“The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years.
These nations have progressed through this sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage.” Sir Alex Fraser Tyler: (1742-1813)
"The normal cycle in the life and death of great nations has been first a powerful tyranny broken by revolt, the enjoyment of liberty, the abuse of liberty -- and back to tyranny again. As I see it, in this country -- a land of the most persistent idealism and the blandest cynicism -- the race is on between its decadence and its vitality." - Alistair Cooke
"You know your country is dying when you have to make a distinction between what is moral and ethical, and what is legal." -- John De Armond
"The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded." -- C. L. De Montesquieu [Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat] (1689-1755) Baron de Montesquieu Source: The Spirit of the Laws, VIII, 1752
"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life." Theodore Roosevelt - (1858-1919) 26th US President - Source: letter 01/10/1917
Give a school grade to each of the seven intentions in the Preamble to our U.S. Constitution
To form a more perfect Union
To establish justice
To insure domestic tranquility
To provide for the common defense
To promote the general welfare
To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
To establish and maintain a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
"In every declining civilization there is a small 'remnant' of people who adhere to the right against the wrong; who recognize the difference between good and evil and who will take an active stand for the former and against the latter; who can still think and discern and who will courageously take a stand against the political, social, moral, and spiritual rot or decay of their day." -- Donald S. McAlvaney Source: Toward a New World Order, 360 (2nd ed. 1992)
“...we have two choices: either, live with all this —and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—or, make revolution!” —Bob Avakian
"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." -- Justice Joseph Story : (1779-1845) US Supreme Court Justice 1833
"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it, 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty. - Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858
“Civilization is fragile. It’s continuance requires respect for the law, tough-minded education, collative thrift, private investment, individual self reliance, and common codes of behavior and civility, and it exempts no one from those rules.” Victor Davis Hanson, Civilization in Reverse, Washington Times, 1-20-12
Economic decline? Moral decline? Social decline? Cultural decline? Political decline?
Scientific stall? A Chinese official recently commented about their governments policy of growth saying the “Scientific revolution is the ultimate revolution”.
From: <SIUHIN@aol.com> Date: Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 8:30 PM To: ufpj-activist@lists.mayfirst.org
MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION REPORT ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Introduction: The human rights situation in the United States of America has provoked serious concerns within the international community, American NGOs and mass media.
The present report is based upon verified information from authoritative international and national sources and summarizes broad factual information on multiple, including systemic, problems related to the human rights observance that the American society faces.
In the USA, among the most grave challenges are growing social inequality, racial, ethnic and religious discrimination, continuing detention of prisoners without charges presented, partial justice, prisons operating outside the legal field, torturing, governmental authorities influencing judicial processes, weak penitentiary system, restraint of freedom of speech, Internet censorship, legalized corruption, limitation of electoral rights of citizens, racial and ethnical intolerance, infringing children's rights, extraterritorial application of American law which leads to infringing human rights in other countries, kidnapping, "witch-hunt", disproportionate use of force against peaceful manifestations, death penalty applied to underage and mentally disabled offenders, etc.
That being said, international legal obligations of the USA are still limited to participation in three (1965 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1984 Convention against Torture) out of nine basic treaties on human rights that provide for control mechanisms. The USA has not yet ratified the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
Such a situation makes a drastic contrast with the ambitions of the USA to become a global leader in the protection of democratic values, shows the double standard attitude actively used by the USA authorities and requires effective measures to resolve the large-scale problems that exist in the humanitarian and human rights areas in accordance with the international obligations of the USA…. (See the rest of the report at attachment; not provided)
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out...without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable." H.L. Mencken 1880-1956 American journalist, satarist, social critic
No comments:
Post a Comment