December 21, 2011

SandBox Comments: Lee Mulcahy "Aspen Art Museum Form for Annual fundraiser [online]:"

via Lee Mulcahy:
"Let me tell you on this first Sunday in Advent, when we celebrate hope, when we remember in the church how Mary and Joseph left Nazareth for Bethlehem, why I am in Liberty Square.

I am here because I have tried, however imperfectly, to live by the radical message of the Gospel. I am here because I know that it is not what we say or profess but what we do. I am here because I have seen in my many years overseas as a foreign correspondent that great men and women of moral probity arise in all cultures and all religions to fight the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed. I am here because I have seen that it is possible to be a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu or an atheist and carry the cross.

The words are different but the self-sacrifice and thirst for justice are the same. And these men and women, who may not profess what I profess or believe what I believe, are my brothers and sisters. And I stand with them honoring and respecting our differences and finding hope and strength and love in our common commitment. 

At times like these I hear the voices of the saints who went before us.

The suffragist Susan B. Anthony, who announced that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God, and the suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who said, “The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.”

Or Henry David Thoreau, who told us we should be men and women first and subjects afterward, that we should cultivate a respect not for the law but for what is right.

And Frederick Douglass, who warned us: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

And the great 19th century populist Mary Elizabeth Lease, who thundered: “Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.”

And Gen. Smedley Butler, who said that after 33 years and four months in the Marine Corps he had come to understand that he had been nothing more than a gangster for capitalism, making Mexico safe for American oil interests, making Haiti and Cuba safe for banks and pacifying the Dominican Republic for sugar companies. War, he said, is a racket in which newly dominated countries are exploited by the financial elites and Wall Street while the citizens foot the bill and sacrifice their young men and women on the battlefield for corporate greed.

Or Eugene V. Debs, the socialist presidential candidate, who in 1912 pulled almost a million votes, or 6 percent, and who was sent to prison by Woodrow Wilson for opposing the First World War, and who told the world: “While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

And Rabbi Abraham Heschel, who when he was criticized for walking with Martin Luther King on the Sabbath in Selma answered: “I pray with my feet” and who quoted Samuel Johnson, who said: “The opposite of good is not evil. The opposite of good is indifference.”

And Rosa Parks, who defied the segregated bus system and said “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

And Philip Berrigan, who said: “If enough Christians follow the Gospel, they can bring any state to its knees.”

And Martin Luther King, who said: “On some positions, cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ And there comes a time when a true follower of Jesus Christ must take a stand that’s neither safe nor politic nor popular but he must take a stand because it is right.”
(Chris Hedges)

"Truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident." 

SandBox Comments: Republican Defined "Jeb Bush Op-Ed: Capitalism and the Right to Rise"

"Congressman Paul Ryan recently coined a smart phrase to describe the core concept of economic freedom: “The right to rise.”


Think about it. We talk about the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly. The right to rise doesn’t seem like something we should have to protect.

But we do. We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise. We have to let them compete. We need to let people fight for business. We need to let people take risks. We need to let people fail. We need to let people suffer the consequences of bad decisions. And we need to let people enjoy the fruits of good decisions, even good luck...."
(T. Christopher)

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SandBox Comments: Grand Junction Daily Sentinel "Mesa County precincts redrawn"

"Pressed by concerns about voter privacy and expense, Mesa County Clerk Sheila Reiner is proposing reducing county’s precincts from 82 to 57...."

Sure, she is.  "Pressed by concerns about voter privacy and expense".

Clerk Reiner is being sued:

"Mesa County - The Mesa County Clerk and Recorder is being sued, and some people believe the outcome could have a huge effect on the 2012 general election."

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SandBox Comments: Aspen Times "Labor pains in Aspen"

Dear Editor:

I read with interest the conclusions a pair of papered pundits drew in their recently published “The Slums of Aspen.” They bear witness to what Aspen's workforce has become. But things were not always so.

Back when I first moved to the valley more than 30 years ago, there were very few illegal immigrants working in Aspen. The landscapers, the maids, the cooks and the rest of the working class were U.S. citizens.

My first job in Aspen was doing maid work with my wife at one of Aspen's finer hotels. We averaged more than $10 per hour and got to take home all the food and booze left in the rooms, and at season's end we each got a $450 bonus.

Thirty years later, the same job at the same hotel pays $8 per hour, you don't get any guest leftovers, and as a bonus you don't have to speak English. The authors' liberal bent must have prevented their distinguishing between legal and illegal workers.
(Bruno Kirchenwitz)

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