Part of the challenge is that we are over-awed by gifts that are potentially world-changing. To treat them as a matter of wise stewardship requires something like gravitas

(...) those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts

"Our lives teach us who we are." I have learned the hard way that when you permit anyone else's description of reality to supplant your own -- and such descriptions have been raining down on me, from security advisers, governments, journalists, Archbishops, friends, enemies, mullahs -- then you might as well be dead. Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable. Yet I must cling with all my might to . . . my own soul; must hold on to its mischievous, iconoclastic, out-of-step clown-instincts, no matter how great the storm. And if that plunges me into contradiction and paradox, so be it; I've lived in that messy ocean all my life. I've fished in it for my art. This turbulent sea was the sea outside my bedroom window in Bombay. It is the sea by which I was born, and which I carry within me wherever I go.

"Free speech is a non-starter," says one of my Islamic extremist opponents. No, sir, it is not. Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

"obedient poodlism not only leads to fascism, but as this blog has repeatedly tried to show, is also the result of a long tradition of racist and proto-fascist "spiritualality" stretching back into the 19th century"

His particular contribution to Czech dissidence was his work on the concept of the "Parallel Polis," or "Second Culture." Magor believed that simply expressing oneself through art could ultimately undermine the totalitarian system: if enough artists, journalists, and musicians were to simply keep practicing their arts without giving in to the pressures of socialist realism, eventually a critical mass of people, all living in truth, would inspire the rest of the populace to see the totalitarian system for the flismy front it really was.
In a sense, this is what happened

[Bondy] "spoke of the economic system of "robbery" under the totalitarian regime (only Bondy would compare it with the ancient Chinese imperial gentry!), his dissatisfaction with Civic Forum, the history of the Underground, the non-role of Czech students in the revolutionary movement, Havel's rise to power through the human rights petition-cum-organization Charter 77, the threat of "international monopolist capitalism" comgin to Czechoslovakia (with its attendant poverty), his belief that Czechoslovakians have no interest in privatization, and his fears that his nation will be coopted into joining the imperialists' war against the Third World. Throughout our talk, he lamented the lost opportunity to remake true socialism out of the "postcapitalist" rubble of the Stalinist Czechoslovakian economy."

The question of the Third World is the most profound question of our immediate future. What happens here in Eastern Europe is not the center of world development. The central problem is the question of the Third World and the coming confrontation between the international imperialists and the needs of the peoples who comprise the majority of mankind. We now have 6 billion in the world; in twenty-five years, 9 billion, for whom the imperialists are not prepared to bring humane living conditions

The Pentagon and George Bush thank God every day for the criminal Saddam Hussein. (...) The criminal Saddam Hussein gives them an opening and they thank God for the excuse.

(...) It is all only a pretext for the new crusade against the Third World, in the interest of the world rule of the imperialist mode of production. Because, under their rules, it is impossible for all people of this planet to have humane living conditions. They need a cheap labor force. They need poor areas of the world. They need poor people. They don't want people to manage their own fate for themselves. They don't want freedom for these people. They want a market for second- and third-quality commodities and the riches for themselves.

And for us in Eastern Europe one of the greatest dangers is this: that we could, by demagogy, become involved in this struggle on the side of "white civilization." This is what I fear most. ...

I fear that under the cover of the "struggle for freedom," we will be only mercenaries in the struggle for so-called white civilization, although we shall remain only as a reservoir of cheap labor. A tragicomical situation.

VICTOR ROMERO: It’s a miracle.
GREG PALAST: How did the miracle occur?
VICTOR ROMERO: How did the miracle occur? I don't know.
GREG PALAST: On a computer printout, Dr. Romero showed how the official tallies matched the exit polls, with challenger Lopez Obrador ahead by 2% all night. That is, until the very end, when several precincts came in for the ruling party by 10-to-1, and then 100-to-1, putting their candidate Felipe Calderon over the top, literally in the last minutes. The doctor found that statistically improbable.
VICTOR ROMERO: We reached the point I said, “It’s over.” But then, from 71% ‘til the very end, there was not a single moment in which the difference from one report to the next became bigger.
GREG PALAST: So it didn't change at all. Just was perfect.
VICTOR ROMERO: Perfect, perfect. And so we just couldn't believe it. I mean, it fell -- with 5% to go, it fell one full point.
GREG PALAST: So then, what happened?
VICTOR ROMERO: Another miracle. Statistically, it's a second miracle.

I remember Tolstoys words “I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.” They seem to have learned little in 120 years....more

What can the United States of America do on this fourth of July to draw the line? I believe we must tell each other, “Up to this point, these vicious impertinent acts, this anachronistic competitive behavior was tolerated. Beyond this point we have no room in our power structures for people who behave this way, though we have love for them in our hearts.”

We are no longer fascinated with the Sideshow run by the media and the think tanks. We are less and less interested in who wins the next election, because we have seen that Candidia wins either way. Attention is an alternative curency and we would rather invest ours elsewhere. Carnival is coming and we are practicing jumping in and out of the Dumpster as Clowns jump in and out of their little car in the Circus. Where we are going our antics will not be considered funny at first, so accustomed are the multitude to another kind of farce, but that is the reason we had better keep it light. Nothing is sadder than a Clown who breaks role under pressure. When the crowd sees the point of the jests, Candidia, our Ringmaster, may run for the exit. That too is part of the show.