Thursday, December 14, 2006

Who's Got the Power?

Who's got the power? Is it those who own the weapons? Those who own the media? Those who are the most ruthless? Those with the most money?

You let one ant stand up to us - then they all might stand up.
Those puny little ants outnumber us a 100 to one. And if they
ever figure that out, there goes our way of life.
- Hopper (a grasshopper speaking to fellow grasshoppers in the Disney/Pixar movie "A Bug's Life")


But the [people], if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire . . . They need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies . . .
- George Orwell, 1984

They bought the politicians and the news
They've got all the weapons (which they like to use)
But they are few and we're billions strong
We are the giant ... been sleeping for too long
Time to wake up and sing our victory song
- The Voice

Power Is Held by the People; We Only Loan It Temporarily To The Government

While it might seem that the government has all the power, it is actually the people who hold the power. Government only has power to the extent we give it power.

Governments do not give people rights. The People give government power in order to protect their preexisting rights.
-
Colorado Attorney General’s Office, 1993

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
- Declaration of Independence

The Butterfly Effect

Chaos physics teaches us that even very small actions can have tremendous effects. The butterfly's wings can literally affect weather on the other side of the globe. Together, we actually can change things for the better.

There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.
- Howard Zinn, historian

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
- Robert F . Kennedy

The power of an aroused public is unbeatable.
- Dr. Helen Caldicott

In times of danger large groups rise to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, courage and sacrifice . . . Mankind will be refashioned and history rewritten when this law is understood and obeyed.
-Helen Keller

From the Pain, come the Dream

from the Dream, come the Vision
from the Vision, come the People
and from the People, come the Power
from this Power, come the Change.
- Peter Gabriel

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead

Charting Our Own Course

No matter how bad things might seem, we always have the power to chart our own course. With the power to choose, no matter what the circumstances, we can make things turn out right.

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.
- Bruce Lee

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.
- Stephen Covey

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.
- Victor Frankl

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
- George Bernard Shaw

In these words lies all his power: He chose the path along which he is walking and so has no complaints.
- Paulo Coelho

Claiming What We've Already Got

We've got alot more inherent power as human beings than we realize.

Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
- Sivananda

I'm not talking about putting out your fire of righteous anger. Keep that anger alive and channel it into defeating the lies and bringing the bad guys to justice. We need your righteous anger! But anger without love turns into hatred, which weakens you. Anger plus love turns into power, effectiveness and success.
- George Washington (georgewashington.blogspot.com)

What this power is, I cannot say. All I know is that it exists...and it becomes available only when you are in that state of mind in which you know exactly what you want...and are fully determined not to quit until you get it.
- Alexander Graham Bell

Men habitually use only a small part of the power which they actually possess.
-
Williams James

You're in the midst of a war: a battle between the limits of a crowd seeking the surrender of your dreams, and the power of your true vision to create and contribute. It is a fight between those who will tell you what you cannot do, and that part of you that knows -- and has always known -- that we are more than our environment; and that a dream, backed by an unrelenting will to attain it, is truly a reality with an imminent arrival.
- Anthony Robbins

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
- Marianne Williamson

Most of us can learn to live in perfect comfort on higher levels of power. Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. It is evident that our organism has stored-up reserves of energy that are ordinarily not called upon - deeper and deeper strata of explosible material, ready for use by anyone who probes so deep. The human individual usually lives far within his limits.
- William James

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

-Ferdinand Foch

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
- Goethe

I don't think anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it. I think if you are determined enough and willing to pay the price, you can get it done.
- Mike Ditka

A good intention clothes itself with power.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing has any power over me other than that which I give it through conscious thoughts.
- Anthony Robbins

Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.
- Henry George

A Hero Hangs on One Minute Longer

Hanging on just a little longer than the other guy is often a key to winning the struggle for truth and justice.

Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.
- Winston Churchill

The power to shape the future is earned through persistence. No other quality is as essential to success. It is the sandpaper that breaks down all resistance and sweeps away all obstacles. It is the ability to move mountains one grain of sand at a time.
- Calvin Coolidge

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.
- Louis Pasteur

It's not than I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.
- Albert Einstein

What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.
- Napoleon Hill

A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer.
- Norwegian proverb




1 Comments:

Blogger monax said...

very nice!

thank you

7:33 PM  

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