Category Archives: At the Margin

19. (2013 May) At the Margins: Quips and Quotes

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“People are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative. We need a vision that recognizes that we are at one of the great turning points in human history when the survival of our planet and the restoration of our humanity require a great sea change in our ecological, economic, political, and spiritual values.”
~Grace Lee Boggs

“Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ”
~Paulo Freire

“The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions while not becoming disillusioned.”
~Antonio Gramsci

“Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.”
~Oscar Romero

“There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.”
~Margaret Thatcher

“There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them.”
~Clare Booth Luce

16. (2013 April) At the Margins: Quips and Quotes

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“When we tug at a single thing in Nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.”
~John Muir

“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. (…) We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words ‘Too late.’ ”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”
~Anais Nin

“Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.”
~Anna Lappe

4. (2013 March) Opinion: We Need a Land Value Tax, Not a Property Tax Cap

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We Need a Land Value Tax, Not a Property Tax Cap
By Scott Baker (Common Ground NYC)

Land, unlike manmade capital, is finite, generally increases in value wherever location and population pressures are applied, and is the single leading cause of booms and busts in the financial cycle (there really is no such thing as a “business cycle”). Whereas capital, like buildings, can always be increased or decreased to suit market demand, land cannot. Therefore, the value of land belongs to the community that created it, to be collected via taxation, while the value of the buildings upon it are production, and belong to those who produce them.

http://www.empirepage.com/2013/3/3/we-need-a-land-value-tax-not-a-property-tax-cap

15. (2013 March) At the Margins: Quips and Quotes

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“Truth never damages a cause that is just.”
~Mahatma Gandhi

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
~Elie Wiesel

“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’ ”
~Don Marquis

14. (2013 February) At the Margins: Quips and Quotes

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“Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.”
~Thomas Paine

“The fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to no one.”
~Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

10. At the Margin: Quips and Quotes

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“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.”
~Helen Keller

“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
~William Jennings Bryan

“Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital.”
~Henry George

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
~Abraham Lincoln

13. (2012 December) At the Margins: Quips & Quotes

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“No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.”
~Alfred North Whitehead

“We sense that ‘normal’ isn’t coming back, that we are being born into a new normal: a new kind of society, a new relationship to the earth, a new experience of being human.”
~Charles Eisenstein

“Some of my most precious moments of insight have been those in which I have seen clearly that gratitude is the only possible response.”
~Sylvia Boorstein

“The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth.”
~Theodore Roosevelt

14. (2012 November) At the Margins: Quips & Quotes

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“The generosity of the Earth allows us to feed all mankind; we know enough about ecology to keep the Earth a healthy place; there is enough room on the Earth, and there are enough materials, so that everybody can have adequate shelter; we are quite competent enough to produce sufficient supplies of necessities so that no one need live in misery.”
~E.F. Schumacher

“Looking for and enjoying beauty is a way to nourish the soul. The universe is in the habit of making beauty. There are flowers and songs, snowflakes and smiles, acts of great courage, laughter between friends, a job well done, the smell of fresh-baked bread. Beauty is everywhere.”
~Matthew Fox

9. (June 2012) At the Margin: Quips and Quotes

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Quips and Quotes It’s really the cat’s house — we just pay the mortgage. – Author Unknown One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it is the sickening grammar that they use. – Mark Twain (friend of Henry George) Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia. [as did Henry George] – Joseph Wood Krutch