slavery – Page 3 – Engaging Peace

Quotes from Courageous Anti-Authoritarians, Anti-Imperialists, Anti-Corporatists, Anti-Militarists and Anti-Fascists through History

Posted on August 28, 2019August 28, 2019 by kathiemm

Compiled by Gary G. Kohls, MD | Duty to Warn – TRANSCEND Media Service

This collection of quotes is intended to be read, taken to heart and made good use of by all good-hearted folks who are working hard to expose the massive injustice, corruption, discrimination, environmental degradation, heartless price-gouging, etc. that is coming from the world’s inanimate corporations that have been unjustly granted “personhood” AND their “human” wealth- and power-hungry leaders who have relinquished their “humanity” through their incessant inhumane actions, which are making the planet uninhabitable.

These quotes are intended to inspire and give courage to the cloud of witnesses who are seeking justice, peace and prosperity and environmental and human rights for the impoverished, the outcasts, the bullied, the displaced, the victimized and the enslaved. Use them early and often. — GK

“Globalization is but another name for colonization — nothing has changed but the name. And, just as the East India Company was the instrument for colonization, today’s corporation is the instrument for globalization. And, corporatization is but another name for Fascism.” — Urban Kohler

“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person.” — Anonymous

“It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions – you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.” — Noam Chomsky

“We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism and it must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world, is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: oppressed nations, from where they extract capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and to which they export new capital-instruments of domination-arms and all kinds of articles, thus submerging us in an absolute dependence.” — Ernesto Che Guevara

“Corporations are the opposite of good citizens. They bribe politicians to write laws that cheat society on a mammoth scale, most significantly by allowing them to avoid paying many of the very real costs incurred in conducting their businesses.“ Such very real costs ”include the social and environmental costs of destruction of valuable resources, pollution, the burdens on society of workers who become injured or ill and receive little or no health care, the indirect funding received when companies are permitted to market hazardous products, dump wastes into oceans and rivers, pay employees less than a living wage, provide substandard working conditions, and extract natural resources from public lands at less than market prices. Furthermore, most corporations are dependent on public subsidies, exemptions, massive advertising and lobbying campaigns, and complex transportation and communications systems that are underwritten by taxpayers; their executives receive inflated salaries, perks, and “golden retirement parachutes” which are written off as tax deductions.” — John Perkins, author of “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” and The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World”

“An ignorant population does not look to see the greater way, never questions authorities or understands rights and therefore provides little opposition to a dictatorship. If we want to grow as a race we must start educating ourselves. Be able to learn to discern. Recognize when the media is trying to manipulate us. Whatever it is we’re subjected to in the media, beware of the hidden ulterior motive. Perhaps it would be better to boycott this propagandist pap altogether and instead of being listless or unresponsive, do something worth-while; campaign for the truth.” — Paul A. Philips

“State sovereignty is a goner. Bankism and Military Capitalism rule the world in all respects now.” — Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor of TRANSCEND Media Service.

Originally published on TRANSCEND Media Service, August 19, 2019.

Sojourner Truth’s Journey is unfinished. Join up.

Posted on February 4, 2019March 10, 2021 by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

Courageous women, revolutionizing women, history-altering women come in all colors and times. Continuing their work is as crucial as ever for peace and social justice.

.So let’s start February, Black History Month, with the words of Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) , who was born into slavery in 1797 and escaped carrying her infant daughter in 1826. (“I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right,” she said.) When the son she left behind was sold illegally, she successfully sued for his freedom. Naming herself “Sojourner Truth,” and converting to Methodism, she campaigned for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery throughout her life .

Here’s her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech, given in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, OH.

“Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member in audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.”

Give your day an extra boost by clicking here to hear a contemporary rendition of her speech .

I will not become what was done to me… Part 2, My Path to Peace and Social Justice Activism

Posted on January 14, 2019January 14, 2019 by kathiemm

by Rev. Dr. Doe West

About a year after being forced out into a “normal” life that was terrifying, and being forced to learn that my life was not the life of all little girls, that something was terribly wrong with my mother, my life, and so, clearly, with me, I had what I call my “Habakkuk Moment.”

Habakkuk was a minor prophet in the Judeo-Christian Old Testament (a book I had never read). In it, he is brought to such immense anger over injustice that he raises a fist to God!

As I did. To the dark sky in the midst of another terror-driven night, I shook my fist and pressed my heart against the window screen and silently cried out “If you are REAL, if you are this God I am hearing about now, WHY!? Why would you create ME? Specifically ME? And have me live THIS LIFE!? WHY????

I stood and shook my fist and then my whole body as I convulsed into sobs.
Each night for seven nights.
I awoke the 8th morning with what I later termed “the peace that passes all understanding,” and that was the understanding that a creator existed.

My next life shift came when my Native American grandmother took me aside and told me the time had come for me to learn who I truly was. Specifically, I was of The People. I had not known anything about this heritage, this beautiful heritage.

Over the next 5 years, Gra taught me that heritage, and trained me as a “Wise Woman” as part of my lineage. She shared with me how when she was 8, she was orphaned and missionaries took her from the tribal community and placed her as a kitchen slave in a white woman’s home in the Hudson Valley in NY. Thus, we had kinship in a heritage of captivity as well as in understanding the critical role of our own response to it.

Nothing was within normal limits for many more years. I was found to have an IQ that startled our small-town village. In an era without gifted child options, I was “placed” in the library–denied basic education but given the freedom to read every book in that building and forge a lifelong love affair with knowledge! But I also became known as the “Library Gnome,” someone different, again isolated and living a life with the potential for self-hatred, shame, and fear. I chose to focus on the pursuit of knowledge and did research on my own beliefs and those of society around me.

When I finally skipped a grade for the 3rd time, and worked it out with the school system to show up for two classes a day before work, they got state aid and I got a diploma. I had worked full time since I was 13 but now had working papers and could do a regular job outside the village rather than under the table.

I worked three or more jobs to help support my family and pay my own bills and begin saving for college. I knew college was my huge wall to climb over or tunnel under to achieve my own essential form of freedom.

Then the adventure REALLY began… but I will leave that part for later, in simple yet profound celebration of life lessons and mantras that sustain, and lights that shine in the darkness.

Our histories, ourselves, Part 2

Posted on November 30, 2018March 9, 2021 by kathiemm

National Day of Mourning Plaque, Plymouth, MA. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

By Rev. Dr. Doe West

The story of Native Americans/American Indians continues, with some glimmers of hope for the future.

Having failed to fully record the genocide, contemporary U.S. governments have decided to recognize 562 Native American tribes. To be included on those rolls, you must have an ancestor who was processed and counted–and most likely ended up on one of the reservations created while treaties were being broken and peoples moved like cattle across lands unknown to them.

As with all people who are deemed different and set apart, a number of Native Americans, ancestors of the survivors who may not be recognized as such today, voluntarily removed themselves from that processing and relocation. Within that group were my Grandmother’s family members.

The tales my grandmother told me regarding my lineage included ancestors hiding in the woods of the Hudson Valley area and coming into newly integrated groups of various tribes surviving there (Lenape/Delaware, Mahican, Wappinger, and others who entered that area) as well as African Americans, Cajuns, French Canadian trappers, and other European traders) in villages that developed on the Hudson river. This beautiful mélange of cultures created what I consider my “true American mutt heritage.”

When the Missionaries learned that my Grandmother’s parents were both dead, they came to “save her from the Savages.” To do so, they placed her in a white woman’s home in Peekskill, NY, as a kitchen slave.

The recognition of the history that Andrés Reséndez recounts in his recent book, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America” is growing, as more and more people learn about and recognize the truth of this aspect of a generally unreported part of “American history. But whether or not painful facts are recognized or understood, the facts are the facts. And for my grandmother and for me, America’s historical degradation and enslavement of native peoples was and is a fact of life.

When you read this story, you may suspect that it bears a tone of anger that I did not feel in writing it. Instead, as an academic, I speak with a voice that is intended to be one of education.

November is Native American Heritage Month.

Learn the truth.
Understand what was done.
Know that tribal affiliation and lineage does not exist only on ledgers on dusty shelves in official buildings in Washington, DC.

I trust my Grandmother’s oral traditions, passed on to me along with other true tales of her life that persist above and beyond the records made by those who enslaved her.

I celebrated my heritage throughout this month and I celebrate the next steps in our attaining all the rights and privileges owed me on the basis of my citizenship and my humanity in the land of my ancestors.

And I welcome the coming waves of immigrants and invite them to learn more about the true heritage of all the peoples who have struggled to build a decent life in this land of ours.