Several long-time activists have told me recently they are overwhelmed, worried, and think that we may be losing the struggle to end the imperial wars, save our Constitution, and stop false flag terrorism.
One very smart friend asked me if there is any basis for hope.
But hope is an act of will, not a passive mood. Admittedly, things are easier when circumstances bring hope to us, and we can just receive the hopeful and inspiring news.
But if we care about winning, we have to be able to decide to have hope even when outer circumstances aren't so positive.
I have children who are counting on me to leave them with a reasonably safe and sane planet. As I've said elsewhere, "I care too much about my kids and my freedom to be afraid. I care enough about them that it gets my heart beating, connects me to something bigger than myself, and that gives me courage, even when the chips are down."
If I allowed myself to lose hope about exposing false flag terror, about protecting our freedom, about preventing World War III, I would be dropping the ball for my kids. I would be condemning them to a potentially very grey world where bigger and more violent false flags are carried out, where their liberties and joys are wholly stripped away, where every ounce of vitality is beholden to "the war effort".
Many of us may be motivated by other things besides kids in our fight against fascism, propaganda, perennial war, and government-sponsored terrorism. Only you can know what that is. But we each must dig down deep, and connect with our most powerful motivations to win the struggle for freedom and truth.
I don't know about you . . . but I don't have the luxury of giving up hope. When I get depressed, overwhelmed or exhausted by the stunning acts of savagery, treason, and disinformation carried out by the imperialists, or the willful ignorance of many Americans, I will myself into finding some reason to have hope.
Because the struggle for liberty is too important for me to give up.
If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. - Ayn Rand
Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. - Lin Yutang
Hope is passion for what is possible. - Soren Kierkegaard
Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. - Maori Proverb
I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes indeed sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy. - Thomas Jefferson
He who does not hope to win has already lost. - Jose Joaquin Olmedo
When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better. - Pauline R. Kezer
George WashingtonGeorge Washington is a pen name. I am using the pen name, with the approval of the publisher, because I have received death threats due to my 9/11 research and writing. I am using a pen name to protect myself and my family.
"Unwavering convictions can be a more dangerous foe of truth than lies," and...
"In politics, as in religion, there is a holy mistaken zeal in which we persuade others in order to convince ourselves," - http://spiralcircle.com/quotes.htm .
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Tom Murphy (3 articles, 4 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 1765 comments)
on Friday, December 14, 2007 at 1:40:33 PM
And I hope the hell you're right! Well, actually, I know you are, and I greatly appreciate the homework you did for this article.
I too get hope from kids. Just today I was teaching a class of about thirty kids about rivers, in a museum where I work part time. They listened with rapt attention, asked penetrating questions, were thoroughly engaged in the topic of rivers and water quality. I see this reaction time and time again with children from all walks of life, and have seen it with kids from every corner of the world.
We have no choice but to make the effort to improve the world for the next generation; if you're feeling depressed--and believe me, I am at times--it's because you're not focused enough on what you might be doing to improve things. And in that process of improving things, becoming part of something larger than yourself.
The ultimate point of hope is that our species may continue, in a vastly improved, interconnected, caring, compassionate, intelligent social setting, wherein we relate to nature with respect and awe, and treat each other with kindness.
Is that really so difficult a concept?
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Daniel Geery (26 articles, 73 quicklinks, 123 diaries, 740 comments)
on Friday, December 14, 2007 at 6:29:44 PM
"These studies show that leaders often emerge from communities not because they are ruthless, but because they are skilled at managing social relationships.
Something happens to people once they acquire power, however, and the transformation appears to be psychological. Adam Galinsky, a social psychologist at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, recently had volunteers describe either a situation in which they had power over someone else or a situation in which they felt powerless. Those asked to remember a situation in which they felt powerful were made to feel even more powerful by being given control of the distribution of goodies, whereas the volunteers asked to remember a powerless situation were further reminded of their powerlessness when they were asked to estimate how many goodies they expected to receive.
When Galinsky and his colleagues asked all the volunteers to draw the letter E on their foreheads with a marker, those who had been made to feel powerless were three times more likely to draw the E so that it was legible to someone facing them. Those made to feel powerful, however, drew the letter so that it looked correct from their internal perspective but was a mirror image from the point of view of someone facing them.
Galinsky's point, which he noted in a study published in the journal Psychological Science, is that volunteers made to feel powerful, even in a trivial laboratory experiment, almost instantly lose the ability to see things from other people's points of view."
9/11 thought police piece, from the same guy
Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach
I collect quotations too ( http://www.quotationscentral.com ) but I don't have ones on Hope on my site. I checked my hard drive and found a nine page file of quotations on hope, and the last one was something I wrote:
Hope is an energy, a metaphysical, spiritual resource we hold within us-- a small fire that keeps burning when it seems cold and dark around us, when things seem to be going wrong, when possibilities seem dim or non-existent. Hope keeps lighting us up inside, enabling us to see that our heart is still there.
You don’t need special resources to have hope.Hope will find them for you.
You don’t need courage to have hope. Hope will give you courage.
You don’t need to see any possible chance... Hope will find a way.
Hope is a wild animal-- a tiny canary fluttering on high or a massive elephant barrelling down the road. It can carry you to places of great challenge, of great beauty, of great passion and depth. It is a steed you ride with grace and kindness, a blessing you embrace like the wind, like a horse’s rein, yet you let the rein loose and let fly with the flow of the ride.
There will always be people who splash cold water on the embers of hope, who try to dash out the last sparks of burning aliveness hope gifts us. There will always be people who see parts and pieces, numbers and data, only seeing the hole, when they think they are seeing the whole picture. They can blot a vision,thrash a dream and crash hopes-- but only if you let them.
Look at people like Steven Hawking, whose dwarfed, deformed shape has not stopped him from havinga vision that spans the universe and beyond. At Beethoven who went on composing amazing music after he became deaf.But you don’t have to look to Beethoven. There’s a band composed of all deaf band members and music is taught in schools for the deaf.
They persevere in the face of great challenge. That is one of the best parts of being human-- facing great challenges and finding, with hope and vision, answers we never knew existed. This is one of the ways we can feel most alive, most in touch with those spiritual vibrations which remind us that we are all connected to God.
Rob Kall April 30, 2002
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Rob Kall (857 articles, 3983 quicklinks, 343 diaries, 1821 comments)
on Friday, December 14, 2007 at 9:10:53 PM
Thanks for the reminder - somehow it seems we (people) have always been on the brink - and somehow - maybe through hope - turning into collective action - we persevere. It was nice to be reminded.
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August Adams (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 10 comments)
on Friday, December 14, 2007 at 9:55:11 PM
Ghandi's statement is beautiful, that the murderers ALWAYS fall.
Notice how many politicians are resigning to avoid scandal and investigation? Truth doesn't like to see the light of day, and we can draw hope from that. Our voice DOES count and our opinions DO matter, as evidenced by this fact in which politicians are dropping off like flies! Yes, Ghandi, you are right once more: The truth wins and the spiritually evil do fall. Thank you! A friend of mine used a beautiful analogy about ant colonies. When ant colonies are flooded, the ants cling together in a pyramid, floating to safety, and then continue right on with their work!
And what about the fact that the Vietnam War was stopped by protests? I believe politicians may be playing a game with us, with the intention of leading us to THINK that our voices won't count. But it's not true. I have seen, as member of Moveon.org, that when signatures come in by the millions, politicians reverse their positions 180 degrees. They can't honor the voice of the few but they MUST honor the voices of the many, or they'd lose their seat in office (or have too much truth exposed). And they know it.
Depression governs our masses. Let's not let it govern us! Let us cling together like the ants do, floating as we are being flooded, and continue right on with our work! The ants come marching two by two, haroo, haroo....here we come! Ready or not!
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Kathryn Smith (96 articles, 2 quicklinks, 42 diaries, 406 comments)
on Friday, December 14, 2007 at 11:07:07 PM
Hoping is big in Western thought. Even so, hoping is neither action nor doing, not even promoting. There is a useful Buddhist concept expressed in the meditative method to heighten awareness and perception prior to action used by performing artists and athletes in competition:
"Rest in the innate state, without hope, or fear and without altering anything."
In other words, be accepting, in order to keep the senses open to be aware of what actually is before one and see it for what it really is. For with one's fingers crossed squeezing one's thumbs in wishful future think, there is less attention to present time and present and ongoing circumstances, threats, dangers and opportunities.
In Asian thinking, 'hope' is not treasured as being as useful as is 'equanimity'. Hoping never got anything done and is an impediment to clear mindedness.
Example: Should it come upon a musician to 'hope' to play the right note, disaster threatens. Should a basketball player at the foul line have the disconcerting thought, 'Sure hope I make this shot - my girl friend is watching', he jeopardizes his body's relaxed coordination. Actually hope and fear are two sides of the same useless coin.
Dreaming to win the lottery is certainly pleasant. But realistically evaluating one's chances of winning leaves the slim possibility open to enjoy while being relaxed, not jacked-up with anticipation (hope), followed by let down.
Wonder if author Washington and/or any of his audience happened to have read OpEdNews of Sunday, December 2, 2007, HOPING TO REFORM CAPITALISM MAKES YOU COMPLICIT IN ITS INIQUITIES/4 Books Whatever one wants to call whatever takes its place, it is the inhumanity, murderous criminal insanity, of totally materialist, mindless capitalism that we are living through right now. Those of us who merely try to make it a bit less monstrous, are more acquiescent to its continuance, than to its being replaced with something more intelligently human. Extricate mind from complicity in Capitalist Crime with a four-book course!
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Jay Janson (83 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 93 comments)
on Saturday, December 15, 2007 at 12:34:50 AM
"jacked-up with anticipation (hope)"--as you put it--about the future of our species, but I do make a real effort--and yes, it is an effort--to focus on the rays of light I see between the cracks, in the decaying bricks of our antiquated culture.
If I don't see a few possibilities besides doom and gloom, I get paralyzed and utterly useless. If looking for those rays may be called hope, then yes, I have to say I have a little hope.
I recommend the video "Peaceful Warrier," with Nick Nolte, for getting into the mindset of abandoning worry and focusing on present actions. I think this is not so much about hope, however, as about being useful and functional in relation to a goal--and also about being sure you have the right goal in the first place.
In the same vein, I recommend Dale Carnegie's extraordinary classic, "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living," which has distilled the wisdom of the ages into a remarkably readable form. This boy did his homework; would that there were more authors like him. If I can be said to have a bible, I would have to say this is it.
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Daniel Geery (26 articles, 73 quicklinks, 123 diaries, 740 comments)
on Saturday, December 15, 2007 at 8:56:38 AM
HERE SOME HOPE, I HOPE BUSH DON'T BOMB IRAIN,I HOPE WE DON'T GET THE NORTH AMERICAN UNION, I HOPE WE GET A GOOD PRESIDENT IN 2008, I HOPE THEY REPEAL THE PATRIOT ACT, I HOPE I DON'T HOPE MY SELF TO DEATH. YOU CAN'T TAKE HOPE TO THE BANK, WHEN SOME ONE IS SICK, AND YOU SAY I HOPE YOU FEAL BETTER, WILL THAT MAKE THEM BETTER, DON' THINK SO. HOPE IS FOR SHEEP THAT DON'T TAKE ACTION. NOTHING HAPPENS UNLESS YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN. YOU CAN HOPE UNTIL YOU BLUE IN THE FACE, AND YOU KNOW WHAT YOU MOST LIKELY SUFFACATE.
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RICHARD SHADE (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 460 comments)
on Sunday, December 16, 2007 at 4:30:32 AM
13 comments
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