The scum of America

"Listen," I say. "Isn't that great? The future ex-president of the United States is ordering National Guard units to Washington because he wants to 'take back his beautiful capital city'."  
No reaction.
"He wants to reduce the allegedly enormous crime rate and drive all the homeless people out of his city."
For a while, it seemed as if Tetrapilotamos, who is currently very busy proofreading his 1,669-page masterpiece ‘Pre-Assyrian Philately in a Nutshell,’ wasn't listening to me at all.
But then I hear him mutter: "Fact is, the illiteracy rate in Washington, D.C. is higher than in Cuba. Same goes for the crime rate.
The real scum of America these days is to be found in the White House, though, ... to tell the truth.”

Mainau Declaration(s)

"An enormous responsibility lies in the hands of political leaders today. [...] A mentally ill or power-obsessed dictator could then [...] doom the civilised world, but with it also his own country, to radiation death. [...] Such a possibility must never occur, and hence the need for truly international control over the development of nuclear weapons, or better: peaceful coexistence of all peoples. [...] Today, war is no longer 'the continuation of politics by other means'. In a bomb war there are no longer victors and vanquished."
Otto Hahn, 13 February 1955

Five months later, 15 July 1955, the Nobel Prize Laureate initiated the Mainau Declaration at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Among the 52 signatories worldwide were the physicists Werner Heisenberg and Max Born, as well as 15 other German and international Nobel laureates.

Two further declarations followed in 2015 (on climate change) and 2024 (on nuclear weapons).
Mainau Declarations

The price of apathy ...

Plato (427 BC – 347 BC)

Laughing Lhursday*

I hear that 90000 (in words: ninety thousand) earth-dwellers  – LGBTQIA plus  all those genders still to discover, and, believe it or not, even a few women and men) – from this and that continent and many an island swam and walked in a climate-neutral way to Dubai to act as world saviours.
And that's exactly what they did for 14 days in air-conditioned rooms and on full board. Acting.

So let's enjoy a climate of peace on earth, now and forever.

 

* [For first time visitors]:

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Beers & Books CCCXLI – Long Walk to Freedom

Long Walk to Freedom

Nelson Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013)

 

John Hume: It is time

“[...] The renewal of Ireland is scarcely thinkable outside the process of the development of a political and cultural Europe. [...] It (the EU; sj) is the greatest example of conflict resolution in the history of humanity. Nations who for centuries invaded each other, occupied each other’s territories, expelled each other’s peoples and massacred each other, came together freely to bury their old hatreds. [...] But the fact that these nations have preserved their identities is even more encouraging. It proves that institutions can be created to pursue common objectives without sacrificing Europe’s diversity of culture and traditions. [...] The more people are given responsibility for their future, the more they show their ability to take such responsibility. The more people believe that their political institutions belong to them, the more effective those institutions will be. [...] Working for a new Ireland in a new Europe [...] It is time to look honestly at the virtues and defects of our society and find new answers capable of preparing us for the challenges which lie ahead. It is time to paint a realistic portrait of society and to abandon the consolation of outmoded imaginary mental pictures. We need the courage to imagine new perspectives which will help us to formulate answers to the questions of social diversity, possible political institutions and the eventual resolution of our conflict. ”

John Hume in Everything is Political in a divided Society. Above excerpts were taken from “Arguing at the Crossroads – Essays on a changing Ireland”, 1997, pp 105/106.

John Hume (18 January 1937 – 3 August 2020)

Beers & Books CCCXXIX – A Message to the Irish People

"It is clear that it is not man
who has created the universe
- whether you believe in God or in gods
or deny any divine presence -
man cannot alter the laws
that govern the universe
without damaging it."

Seán MacBride ( 26 January 1904 – 15 January 1988)

Beers & Books CCCXXVIII – Bobby Sands

 Bobby Sands (9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981)

I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets. Tiocfaidh ár lá' (Our day will come), I said to myself, Tiocfaidh ár lá. [Final diary entry]

 

Beers & Books CCCXXV – A life in invisibility

A Life in Invisibility
(Women in Yemen)

Beers & Books CCCXXII – Fundamentalism against Women

The Nawal El Saadawi reader

Nawal El Sadawy (22 October 1931 – 21 March 2021)

Beers & Books CCCXXI – Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe (16 November 1930  – 21 March 2013

Beers & Books CCLVXXX – John Hume

Difference is of the essence of humanity.
Difference is an accident of birth and should therefore
never be the source of hatred or conflict.
The answer to difference is to respect it.
Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace:
respect for diversity.

John Hume (18 January 1937 – 3 August 2020)

Razor-sharp insight

It is hard for me to listen to a perpetually nose-grabbing fast talker, but easy to recommend reading this article by Slavoj Žižek in the Guardian: Pacifism is the wrong response to the war in Ukraine.

1911: The March of the Women

Shout, shout, up with your song!
Cry with the wind, for the dawn is breaking;
March, march, swing you along,
Wide blows our banner, and hope is waking.
Song with its story, dreams with their glory
Lo! they call, and glad is their word!
Loud and louder it swells,
Thunder of freedom, the voice of the Lord!

Long, long—we in the past
Cowered in dread from the light of heaven,
Strong, strong—stand we at last,
Fearless in faith and with sight new given.
Strength with its beauty, Life with its duty,
(Hear the voice, oh hear and obey!)
These, these—beckon us on!
Open your eyes to the blaze of day.

Comrades—ye who have dared
First in the battle to strive and sorrow!
Scorned, spurned—naught have ye cared,
Raising your eyes to a wider morrow,
Ways that are weary, days that are dreary,
Toil and pain by faith ye have borne;
Hail, hail—victors ye stand,
Wearing the wreath that the brave have worn!

Life, strife—those two are one,
Naught can ye win but by faith and daring.
On, on—that ye have done
But for the work of today preparing.
Firm in reliance, laugh a defiance,
(Laugh in hope, for sure is the end)
March, march—many as one,
Shoulder to shoulder and friend to friend.

The March of the Women

Ethel Smith (22 April 1858 – 8 May 1944)

Cicely Hamilton (15 June 1872 – 6 December 1952)

Women's Suffrage in the United Kingdom

In memoriam Patrice Lumumba

Patrice Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961)

Beers & Books Havel

Moc Bezmocných* (1978)
literally translated:
The Power of the Powerless
*
The German publishers titled:
Versuch, in der Wahrheit zu leben
(Attempt to Live in Truth)
1980 / 1989 / 1990
*
The English title:
Living in Truth (1986)

 

Václav Havel (5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011)

Beers & Books XXVI

Morale in times of globalisation
- -
I think in English the title is
The Art of the Impossible

Václav Havel (5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011)

Infected with hystery

Note: Meghan & Harry are not infected, yet.

Readers choice: unidimensional, almost

One could come to think these are screenshots from tabloids.

Cui bono?
Who does profit?

Anyway, those who have hoarded enough toilet paper are on the safe side.

On the Road ... whereto?

Fascism raises its right arm.
Franco would be very pleased
 with his successors' ruth- and shamelessness.

Oh, and by the way:

If I were a Catalan,
I had voted 'No'.
Nationalism is Fascism's little brother.

Consequential

There have always innocent children been born
who became evil bastards.
In face of an expanding number of human beings
it should therefore not come as a surprise
that nowadays
there live more evil bastards on this planet.

They would be a minor problem, though.
The problems are caused by those who follow them.