Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. Norman Cousins
"It is circumstances which show what men are. Therefore, when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer ofwrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose? you might ask. So that you may become an Olympic Conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat. ...no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist." Epictetus
We only go where we need to go or go where we want to go because we overcome obstacles. And I'm still overcoming obstacles today. Danny Glover
We encounter the grinding wheels that sharpen our mental blades many places in life. Adversity, school, parents, spiritual guides, books, experience are all sharpening teachers. As we grow older, to stay sharp we must find new grindstones to whet and sharpen our potential and keep us at our brightest, most penetrating best. Kall, Robert
What is the heaviest thing... that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength. Nietzsche
What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In thedifficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Rainer Maria Rilke
*"I love to hear of worthy foes." Scott, Sir Walter., LADY OF THE LAKE, canto 4, st.8
I am at my very best when the circumstances get dangerous. Ted Turner
The human race built most nobly when limitations were greatest and therefore when most was required of imagination to build at all. Limitations seem to have always been the best friends of architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright
Risks are the spice of life, and this is the kind of moment that a test pilot lives for. THe butterflies are fluttering, but you feed off fear as if it's a high-energy candy bar. It keeps you alert and focused. You accept risk as part of every new challenge; it comes with the territory.Chuck Yeager, Yeager Chuck Yeager, Yeager
Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great. Niccolo Machiavelli
"Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch - what makes you go beyond the norm." -Cicely Tyson
We triumph without glory when we counquer without danger. Corneille Le Cid, ii.,2. (1606-1684)
There are no gains without pains. Benjamin Franklin
Happiness is the full use of your powers along lines of excellence in a life affording scope. John F. Kennedy
When you're green you're growing, and when you're ripe, you rot. Ray Kroc (McDonalds founder)
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
To learn more about me and OpEdNews.com, check out this article.
and there are Rob's quotes, here.
To Watch me on youtube, having a lively conversation with John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here Now, wouldn't you like to see me on the political news shows, representing progressives. If so, tell your favorite shows to bring me on and refer them to this youtube video
My radio show, The Rob Kall Show, runs 9-10 PM EST Wednesday evenings, on AM 1360, WNJC and is archived on www.whiterosesociety.org Or listen to it streaming, live at either www.wnjc1360.com or here.
A few declarations.
-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
I think I like the Ghandi quote best of all. I agree that we need to stand up and respond to right-wing b.s., but some of that verbiage is a little too macho for my taste. how 'bout some quotes from upstanding women too?!
thanks for all you do, Rob.
by
Debbie Scally (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 42 comments)
on Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 10:25:55 PM
When Confronted by an Opponent Put Him on Death Row
If you can't put the opponent on death row, you should shut your mouth.
Unable to find a useful charge from the Bill of Rights, I consult the UN 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. With 30 Articles with which to work, I can find something to charge the culprit with crimes against humanity.
A rightwingnut can't take a breath without violating one Article or another. If he has actuated his words with deeds, he is dead meat. Anyone who is really interested in prosecuting public officials can do this in his spare time like a hobby.
by
Jason Paz (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 72 comments)
on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 11:28:47 AM
Yes, I'm smaller than even that dinky guy, and I have to say that I agree with his approach AND what you say. These people have become totally dangerous, with unconstitutional private militias who have shoot-to-kill immunity from murdering Americans, and having taken the rights to DICTATE over Americans. We have no other options besides Ron Paul, and now Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party.
We have to HIT THEM HARD, be PERSISTENT, and NEVER GIVE UP or we'll lose our country and it could be decades before we get it back. We will be so impoverished at that point that we'll be lucky to attain to third world status- it is NOW OR NEVER.
by
MSchaut (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 12:27:26 PM
He mouths support for the Constitution, pretends to be a "Constitutionalist," but then lifts NOT ONE FINGER to actually DO anything to support the impeachment of Dick Cheney, preferring to stay in the good graces of the Republican Establishment, the same corrupt set of fascists that gave us Bush and Blackwater. It's clear as crystal that Ron Paul cares not one whit about his oath to "support and defend the Constitution against all enemies ..."
Paul is NOT anything like a "Constitutionalist." If he was, he'd have cosigned the Cheney impeachment resolution, H.R. 799. Paul has no commitment to the Constitution.
Don't be fooled.
Paul is a fake.
by
Chris Borland (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 12:38:04 PM
. . .I and a whole host of other bloggers back in January exposed Ron Paul's backing by a virtual "Who's Who" of the Extreme Right -- including former KKK leader David Duke and avowed "white nationalists" Don Black and Ron Doggett -- right around the time that Paul's old racist newsletters resurfaced in the mainstream media.
And unlike Barack Obama, who denounced Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and John McCain, who denounced Rev. John Hagee, Paul, has, to this day, refused to denounce any of his racist backers.
Is it any wonder that the GOP has ignored him (Even though he's still officially in the race, having won a measley 21 delegates)?
by
Skeeter Sanders (32 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 1:16:11 PM
Why should Ron Paul waste his time tilting at windmils? It's the Democrats that you need to point the finger at. They're the ones that control congress & won't impeach the bums:
The reason for their inaction is that they don't want to take any power away from the presidency. They want to gain that power for themselves. The usual R & D shell game.
"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies."
--Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope (1966)
by
Darren Wolfe (4 articles, 124 quicklinks, 78 diaries, 595 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 5:47:17 PM
Hit Back Harder and deeper at Failed Conservative Values
I'm proposing that Progressives start using the phrase, Failed Conservative Values and tie their critiques of Conservativism to it.
Repeat it over and over again until it becomes as common as the terms Family Values or Traditional Values.
Try it it. Make a critique of a conservative policy or action, but tie it back to the deeper conservative values that underlie it. Then call it what it really is, a Failed Conservative Value. It's a great conservation starter with Conservatives as well. It leads to fun conversations. Tell them Conservative Values have Failed. Be respectful, you are not criticizing them as human beings, but their failed values, (we all have those and need to grow) suggest they need to start looking for some other values, and make the case for trying progressive values of empathy, caring, community, equality, justice, etc.
I'm off now to Fresno to the California Democratic Council Convention of CA democratic clubs. Will video tape and gather more Failed Conservative Values Stories to share with you.
edwin
by
Edwin Rutsch (57 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 138 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 12:44:40 PM
Comment is flagged and has been reviewed by the editors -
Reason: Inappropriate Content
Editor's Message: I, too, find this language highly offensive and inappropriate as a comment to an article. If there is something of substance to be said, perhaps you would like to submit your ideas in a diary report but this comment should be removed from the site.
Deborah
EDITOR’S NOTE: While this comment may be construed as offensive, I think for the purpose of this article it is important to show it in order to demonstrate the immense, myopic hated and disingenuousness of right-wingers and allow OEN members to offer their insight to “hit back harder.” - Frank J. Ranelli, Senior Editor OEN
First of all, you're not progressives, your lowlife scumbag communists, fascists, authoritarians, socialists.
...and here are some of my quotes from out of your heroes' mouths:
"Democracy is the road to socialism.” - Karl Marx
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism', they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without ever knowing how it happened." -- Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party Presidential candidate
"The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism." - Karl Marx
"The democratic concept of man is false, because it is Christian. The democratic concept holds that . . . each man is a sovereign being. This is the illusion, dream, and postulate of Christianity." - Karl Marx
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people as long as government is perceived as working for the benefit of children, the people happily will endure almost any curtailment of liberty." -- Adolf Hitler
"Take away the heritage of a people and they are easily persuaded." - Karl Marx
When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already. . . . What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community." Adolf Hitler(1889 - 1945) Source: 1933, quoted in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, "Education in the Third Reich"
What luck for the rulers that men do not think. Adolf Hitler(1889 - 1945)
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. Adolf Hitler(1889 - 1945)
During his years as Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels employed a simple, but highly cynical set of rules. He said:
There is no truth, only what people believe to be true.
Control people’s perceptions of the world and you can control their beliefs.
A big lie is as believable as a small one.
Tell people what they want to hear; give them simple solutions to complex problems, enemies on whom they can blame their discontents, and promises to satisfy their narrow aspirations…
So what part of Goebbels’ cynical philosophy does not describe the overall political approach of today’s Democrat Party? - Paul Hollrah
"It would be the greatest mistake, certainly, to think that concessions mean peace. Nothing of the kind. Concessions are nothing but a new form of war." -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin [Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov] (1870 - 1924), First Leader of the Soviet Union
"It would be the greatest mistake, certainly, to think that concessions mean peace. Nothing of the kind. Concessions are nothing but a new form of war." -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin [Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov] (1870 - 1924), First Leader of the Soviet Union
"One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths are a statistic." -- Josef Stalin (1879-1953) Communist leader/dictator of the USSR(Who was once openly admired by Amerikan "Liberals," until his murderous ways became public knowledge and he was no longer politically correct.)
"If the opposition disarms, all is well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves." - Josef Stalin * The Political Report of the Central Committee, The Fifteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) (7 December 1927)
"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?" - Josef Stalin
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)
your lowlife scumbag communists, fascists, authoritarians,
This is a perfect example of Failed Conservative Values, - Name calling, demeaning talk, put downs, meanness, nastiness as part of an authoritarian value system. Conservatives make it so easy to point out how their values have failed. The more they do this the more they prove the point.
by
Edwin Rutsch (57 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 138 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 12:50:54 PM
...that is what they always do. It's called losing the debate! They have no foundation in arguable points or facts to defend their wrongs so they resort to the lowest form of communication.
by
Michael Shaw (7 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 310 comments)
on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 7:55:24 AM
What part of Hitler's or Lenin's quotes don't echo Bush?
I'm afraid the lies are mostly being told by the current administration.
Marx, Lenin, Hitler have never been my heroes, so Mr. Bright's comments can be ignored following his first sentence.
Failed Bush strategies are obvious in our highest ever deficits and debt, failed policies in Iraq and Afghanistan and N Korea and... the list is too long.
Mr. Bright, see you in heaven when your attitude changes... as it inevitably will. Love outlasts hate, and always wins in the end.
by
Jerry McIntire (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 1:51:36 PM
As a regular poster on my hometown Gazette, I am among mostly Rush and O'Reilly echo chambers, and I have been hitting them with facts all along. I have a notebook full of post-it notes from 1000's of proof of facts, quotes, and laws that I use as my defense tools. I wish I had organized it but using them so often against the right wingers, I have memorized much of it.
I too am one of those shorties, standing a tall 4'10" and weighing less than a buck ten. However, I have a sword (my words) that knocks them right out of the park in most cases. Some ppl have called me a "chihuahua" which I take offense, but gladly welcome myself as the pest against their redundant shibboleth and lies.
Btw, I couldn't access (AOL blocked?) your third page so I hope you didn't have this quote:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."~~Margaret Mead
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shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 273 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 12:54:17 PM
Barry, you have nailed it; the lie that "perception is reality" wasn't really begun with Hitler's crew, but they made it work in their great brainwash. Now, Karl Rove, considered the top "pundit" on the planet, has swallowed it whole in pursuit of the neocommunist agenda that has ruined our democracy.
All your quotes from Marx indicate you think he and Lenin are the same. Marx and the other early socialists were democratic until Lenin killed them all off and replaced them with the neocons of his time, the Bolsheviks.
Also, you failed conservatives are all out of date still hammering on "liberals." Just to help you catch up on your own propaganda, liberals are all washed up. There aren't any left.
You need to gear up to create hate for "progressives" now. You and Rush are about the only ones still that out of touch.
Here is yours and Karl Rove's neo-national-socialist creed:
There is no truth, only what people believe to be true.
Control people's perceptions of the world and you can control their beliefs.
A big lie is as believable as a small one.
Tell people what they want to hear; give them simple solutions to complex problems, enemies on whom they can blame their discontents, and promises to satisfy their narrow aspirations...
Thanks for demonstrating that brainwashing works.
by
Jay Farrington (13 articles, 2 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 137 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 1:39:25 PM
that every debate, every discussion can be done only after two paramount principles are followed: 1)both sides are on the equal basis and 2) there is at least something in common. The first one presumes that there can be no real debate between, say a regular Joe and Cheney or Bush because they are on the very different levels, not equal and unless Bush or Cheney ACKNNOWLEDGE that they are on the equal grounds as Joe, the discussion is hopeless. The second one means that if there is nothing in common, like when a multimillionaire tells you to be more responsible with your money, then there is nothing to discuss. One of the cases when there is nothing to discuss is when you can recognize that the opponent does not want the truth or seek the truth- the opponent has an agenda, he/she is doing it for some particualr malicious goal and just uses the debate for those purposes. That is very easily recognizable. In such case the debate is not to be commensed.
We must understand that we here are fighting for survival. Our lives, the lives of our children are at stake. We cannot afford to be polite, to be tolerant, to be all- inclusive when malice is on the prowl big time. We need to learn to recognize malice and stop it right and for all.
by
Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3359 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 1:54:51 PM
If "hitting back harder at inane right-wing gibberish" is to be the mantra, I say "sure, why not." If it's to be "don't just complain; do something", I say "sure, why not." If it's "actions speak louder than words", well, that's probably true too.
Let's start with this little slogan: "the pen is mightier than the sword." Is it fair to extend that theme to the keyboard?
And we've all heard this one: "the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." Well, paralysis through analysis aside, the journey becomes much longer and much more difficult if that "one step" is a step in the wrong direction. I'll go with "look before you leap."
To me, the idea that action in the streets is somehow implicitly better than thought and writing and discourse is strangely misguided. I don't wish to suggest that we're confronted with an "either-or" choice. Still, it seems to me that before rallying the masses into frenzied confrontation, we might first build a sturdy platform of ideas. We "web warriors" have thus far failed in our mission to do that. The truth is, the left is very badly fragmented. Want some examples?
Try calling for nationalizing Big Oil as I have. Try calling for mandatory restrictions on auto use. Try calling for capping wealth and capping the size of estate inheritances to fight against inter-generational ruling classes. I've written numerous essays on these subjects on various websites. The responses, to say the least, were all over the place. As the old song goes: "And it's one, two, three what are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn."
Look at the wide rift between what I'll call the "socialist left" and the liberal Democrats. In fact, look at the rift between those who endorse "capitalism with oversight" versus those who see capitalism, as I do, as inherently undemocratic. If we go to the streets, which vision prevails if we succeed?
The danger I see with the "this is all Bush's fault" or "smack down those damned neo-cons" or "liberals need to stop getting picked on" is NOT that these aren't all perfectly reasonable perspectives but that it creates a vague implication that "the other guys", i.e. the NOT neo-cons, somehow have a view that will solve the nation's many urgent problems. Are we being asked to enlist in a conflict with those who lack a "solving vision?"
If challenged to "write the battle plan", I certainly don't have all the answers. The overly simplistic "take down a neo-con", however, feels like a dead-end to me. I think those who write here need to find a better way to carve out a platform. No, we'll never agree on every detail of every issue. What I'd like to see, though, is more focus on building a core platform. This platform would start with a foundation of core values and then would prioritize several of the most critical and urgent issues and propose laws and policies to implement the best solutions.
Actions may speak louder than words but greater volume should not be the goal. Words, the right words, the right words that define our vision, speak more wisely than mere action. Speaking first, building consensus, and then acting wisely based on our shared values, should be the goal.
by
welshTerrier2 (7 articles, 3 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 105 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 1:57:46 PM
