An Apt Quote

 "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Mark Twain

Two Quotes For Martin

                             "Power concedes nothing without a demand."

                                       Frederick Douglass

       "The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems

      that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity."

       Steve Biko

As We May Fall

I wrote the following last week. As I celebrated a socially-distanced new year due to the current plague, I woke up new year's day without my usual hangover. And, inspired by the fact that the republicans were going to challenge Biden's electoral certification today, and uncertain of the outcome of the Georgia senate races yesterday (which we won), I decided that a letter to the editor was in order. I had just posted the quote from Solzhenitsyn, and it inspired the letter, which was printed in the local paper today, the day we had a failed coup. 

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire said that way back in 1765. 

The truth of that statement has been borne out countless times since then. It is being borne out, in this country, today.Without one fact to back up their specious claims of fraud, Republicans are attempting the overthrow of our election.

President Donald Trump is calling for his followers to gather in Washington as some of his acolytes in Congress question the certification of the electoral votes. News reports have said that some of these politicians know the truth but are acting cynically to please their base and maintain power. 

I can't see into the souls of others, but I wish to appeal to anyone who may be supporting Trump for selfish, craven reasons to listen to the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from his Nobel lecture: "The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme-- only not through me."