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Showing posts with label Armenians. Show all posts

May 2, 2016

Turkish Government Seizes Armenian Churches. White House Refuses To Acknowledge Genocide 100 Years Ago By Turkey

Church of The Virgin Mary in the Sur district of Diyarbakir, Turkey

[From article]

Father Joseph (Yusuf) Akbulut is one brave man. He is a soft spoken, highly intelligent, Syrian Orthodox Priest I had the honor to meet in November 2013 at his parish, the 1700 year old Church of the Virgin Mary in the Sur district of Diyarbakir, Syria. The Church, and the rectory in which Father Joseph, his wife and six children lived, were in the crossfire of the 10-month war between Kurdish fighters and the Turkish military.
In January they were in the Church with bombs exploding all around. A rocket-propelled grenade destroyed a portion of the wall surrounding the Church. Initially, Father Joseph refused to leave the Church he has overseen for 23 years, fearing it would be leveled if left empty. Unfortunately, he did have to leave – it became too dangerous. Now, the state has seized it along with all the other Christian Churches in Sur, including one of the largest Armenian Churches in the Middle East, Surp (Saint) Giragos.

Father Joseph Akbulut pointing out the “holy spirit” door knocker once so prevalent in the Sur district.
Photo by Fran Fawcett Peterson

World Watch Monitor www.worldwatchmonitor.org
reports;
“We wouldn't have left the church. But when we looked [on the street] and saw that land mines and rockets were exploding non-stop, we knew that we couldn't stay,” he told World Watch Monitor. “Our house was shaking and we thought it would collapse.”
The power, electricity, and water were cut off. It was time to flee. They stepped out on the street cautiously, with Fr. Akbulut waving a white flag. Nobody was there.
"It was like a war zone,” he said.
Fr. Akbulut and his family are staying in a hotel for the foreseeable future. Ongoing clashes in the church's neighborhood prevent their return.*
But controversy has followed him. He has fended off reports from the Turkish media that his church had indirect involvement with the PKK.
Turkish newspapers claimed on 30 Jan. that a cache of ammunition and explosives was found on the site of Virgin Mary Church. Fr. Akbulut said that he knew nothing of this cache while he was there, and that it was likely deposited after he fled.
Fr. Akbulut was insistent that he stay in the church as long as possible, even at the risk of his own life. He considers the church indispensable for his congregation, and for Syriac Orthodox Christianity at large.
“I would not be able to live with myself if I abandoned the church," Fr. Akbulut told the Assyrian International News Agency. “It is a symbol for us Assyrians and a symbol for all Christianity. This is a holy place."
The church is of enormous importance to Eastern Orthodoxy, having produced theologians and patriarchs in the early centuries of Christianity. It holds relics such as a piece of the cross and the bones of the apostle Thomas.
Fr. Akbulut leads a congregation of 40 members. He speaks Syriac, a language closely related to Aramaic, the language of Jesus and his disciples.

Church of the Virgin Mary in the Sur district of Diyarbakir, Turkey.

Photo by Fran Fawcett Peterson
This chilling video shows the “urban renewal” Erdogan’s Turkish government has planned for 6300 properties in Diyarbakir including the Virgin Mary Church. There are no churches in the video, only mosques. In the video Ahmet Davutoglu, the Prime Minister, vows to turn Diyarbakir into the “new Toledo,” as in Toledo, Spain. Spain was occupied by the Islamists for 700 years before finally freeing itself. (Davutoglu must not recall the chains of the freed Christians, which were hung on the walls of Toledo to let the people know the slaves had been freed in southern Spain and the slave masters, the Islamists, expelled from Spanish shores.)
Transcript of the Prime Minister’s audio:
Diyarbakir is a sacred city. The city of Diyarbakir has been ruined. I want to rebuild it. I will start this process of rebuilding to give Diyarbakir a new beautiful future.. I will rebuild the mosques so the sound of Quran will be heard again. I will make it green again like it used to be. I as the prime-minister will do it. Whatever building needs it I will rebuild. I will renew everything, new mosques, new roads, new houses, and new recreation centers. So that the children will again be happy playing and laughing. I will build big living spaces so people live happily and freely.
History hasn’t been kind to Diyarbakir. I will fix it so that you will be astonished. I will build the houses so people live happily and peacefully again enjoying the sun. I will build the houses in the big, old ottoman style so people live in renewed life style. I will build famous houses of worship so whoever wants to go to mosque can go and those who don't want to can go to their places to enjoy. I will rebuild Suleiman-prophet mosque so pilgrims will come and enjoy the mosque again. I will rebuild historical places. This new bright future will come soon
-The Republic of Turkey. Office of Prime minister.
Despite the video linked above, the head of Turkey’s Housing Development Agency is denying the planned urban transformation will result in any historic buildings being “rebuilt.” More than 6300 properties have been confiscated and are planned to get “renovations.”
Other Churches now under state control include: the Surp (Armenian for "Saint") Sarkis Chaldean Catholic Church, the Diyarbakir Protestant Church, the Apostolic Armenian Surp Giragos Church, an Armenian Catholic church, and the Mar Petyun Chaldean Catholic Church.
"They want to destroy the living spaces and houses of the people who have survived death and massacres in those places," said Figen Yuksekdagi, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
[. . .]

Looking up inside 1700 year old Virgin Mary Church, Sur, Diyarbakir, Turkey.
Photo by Fran Fawcett Peterson

The New York Times reports;
“This is reminiscent of the events leading up to the start of the Armenian genocide on April 24, 1915, when properties were illegally confiscated and the population was displaced under the false guise of temporary relocation for its own protection,” said Nora Hovsepian, the chairwoman of the Western Region of the Armenian National Committee of America.
“That temporary relocation,” she added, “turned out to be death marches and a permanent disenfranchisement of two million from their ancestral homeland.”
Indeed, many Kurds believe that Erdogan and his government are trying to do to the Kurds what the then Turkish rulers did to the Armenians 100 years ago -- and that is drive them from their land -- dead or alive. *
Erdogan has reportedly threatened to revoke citizenship for Kurds. Fears are rampant that the Turkish government will force the Kurds over the border into Syria and Iraq. Already there are reports of Syrian refugees being housed in Kurdish homes evacuated in Diyarbakir because of the fighting. This is not confirmed.
In 2000 a Turkish newspaper, Hurryiet, asked Father Joseph about his views on the Armenian Genocide. He replied that not only the Armenians were massacred, but also Assyrian/Syriacs. His published views led to his arrest for “inciting racial hatred.” He told me that it was thanks to the western media and human rights groups that he was freed.
I consider Father Joseph brave and courageous because he did not leave his flock, he did not leave Diyarbakir, he did not leave Turkey. He stayed. Now, again, he is being persecuted -- only this time with bombs and bullets, as are all Christians caught up in the crossfire between the Turkish government and its seeming ethnic cleansing of now the Kurds.
Last reports are that Father Joseph and his family are still in Diyarbakir living in a hotel.
*As he has every April of his Presidency Mr. Obama again this year avoided using the term Genocide in commemorating the one and a half million Armenians slaughtered, deported or marched to their deaths in the closing days of the Ottoman Empire in 1915- 1916

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/turkey_seizes_more_christian_churches.html

May 1, 2016
Turkey Seizes More Christian Churches
By Fran Fawcett Peterson

September 14, 2015

Misguided Fear-Based Policies May Repeat Genocide of Nazi Germany

[From article]
BEFORE he fired the shot, the Einsatzgruppe commander lifted the Jewish child in the air and said, “You must die so that we can live.” As the killing proceeded, other Germans rationalized the murder of Jewish children in the same way: them or us.
Today we think of the Nazi Final Solution as some dark apex of high technology. It was in fact the killing of human beings at close range during a war for resources. The war that brought Jews under German control was fought because Hitler believed that Germany needed more land and food to survive and maintain its standard of living — and that Jews, and their ideas, posed a threat to his violent expansionist program.
[. . .]
To expand Germany’s Lebensraum, Hitler aimed to seize Ukraine from the Soviet Union, starve 30 million Eastern Europeans and transfer the food to Germany. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the campaign had two major aims: the control of fertile Ukrainian soil and the destruction of Jews living there. It was this invasion that placed defenseless Jewish children at the mercy of the murderous Einsatzgruppen.
[. . .]

The mass murder of at least 500,000 Rwandans in 1994 followed a decline in agricultural production for several years before. Hutus killed Tutsis not only out of ethnic hatred, but to take their land, as many genocidaires later admitted.
In Sudan, drought drove Arabs into the lands of African pastoralists in 2003. The Sudanese government sided with the Arabs and pursued a policy of eliminating the Zaghawa, Masalit and Fur peoples in Darfur and surrounding regions.
[. . .]
The Chinese leadership already regards Africa as a long-term source of food. Although many Africans themselves still go hungry, their continent holds about half of the world’s untilled arable land. Like China, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea are interested in Sudan’s fertile regions — and they have been joined by Japan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in efforts to buy or lease land throughout Africa.
Nations in need of land would likely begin with tactfully negotiated leases or purchases; but under conditions of stress or acute need, such agrarian export zones could become fortified colonies, requiring or attracting violence.
[. . .]

economic migrants and war refugees are making perilous journeys to flee to Europe. In response, European populists have called for the strict enforcement of national borders and the end of the union. Many of these populist parties are supported by Russia, which is openly pursuing a divide-and-conquer policy with the aim of bringing about European disintegration.
[. . .]
It is not difficult to imagine ethnic mass murder in Africa, which has already happened; or the triumph of a violent totalitarian strain of Islamism in the parched Middle East; or a Chinese play for resources in Africa or Russia or Eastern Europe that involves removing the people already living there;
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/opinion/sunday/the-next-genocide.html?_r=0

The Next GenocideBy TIMOTHY SNYDER
SEPT. 12, 2015

May 6, 2015

Updated (2): Tufts University Pays Tribute To Armenian Genocide; Turkey Remains In Denial, White House Breaks Another Campaign Promise

Posted April 18, 2015 7:41 PM ET; Last updated May 6, 2015 2:53 AM ET

[From article]
One and a half million Armenians were eradicated. If early 20th-century Turkey had the apparatuses and technology to execute en masse – such as 1940s Germany’s gas chambers – the entire Armenian population could well have been annihilated.
The atrocities suffered by Armenian and other Christian minorities are too long to list. As occurs under the current caliphate – the Islamic State – the Muslims of the Ottoman caliphate abducted, raped, and slaughtered or sold countless Christian women and children on the Muslim slave markets.
Armenian Christians were also sadistically tortured – as Christians are today under the Islamic State.
[. . .]
In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem – akin to the experiences of today’s non-Muslims under Islamic State authority. Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were killed after being defiled, she managed to escape. She recalls seeing 16 Christian girls crucified in Malatia: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies.”
Because there is no dearth of evidence concerning the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, 44 U.S. states have recognized it. South Dakota, which recently joined the list, passed a resolution in February 2015 calling on “Congress and the president of the United States to formally and consistently recognize and reaffirm the historical truth that the atrocities committed against the Armenian, Greek, and other Christians living in their historical homelands in Anatolia constituted genocide and to work towards equitable, stable, and durable Armenian-Turkish relations.”
Turkey, of course, continues to deny that its forbears ever committed any genocide.
[. . .]
Nor is the Islamic government of Turkey alone in denying the genocide. President Obama still refuses to acknowledge it – even though, when he was running for office in 2008, he professed his “firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.”
The facts are undeniable. ... [A]s President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide. ... America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.
[. . .]
The Armenian National Committee of America responded by saying, “The president’s surrender represents a national disgrace. It is a betrayal of the truth, and it is a betrayal of trust.” The Armenian Assembly of America said, “His failure to use the term genocide represents a major blow for human rights advocates.”
But the president’s actions are consistent in other ways. Put differently, it is no marvel that Obama denies the genocide of Armenian and other Christian minorities at the hands of Muslims from a century ago, when one considers that he denies the rampant Muslim persecution of Christians taking place today under – and often because of – his leadership.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/obama_breaks_promise_on_100supthsup_anniversary_of_armenian_genocide.html

April 24, 2015
Obama Breaks Promise on 100th Anniversary of Armenian Genocide
By Raymond Ibrahim
* * *

Published on Apr 23, 2015
100 years ago, the first genocide of the 20th century began. On that date, the Islamic Turks commenced their campaign of deportation, murder and starvation against Christian Armenians. As we observe this solemn anniversary, we should remember the repeated failure of the world community to act against genocide, and contemplate what we can do to stop genocide from occurring on our watch.

* * *

[From article]
President Barack Obama will once again stop short of calling the 1915 massacre of Armenians a genocide, prompting anger and disappointment from those who have been pushing him to fulfill a campaign promise and use the politically fraught term on the 100th anniversary of the killings this week. Officials decided against it after opposition from some at the State Department and the Pentagon.
[. . .]
As a senator and presidential candidate, Obama did describe the killings of Armenians as “genocide” and said the US government had a responsibility to recognize them as such. As a candidate in January 2008, Obama pledged to recognize the genocide and at least one of his campaign surrogates — the current US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power — recorded a nearly five-minute video at the time imploring Armenian-Americans to vote for Obama precisely because he would keep his word on the issue.

http://nypost.com/2015/04/22/obama-again-wont-call-1915-armenian-massacre-a-genocide/

Obama again won’t call 1915 Armenian massacre a ‘genocide’
By Associated Press
New York Post
April 22, 2015 | 9:50am

* * *

[From article]

Turkey recalled its ambassador to the Vatican and accused the Pope of spreading ‘hatred and animosity’ with ‘unfounded allegations’.
The Turks take objection to the word ‘genocide’ — first coined in the 1940s to describe what the Nazis did to the Jews, but also ever since applied to the 1915 massacre of the Armenians.
Not true, has always been the official response from Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s capital.
Hundreds of thousands died in that era, they admit, (though they dispute the numbers are anywhere near as high as claimed).
But this, they maintain, happened as a result of chaotic wartime conditions, civil strife, starvation and in response to Armenian violence, not because of a deliberate, officially organised and systematic plan to eliminate an entire people.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3044292/Genocide-Christians-blood-soaked-depravity-exceeded-today-s-atrocities-Islamic-State-100-years-Turkey-faces-global-disgust-refusal-admit-butchering-MILLION-Christians.html

Genocide of the Christians: The blood-soaked depravity exceeded even today's atrocities by Islamic State - now, 100 years on Turkey faces global disgust at its refusal to admit butchering over a MILLION Armenians
In 1915 the rulers of the Ottoman empire turned their hatred on Armenians
The Young Turks persecution of the minority turned to unbridled savagery
Modern Turkey faces disgust over refusal to admit the historic genocide
WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES
By TONY RENNELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 17:56 EST, 17 April 2015 | UPDATED: 19:53 EST, 17 April 2015

* * *

Over one million of the two million Armenians living within the borders of the Ottoman Empire were murdered.

[From article]

The event is sponsored by Professor of History and Darakjian and Jafarian Chair in Armenian History Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, the Department of History, Tufts Armenian Club and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
[. . .]
McCabe explained that the theme of most of the past commemorations has been genocide in a general sense. This year, however, it will focus specifically on the Armenian Genocide and the voices of the people affected by it, she said.

http://tuftsdaily.com/news/2015/04/15/tufts-commemorate-centennial-armenian-genocide/

Tufts to commemorate centennial of Armenian Genocide
BY MEAGAN ADLER

APRIL 15, 2015

August 13, 2012

Turkey Censors Film About Armenian Genocide

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/08/10/the-turkish-lobby-played-a-long-game-–-and-won/

The Turkish Lobby Played a Long Game – And Won
AUGUST 10, 2012 2:59 PM

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The estimated population of the United States is 323,268,727 so each citizen's share of this debt is $59,965.62. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $2.42 billion per day since September 30, 2012!

"Sarchasm:" the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)" Washington Post August 2, 1998, Style.

George Washington (1732-1799) "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent -- it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." "If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor." "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

John Adams (1735-1826) Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Thomas Sowell (1930 -) "One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them."

Noam Chomsky (1928 -) “If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all” (Guardian (UK), Nov.23, 1992)

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) "Chance favors the prepared mind."

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) "If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." "Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

E. E. Cummings (1894-1962) "To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting."

Jodie Foster (1962 - ) "Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from."

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970 )"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." "The fundamental cause of trouble in the world is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."

Frank Leahy (1907-1973) "Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity."

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) "A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road."

James Michael Curley (1874-1958) “Never complain, never explain.”

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939 ) "The reason for so much bad science is not that talent is rare, not at all; what is rare is character."

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) “I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.” "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Andre Gide: (1869-1951) "Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again." "Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it."

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) "And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."

A woman responding to a threat from Cuban-backed terrorists in El Salvador, 1982 “You can kill me, you can kill my family, kill my neighbors, but you can’t kill us all.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945- ) "The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear."

Dorothy Thompson (1894-1961) "Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) "Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable."

Lady Marguerite Gardiner (1789-1849) "There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world."

Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941)"Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty." "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

Will Rogers: (1879-1938) "When people start taking the comedian seriously and the politician as a joke, everything changes." "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."

Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900-1965) "My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular." [Under this definition, Cambridge Massacchusetts, and the state of Massachusetts are not free societies. ed.]

Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

Maria Bartiromo (1967 -) "My [commencement 2011] speech at St. John's [University, New York] three themes: work hard, no shortcuts, love what you do, and always do the right thing."

Ayn Rand (1905-1982) "Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists ... it is real ... it is possible ... it's yours."

Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) "Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well."

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) "The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone."

Dr. Seuss (1904-1991, Theodor Seuss Geisel) "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda) "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Howie Carr (1952- Boston Herald Columnist, WRKO Radio Talk Show Host) "The [MA] courts are more corrupt than the legislature." (November 18, 2010, 6:15 PM on his radio show.)

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) "In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."

William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925-2008) "I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.

Voltaire (François Marie Arouet, 1694-1778) "Common sense is not so common." "Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one." "Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world."

Martha Coakley (1953 - Democrat, MA Attorney General, 2010) "In Massachusetts, technically, it is not illegal to be illegal."

Deval Patrick (1956 - Democrat, MA Governor, 2010) "I am not a politician."

Michael Bloomberg (1942 - Democrat, Republican, Independent 3-Term Mayor of New York City and Billionaire) "Last time I checked, the pharmaceutical industry doesn't make a lot of money."

George W. Bush (1946 - ) "Intentions get overwhelmed by perceptions."

John Tudor "Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology."

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

Robert Heinlein (1907-1988) "There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him."

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) "There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character." "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." "No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes she were not." "For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." "It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull." "Democracy is the theory that people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." "Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."

Michel de Montaigne: (1533-1592) "The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness."

Aldous Huxley: (1894-1963) "I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself."

T. S. Eliot: (1888-1965) Half the harm that is done in this world Is due to people who want to feel important They don’t mean to do harm But the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle To think well of themselves."

Burt Prelutsky, (1940- Columnist) "Surely something must be terribly wrong with a man who seems to be far more concerned with a Jew building a house in Israel than with a Muslim building a nuclear bomb in Iran."

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862-1947) "An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less."

Henry Kissinger: (1923 - ) "In this world it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but to be a friend is fatal."

Socrates: (469BC-399BC) "He is the richest who is content with the least."

Leo Tolstoy: (1828-1910) "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." "Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly." "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." "Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."

P.J. O'Rourke (A Parliament of Whores) "Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza. Every pair of pants, even those in a Brooks Brothers suit, would be stone-washed denim. Celebrity diet and exercise books would be the only thing on the shelves at the library. And - since women are a majority of the population- we'd all be married to Mel Gibson."

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

Orson Welles (as Harry Lime in The Third Man, 1949) "In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had 500 years of democracy and peace -- and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Tacitus: (c. 56 AD-c. 117) "The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates."

Ralph Waldo Emerson: (1803-1882) "Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing."

Doug Hoffman: (2009 Conservative Party Candidate for US Rep. NY 23rd District) "Congress fiddles while our economy burns. They lack common sense."

Rich Lowry: (On ObamaCare) "A shimmering mirage of wishful thinking and willful dishonesty."

President Obama (as he loses public support.) "We cannot wait any longer [. . .] There comes a time to remember the fierce urgency of right now."

Rush Limbaugh: (On first hour of his show broadcast October 23, 2009) Obama "is delusional." He's "seriously dangerous." He's "insane." Reacting to Obama's comments that the US Constitution is an obstacle to "redistribution of wealth." Obama also referred to "the so called founders."

Marek Edelman, leader of Warsaw Ghetto uprising. (1919?-2009) "Man is evil, by nature man is a beast. People have to be educated from childhood, from kindergarten, that there should be no hatred."

Adis Medunjanin (24 in January 2010, Queens, NY man accused of training with al Qaeda): "We love death more than you love life."

Edward Moore Kennedy (1932-2009): "Do we operate under a system of equal justice or one for the average citizen and one for the high and mighty?"

Robert Novak: (1931-2009) “Always love your country — but never trust your government!

Calvin Coolidge: (1872-1933) “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in Dead Pool: "Opinions are like a**holes. Everybody's got one."

Lyndon Johnson: (1908-1973) “The difference between liberals and cannibals is that cannibals don’t eat their friends and family members.”

Margaret Thatcher: (1925 - 2013) "The problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of others people's money."

John Adams: (1735-1826) "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Abraham Lincoln: (1809-1865) "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

Thomas Jefferson: (1743-1826) "Merchants have no country." “In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

James Madison: (1751-1836) “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

Mark Twain: (1835-1910) "Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing often and for the same reason." "It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you think you know for sure that just ain't so." "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." "Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions." "Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

Maggie Gallagher: (1960 - ) "Politicians can pass a bill saying a chicken is a duck and that doesn't make it true. Truth matters."

Humpty Dumpty (In Alice in Wonderland) "When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to. No more no less."

Groucho Marx: (Julius Henry, 1890-1977) "Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read."

United States Constitution http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html

FACTS ARE STUBBORN:

John Adams: Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Aldous Huxley: Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Thomas Fuller: Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong.

Obama Lost the Debate on Health Care:Unable to counter widespread concerns of citizens about his health care plans, Obama supporters conduct intense vitriolic attacks on critics. Obama has no rational arguments, and hopes to discredit his critics by character assassination. They are not just racists now they are greedy racists and hate mongers. Maybe that will work. Ya think? Obama-Biden: Stupid is as stupid does. Biden: "We misread how bad the economy was."

Obama: [Correcting Biden]"We had incomplete information." So the US Congress voted for and the President signed a $787 billion stimulus bill without having read it, and with incomplete information? And they say others are stupid? Hello? Then Congress voted for a 1,000+ page "cap and trade" bill that none of them read.

Bloomberg: Daschle says, "Health care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them," while former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm says seniors have "a duty to die." If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that the President, Senators and Congressmen have their own special gold plated health care plan which is guaranteed the remainder of their lives and they are not subject to this new law if they pass it. Reverse the dangerous direction of the Obama administration and its allies.

Obama, The Un-Truman: David McCullough, in his biography of Harry Truman, "Truman" says on page 217, "Harry cared little more for other [than Huey Long] celebrated 'speechifiers' in the Senate. Admittedly fearful of making a speech himself, he seemed to resent particularly those who could and who made their reputations that way. They were the 'egotistical boys' whose specialty was talk." Obama admitted that he can make a speech but that he was incapable of doing anything in the Senate. Where did he gets his special powers during the campaign?

Obama's Mantra: He keeps repeating, "I won the election." He expects all Americans to support what HE wants. "I won," is how Obama implements the post-partisan unification of America. What a guy! See also Rich Lowry's "Sorry, O: 'I won' Won't Cover this," New York Post, February 6, 2009, page 27. http://www.nypost.com/seven/02062009/postopinion/opedcolumnists sorry__o__i_won_wont_cover_this_153839.htm

MIDDLESEX DA: We're too busy to address crimes less than murder. On Thursday June 25, 2009 Marian Ryan, who works for the Middlesex District Attorney in MA, returned my call from the previous day. She heads the unit for abuse of elders and abuse of persons with disabilities. She told me, "We've had four murders this month." That was to explain why she was unable to address 35 years of police abuses of a citizen with a disability now an elder. She said that a police officer making a threat did not rise to the level of a crime. She did not have time or resources to address abuses by the City Manager and the Police Commissioner of Cambridge, and the Harvard University campus police. It was no concern that using police to harass a person with a disability may be the reason for the four murders. MA Civil Rights statute and possession of illegal firearms are felonies, but not murder. Misallocation of resources is easily apparent. If the police focused on criminals instead of harassing elders with disabilities there might be less violent crime. But who was I to argue.

Cambridge Censorship: In October 2009 City Council Candidate Kathy Podgers complained to Attorney Bill August, long term president of the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association, that her posts to the neighborhood discussion lists were not appearing. Then Bob LaTremouille added his similar complaints. When I chimed in that my posts did n0t appear for many months Bill August accused me of libel. I said he ignored my complaints about censorship. For a lawyer he does not read very well. On one occasion in 2007 I sent a letter via Fedex from one part of Cambridge to another. I used Fedex because of frequent tampering with my mail by USPS employees. Mail was withheld by USPS employees, and some mail was intercepted and never got to where I sent it. The letter sent by Fedex never arrived either. Their tracking system ended before it was delivered. I wrote to the President of Fedex. He sent me a check for $25 to compensate me. What good is money if you can't send a letter from one part of a city to another? In June 2009 I sent a letter to a US Government agency complaining about a mobbed up police officer who was protecting criminals who harass me each day. Two days after I sent the letter the police detective appeared at a market as I shopped. He used a young woman as bait to try to have me arrested. In June 2009 someone opened a YouTube account solely to publish a comment attacking me personally. This is a frequent experience of an ongoing character assassination campaign by criminals and their police associates. A Harvard University attorney told me not to make complaints to their real estate offices but to the office of the General Counsel. The lawyer assigned was trying to deceive me. On June 6, 2009 I noticed a threat from a police officer as a comment under one of my videos posted on YouTube July 7, 2008. The video shows a Cambridge police patrol car parked in a bus stop. The officer was having dinner nearby not on an emergency call. Every day since I complained to the Attorney General about the threat Cambridge police or Harvard campus police follow me and try to provoke me. The Attorney General is married to a supervising Cambridge police officer. I learned on June 15, 2009 that the FBI was investigating me again. In May 2009, my comments on the Boston Herald web pages (a public accommodation) were removed allegedly due to violations of guidelines. When I complained one was restored. Interns referred me to a staff writer when three of my comments about the shooting death at a Harvard dorm were removed. Someone unknown to me posted a picture of a man from the city in my YouTube profile. That means that someone is tampering with my YouTube account. That is a felony under US law. On or about December 12, 2008 my name was removed from two neighborhood discussion lists--Riverside and Cambridgeport. My attempts to be put back on were ignored by the former President of the Riverside neighborhood, Larry Adkins. Cambridgeport moderators opened my new access in February 2009. In May 2009 I received messages from the list but was unable to post messages. Last year I was unable to receive or post messages to the Porter Square neighborhood discussion list. No notice there either. They began a new list this year and I now get messages. But I was the target of personal attacks on the Porter Square list, the Cambridgeport discussions and on the Cambridge Chronicle web pages. An FBI informant who maintains a web site about the City of Cambridge ridicules me and others who he believes have disabilities. My account with YouTube (more than 250 videos posted) was shut in August 2008 and my appeals of Fair Use Doctrine were ignored. On April 15, 2009 my YouTube account was re-opened. Emily Rooney, host of the PBS news show, Greater Boston threatened to have me banned from Boston. Cambridge City Councilor and Harvard lawyer, Brian Murphy, who resigned in February 2009 to take a six-figure job with the state used council rules to silence my expression. These are rules that the Council created but ignore at every meeting. An email account I used specially for discussion lists was shut down with no notice and no reason or warning given. My several emails inquiring why have been ignored. That account was re-opened on February 10, 2009. Google Video flagged and blocked four uploaded episodes of a cable access TV show I produced and hosted on CCTV. When I appealed their decision, they agreed to put it back up. But as of this date one remains blocked. In February 2009 a long term producer of documentaries at CCTV told me "There is no such thing as Free Speech." That was the second time someone in Cambridge said that to me.