{"article":{"id":122971,"heading":"They Will Never Stop, We Must Stop Them.","author":"Sheepdog","created":"2005-02-22 18:46:13","modified":"2005-03-01 07:55:30","last_modified":"Tue, 01 Mar 2005 14:55:30","article":"
The enemy.
Is it a matter of fear mutated into a pathological compulsion to lie steal and have murder done in order to protect one self in a cloak of wealth and power? I think so.
The burden of wealth is manifold and legion always borne by the knowledge that there are other dangerous predactors lurking in order to steal the dragon's horde. One fear is created by the skewed perceptions they color the outside world with, knowing that there are others like themselves. They certainly are correct. Sick bastards who can never have enough wealth and power over others. They will kill with without conscience anyone including one of their own to acquire ever more of the same while the only thing they do agree upon is the continuation of their status of extra legal entities. Laws, as you may know, are for the poor.
The poor. (90+% of us in their view)
They fear the majority, once the cold water of the coming storm hits them. If they were clever, they would back down now.
But it's an out of control orgy of greed. They wont notice the change in the eyes of the people. It's way too late to put the tiger's tail down with the other dragons scorching your ass.\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"\r\nI think it's important to remember that in the novel 1984, Orwell drew a world where, despite the crushing uniform behavior enforced by the ruling elite, even a remaining avenue of escape; language, was being destroyed. The despotism was unrelenting, ever enclosing and absolute in it's reduction of the individual to an insect. This, I believe is the kernel of the warning given to us by Mr. George Orwell. ","numcomment":4,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2005\/02\/122971.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":122978,"heading":"laws are for the poor","article":"An interesting exploration of this insight, which is true in any exploitative society, can be found in Leo Tolstoy' s great novel Resurrection. An aristocrat comes to realize what the ghastly realities of his society are when he finds himself on a jury judging a prostitute whose life he had ruined when she was a servant on one of his family's estates. Slowly he begins to realize that private property, the legal system, and feudal and capitalist "rights" are all part of a great robbery in which a tiny minority enriches itself at the expense of the majority. Resurrection is regularly treated with disdain in the United States, where critics argue that Tolstoy should have continued to occupy himself with something sensible - like writing about adultery and love affairs among the aristocracy.","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":122971,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-02-22 22:58:48","modified":"2005-02-22 22:58:48","fileurl":""},{"id":122988,"heading":"link to the novel","article":"Here's the book at Project Gutenberg.\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/etext\/1938\r\n","author":"more rational","parent_id":122971,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-02-23 04:36:50","modified":"2005-02-23 04:36:50","fileurl":""},{"id":122989,"heading":"first 2 chapters of ressurection","article":"\r\nRESURRECTION\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER I.\r\n\r\nMASLOVA IN PRISON.\r\n\r\nThough hundreds of thousands had done their very best to\r\ndisfigure the small piece of land on which they were crowded\r\ntogether, by paying the ground with stones, scraping away every\r\nvestige of vegetation, cutting down the trees, turning away birds\r\nand beasts, and filling the air with the smoke of naphtha and\r\ncoal, still spring was spring, even in the town.\r\n\r\nThe sun shone warm, the air was balmy; everywhere, where it did\r\nnot get scraped away, the grass revived and sprang up between the\r\npaving-stones as well as on the narrow strips of lawn on the\r\nboulevards. The birches, the poplars, and the wild cherry\r\nunfolded their gummy and fragrant leaves, the limes were\r\nexpanding their opening buds; crows, sparrows, and pigeons,\r\nfilled with the joy of spring, were getting their nests ready;\r\nthe flies were buzzing along the walls, warmed by the sunshine.\r\nAll were glad, the plants, the birds, the insects, and the\r\nchildren. But men, grown-up men and women, did not leave off\r\ncheating and tormenting themselves and each other. It was not\r\nthis spring morning men thought sacred and worthy of\r\nconsideration not the beauty of God's world, given for a joy to\r\nall creatures, this beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to\r\nharmony, and to love, but only their own devices for enslaving\r\none another.\r\n\r\nThus, in the prison office of the Government town, it was not the\r\nfact that men and animals had received the grace and gladness of\r\nspring that was considered sacred and important, but that a\r\nnotice, numbered and with a superscription, had come the day\r\nbefore, ordering that on this 28th day of April, at 9 a.m., three\r\nprisoners at present detained in the prison, a man and two women\r\n(one of these women, as the chief criminal, to be conducted\r\nseparately), had to appear at Court. So now, on the 28th of\r\nApril, at 8 o'clock, a jailer and soon after him a woman warder\r\nwith curly grey hair, dressed in a jacket with sleeves trimmed\r\nwith gold, with a blue-edged belt round her waist, and having a\r\nlook of suffering on her face, came into the corridor.\r\n\r\n"You want Maslova?" she asked, coming up to the cell with the\r\njailer who was on duty.\r\n\r\nThe jailer, rattling the iron padlock, opened the door of the\r\ncell, from which there came a whiff of air fouler even than that\r\nin the corridor, and called out, "Maslova! to the Court," and\r\nclosed the door again.\r\n\r\nEven into the prison yard the breeze had brought the fresh\r\nvivifying air from the fields. But in the corridor the air was\r\nladen with the germs of typhoid, the smell of sewage,\r\nputrefaction, and tar; every newcomer felt sad and dejected in\r\nit. The woman warder felt this, though she was used to bad air.\r\nShe had just come in from outside, and entering the corridor, she\r\nat once became sleepy.\r\n\r\nFrom inside the cell came the sound of bustle and women's voices,\r\nand the patter of bare feet on the floor.\r\n\r\n"Now, then, hurry up, Maslova, I say!" called out the jailer, and\r\nin a minute or two a small young woman with a very full bust came\r\nbriskly out of the door and went up to the jailer. She had on a\r\ngrey cloak over a white jacket and petticoat. On her feet she\r\nwore linen stockings and prison shoes, and round her head was\r\ntied a white kerchief, from under which a few locks of black hair\r\nwere brushed over the forehead with evident intent. The face of\r\nthe woman was of that whiteness peculiar to people who have lived\r\nlong in confinement, and which puts one in mind of shoots of\r\npotatoes that spring up in a cellar. Her small broad hands and\r\nfull neck, which showed from under the broad collar of her cloak,\r\nwere of the same hue. Her black, sparkling eyes, one with a\r\nslight squint, appeared in striking contrast to the dull pallor\r\nof her face.\r\n\r\nShe carried herself very straight, expanding her full bosom.\r\n\r\nWith her head slightly thrown back, she stood in the corridor,\r\nlooking straight into the eyes of the jailer, ready to comply\r\nwith any order.\r\n\r\nThe jailer was about to lock the door when a wrinkled and\r\nsevere-looking old woman put out her grey head and began speaking\r\nto Maslova. But the jailer closed the door, pushing the old\r\nwoman's head with it. A woman's laughter was heard from the cell,\r\nand Maslova smiled, turning to the little grated opening in the\r\ncell door. The old woman pressed her face to the grating from the\r\nother side, and said, in a hoarse voice:\r\n\r\n"Now mind, and when they begin questioning you, just repeat over\r\nthe same thing, and stick to it; tell nothing that is not\r\nwanted."\r\n\r\n"Well, it could not be worse than it is now, anyhow; I only wish\r\nit was settled one way or another."\r\n\r\n"Of course, it will be settled one way or another," said the\r\njailer, with a superior's self-assured witticism. "Now, then, get\r\nalong! Take your places!"\r\n\r\nThe old woman's eyes vanished from the grating, and Maslova\r\nstepped out into the middle of the corridor. The warder in front,\r\nthey descended the stone stairs, past the still fouler, noisy\r\ncells of the men's ward, where they were followed by eyes looking\r\nout of every one of the gratings in the doors, and entered the\r\noffice, where two soldiers were waiting to escort her. A clerk\r\nwho was sitting there gave one of the soldiers a paper reeking of\r\ntobacco, and pointing to the prisoner, remarked, "Take her."\r\n\r\nThe soldier, a peasant from Nijni Novgorod, with a red,\r\npock-marked face, put the paper into the sleeve of his coat,\r\nwinked to his companion, a broad-shouldered Tchouvash, and then\r\nthe prisoner and the soldiers went to the front entrance, out of\r\nthe prison yard, and through the town up the middle of the\r\nroughly-paved street.\r\n\r\nIsvostchiks [cabmen], tradespeople, cooks, workmen,\r\nand government clerks, stopped and looked curiously at the\r\nprisoner; some shook their heads and thought, "This is what evil\r\nconduct, conduct unlike ours, leads to." The children stopped and\r\ngazed at the robber with frightened looks; but the thought that\r\nthe soldiers were preventing her from doing more harm quieted\r\ntheir fears. A peasant, who had sold his charcoal, and had had\r\nsome tea in the town, came up, and, after crossing himself, gave\r\nher a copeck. The prisoner blushed and muttered something; she\r\nnoticed that she was attracting everybody's attention, and that\r\npleased her. The comparatively fresh air also gladdened her, but\r\nit was painful to step on the rough stones with the ill-made\r\nprison shoes on her feet, which had become unused to walking.\r\nPassing by a corn-dealer's shop, in front of which a few pigeons\r\nwere strutting about, unmolested by any one, the prisoner almost\r\ntouched a grey-blue bird with her foot; it fluttered up and flew\r\nclose to her car, fanning her with its wings. She smiled, then\r\nsighed deeply as she remembered her present position.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER II.\r\n\r\nMASLOVA'S EARLY LIFE.\r\n\r\nThe story of the prisoner Maslova's life was a very common one.\r\n\r\nMaslova's mother was the unmarried daughter of a village woman,\r\nemployed on a dairy farm, which belonged to two maiden ladies who\r\nwere landowners. This unmarried woman had a baby every year, and,\r\nas often happens among the village people, each one of these\r\nundesired babies, after it had been carefully baptised, was\r\nneglected by its mother, whom it hindered at her work, and left\r\nto starve. Five children had died in this way. They had all been\r\nbaptised and then not sufficiently fed, and just left to die.\r\nThe sixth baby, whose father was a gipsy tramp, would have shared\r\nthe same fate, had it not so happened that one of the maiden\r\nladies came into the farmyard to scold the dairymaids for sending\r\nup cream that smelt of the cow. The young woman was lying in the\r\ncowshed with a fine, healthy, new-born baby. The old maiden lady\r\nscolded the maids again for allowing the woman (who had just been\r\nconfined) to lie in the cowshed, and was about to go away, but\r\nseeing the baby her heart was touched, and she offered to stand\r\ngodmother to the little girl, and pity for her little\r\ngod-daughter induced her to give milk and a little money to the\r\nmother, so that she should feed the baby; and the little girl\r\nlived. The old ladies spoke of her as "the saved one." When the\r\nchild was three years old, her mother fell ill and died, and the\r\nmaiden ladies took the child from her old grandmother, to whom\r\nshe was nothing but a burden.\r\n\r\nThe little black-eyed maiden grew to be extremely pretty, and so\r\nfull of spirits that the ladies found her very entertaining.\r\n\r\nThe younger of the ladies, Sophia Ivanovna, who had stood\r\ngodmother to the girl, had the kinder heart of the two sisters;\r\nMaria Ivanovna, the elder, was rather hard. Sophia Ivanovna\r\ndressed the little girl in nice clothes, and taught her to read\r\nand write, meaning to educate her like a lady. Maria Ivanovna\r\nthought the child should be brought up to work, and trained her\r\nto be a good servant. She was exacting; she punished, and, when\r\nin a bad temper, even struck the little girl. Growing up under\r\nthese two different influences, the girl turned out half servant,\r\nhalf young lady. They called her Katusha, which sounds less\r\nrefined than Katinka, but is not quite so common as Katka. She\r\nused to sew, tidy up the rooms, polish the metal cases of the\r\nicons and do other light work, and sometimes she sat and read to\r\nthe ladies.\r\n\r\nThough she had more than one offer, she would not marry. She felt\r\nthat life as the wife of any of the working men who were courting\r\nher would be too hard; spoilt as she was by a life of ease.\r\n\r\nShe lived in this manner till she was sixteen, when the nephew of\r\nthe old ladies, a rich young prince, and a university student,\r\ncame to stay with his aunts, and Katusha, not daring to\r\nacknowledge it even to herself, fell in love with him.\r\n\r\nThen two years later this same nephew stayed four days with his\r\naunts before proceeding to join his regiment, and the night\r\nbefore he left he betrayed Katusha, and, after giving her a\r\n100-rouble note, went away. Five months later she knew for\r\ncertain that she was to be a mother. After that everything seemed\r\nrepugnant to her, her only thought being how to escape from the\r\nshame that awaited her. She began not only to serve the ladies in\r\na half-hearted and negligent way, but once, without knowing how\r\nit happened, was very rude to them, and gave them notice, a thing\r\nshe repented of later, and the ladies let her go, noticing\r\nsomething wrong and very dissatisfied with her. Then she got a\r\nhousemaid's place in a police-officer's house, but stayed there\r\nonly three months, for the police officer, a man of fifty, began\r\nto torment her, and once, when he was in a specially enterprising\r\nmood, she fired up, called him "a fool and old devil," and gave\r\nhim such a knock in the chest that he fell. She was turned out\r\nfor her rudeness. It was useless to look for another situation,\r\nfor the time of her confinement was drawing near, so she went to\r\nthe house of a village midwife, who also sold wine. The\r\nconfinement was easy; but the midwife, who had a case of fever in\r\nthe village, infected Katusha, and her baby boy had to be sent to\r\nthe foundlings' hospital, where, according to the words of the\r\nold woman who took him there, he at once died. When Katusha went\r\nto the midwife she had 127 roubles in all, 27 which she had\r\nearned and 100 given her by her betrayer. When she left she had\r\nbut six roubles; she did not know how to keep money, but spent it\r\non herself, and gave to all who asked. The midwife took 40\r\nroubles for two months' board and attendance, 25 went to get the\r\nbaby into the foundlings' hospital, and 40 the midwife borrowed\r\nto buy a cow with. Twenty roubles went just for clothes and\r\ndainties. Having nothing left to live on, Katusha had to look out\r\nfor a place again, and found one in the house of a forester. The\r\nforester was a married man, but he, too, began to annoy her from\r\nthe first day. He disgusted her, and she tried to avoid him. But\r\nhe, more experienced and cunning, besides being her master, who\r\ncould send her wherever he liked, managed to accomplish his\r\nobject. His wife found it out, and, catching Katusha and her\r\nhusband in a room all by themselves, began beating her. Katusha\r\ndefended herself, and they had a fight, and Katusha got turned\r\nout of the house without being paid her wages.\r\n\r\nThen Katusha went to live with her aunt in town. The aunt's\r\nhusband, a bookbinder, had once been comfortably off, but had\r\nlost all his customers, and had taken to drink, and spent all he\r\ncould lay hands on at the public-house. The aunt kept a little\r\nlaundry, and managed to support herself, her children, and her\r\nwretched husband. She offered Katusha the place of an assistant\r\nlaundress; but seeing what a life of misery and hardship her\r\naunt's assistants led, Katusha hesitated, and applied to a\r\nregistry office for a place. One was found for her with a lady\r\nwho lived with her two sons, pupils at a public day school. A\r\nweek after Katusha had entered the house the elder, a big fellow\r\nwith moustaches, threw up his studies and made love to her,\r\ncontinually following her about. His mother laid all the blame on\r\nKatusha, and gave her notice.\r\n\r\nIt so happened that, after many fruitless attempts to find a\r\nsituation, Katusha again went to the registry office, and there\r\nmet a woman with bracelets on her bare, plump arms and rings on\r\nmost of her fingers. Hearing that Katusha was badly in want of a\r\nplace, the woman gave her her address, and invited her to come to\r\nher house. Katusha went. The woman received her very kindly, set\r\ncake and sweet wine before her, then wrote a note and gave it to\r\na servant to take to somebody. In the evening a tall man, with\r\nlong, grey hair and a white beard, entered the room, and sat down\r\nat once near Katusha, smiling and gazing at her with glistening\r\neyes. He began joking with her. The hostess called him away into\r\nthe next room, and Katusha heard her say, "A fresh one from the\r\ncountry," Then the hostess called Katusha aside and told her that\r\nthe man was an author, and that he had a great deal of money, and\r\nthat if he liked her he would not grudge her anything. He did\r\nlike her, and gave her 25 roubles, promising to see her often.\r\nThe 25 roubles soon went; some she paid to her aunt for board and\r\nlodging; the rest was spent on a hat, ribbons, and such like. A\r\nfew days later the author sent for her, and she went. He gave her\r\nanother 25 roubles, and offered her a separate lodging.\r\n\r\nNext door to the lodging rented for her by the author there lived\r\na jolly young shopman, with whom Katusha soon fell in love. She\r\ntold the author, and moved to a little lodging of her own. The\r\nshopman, who promised to marry her, went to Nijni on business\r\nwithout mentioning it to her, having evidently thrown her up, and\r\nKatusha remained alone. She meant to continue living in the\r\nlodging by herself, but was informed by the police that in this\r\ncase she would have to get a license. She returned to her aunt.\r\nSeeing her fine dress, her hat, and mantle, her aunt no longer\r\noffered her laundry work. As she understood things, her niece had\r\nrisen above that sort of thing. The question as to whether she\r\nwas to become a laundress or not did not occur to Katusha,\r\neither. She looked with pity at the thin, hard-worked\r\nlaundresses, some already in consumption, who stood washing or\r\nironing with their thin arms in the fearfully hot front room,\r\nwhich was always full of soapy steam and draughts from the\r\nwindows, and thought with horror that she might have shared the\r\nsame fate.\r\n\r\nKatusha had begun to smoke some time before, and since the young\r\nshopman had thrown her up she was getting more and more into the\r\nhabit of drinking. It was not so much the flavour of wine that\r\ntempted her as the fact that it gave her a chance of forgetting\r\nthe misery she suffered, making her feel more unrestrained and\r\nmore confident of her own worth, which she was not when quite\r\nsober; without wine she felt sad and ashamed. Just at this time a\r\nwoman came along who offered to place her in one of the largest\r\nestablishments in the city, explaining all the advantages and\r\nbenefits of the situation. Katusha had the choice before her of\r\neither going into service or accepting this offer--and she chose\r\nthe latter. Besides, it seemed to her as though, in this way, she\r\ncould revenge herself on her betrayer and the shopman and all\r\nthose who had injured her. One of the things that tempted her,\r\nand was the cause of her decision, was the woman telling her she\r\nmight order her own dresses--velvet, silk, satin, low-necked ball\r\ndresses, anything she liked. A mental picture of herself in a\r\nbright yellow silk trimmed with black velvet with low neck and\r\nshort sleeves conquered her, and she gave up her passport. On the\r\nsame evening the procuress took an isvostchik and drove her to\r\nthe notorious house kept by Carolina Albertovna Kitaeva.\r\n\r\nFrom that day a life of chronic sin against human and divine laws\r\ncommenced for Katusha Maslova, a life which is led by hundreds of\r\nthousands of women, and which is not merely tolerated but\r\nsanctioned by the Government, anxious for the welfare of its\r\nsubjects; a life which for nine women out of ten ends in painful\r\ndisease, premature decrepitude, and death.\r\n\r\nKatusha Maslova lived this life for seven years. During these\r\nyears she twice changed houses, and had once been to the\r\nhospital. In the seventh year of this life, when she was\r\ntwenty-six years old, happened that for which she was put in\r\nprison and for which she was now being taken to be tried, after\r\nmore than three months of confinement with thieves and murderers\r\nin the stifling air of a prison.\r\n\r\n\/\/\/get the rest fromt he link above.","author":"more rational","parent_id":122971,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2005-02-23 04:56:26","modified":"2005-02-23 04:56:26","fileurl":""}]}