Seeds of Revolution: A Collection of Axioms, Passages and Proverbs, Volume 2

By Iam A. Freeman

A Collection of Axioms, Passages & Proverbs From
Che Guevara Bob Marley Mao Tse Tung George Jackson Noam Chomsky Patrice Lumumba Leonard Peltier Richard Pryor Bruce Lee H. Rap Brown Will Rogers Kwame Ture Plato Chief Seattle Maurice Bishop Anne Wilson Schaef Martin Luther King, Jr. Mahatma Gandhi Helen Keller Stevie Wonder Buddha Fidel Castro Ptah-Hotep Denzel Washington Socrates Karl Marx Arundhati Roy Paul Robeson Zhuge Liang Malcolm X Confucius Sekou Toure Marvin Gaye Mother Jones Hugo Chavez Kwame Nkrumah Ho Chi Minh Amilcar Cabral Eugene V. Debs Jose Mart James Loewen Marcus Garvey Augusto Sandino Aesops Fables Harriet Tubman Chief Joseph Frantz Fanon Mark Twain Simon Bolivar Thomas Sankara Lao Tzu Miriam Makeba Howard Zinn Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Subcomandante Marcos Mumia Abu-Jamal Kim Il Sung Sitting Bull W.E.B. Du Bois Red Cloud Paramahansa Yogananda David Walker Assata Shakur Albert Camus Steve Biko KRS-One George Santayana Carter G. Woodson Black Hawk Muhammad Ali John Lennon Chuck D John H. Clarke I Ching Jean-Jacques Rousseau Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Victor Hugo Salvador Allende Dick Gregory Emiliano Zapata Oprah Winfrey Upton Sinclair Bill Cosby Cesar Chavez John Brown Various International Proverbs Jack London Henry David Thoreau Frederick Douglass Emma Goldman Michael Jordan George Orwell Rage Against The Machine Albert Einstein Kareem Abdul-Jabar Voltaire Thomas Carlyle Lauryn Hill Sojourner Truth Depak Chopra The Bible Prophet Muhammad Rumi V.I. Lenin Meister Eckhart Fred Hampton Michael Moore The Tao George Carlin Ralph Nader Rosa Parks Margaret Storm Jameson Louis Farrakhan Nina Simone Yuri Kochiyama Woody Guthrie Bertrand Russell Rosa Luxemburg Willie Nelson Joan Baez Bhagavad-Gita Gen. Smedley Butler Fyodor Dostoyevsky Duke Ellington Ralph Waldo Emerson Jawanza Kunjufu Erich Fromm Jimi Hendrix Big Elk Fannie Lou Hamer Immanuel Kant Ziggy Marley Poor Richards Almanac Public Enemy Bill Russell Kenneth Stampp Spock Peter Tosh Nat Turner Desmond Tutu Sun Tzu Booker T. Washington Saul Alinsky The Zulu Declaration Brother

A Collection of Axioms, Passages & Proverbs On
God Faith Endurance Agitate Organize Unity Commun-all-ism Comrades Enemies No (Know) Sellouts United Snakes of America The Rich & Greedy Warmongers The Slick, Selfish & Wicked The Humble, Righteous & Just Resistance Independence Criticism/Self-Criticism Time Tell-Lie-Vision Poverty/Class Struggle Poli-tricks The (In) Just-Us System Women Children Family Pride Death Culture History Slavery The African Holocaust The Question of Race Religion Money Work Education Knowledge & Wisdom Political Power Socialism Revolution Free the Land Afreeka God

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781450200233

Iam A. Freeman

IAM A. FREEMAN was born Todd A. McCain in 1965 to the parents of Ralph and Laura McCain. He is a graduate of Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Seeds of Revolution is the result of eighteen years of work compiling quotations, passages, and proverbs on the world-wide humanitarian experience. He is married to Terri L. McCain. They have one daughter and two sons, Sankara, Taaj-Yera and Kalonji. This is his first book.

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Copyright © 2009, 2014 by Todd McCain

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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iUniverse rev. date: 03/05/2015

Contents

Editor’s Dedication

Symbol Chart

Editor’s Notes

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Chapter 22 Poli-tricks

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Chapter 23 The (In)Just-Us System

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Chapter 24 Women

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Chapter 25 Children

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Chapter 26 Family

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Chapter 27 Pride

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Chapter 28 Death

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Chapter 29 Culture/Identity … Who Are You?

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Chapter 30 History

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Chapter 31 Slavery

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Chapter 32 The African Holocaust

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Chapter 33 The Question of Race and the Race Question

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Chapter 34 Religion?

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Chapter 35 Money

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Chapter 36 Work

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Chapter 37 Education

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Chapter 38 Knowledge & Wisdom

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Chapter 39 Political Power

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Chapter 40 Revolution

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Chapter 41 Socialism

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Chapter 42 Free The Land

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Chapter 43 Afreeka and Pan-Africanism

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Chapter 44 God

Editor’s Conclusion

Seeds of Revolution Volumes 1 and 2 Bibliography

Editor’s Dedication

To God, The Creator,

my family,

the ancestors,

unborn babes,

and uncreated worlds …

Assante Sanna … Many Thanks

Seeds of Revolution

seed(s): a beginning source: ORIGIN.

of: characterized or identified by, with reference to: ABOUT, produced by, centering on: directed toward.

revolution: an abrupt political overthrow or seizure of power brought about from within a given system.

~Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary 1984~

A beginning source directed toward an abrupt political overthrow or seizure of power brought about from within a given system.

~Iam A. Freeman~

Symbol Chart

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Gye Nyame

"Omnipotence of God"

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Nyame Biribi Wo Soro

"Hope"

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Hye Wonhye

"Imperishability & Endurance"

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Nkyimu

"Skillfulness & Precision"

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Akoma Ntoso

"Understanding & Agreement"

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Odo Nnyew Fie Kwan

"Power of Love"

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Ese Ne Tek Rema

"Friendship & Interdependence"

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Tamfo Bebre

"The Enemy Will Stew in His Own Juice"

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Kintinan

"Arrogance, Extravagance"

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Sepow

"The Executioner’s Knife"

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Sebek

"Cunning, Treachery & Deceit"

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Aya

"Defiance Against Difficulties"

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Obi Nka Bi

"Warning Against Backbiting"

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Dwenini Mmen

"Strength of Humility"

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Akoben

"Summon to a Collective Action and Call for Arms"

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Mframadan

"Wind-Resistant House"

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Hwemudua

"Examination"

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Mmmere Dane

"Time Changes"

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Bi Nka Bi

"Caution Against Provocation and Strife"

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Kramo Bone Amma Yeanhu Kramo Pa

"Warning Against Deception and Hypocrisy"

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Fafanto (The Butterfly)

"The Butterfly may be Fluttering Around a Pot of Palm Wine,

But will not Drink it, for it Cannot Afford to Buy."

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Tikorommpam

"One Head Does Not Constitute a Council"

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Epa

"You are the Subject of He Whose Handcuffs are Around Your Hands"

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Duafe

"Good Feminine Qualities"

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Akoko Nan

"Protectiveness and Parental Duties"

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Ebanui

"Safety & Love"

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Nsaa

Excellence, Genuineness & Authenticity

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Owuo Atwedee

"The Transitory Nature of Existence in this World and to Live a Good Life to be a Worthy Soul in the Afterlife"

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Sankofa

"Learning from the Past"

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Sankofa

"Learning from History"

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The African Slave Trade

"Am I Not a Man and a Brother?"

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Nkyinkyim

"Ability to Withstand Hardships"

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Nkonsonkonson

"Unity of Human Relations"

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Sunsum

"Spiritual Purity & Sanctity of Soul"

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Money

"The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil"

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Sesa Woruban

"Transformation"

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Dame Dame

"Intelligence & Ingenuity"

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Mate Masie

"Knowledge & Wisdom"

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Owo Foro Adobe

"Steadfastness, Prudence & Diligence"

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Lotus

"Birth & Dawn … A New Beginning and an Old End"

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Boa Me Na Me Mmoa Wo

"Help Me and Let Me Help You"

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Asase Ye Duru

The Divinity of Mother Earth

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Bese Saka

"Affluence, Power, Abundance, Plenty, Togetherness and Unity"

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Pictured from left to right: Taaj-Yera, Terri, Iam A. Freeman, Kalonji, & Sankara

Photo by Beautybydivine.com

Editor’s Notes

In order to express the purpose of this book, i must begin with my personal roots and the significant events that helped mold and shape me first as a human being and second as the editor of this book of axioms, passages, and proverbs. In case you are wondering why the word I is written lowercased instead of capitalized, let me assure you that i am not grammatically incompetent, and i fully understand how to write the word i. The lowercased spelling of the word i is a small attempt to become less selfish, less self-centered and more egalitarian and communal. Using a small i conveys such meaning as: i am we, i am no greater than we, and i will never know more than all of us. With that being said, i will humbly attempt to explain the purpose of this book.

i was born in 1965 to Ralph & Laura McCain. i was born during the height of the Civil Rights Era and the beginning of the Black Power Movement in America. i was in my Mother’s womb when Malcolm X was assassinated and just out of diapers when Martin Luther King, Jr. was martyred. Like all human beings, my early education helped lay the foundation for my belief system, and this book has been written upon it. i attended a Catholic School named St. Monica. It was located in the heart of the midtown area of industrialized Gary, IN, a steel/steal/kill/mill town. It was a town where the major steel industry (U.S. Steel) stole from the laborers and economy while killing the environment. Even during my childhood, Gary, IN was considered a ‘chocolate city.’ The school i attended, St. Monica, was named after an African woman who lived over 1600 years ago. St. Monica was the mother of St. Augustine. The name and origin of St. Monica were significant to the overall spirit of the school. We did not have the finest educational edifices or state-of-the-art educational facilities. There were no athletic complexes or even hot lunches, for that matter. Our classes were held in either an old, wood-framed building or portable trailers. We did not have swing sets, monkey bars, see-saws, sandlots, or sliding boards. We had a parking lot to play in and lots of imagination. Another thing we did have at school was soul. And when i say soul, i mean a spirit that no legislator can legislate, architect can build, or purchase order can buy. St. Monica’s student body was ninety-nine percent of African descent. Most of the children were the first-generation transplants of parents who moved from southern states like Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia and Alabama to the north to work in the steel/steal/kill mills. The spiritual and cultural foundation of St. Monica was phenomenal. We were African-centered well before the term was ever coined. At St. Monica, instead of giving honor roll certificates or ribbons, we were given ‘Black Excellence’ pins to wear on our uniformed shirts and dresses. At St. Monica, we were taught our history and how vital it was to celebrate the legacy of our African roots. On Fridays, the students at St. Monica would wear African dashikis to church and sing to the heavens at Catholic Mass while jamming with students on stage that played bongos, percussive sticks, acoustic guitars, maracas and tambourines. We sang spiritual songs from the tops of our lungs and sounded like Gary’s own Jackson 5 x 500. In every classroom, there were depictions of Jesus and the Saints, and they had skin complexions like toasted ‘brass’ and hair like ‘wool.’ In the late Sixties and Seventies, St. Monica celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. on every January 15th. This school celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. long before the United States Government (the same government implicated in the surveillance and assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.) ever did. Our school even gave us a day off from school … long before the government ever legislated or any president signed it into law. On the Friday before every January 15th, we would have a special mass in honor of Dr. King. i remember that, during one particular MLK birthday celebration when i was around 10 years old, i was listening and participating in the special mass and a thought hit me like a blinding light and revelation. i remember being awed by the feeling of adoration for Martin Luther King, Jr. because he died for me, and he didn’t even know my name. i fell in love with those who took the road of martyrdom, and i distinctly remember saying to myself, i want to live and die like Martin Luther King, Jr. Coupled with reading, writing, and arithmetic; the students at St. Monica were taught respect, given warmth, and garnered affection. My experience from Kindergarten to the sixth grade in being nurtured, loved, and cultured while being academically trained lit a fire in me that has yet to be extinguished and now gives a basis and foundation for writing this book.

After graduating from high school, i decided to give Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA a try. My choice of higher education couldn’t have been better nor could it have been sweeter. It is really true that the Blacker the College, the Sweeter the Knowledge. Southern University, like St. Monica, was nurturing and enlightening. i found that it was truly refreshing to go to college in a place i had never been before. The different cultural experiences of Louisiana and most of all, the variety of people i met from not only Louisiana but all over the country and the world forever changed my outlook on life. At Southern University, i was bitten by the bug of political organization, and it gave me the fever of agitating and organizing. i became involved for the first time in Student Government, organizing, meeting, planning, and speaking in front of microphones as well as on top of stumps and soapboxes. i saw the power of college students and how the thinking habits acquired in college help shape your ideals in man and womanhood. While attending Southern University, my cousin played an audio tape of Malcolm X for me. Unfortunately, i must confess, i knew who Malcolm X was yet had never heard any of his speeches or read any of his writings—and this was 1986, 21 years after his physical assassination. When i heard Malcolm’s House Negro … Field Negro speech for the very first time, it turned a light on inside my dimmed political and cultural soul. Malcolm’s words from the grave taught me the importance of connecting to one’s motherland. Malcolm’s words from the grave taught me how; throughout history, the image of Africa was hijacked and hi-jinxed. His words illustrated how the negative image of Africa produced a negative effect in the minds of people of African descent all over the world, and especially in the minds of those who were the descendants of enslaved Africans in America. From the grave, Malcolm X taught me the importance of agitating and organizing not only in the U.S. but internationally. After this fuse was lit, i decided to join an organization, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party. This organization instilled in me the concept of Pan-Africanism, an ideology that looked toward a united Africa, a United States of Africa if you will, as the solution for African people on the continent and also abroad. Pan-Africanism embraced the philosophies of, to name a few, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Malcolm X, W.E.B. Du Bois and others who understood the primacy of Africa. The concept of Pan-Africanism embraced the economic system of socialism, the concept that labor, land, and this planet’s resources should be owned by the people—not some people or a few people, the land and its resources belong to all the people. It begs the question: can someone own the sky, clouds, rain, rainbow, wind, sun, moon or morning dew? Of course not! If an individual cannot own what is part of or above the sky, why should the multinational corporations and cartels seize and control what is below the sky? Therefore, the economic principles of socialism grasp the concept that the copper, oil, utilities, uranium, diamonds, rubber tree sap, mangoes, peanuts, or nutmeg does not belong to one or a few people, multinational corporations or cartels. The fruits of the Earth belong to all of its inhabitants. In the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, there were work-study circles where student members would collectively study certain books written by revolutionary thinkers and organizers. Through work-study, the words of W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, V.I. Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Rosa Luxemburg, and Mao Tse-tung were given life and collective meaning. i became exposed to the philosophies and opinions of those people that i had often been discouraged from studying and learning about by the powers that be. Through reading and studying collectively, i became politically and culturally conscious, where the sleeping human being in me began to open his eyes and arise from a political and cultural slumber. i began to understand that the truth is simply the truth in all languages, cultures and corners of the world. i began to realize the fact that most people of the world, regardless of language, culture, or skin complexion, had common problems. i also began to fully understand that most people of the world, regardless of language, culture, or skin complexion had common solutions. International organization and solidarity of the laborers and students became a tenet in my political spirit. i fully understood that people from A-Z, literally from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, had expressed a common statement among their various cultures and languages: We deserve to be and will be free!

In 1994, i became a ‘family man.’ i became the husband of Terri McCain. We are the parents of three children, one daughter, Sankara (means ‘determination’), and two sons, Taaj-Yera (means ‘crown of a warrior’) and Kalonji (means ‘man of victory’). i am convinced that God, often in bright, blinking, neon lights, places the handwriting on the wall. The very first day i met my wife, a voice inside of me said, One day that woman will be your wife, … and as fate would have it, two years later, we were married. Being a husband and father has instilled in me the importance of my biological family also being my ideological family. We have tried to instill in our children ‘to be as wise as serpents and humble as doves.’ We have instilled in our children that the true measure of their worth is how they make others stronger. Being a husband and a father has been the most treasured and essential role that i have had to fulfill. i feel truly honored for others to depend on me as i depend on them. From the conception and the gestation of this book, it has been my family’s encouragement and patience that have fueled me in birthing this collection of axioms, passages, and proverbs.

In 1996, an idea was instilled in me to capture various quotes from many historical individuals. Originally, i was going to compile a small, pocket-sized quotation book, of the kind that is sold at bookstore cash registers in point-of-purchase displays. This kind of small quotation book is a little bigger than a large book of matches. Originally, the book of quotations and proverbs was going to be about 40 pages. After i began to read and research various books, the small novelty book of quotations grew and now, 18 years later, it has grown into a two-volume 1,400 page book. In a three-year span, i read and researched over 120 books, quotation websites, and articles from every ethnic source possible. i would read five and six books simultaneously. i read and quoted the likes of Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara, Stephen Biko, and Patrice Lumumba of Africa. i read and quoted the likes of Bruce Lee, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse-tung and Confucius from Asia, and also quoted, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Joan of Arc, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Lenin and Marx of Europe. The quotes of Latin American and Caribbean thinkers Fidel Castro, Augusto Sandino, Simón Bolívar, Maurice Bishop, Bob Marley and Che Guevara are also included in this collection. i could not leave out the quotation jewels of thought from this country by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Assata Shakur, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Pryor and Malcolm X along with Eugene V. Debs, Will Rogers, Mother Jones, and Henry David Thoreau. i also began to quote various spiritual icons like Jesus the Christ, Prophet Muhammad, Ptah-Hotep, Aesop, and Buddha, as well as the Bhagavad-Gita and Hindu Proverbs, to name a few. You see, i tried to exhaust every source of humanity for enlightenment and truth. In editing and composing these passages from various individuals during this 18-year journey of research and editing, i have compiled a book that blends the truth from various individuals’ quotations and various international proverbs. It was truly amazing that what Ptah-Hotep said 5,000 years ago coincided with what Aesop and Confucius said in different parts of the world about 2,500 years ago. What Confucius and Aesop said some 2,500 years ago coincided with what Jesus said 2,000 years ago. What Jesus said 2,000 years ago coincided with what Harriet Tubman said over one hundred years ago. What Harriet Tubman said over one hundred years ago coincided with what Malcolm X, Ho Chi Minh and Bruce Lee said during the last 50 years. And most importantly, what was said years ago is what today’s and tomorrow’s generations will believe 24 hours from now! In researching various people from various times and places, i understood that truth is truth. Truth dissolves geographical borders. Truth defies time, matter and space. During my journey of research, it was amazing to see how proverbs from Africa and China coincided with proverbs from Ireland or Chile. Regardless of longitude or latitude, people from all over the world had the same attitude towards life. These various international proverbs would repeat the same sentiments, although their origin was miles, hemispheres or time zones apart. Proverbs from all over the world would gleam like an individual facet in a diamond where wisdom and knowledge, regardless of geographical positions on the globe, contributed to the intellectual glamour of a brilliant planet Earth.

In the last 18 years, i have enjoyed the journey of editing and composing these axioms, passages, and proverbs. The title, Seeds of Revolution, signifies the fact that each of the axioms, passages, and proverbs represents a seed that can be planted within one’s spirit. Seeds of Revolution mean that each quote or proverb, like a seed, awaits the fertile garden in which it will be sewn. Each proverb and quotation is designed to take root in the reader and, hopefully, inspire and encourage positive, fundamental change in the world in which we live. These quotations and proverbs were designed to inspire revolutionary thought and change. When i say revolutionary thought and change, it is meant that these words can teach those who starve how to grow their own crops. When i say revolutionary thought and change, what is meant is the empowering of powerless people. When i say revolutionary thought and change, this means giving sight to the politically and economically blind. Revolutionary thought and change mean we begin to understand that the world is an abundant buffet, and every human being is entitled to eat and drink FOR FREE. We must create a world wherein every human being is afforded everything needed to contribute to everyone’s society. We all do better when we all do better! On that note, i humbly offer you Seeds of Revolution, Vols. 1 & 2: A Collection of Axioms, Passages and Proverbs.

~Iam A. Freeman~

Editor

World Harvest Press

2014

Chapter 22

Poli-tricks

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Tikorommpam

One Head Does Not Constitute a Council

Poli-tricks

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Tikorommpam

One Head Does Not Constitute a Council

Reflection

on

Poli-tricks

Politics with all of its lies and deceit becomes poli-tricks. It is full of dishonesty, trickery, chicanery, and fraud. Poli-tricks is allowed because the majority of the working and poor classes are mentally asleep. What luck for rulers that men do not think. (Adolf Hitler) Politics or in this case poli-tricks are designed to dupe and lie to its constituents. It has misled and fooled the overwhelmingly majority of people with the belief that they can depend on the government. Vote for me and I will set you free is the type of dung-crap that is spoon-fed to the mass populace. When, in fact, most governmental officials and poli-tricksters are no better than $2 hookers. They prostitute their power and prestige to the highest corporate bidder. They lend all of their allegiance and attention to those who donate the most to their political coiffures. We don’t have a democracy … We have an auction. (Northern Sun Merchandising Bumper Sticker) Poli-tricksters are pimped by special-interest lobbyist and like common call girls and harlots, they are willing to perform any act for their corporate johns. Poli-tricks are controlled by a hidden hand. To hell with the common folk, their so-called constituents. Poli-tricksters adhere only to the corporate hands who feed them. All of them listen to their master’s voice, the steel trust, the aluminum trust, the rubber combine, the automobile industry; oil, power, plastics, the railroads, tobacco, copper, chemicals and Coca-Cola, telegraph and telephone; liquor, radio and movie … (W.E.B. Du Bois)

Most politicians are like snakes … they have forked tongues. They speak double talk and talk double speak and damn near everything that they say is a propagandized lie. Poli-tricksters lifeblood is deceit and dishonesty. They make the lie-telling puppet, Pinocchio, look like a squeaky-clean altar boy. They must fool and deceive the masses of their so-called constituents. Poli-tricksters must create fairy-tales and fabrications in order not to reveal their true intentions and to protect the hidden hand of the puppeteer masters of the corporate world. Therefore, the entire actors’ guild of Holly-weird cannot compare to the theatrics of electoral officials. And this year’s academy award goes to… many elected officials ranging from Presidents to city councilman. Poli-tricksters introduce, lobby and eventually pass laws that they break every day. Thou shall not steal … because the government hates competition! The government is full of graft, corruption, pay-offs, and buy-offs. They talk good but do evil. Some members of Congress are the best actors in the world. (Shirley Chisholm) The national pastime in this country is not sex and it’s not baseball. It’s lying. (Dick Gregory) "To deceive a diplomat, speak the truth, he has no experience with it." (Greek Proverb)

While comprehending the fact that most poli-tricksters cannot tell the truth, we also must comprehend the fact that there is little difference between the core of the Republican Party and the core of the Democratic Party. Within the core of both parties is the undeniable fact that they are controlled by the rich, and they really have more in common than differences. Bipartisan indeed! The difference between the Democratic and Republican Party can be compared to the difference between a snake and a serpent. The difference between the Democratic and Republican Party can be compared to the difference between the devil and Satan. When the smoke clears and the chips fall where they may, both elitist political parties are twins. In fact, the Democratic and the Republican Parties are inseparable Siamese twins. They may appear to have two different heads but they both have the same beating heart, a heart the beats greed and corruption. The choice between Republicans and Democrats is like choosing between a Phillips head screwdriver and a standard screwdriver. Regardless of the choices or type of political party, the common folks, both get screwed. There is no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. (H. Rap Brown) As one devil goes out, another one comes in. (Proverb of Lithuania)

In western capitalistic societies, electoral politics where citizens are conditioned to going every four years behind some curtain to vote for Candidate A or Candidate B can be compared to the placebo effect of a sugar pill for a dying patient. We vote with the greatest confidence that this is how democracies are run. However, in reality, it is not who casts the votes but who counts them. Several presidential elections in America have been given to candidates who lost the popular vote. We don’t have elections. We have (s)elections. Voting does not free people. If it did, we would be on the yellow brick road to the promise land. i am not advocating the abstinence of electoral voting. However, i am advocating the fact that isn’t what it is cracked up to be. Voting cannot and will not give oppressed people independence and self-determination alone. You strangle them, you starve them, and then you have an election and everybody talks about how wonderful democracy is. (Noam Chomsky) What better way to enslave a man, than give him the vote and call him free. (Albert Camus)

Oppressed people must sever the dependency they have on poli-tricksters. Understand that the overwhelming majority of poli-tricksters don’t give a damn about those who kiss their rings and vote them in office every four years. Oppressed people must expose poli-tricksters for what they are liars, hypocrites, and fraudulent pretenders. Poli-tricksters only think of the oppressed masses on the eve of their coveted elections. And if by chance poli-tricksters offer support or influence, believe you, me, they want much more in return. Beware of the stable of Trojan horses for he who controls your purse strings controls your politics. Oppressed people must depend on themselves and not political prostitutes who cater to their corporate clients. Do not depend on the promises of those whose interest it is to deceive you. (Aesop) Often one does not give or get a gift without a motive. (African Proverb) All are not friends who smile at you. (Proverb of Holland

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Quotations

on

Poli-tricks

What luck for rulers that men do not think.

~Adolf Hitler~

Politics is built on gullibility.

~Anne Wilson Schaef~

Thus a wise prince will think of ways to keep his citizens of every sort and under every circumstance dependent on the state and on him; and then they will always be trustworthy.

~Niccolo Machiavelli~

In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.

~Napoleon Bonaparte~

If you ever injected truth into politics you’d have no politics.

~Will Rogers~

Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.

~Emma Goldman~

Politics no interest me. Dem Devil business … Dem a play with people’s minds. Never play with people’s minds.

~Bob Marley~

I am not a politician … I only suffer the consequences.

~Peter Tosh~

Our politicians have sacrificed their principles on the altar of special interests; our corporate leaders have sacrificed their integrity on the altar of profits; and our media watchdogs have sacrificed the voice of dissent on the altar of audience competition.

~Cornel West~

The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

~Emma Goldman~

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.

~Gore Vidal~

Make people depend on you. More is to be gained from such dependence than courtesy. He who has slaked his thirst, immediately turns his back on the well, no longer needing it. When dependence disappears, so does civility and decency, and then respect.

~Baltasar Gracian~

We have received only tokens, substitutes, trickery, and deceit.

~Malcolm X~

Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

~George Orwell~

Most adult Americans no longer trust the government as credulously as they did in the 1950’s.

~James W. Loewen~

A fool and his money will soon be elected.

~Will Rogers~

Since you can never believe anything the government says, it’s impossible to trust a single piece of their evidence.

~Leonard Peltier~

The leaders celebrate the victory, whereas the rank-and-file have a strong suspicion that they have been cheated.

~Frantz Fanon~

Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

~Will Rogers~

In white america, if the President or Senator Dipshit says it, no one challenges it. It can be wrong as hell, but everybody applauds anyway. I don’t give a shit who says what. If the muthafucka is wrong, he’s wrong.

~H. Rap Brown~

In politics … never retreat, never retract … never admit a mistake.

~Napoleon Bonaparte~

Your motto is service. Back on the farm, when I heard that the bull was servicing the cows, I looked behind the barn. And gentlemen, what that bull was doing to the cow is exactly what you people have been doing to the public all these years.

~Will Rogers~

Politics nasty.

~Bob Marley~

Whether elected or appointed, public officials serve those who put and keep them in office. We cannot depend upon them to fight our battles.

~Charles Hamilton Houston~

The problem with depending on a government is that you can’t depend on it.

~Tony Brown~

Politicians rule us and lead us in the wrong direction …

It up to you and me to overthrow their power and make the correction …

~Brother~

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

~Will Rogers~

The goal of conservative rulers around the world, led by those who occupy the seats of power in Washington, is the systematic rollback of democratic gains, public services, and common living standards around the world.

~Michael Parenti~

We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.

~David Rockefeller~

It is hard to imagine how the U.N., perhaps the world’s most important international organization and one which is widely counted on to preserve the truth, could allow itself to blatantly deviate from history and misinform the world about something so fundamental to its history.

~George Orwell~

All of them listen to their master’s voice, the steel trust, the aluminum trust, the rubber combine, the automobile industry; oil, power, plastics, the railroads, tobacco, copper, chemicals and Coca-Cola, telegraph and telephone; liquor, radio and movie …

~W.E.B. Du Bois~

There is nothing politically right that is morally wrong.

~Daniel O’Connell~

Politicians, modern-day magicians

Physicians of death

~Outkast~

Talking Health but Doing Sickness.

~Patricia Kinloch~

If an apple a day

Keeps the doctor away,

They’ll soon be condemned

By the AMA.

~Joan Liftin~

The physicians of one class feel the patients and go away, merely prescribing medicine. As they leave the room they simply ask the patient to take the medicine. They are the poorest class of physicians.

~Ramakrishna~

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

~Napoleon Bonaparte~

How often do we talk health and do sickness? We talk about ridding our people of disease and we support industries that release carcinogens into the air.

~Anne Wilson Schaef~

We don’t have a democracy … We have an auction.

~Northern Sun Merchandising Bumper Sticker~

We have the best government that money can buy.

~Mark Twain~

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

~Will Rogers~

Let us break down the word politics. Poly is from the Greek language that means many and tics meaning bloodsuckers. Hence, you have poli-tics, many-bloodsuckers!

~Brother~

Elections have nothing to do with broad policies and social development but are matters of the selection of friends to lucrative offices and punishment of personal enemies.

~W.E.B. Du Bois~

Is it true that: Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand?

~Kwame Nkrumah~

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist—McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15.

~Thomas L. Friedman~

A world of unseen dictatorship is conceivable, still using the forms of democratic government.

~Kenneth Boulding~

Like sex in Victorian England, the reality of Big Business today is our big dirty secret.

~Ralph Nader~

Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world.

~Emma Goldman~

At the head of any labor organization in the fascist state, there is an elite which is tied to the interests of the regime—and consequently tied also to the economic status quo.

~George Jackson~

Unfortunately, the Trade Unions in the United States are as capitalist in make-up and goals as any million-dollar corporation. And the majority of white skilled workers with their well-furnished houses, two cars, televisions and long vacations are complacent. They have much more to ‘lose than their chains.’

~Kwame Nkrumah~

Democracy without housing, health and food is meaningless.

~Lindiwe Mabuza~

According to Edward Pessen, who examined the social-class backgrounds of all American presidents through Reagan … more than 40 percent hailed from the upper class, mostly from the upper fringes …

~James W. Loewen~

Everybody’s in jail isn’t a criminal … And they’ve got a lot of criminals in the White House.

~Assata Shakur~

Around the world, the message received is that, whoever wins [the U.S. election], expect only more of the same—national narcissism disguised as altruism, corporate appeasement, and the arbitrary use of U.S. military and economic might.

~Greg Guma~

Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment … People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers … do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to.

~William Blum~

Politics and the fate of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. Men who have greatness within them don’t go in for politics.

~Albert Camus~

The U.S. President has been largely refashioned as a high-level trade representative for the transnational.

~The Nation~

The corporations of America today effectively oversee the Congress, and the regulating agencies and indeed the presidency itself.

~E.L. Doctorow~

Invest in America … Buy a Congressman.

~Northern Sun Merchandising Bumper Sticker~

The American oligarchy increasingly has less in common with the American people than it does with the equivalent oligarchies in Germany or Mexico or Japan.

~Lewis Lapham~

The real truth is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S.

~President Franklin D. Roosevelt~

An honest politician is one who, when he’s bought, he stays bought.

~19th Century Pennsylvania Political Boss Simon Cameron~

U.S. politics is ruled by special-interest blocs and lobbies … Labor owns one of Washington’s largest non-government buildings—situated where they can literally watch the White House—and no political move is made that doesn’t involve how Labor feels about it. A lobby got Big Oil its depletion allowance. The farmer, through his lobby, is the most government-subsidized special-interest group lobby, in America today, because a million farmers vote, not as Democrats, or Republicans, liberals, conservatives, but as farmers. Doctors have the best lobby in Washington. Their special interest influence successfully fights the Medicare program that’s wanted, and needed, by millions of other people. Why, there’s a Beet Growers’ Lobby! A Wheat Lobby! A Cattle Lobby! A China Lobby! Little countries no one ever heard of have their Washington lobbies, representing their special interests.

~Malcolm X~

If a baseball player slides into home plate and, right before the umpire rules if he is safe or out, the player says to the umpire … ‘Here is $1,000.’ What would we call that? We would call that a bribe. If a lawyer was arguing a case before a judge and said, ‘Your honor before you decide on the guilt or innocence of my client, here is $1,000.’ What would we call that? We would call that a bribe. But if an industry lobbyist walks into the office of a key legislator and hands her or him a check for $1,000, we call that a campaign contribution. We should call it a bribe.

~Janice Fine~

You pay $1,000, $5,000, and/or $10,000 a plate for political dinners. It may be chicken on the plate, but what you really pay for is the goose that lays the golden-political eggs.

~Iam A. Freeman~

The almighty dollar is king: those who have the most money control the country and, through campaign contributions, buy and sell presidents, congressmen, and judges, the ones who pass the laws and enforce the laws that benefit their benefactors.

~Assata Shakur~

The country is governed for the richest, for the corporation, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters.

~Helen Keller~

The corporations don’t have to lobby the government any more. They are the government.

~Jim Hightower~

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.

~Will Rogers~

Parties can be bought or bribed either from inside or outside. It becomes clear that the party game is a deceitful farce based on a sham form of democracy which has a selfish content based on maneuvers, tricks and political games. All these emphasize that the party-system is a dictatorial, yet modern instrument. The party system is an overt, not a covert, dictatorship. The world has not yet passed beyond it and it is rightly called ‘the dictatorship of the modern age.’

~Muammar al-Qadhafi~

What is an honest election after the fact of monopoly capital?

~George Jackson~

When elected offices are chosen for persons, there is chaos and disorder; when elected persons are chosen for offices, there is order and stability.

~Zhuge Liang~

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

~Oscar Ameringer~

If you look at the programs that are being pushed through now in the U.S., they’re very carefully crafted to protect the rich.

~Noam Chomsky~

Democracy, like religion, never was designed to make … profits less.

~Zora Neale Hurston~

The United States has a lot of money that they very well know how to use, and in politics money is a very powerful weapon.

~Augusto Sandino~

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.

~V.I. Lenin~

Reshuffle the governmental personnel and forms, without changing property relations and economic institutions, and you have produced simply another reform staff in the old bourgeois revolution.

~George Jackson~

What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?

I learned our government must be strong

It’s always right and never wrong …

That’s what I learned in school.

~Tom Paxton Song~

The oppressor has always indoctrinated the weak with this interpretation of the crimes of the strong.

~Carter G. Woodson~

Educators and textbook authors seem to want to inculcate the next generation into blind allegiance to our country.

~James W. Loewen~

They are just naïve enough to actually believe in Christianity and actually believe in democracy, not realizing that their oppressor could not live by democracy or Christianity for 24 hours. And if he practiced either for 24 hours, that would be the end of his power.

~John Henrik Clarke~

They’d beat the people with the people’s stick, by which he meant that they’d profess democracy while actually keeping people in line.

~Noam Chomsky~

You’d hardly believe this, but intelligent Americans cannot today see the direct connection between war, murder, lying, stealing, and juvenile crime. Their leaders actually propose to gain peace by war, to stop poverty by making the rich richer and to prevent force and violence by preparing force and violence on a scale of which the world never before dreamed anywhere at any time.

~W.E.B. Du Bois~

The American people have been duped by the propaganda of their government, which has extorted from them billions of dollars to throw into the crater of war.

~Ho Chi Minh~

The national pastime in this country is not sex and it’s not baseball. It’s lying.

~Dick Gregory~

Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth.

~Aesop~

Lies are sweet like honey at first.

~African Proverb~

Some members of Congress are the best actors in the world.

~Shirley Chisholm~

There is a thin line between politics and theatrics.

~Julian Bond~

If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.

~Napoleon Bonaparte~

Vain and deceitful is their speech,

With curses fill’d, and lies;

By which the mischief of their heart

They study to disguise.

~David Walker~

Once there was a hungry crow that stole a piece of cheese and flew with it onto the tree branch. Just as the hungry crow was about to take the first bite, a sly fox saw her and called the hungry crow from below. Good morning, crow, you look mighty fine! Look how glossy your feathers are and how bright and shining your eyes are! If you sing for me I am certain that your voice is lovely, too. Oh please, if I could just hear but one song from you I would surely greet you as the Queen of all birds. The hungry crow, who was very vain and conceited, believed every word spoken by the sly fox. Spreading her wings, the hungry crow lifted her head and opened her mouth to caw and sing. When the crow opened her mouth, the cheese dropped to the ground and was immediately snapped up and eaten by the fox.

When the sly fox walked away, well fed and well pleased with his slyness, the fox called back to the hungry crow, Thank you for that delicious cheese and I will give you a piece of advice: remember not to trust those who flatter and praise you falsely.

~Aesop~

A politician will stand for what he thinks people will fall for.

~Anonymous~

Legislators could certainly do with a school of morals.

~Simón Bolívar~

It profits nothing to show virtue in words and destroy truth in deeds.

~St. Cyprian~

If you speak with a cunning tongue, I listen with a cunning ear.

~African Proverb~

It is a shame that there are political observers who look at political problems as they would a comic strip—they must have their Zorro, their hero … It is a grave error to seek a man, a star—even going so far as to create one …

~Thomas Sankara~

In the Republican and Democratic national conventions principle is subordinated to personality. Who are the candidates? is the all-absorbing question. The people, like helpless children, are forever looking for some great man to watch over and protect them.

~Eugene V. Debs~

The President of the country looks in the television camera and speaks,

His shirts are starched and clean, but his country stinks and reeks

The politicians are actors on stage that is certain

Only if the audience could see behind the President of Oz’s curtain

For politics is just an illusion

One would not want to engage

They multiply and maintain the people’s confusion

Let the masses of oppressed people break out of this political cage

~Brother~

The man who talks for both sides is not to be trusted by either.

~Aesop~

We are faced by increasing graft and stealing and lying in high office, and the highest office is afraid to investigate lest we know the thieves by name.

~W.E.B. Du Bois~

Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies.

~Albert Camus~

To deceive a diplomat, speak the truth, he has no experience with it.

~Greek Proverb~

Often it is that those who seem to legislate justice don’t even abide by the rules which they themselves have legislated and decreed.

~Aesop~

In the country’s entire social, political and economic structure, the criminal, the law, and the politicians were actually inseparable partners.

~Malcolm X~

And how does it happen and why does it happen that corporations are never restrained? Are they absolutely law-abiding? Are they always right? Do they never transgress the law or is it because the federal judges are their creatures? If all the common people united and asked for the appointment of a federal judge their voice would not be heeded anymore than if it were the chirp of a cricket. Money talks. Yes, money talks.

~Eugene V. Debs~

Any fool can be a politician. You just have to teach yourself how to tell convincing lies.

~Buchi Emecheta~

The men you meet are liars of the time,

As high as they may seem to you:

A statesman’s ways are all sublime,

But ne’er a word of his is true.

The preacher talks for form alone,

And does like sinners bound for Hell:

To all these tricks the world is prone,

Although the Beadle rings his bell.

Between the State and Christian Church,

The poor are kept in their good place,

And if they kick, they’ll be in lurch

With judge who stares them in the face.

It’s God alone to save us all,

For not in man can any trust:

All mortals treat the rest like ball

They kick on field to yonder dust.

Next when your prayers you do say,

Ask God to come Himself to you:

For just as night comes after day

All men will prove to be untrue.

It may sound harsh to tell this tale,

But every man can vouch for it,

For he has had his timely sale

Of cruel conscience, bit by bit.

~Marcus Garvey~

There are five things that injure the people:

1. There are public servants who use public office for personal gain and benefit, taking improper advantage of their power and influence, holding weaponry in one hand and masses of people’s livelihood in the other hand, corrupting their offices and bleeding dry the masses of people.

2. There are cases where significant offenses are given light consequences; there is variation and differences before the law, and the meek and the innocent are subjected to penalty and punishment, even execution. Sometimes serious crimes and wrongdoing are pardoned, the mighty and the strong are supported, and the weak and afflicted are oppressed. Harsh punishment and penalties are applied, unjustly persecuting and torturing people to get at facts.

3. Sometimes there are public servants and officials who condone crime and vice, and punishing those who cry out and protest this blatant bias and partiality, destroying any the avenues of appeal or rebuttal and destroying the truth, plundering and ruining lives, unjust and arbitrary.

4. Sometimes there are public officials who repeatedly alter department heads so as to monopolize the government administration, favoring their comrades and family while treating those they find objectionable with undeserved harshness, cruel in their dealings, discriminatory and disruptive. They also levy taxation to reap plunder and profit, enriching themselves and their families by exploitation and deception.

5. Public servants extensively mold gifts and fines, welfare projects, and general expenditures and costs, capriciously and randomly determining prices and measures, with the result that people lose their jobs and source of making a living.

These five things are injurious to the masses of the people, and anyone who does any of these should be dismissed and rejected from public office.

~Zhuge Liang~

Politicians don’t care: I mean, maybe you’re sick, maybe you want see a doctor, but him don’t care about that, him want you to vote. So me no defend politics.

~Bob Marley~

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

~Will Rogers~

When the nationalist political leaders say something, they make quite clear that they do not really think it.

~Frantz Fanon~

Political powers keep on lying,

While their so-called constituents keep on dying.

~Brother~

We mistrust those who give journalistic answers. These are professional politicians, not men of the people.

~Thomas Sankara~

Innocently, we vote into office men to whom the welfare of our lives is of far less concern than yesterday’s baseball score.

~Richard Wright~

Many walk the streets in fear while politicians boast and brag about a paperwork solution.

~Brother~

Stop Repeat Offenders … Don’t Re-elect Them …

~Northern Sun Merchandising Bumper Sticker~

We cry because we know a government that can make up a lie can lie about anything.

~Miriam Makeba~

We must remind all that capitalism does not lie some of the time, it lies all the time.

~Kwame Ture~

You have no idea what is going on behind your backs.

~Patrice Lumumba~

There ought to be one day—just one—when there is open season on senators.

~Will Rogers~

Our government will soon become what it is already a long way toward becoming, an elective dictatorship.

~Senator J. William Fullbright~

The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

~Plato~

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself.

~Mark Twain~

If ‘pro’ is the opposite of ‘con’ what is the opposite of ‘progress’?

~Paul Harvey~

Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks.

~George Carlin~

Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.

~Henry Kissinger~

Politics is shit; it corrupts everything it touches …

~Charles Stross~

These bastards who run our country are a bunch of conniving, thieving, smug pricks who need to be brought down and removed and replaced with a whole new system that we control.

~Michael Moore~

Politicians & Diapers … Need to be changed … Often for the same reason.

~Northern Sun Merchandising Bumper Sticker~

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

~H.L. Mencken~

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

~Socrates~

The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office. If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these acceptance speeches of politicians, there wouldn’t be any inducement.

~Will Rogers~

The people that run this government are a foul group of pimps, pirates and parasites! That’s what they are. They feed off us, don’t give nothing back, and they get rich and powerful by finding ways to get other people to do their work for them.

~Abdul Jon~

The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.

~Will Rogers~

Crime does not pay …as well as politics.

~Alfred E. Newman~

American leaders are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It’s not that they take pleasure in causing so much death and suffering. It’s that they just don’t care … the same that could be said about a sociopath. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and privilege and prestige, as long as the death and suffering aren’t happening to them or people close to them … then they just don’t care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers whom they throw into wars and who come home—the ones who make it back alive—with Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome eating away at their bodies. American leaders would not be in the positions they hold if they were bothered by such things.

~William Blum~

He who uses the office he owes to the voters wrongfully and against them is a thief.

~José Martí~

Until you expose the man in Washington, D.C., you haven’t accomplished anything.

~Malcolm X~

The U.S. is becoming very depoliticized and negative. About half the population thinks both political parties should be disbanded. There’s a real need for something that would articulate the concerns of that substantial majority of the population that’s being left out of social planning and the political process.

~Noam Chomsky~

With Congress, every time they make a joke it’s a law, and every time they make a law it’s a joke.

~Will Rogers~

There is a profound contradiction at the heart of American political life: the claim to a democracy, and the bitter struggle to deny it to almost everyone else in the world.

~Mumia Abul-Jamal~

Public servants are to a nation as pillars are to a house: the pillars should not be lean; public servants should not be feeble. When pillars are lean the house collapses; when public servants are feeble the nation crumbles. Therefore the way to govern a nation is to encourage the upright over the dishonest or crooked; then the nation is secure.

For a house to have strong pillars you need to have straight trees; for wise and astute public servants you need upright people. Straight trees are found in remote and distant forests; upright people are derived from the humble masses. Therefore when public servants are going to make appointments they need to look in obscure and little known places.

~Zhuge Liang~

The political system is not for the people. The people are secondary to the economy. It’s about what generates money, not about what benefits the people.

~Ziggy Marley~

The United States has only one party—the property party. It’s the party of big corporations, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican.

~Gore Vidal~

American capitalism is predatory, and American politics are corrupt.

~Upton Sinclair~

If there’s anything a public servant hates to do it’s something for the public.

~Kin Hubbard~

There is no distinctly American criminal class—except Congress.

~Mark Twain~

This is the only modern nation in the world which does not control its own elections.

~W.E.B. Du Bois~

To some degree it matters who’s in office, but it matters more how much pressure they’re under from the public.

~Noam Chomsky~

I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don’t want, and get it.

~Eugene V. Debs~

To us, democracy is much, much more than just an election. To us, democracy is a great deal more than just the right to put an X next to Tweedledum or Tweedledee every four years.

~Maurice Bishop~

Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

~Helen Keller~

Maybe the reason the majority of Americans don’t vote is that they’re tired of having to choose between tweedledum and tweedledumber. The choices are always so pathetic, aren’t they?

~Michael Moore~

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.

~Karl Marx~

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

~H.L. Mencken~

We’d all like to vote for the best man but he’s never a candidate.

~Kin Hubbard~

Sooner will a camel pass through a needle’s eye than a great man be discovered by an election.

~Adolf Hitler~

The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.

~Emma Goldman~

Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they’re both just aspirin.

~Gore Vidal~

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

~Napoleon Bonaparte~

Between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party there is no difference so far as the workingman is concerned. He works for wages, and, as a rule, it costs him all he gets to live. If he organizes and forces up wages his exploiters raise prices. He has not the least interest in the tariff, or finance, or expansion, or imperialism.

~Eugene V. Debs~

The Republican organization, in nine cases out of ten, becomes simply the tail to the Democratic kite. Party government disappears. Political power is vested in the hands of a clique of professional politicians, white and black …

~W.E.B. Du Bois~

Both the democratic party and the republican party are controlled by millionaires. They are interested in holding on to their power, I was interested in taking it away.

~Assata Shakur~

A New Democrat is no different from an Old Republican.

~Mumia Abul-Jamal~

To change masters is not to be free.

~José Martí~

Question: What is the difference between the Democratic and the Republican President?

Answer: The Republican President stabs you from the front!

~Heard During A Phone Conversation With Malik On Election Day, November 4, 2008~

We are often stabbed in the back with the iron fist that is covered with a velvet glove and with the sweetest and biggest smile on the president’s face.

~Iam A. Freeman~

As one devil goes out, another one comes in.

~Proverb of Lithuania~

A thinking man never be a party man.

~Friedrich Nietzsche~

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.

~Gore Vidal~

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

~Douglas Adams~

No President can be great, or even fit for office, if he attempts to accommodate to injustice to maintain his political balance.

~Martin Luther King, Jr.~

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that’s out always looks the best.

~Will Rogers~

May God write us down as asses if ever again we are found putting our trust in either the Republican or the Democratic parties.

~W.E.B. Du Bois~

Cut loose from the Republican-Democrat Party, the double-headed political monstrosity of the capitalist class …

~Eugene V. Debs~

There is no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties.

~H. Rap Brown~

There is a difference between an inconsequential left and a consequential right, the difference is they both do the same things, but one says they don’t.

~Subcomandante Marcos~

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

~Will Rogers~

Everyone knows that politicians routinely exaggerate, distort, and make promises that they know full well they can never fulfill. They are selling illusions of themselves; they are coached and packaged by professional public relations teams who have made a science out of the marketing of politics.

~John Stockwell~

Our last presidential election was a farce. We had no chance to vote for the questions in which we were really interested: peace, disarmament, the draft, unfair taxation, race bias, education, social medicine, and flood control. On the contrary we had before us one ticket under two names and the nominees shadowboxed with