarchy, he depicted Aristotle as an atheist while stressing Plato’s piety. He pointed out that for Aristotle the Prime Mover—the primary cause of all motion in the universe—existed in only one celestial sphere, which undermined the Christian idea of a god who dwells in all things. He rebutted Aristotle’s attack on Forms by saying it was tantamount to denying the existence of eternal substances. Finally, Aristotle may have paid lip service to various divinities, but, Pletho claimed, he was ultimately an atheist. Plato, on the other hand, understood God as “the universal sovereign existing over all things … the originator of originators, the creator of creators.

This Form (the “Bright”) was (Itself) “radical” self-understanding. It was no-seeking and no-dilemma as primary, inherent, un-“created”, Self-Abiding Divine Self-Recognition. It was inherently free of the entire search for perfection and union. When the “Bright” is Realized, all of life is simply observed and enjoyed (if noticed at all), and the things of life no longer provide a source of motivation separate (and separating) from this primary Awareness. Therefore, the “Bright” is the very Medium for unqualified Presence and Enjoyment—without dilemma, unconsciousness, or separation.

The most popular Foursquare feature is a competitive challenge called The Mayor. The rules read: “If you’ve got more check-ins than anyone else at a particular place, we deem you ‘The Mayor’ of that place. But once someone else comes along who has checked in more times than you, they then steal the ‘Mayor’ title back from you.” As soon as you become mayor, Foursquare sends an announcement to your friends congratulating you. Even better, some bars and restaurants have set up special deals for whoever happens to be mayor at any given time. The Marsh Café in San Francisco, for example, lets the current mayor drink for free. Of course, this is also a smart move on the part of the café—players have extra incentive to bring their friends there nightly to try to achieve or hold on to the mayor status, boosting business throughout the week. It’s also a good example of how traditional brick-and-mortar companies might be able to augment their services by more actively taking part in this popular reality-based game. Currently, hundreds of venues—from the Sacramento Zoo to a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant in the student union at the University of North Carolina Charlotte—offer deals or freebies for Foursquare players. Why do people love the idea of becoming the mayor? Because trying to become mayor of your favorite city spots gives you a chance to keep doing something you already love, but do it more. It gives you an excuse to spend as much time as possible at the places that make you happiest. And when you notice someone else vying for your mayor status, you get an instant friendly rival, motivating you to visit your favorite places more often, the same way a Nike+ challenger pushes you to run faster and longer.

Endless miles She had walked endless miles, She had stood over countless emotional piles, Finally she had arrived there where all journeys ended, Where life nothing defended, Because here smiles emerged from the seeds of pain, Here hopes were bred by time and never slain, Life developed wings of hope and certainty, Where desires shared with reality a new fraternity, Because forlorn ceased here, pain became meaningless, It was a place with miles ceaseless, Here minds ruled with hearts, And cupid indiscriminately shot his darts, To pierce all alike, Causing raptures of smiles and only creating realities that you like, And after walking endless miles she was here now, Here, where she can forever live under the rainbow and its colourful bow, To feel everything yet feel what she wants to feel, her deeply desired sentiment, For which she walked endless miles, because to her it everything meant, And to be here you need not follow any precept or diktat, Just be true to yourself and follow your instinctive nostrum and believe in one fact, That to be there where you want to be, you will walk endless miles, Because you seek that true union with your deepest smiles.

Like a mother weaning a child, God dries up the feeling of satisfaction and takes away the pleasure in the things of God as well as in things of earth. We become wearied of both God and creature and are left with the painful feeling that we are not serving God or our neighbor properly. We no longer feel the enjoyment, good feelings, and security we used to feel. John says that if we endure and persevere in prayer to God and service to others despite the absence of all satisfaction, then we will begin to act with a new motivation - Christ's. The connection between satisfaction and our motivation to act will have been severed. We will then act and choose not because of the pleasure we bring ourselves but because of something higher, namely, a desire to be of help to everything and everybody in their struggle towards consummation and union in love, beauty, truth, and goodness.

Baseball’s owners could have exerted their clout on the players’ union to agree to testing, but every time the issue was raised, the union said it was a violation of players’ privacy and sealed off further discussion. The owners may have had their own motivations to let the problem continue to escalate. In the late 1990s, the owners—desperate to reclaim

Thus, as I have said, in innumerable cases today’s family owes its existence merely to a force of inertia, conventions, practical convenience, and weakness of character in a regime of mediocrity and compromises. Nor can one expect external measures to bring about a change. I must repeat that familial unity could only remain firm when determined by a suprapersonal way of thinking, so as to leave mere individual matters on a secondary level. Then the marriage could even lack "happiness," the "needs of the soul" could be unsatisfied, and yet the unity would persist. In the individualistic climate of present society no higher reason demands that familial unity should persist even when the man or the woman "does not agree," and sentiment or sex leads them to new choices. Therefore, the increase of so-called failed marriages and related divorces and separations is natural in contemporary society. It is also absurd to think of any efficacy in restraining measures, since the basis of the whole is by now a change of an existential order. After this evaluation, it would almost be superfluous to specify what can be the behavior of the differentiated man today. In principle, he cannot value marriage, family, or procreation as I have just described them. All that can only be alien to him; he can recognize nothing significant to merit his attention. (Later I will return to the problem of the sexes in itself, not from the social perspective.) The contaminations in marriage between sacred and profane and its bourgeois conformism are evident to him, even in the case of religious, indissoluble, Catholic marriage. This indissolubility that is supposed to safeguard the family in the Catholic area is by now little more than a facade. In fact, the indissoluble unions are often profoundly corrupted and loosened, and in that area petty morality is not concerned in the least that the marriage is actually indissoluble; it is important only to act as if it were such. That men and women, once duly married, do more or less whatever they want, that they feign, betray, or simply put up with each other, that they remain together for simple convenience, reducing the family to what I have already described, is of little importance there. Morality is saved: One can believe that the family remains the fundamental unit of society so long as one condemns divorce and accepts that social sanction or authorization—as if it had any right—for any sexually based cohabitation that corresponds to marriage. What is more, even if we are not speaking of the "indissoluble" Catholic rite of marriage, but of a society that permits divorce, the hypocrisy persists: one worships at the altar of social conformism even when men and women separate and remarry repeatedly for the most frivolous and ridiculous motives, as typically happens in the United States, so that marriage ends up being little more than a puritanical veneer for a regime of high prostitution or legalized free love.

Almost all governments supported the single currency project, on political grounds even more than economic ones. The most powerful commitment came from France, where a tradition of support for exchange-rate stability was bolstered by the desire to share in the control of a European central bank and thus recover some of the monetary autonomy that had in practice been lost to the Bundesbank. Other member states, apart from Denmark and the UK—both of which secured opt-outs from any commitment to join a single currency—accepted such arguments, especially in the context of a newly unified Germany. For Germany, however, while the political motive for accepting the single currency as a French condition of unification was decisive, there were still reservations about replacing the Deutschmark, with its well-earned strength and stability, by an unproven currency. However, the possibility of building a similar system across the EU was clearly an important motivating factor for an export-driven economy like Germany’s; if other states would accept the logic of macroeconomic coordination alongside the currency itself, then this would ultimately serve Germany’s interests.

This amounts to nothing more than misleading propaganda. The purpose is to create a climate of acceptance for the passage of legislation which will turn the majority of parents into criminals of the most heinous kind-those whose victims are defenseless children. The resulting body of law will play directly into the hands of ultraliberal social engineers as well as social activists within the professional community. The outward motive-the protection of children-conceals several more insidious ones: • The desire to expand and consolidate the power of the helping professions. At the present time, there is no law that says an individual must, under certain circumstances, submit to psychological evaluation and counseling. If they are written as is being suggested, however, antispanking laws will require exactly that. They will give helping professionals the power to define when the law has been broken, who is in need of "help" and how much, and when a certain parent's "rehabilitation" is complete. It is significant to note that in all of history the only other state to confer this much power on psychologists and their ilk was the former Soviet Union. • The desire to manipulate the inner workings of the American family; specifically, the desire to exercise significant control over the child-rearing process. Take it from someone who was, at one time, similarly guilty, a significant number of helping professionals possess a "save the world" mentality. They believe they know what's best for individuals, families, and children. The only problem, as they see it, is that most people are "in denial"-unwilling to recognize their need for help. This self-righteousness fuels a zealous, missionary attitude. And like the first missionaries to the New World, many helping professionals seem to believe that their vision of a perfect world justifies whatever means they deem necessary, including licensing parents, taking children away from parents they define as unfit, and the like. (For a close look at the social engineering being proposed by some professionals, see Debating Children's Lives, Mason and Gambrill, eds., Sage Publications, 1994).

Just as viewing my marriage through the lens of a pathway toward holiness more than happiness gave me renewed motivation to grow in union with my wife and ongoing motivation to keep pursuing deeper intimacy with her, so understanding my body as an instrument of service to God is giving me renewed motivation to take better care of it in the face of my cravings and laziness.

She didn’t understand her own motivations to the point of self destruction,

I keep using the term “anticapitalist” as opposed to socialist or communist to include the people who publicly or privately question or loathe capitalism but do not identify as socialist or communist. I use “anticapitalist” because conservative defenders of capitalism regularly say their liberal and socialist opponents are against capitalism. They say efforts to provide a safety net for all people are “anticapitalist.” They say attempts to prevent monopolies are “anticapitalist.” They say efforts that strengthen weak unions and weaken exploitative owners are “anticapitalist.” They say plans to normalize worker ownership and regulations protecting consumers, workers, and environments from big business are “anticapitalist.” They say laws taxing the richest more than the middle class, redistributing pilfered wealth, and guaranteeing basic incomes are “anticapitalist.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist.” They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anticapitalist.” In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin; the freedom to assassinate unions; the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom not to pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to commodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle-income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism—of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resources and rights—bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.

… but also, let me add this. You know a One is so damn sure of himself that I – I’m going to sound like Frank Sinatra – I did it my way. And I don’t mean that in a rebellious sense. But like, uh, you know I sit with my coffee , I light my candle in the morning, I let Opie out and I let Opie back in. And I sorta settle into it. I’ve never been concerned about posture, you know, that’s what I mean… I sorta know, falsely or truthfully, what the essentials are and what the non-essentials are. I know it’s not good to sit in a too comfy chair, so I try to sit… but beyond that I let the spirit lead me. It’s not highly structured at all. Some days, if my dead head is dead, I will open a spiritual book, some days I’ll begin to journalise… although I’ve stopped doing that, it concerns me. I don’t know if… I keep thinking ‘You don’t have anything more to journalise about.’ I really do. I don’t know if its health issues I’m facing or what but I just: ‘No, that’s behind me now, that I need to write down what I’m experiencing.’ I really... I’m trying to figure out where that motivation is coming from. Not to need to write *and* not to need to read. So both of those are less. So I sorta just sit there *usually* *quite* content. So content that I, uh, I don’t feel the need to get up and start the day. I’m getting in here later than I used to. What does that all mean? I am praying. But I’m very much praying in my own way… of just being consciously in loving union with whatever is around me, whatever is right in front of me. And that comes easily now.

Summing Up • Because Paul speaks of same-sex eroticism as “impurity” in Romans 1: 24-27, an exploration of the moral logic underpinning these verses must grapple with the notions of purity and impurity. • The Old Testament defines purity in three broad ways: conforming to the structures of the original created order; safeguarding the processes by which life is stewarded; and emphasizing Israel’s distinctness from the surrounding nations. • In the New Testament we see three movements with respect to the Old Testament purity laws: ° away from defining purity externally toward defining purity in terms of the motives and dispositions of the heart and will; ° away from defensiveness and separation toward confidence and mission, empowered by the Holy Spirit; ° away from the attempt to replicate the original creation, to a forward-looking expectation of a new creation that fulfills but also transforms the old creation in surprising ways. • These movements clarify that, for Paul, the core form of moral logic underlying his characterization of sexual misconduct as “impurity” focuses on internal attitudes and dispositions, particularly lust (excessive desire) and licentiousness (lack of restraint). • Because Paul characterizes the same-sex eroticism of Romans 1: 24-27 as “impurity,” and therefore understands it as characterized by excessive passion and a lack of restraint, it raises the question concerning whether committed gay and lesbian unions, which seek to discipline passion and desire by means of lifelong commitment, should still be characterized as “impurity.

bc malcolm stood where presidents &prime ministers stood oxford union, 1964 check your sources, qualified journalists &caption this university students were the audience to a man who didn’t finish high school the irony

Tell me what you can bring to this family. Does your father agree with this union?" Casca didn't waver. "He does. He has remarked to me many times how much he would like to see our families united." Apicius responded with an incline of his head and his mouth turned up at the edges in a thoughtful smile. "Explain to me, then, why are you here instead of him?" "He doesn't have my conviction- that you would find me more suitable than Dolabella or Narses." I was surprised at the audacity of this young man. Apicius was also surprised. He didn't respond right away, which was unusual. When he did, he sounded amused and- although Casca couldn't know it- impressed. "And why do you think I would find you more suitable?" "It is quite simple." Casca looked at me, then at Apicius. "I love your daughter. They do not." Apicius snorted. "Love is not a prerequisite to marriage." "Quite true. However, I bring to you both power and influence- through my father now, but also in my future as I follow in his footsteps. I will continue to bring you and your family honor, and precious votes in the elections. And what I can do that Dolabella and Narses cannot is assure you I will take care of your daughter with every fiber of my being." "Go on," Apicius said, intrigued. I was glad I had decided to bring Casca here on such impulse. "I have watched you with Apicata over these many months. I know how you dote on her, how you hold her close to your heart. She is as important to you as your love for culinary delights," he remarked. Good, I thought. The boy had a sense of how to stroke Apicius's ego, though I knew the truth that Casca- and likely even Apicius- did not. Food and fame would always be first in Apicius's heart. "I can promise you that your daughter will have love and laughter. Narses and Dolabella care not for her as much as they do for your money. My motives are pure. Few in this world have the chance to marry for love. Let your daughter be one of them.

Do You Realize? *** My question is to the World and States and Nations that, would you recognize, accept, and allow on the ground of freedom and human rights; If I set up a fake The United Nations If I organize a bogus The White House If I fabricate a fictitious 10 Downing Street If I establish a counterfeit, The Moscow Kremlin If I institute a false The European Union If I build up an illegitimate the Roman Catholic Church If I create such other phony institutions for deceiving and fooling all the genuine ones? Sure, your answer will be as it is impossible, such an answer carries authentic logic, but why then mostly entire Europe, the United States, and Canada stay silent on the matter of a fake Mirza Ghulam Ahmadi Qadiyani as Jesus and his followers who claim themselves as real Muslims and they build Mosques to falsify and deceive the real Muslims. Factually, they are neither Muslim nor Christian nor a sect of these two recognized religions; they are just a false religious gang for their evil practices and motives. The States and Nations of the world should ban that religious termite, and stop them from misuse of true Islam, and creating Mosques to fool the Muslims. The world should take action and decide regardless of the political privileges and needs for their power before the fake Jesus ride on the minds of the Christians since he is neither real Jesus of Christians nor Muslims

Part of maturing is knowing the difference between striving and actively moving in the unforced rhythms of grace. Fruitfulness all flows from a happy, ecstatic impulse toward our divine calling. This is what Paul said he was pressing in toward. He was not pressing in for moral perfection. Not pressing in for more of the Spirit he already had, or trying to get closer to a God with whom he was already in Union. He was pressing in toward his high calling – literally to complete his life’s race and vocation – his ministry purpose that would ultimately result in martyrdom (Phil. 3). Love and grace will push you to lengths that fear and law never will. To think there was no pleasure even in this most grueling task, you are missing the nature of the Gospel, as well as the personality of the apostle. The religious man is compelled to run strictly out of legal motivation – dry duty, obligation and fear of ulterior consequences. But we run out of a sheer pleasure! Not merely loving toward God, but allowing His love to flow through us tangibly in charity. We are at rest in the middle of the storm. The flavor of faith is rest, but the results of faith are mountain moving.

The problem is, managers today are still applying the Industrial Age control model to knowledge workers. Because many in positions of authority do not see the true worth and potential of their people and do not possess a complete, accurate understanding of human nature, they manage people as they do things. This lack of understanding also prevents them from tapping into the highest motivations, talents and genius of people. What happens when you treat people like things today? It insults and alienates them, depersonalizes work, and creates low-trust, unionized, litigious cultures. What happens when you treat your teenage children like things? It, too, insults and alienates, depersonalizes precious family relationships and creates low trust, contention and rebellion.

Organized crime killed Marilyn Monroe. The idea was to frame and discredit the Kennedy administration, thus ending its drive against the Mafia, crime-controlled unions, and other parts of the crime syndicate. The FBI, CIA, or some right-wing group killed her, with the same motive of framing and discrediting the Kennedys. Why? Because they were too liberal. The Communist Party or other left-wing elements killed her in order to save Robert Kennedy from exposure—a theory of right-wing groups who opposed the Kennedys. The Kennedys killed her to avoid the public sex scandal she was threatening.

She is in union with God. She understands fear and need creates unconscious ulterior motives. She sees God in everything...even within herself and ... she is more powerful for it. She observes His glory with an attitude of gratitude, calls nature her home, and her spirit soars with the birds. She is divinity defined.

August 16, Johnson issued an order that allowed southern whites to recapture land confiscated from them during the war—a move that made him heroic to whites while dealing a crushing blow to black hopes. It forced freedmen to abandon the forty-acre plots they had started to work, turning the men into powerless sharecroppers, bound to land owned by whites. Within weeks, a white delegation from the former Confederacy rushed to the White House to express “sincere respect” for Johnson’s desire “to sustain Southern rights in the Union.”88 By the end of 1865, so-called Black Codes began to forge a new caste system in the South, a segregated world where freed slaves worked as indentured servants, subject to arrest if they left jobs before their annual contracts expired. It was a cruel new form of bondage, establishing the foundations of the Jim Crow system that later ruled southern race relations. In South Carolina, blacks were confined by law to their plantations, forced to work from sunup to sundown. In Florida, blacks who showed “disrespect” to their bosses or rode in public conveyances reserved for whites could be whipped and pilloried. In Mississippi, it became a criminal offense for blacks to hunt or fish, heightening their dependence upon white employers. Thus, within six months of the end of the Civil War, there arose a broadly based retreat from many of the ideals that had motivated the northern war effort, reestablishing the status quo ante and white supremacy in the old Confederacy. During

.” They say wars to end poverty are “anticapitalist.” They say campaigns to remove the profit motive from essential life sectors like education, healthcare, utilities, mass media, and incarceration are “anticapitalist.” In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism. They define capitalism as the freedom to exploit people into economic ruin; the freedom to assassinate unions; the freedom to prey on unprotected consumers, workers, and environments; the freedom to value quarterly profits over climate change; the freedom to undermine small businesses and cushion corporations; the freedom from competition; the freedom not to pay taxes; the freedom to heave the tax burden onto the middle and lower classes; the freedom to commodify everything and everyone; the freedom to keep poor people poor and middle-income people struggling to stay middle income, and make rich people richer. The history of capitalism—of world warring, classing, slave trading, enslaving, colonizing, depressing wages, and dispossessing land and labor and resources and rights—bears out the conservative definition of capitalism.

On the grievous battlefield the warriors whispers back that we are the chorus voices of the union on wings of victory.

Predictions of Nazi decline ignore the very potent electoral advantages the party retained even after the November setback. To begin with, they had made themselves the most diverse, most wide-ranging political party in the country. The other right-wing parties were devoted to the past, enmeshed with the hated economic establishment or, worse from a popular point of view, yearning for a restoration of the monarchy. (They often referred to the Weimar years as the “Kaiserless time.”) Those positions would do nothing to enhance their electability in popular elections. The left-wing parties, on the other hand, preached a Marxism either in its hard version (Communism) or soft version (Socialism) that alienated more people than it attracted. And the centrist parties had simply evaporated as weak alternatives with no real ideas or solutions. Gregor Strasser explained the inherent strength of his party’s political thinking: “From the right we shall take nationalism, which has so disastrously allied itself with capitalism, and from the left we shall take socialism, which has made such an unhappy union with internationalism. Thus we shall form the National Socialism which will be the motive force of a new Germany and a new Europe.” Hitler was more succinct; no one summed up the political situation better than he did: “The nationalists on the right lacked social awareness,” he said, and “the socialists on the left lacked national awareness.” The political genius of the Nazis was to recognize an opening that once taken advantage of became so large that a Panzer division could drive through it.

We do not feel God’s Love because we have chosen to become self-reliant. It is hard for Divine Love to come in when you say ‘Ah, there is no God,’ or ‘I can do this without God.’ We think we can do it all ourselves. Deep in your soul you know there is a God, but it is surrounded with many layers of betrayal, denial and abandonment. You do not feel Divine Love because you do not yet feel or put into action your burning desire for God, you do not yet feel the passion for Truth. You are still identified with the wound. It is by choice and desires that you separated from God, and it is by choice and desire that you come to Union with God also. If you are not receiving Divine Love, and yet you ‘feel’ you are longing for it, then the cause for your not receiving It is that your own longings and desires are not pure, truthful or sincerely motivated, and that you are maybe using these longings to escape feeling your own emotions. This means YOU are lying to yourself, refusing to see your own wounds and be humble to them, being in victim mode or giving your power away to God, hoping He will make it all better.

German reunification revived the enduring concern and anxiety about the economic and political power of the country which, in France’s opinion, had threatened peace and equilibrium in Europe since the beginning of the 19th century. The only way to neutralise and control German power was to tie Germany into deeper and irreversible European integration, in which of course France would retain political leadership. This could be accomplished through monetary union. In her nationalistic view of the currency, France thought that wresting the deutschmark away from Germany was like depriving her of the source of her economic power, like Delilah depriving Samson of his strength by cutting his hair. So, the second political motivation for France promoting the EMU was her desire to control and neutralise the new power that German reunification had granted to her eternal rival. This was nothing new, because this distrust and the desire to contain Germany had been the constant theme permeating the actions of France throughout the process of building European integration, from the very creation of the Coal and Steel Community in the early 50s.

Ross’s team, mostly farmworkers, was highly motivated but untested. Ross turned the campaign into a boot camp of sorts: many of the graduates went on to become among the union’s most skilled organizers. They fine-tuned their raps and role-played interactions, searching for messages that best resonated with workers.

The plotters had to know that if Pearl Harbor were attacked, the Soviet Union would be the first to be suspected, and that the Americans would certainly retaliate with overwhelming nuclear force. The solution was to devise a plan that shielded the Soviet Union from blame for the attack. The only other country with the motive and capability to accomplish such a horrible deed was Red China. By tricking the United States into a massive retaliatory attack on China, the USSR could simultaneously weaken the Americans and eliminate Mao, without spending a dime from its depleted treasury.

Something strange took place in the highest circles of the Kremlin in late 1969. The power struggle within the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Communist Party saw an emboldened Brezhnev openly confront his rivals. The confrontation came to be known by Sovietologists as the “Moscow Mini Crisis,” and remains an unsolved mystery to this day. The hard-liners, led by the shadowy party ideologue Suslov and his protégé KGB Director Andropov, were challenged by Brezhnev and the top generals and admirals. A review of recent reports on the Kremlin power struggle suggests that the timing may very well have coincided with the arrival of the secret K-129 packet from Washington. Certainly, such information would have led to urgent internal investigations into who in the Soviet Union might have had the means and motive to attempt an unauthorized and potentially devastating sneak attack against an American target.