Remembering Doris 'Granny D' Haddock...

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

...I miss this woman.

Hoping our Mods will indulge me posting this editorial she penned from '05, "Our Velvet Revolution:"

-----snippet-----

But as for our freedom, what do we have left of it? No man or woman is free whose life is built upon the suffering of others. Slavery enslaves the master more than the slave, for the master is enslaved in mind as well as body. And so we take off our shoes at the airport and are too dumbed-down to think why, and we send our children to factory schools that are the abattoirs of their tender imaginations and grand potentials, and we are too hypnotized to think much of it. We bow our heads to our bosses, without the clear minds to mourn for our human dignity, for we dare not miss a paycheck or else the credit card and mortgage bales on our backs will come crushing down on us, and that is all that matters, we have been programmed to believe, not think.

Our lives have been stolen; we have no place to go, no meaningful choices--only meaningless, consumer choices. Decide to live the life of a poet, or a farmer, or a vagabond, or a philosopher, and count the cost of that. Can you afford it--can you afford freedom? Are you free to make big changes in your life, or do you have too many obligations to others? Financial entanglements have come to define human relationships, so that the elite may prosper.

Was it not ever so? Did not the frontier farmers and the townspeople feel the constraints of their position, their obligations to family, church, community? They did so. I remember this life. It was imperfect, but it was different than today: people chose their oppressions and built lives. They were pawns in their own schemes and social hierarchies, and the fodder for the wars of the elites, but there was a sense of freedom that is missing now. . . .

Source link: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0117-31.htm

[janet118]

1. Unforgettable spirit - a confirmation

of the power of one

[Raine]

2. THANKS for posting this nt

:thumbsup:

[Wilms]

3. Was just thinking of her. What a treasure.