Now is the Time We All Need A Great Leader~

“The duty of a true Patriot is to protect his country from its government.”
– Thomas Paine

Will you stand with us? 

We need words and acts of wisdom, ethics and compassion, from our leaders now more than ever. Since this is utterly lacking, take heart from the words of a truly gifted leader that could never be more relevant than today.

Martin Luther King (1929 – 1968) addresses the March On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC, where he gave his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963

“Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

“I Have a Dream”, Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963

My heart breaks for George Floyd, his family, and our country. Are we not better people than this?

There are no cheers…

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Emma Lazarus: She spins within her tomb

 

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

 

“The woman power of this nation can be the power which makes us whole and heals the rotten community now so shattered by war and poverty and racism. I have great faith in the power of women who will dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to the task of remaking our society.” – Coretta Scott King

 

“I think that the roots of racism have always been economic, and I think people are desperate and scared. And when you’re desperate and scared you scapegoat people. It exacerbates latent tendencies toward – well, toward racism or homophobia or anti-Semitism.” – Henry Louis Gates    

 

The New Colossus

 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles, From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breath free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

                            – Emma Lazarus

 

Imagine the poem she would have written had she foreseen the cages crammed with humanity seeking asylum. Her vision of America and her words do not reflect its reality. The golden door has been slammed shut in the faces of the homeless, tempest-tost and many others. Yet the welcome mat is out for criminals who can afford to line the pockets of the government. Perhaps some of you will be inspired to write what might be more realistic given the current climate in America? 

 

Bisous,

Léa

Wednesday’s Words to Ponder

“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people”.  – Eleanor Roosevelt 

“Justice cannot be for one side, but for both”.  – Eleanor Roosevelt

“You must do things that you think you cannot do”.  – Eleanor Roosevelt

               “Never allow someone who is not allowed to say yes, to say no to you”.                           – Eleanor Roosevelt

“When will our conscience become so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it”.  – Eleanor Roosevelt

      “I once had a rose named after me and I was flattered. But I was not happy to read the description in the catalog: not good in a bed, but up against the wall”.                     – Eleanor Roosevelt

“A woman is like a tea bag –  you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water”.  – Eleanor Roosevelt

–

Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in New York City. The niece of Theodore. Roosevelt, who would become president and who married a man who also became president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eleanor took on the role of the first lady and made it her own. She wrote her own newspaper column, My Day, advocated for human rights and women’s rights. She held press conferences and after the death of her husband went on to chair the United Nation’s Human Rights Commission.

 

Despite being married to the president, she was not content to sit back idly and smile for the camera. She developed her own public voice while working with the American Red Cross. Eleanor accepted increasing challenges following her husband’s polio attack that would render him dependant on physical assistance for the remainder of his days.

 

As her husband took on the mantle of command of a nation, she forever changed the role of a first lady. refusing to be relegated to a life of domesticity, she gave press conferences and rallied people for causes that she held worthwhile. Among the causes she campaigned for were human rights, children’s causes and issues relating to women. She worked tirelessly with the League of Women Voters. She focused on ways to alleviate the suffering of the poor and against racial discrimination. During WWII she traveled abroad in support of American troops. She continued this role until her husband’s death on April 12, 1945.

 

Despite her plans to fade away from public life, that was not to be. In 1945, then President Harry Truman appointed her delegate to the United Nations General Assembly which she served until 1953 when she became chairperson for the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission helping to create the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an endeavor she considered to be her highest achievement in a remarkable life.

 

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy reappointed her to the United States delegation to the U.N. and to the National Advisory Committee of the Peace Corps and chair on the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

 

On November 7, 1962, Eleanor Roosevelt died in NYC of aplastic anemia, tuberculosis and heart failure. She was 78 years old and was laid to rest on the family estate in Hyde Park, NY.

 

Eleanor Roosevelt set a standard for First Lady that has not been equaled. She was a humanitarian of the first order and dedicated her life to fighting for social and political change and committed to bringing the issues that would affect them, to the people.

Bisous,

Léa

Cartography

“You cannot control your own population by force, but it can be distracted by consumption.” – Noam Chomsky

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”  –  Sinclair Lewis

“International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.” – Noam Chomsky

“The more you can increase the fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.”   –  Noam Chomsky

*

Cartography

Countries

Like patchwork quilts

Made up of remnants

Of people, cultures,

Languages, music

Guided by passion

Dictated by gluttony

Frequently altered

By wars, politics

Fostered by greed

Fragmented, disenfranchised,

Reshuffled, with the

Urgency of thieves in flight

Stitched with the threads;

Death, blood, violence

Illusions of patriotism

Become the battle cry

For the disenfranchised

To fight and die

To enrich the elitists

As the oppression increases

The patches fray, weaken,

Disintegrate

It really is

All about Empire

Corporate politicians declaring war

On others as they strip the

Freedoms from their own

And those who dare

To make a difference

Wear the label of traitor

*

Bisous,

Léa

The Man Who Sleeps On Cathedral Stairs

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
– Mother Teresa

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“Poverty is the mother of crime.”
– Marcus Aurelius

The Man Who Sleeps On Cathedral Stairs

Stained glass

Windows

Warmed with

Sunlight

Melting

Rainbows

Spraying pews

Hymnals

Cross

Statue

Sun rising

*

Beyond

Heavy oak door

Concrete altar

Blanketed

By snow

Another

Son

Melts into the rainbow

Son

Rising

Bisous,

Léa

GOP Psalms

Going into an election year, one quote will not do! While the poem is an older one, and the names may have changed, it is certainly relevant.

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual.”

– Ayn Rand

And last but far from least:

“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

– Haile Selassie

GOP Psalms

Bush is my Shepard

I shall know want

He maketh me lie down

On park benches

He polluteth pristine waters

He eulogizes family values

For re-election sake

Yea-

Though I walk through the valley

Of unemployment

And education cutbacks

I fear no evil

Clarence Thomas art with me

He shields me with sailors

They hooketh my tail

He leadeth me past still photos

For Helms sake

He anointeth desert sands

With blood

For mid-east oil

He enriches elitist coffers

Surely embezzlement and fraud

Shall follow him

All the days of his incumbency

And I shall dwell in the kitchen

Barefoot and pregnant forever

Bisous,

Léa