Author: Nick

I Concur

In an 1822 letter to Kentucky Lt. Governor W.T. Barry, James Madison wrote that “a popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both.” Madison’s letter, originally espousing a robust public education system for Kentucky, has since been used as an appeal for open government. “A people who mean to be their own governors,” Madison wrote, “must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” Today, the people appear utterly unarmed against the National Security Agency, which holds a incredible amount of knowledge about citizens while withholding essential facts about how it spies on them. That secret knowledge is secret power, which is anathema to democracy when in the hands of an unaccountable elite.

 

 

Read the whole thing.

Under the Bludgeonings of Chance/My Head is Bloody, But Unbowed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTe2k3EpM9Y

 

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Nelson Mandela was one of the greatest human beings of this or any century.  He did more for freedom in his lifetime than the United States did, and with cleaner hands.  

 

Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.