Albert Camus

"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience"

Hur nådde vi hit?

SAMSARA food sequence from Baraka & Samsara on Vimeo.

Benjamin Franklin

"Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of the state; much more so than riches and arms."

Tiden

Vårt så inbillade civiliserade sinne är inställt på dominans. Marken och jorden måste krökas i fåror för att tjäna mänskliga önskningar om mer. Köttet av andra medvarelser måste piskas och plågas till uppassning av våra upplysta önskningar. Kropparna av kvinnor måste begränsas, förvridas, och alltför ofta tjäna männens önskningar. Historien om civilisationen är berättelsen om dominans, utövandet av våld och förnekande av symbios och cirkuläritet. Intressant nog är det abstrakta begreppet tid som genereras av den civiliserade sinnet bara ett verktyg för att ha ett övertag, men det ingår en motsägelse i detta; tiden som den har modellerats av civilisationer är ju oändlig; vilket skapar en gåta, för en oändlig framtida rymd skänker en oändlig arbetsbelastning på det civiliserade sinnet, som enligt sin övertygelse måste underhålla och styra en oändlig terräng och inte en ändlig dito.

Så vi fortsätter därmed våra oändliga försök att placera in alla ändliga eventualiteter i olika härskande, krigförande och styrande mallar för att eliminera eventuella variationer eller osäkerheter kring vår makt över jordedagarna vi lever. Kan detta rimligen beskrivas som något annat än absurt? Kanske galet?

Emma Goldman

"Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism... Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition.An army and navy represent the people's toys." 

Arundhati Roy

"Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds... Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free." 

Bertrand Russell

What I Have Lived For

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

 I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

 Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

 This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."