Excerpt #103 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
Clever men place the world into cages, but the wise woman who must duck under the moon throws keys to the rowdy prisoners. – Sufi poet Hafiz
Of what value are profit, power, and progress when they violate people, other species, and destroy the conditions that sustain life?
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. – Aldo Leopold
America’s corporate and political elites — often in concert with ancient religious thought — have privatized democracy.
Their only vision is to use elections as a path to more power for themselves and friends.
Most benefits and rewards flow upwards while the gap increases between the small percentage of Americans who have wealth and the multitudes who struggle to get by.
THE WEALTHY AND POWERFUL MINE THE POOR AND POWERLESS.
In this country, we embrace the myth that we are still a democracy when we know that we are not a democracy, that we are not free, that the government does not serve us but subjugates us. Although we give lip service to the notion of freedom, we know the government is no longer the servant of the people, but, at last, has become the people’s master. – Gerry Spence, “From Freedom to Slavery”