Tag Archives: Change and Personal Empowerment

Joseph P. Overton: Character for a Free Society | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

Posted on by
Reply

One of Martin Luther King Jr’s most well-known quotes was, “Judge me not by the color of my skin, but by the content of my character.”  While doing some research on Martin Luther King Jr’s March on Washington, I came across an article in the NY Times article discussing the event and asking for support.  There was a list of people on the article supporting the march.  I decided to randomly google one of the names ‘L Joseph Overton’ and came across this wonderful article (which isn’t the same person).  An excerpt is below.

“The world needs more men who do not have a price at which they can be bought; who do not borrow from integrity to pay for expediency; who have their priorities straight and in proper order; whose handshake is an ironclad contract; who are not afraid of taking risks to advance what is right; and who are honest in small matters as they are in large ones.

The world needs more men whose ambitions are big enough to include others; who know how to win with grace and lose with dignity; who do not believe that shrewdness and cunning and ruthlessness are the three keys to success; who still have friends they made twenty years ago; who put principle and consistency above politics or personal advancement; and who are not afraid to go against the grain of popular opinion.

The world needs more men who do not forsake what is right just to get consensus because it makes them look good; who know how important it is to lead by example, not by barking orders; who would not have you do something they would not do themselves; who work to turn even the most adverse circumstances into opportunities to learn and improve; and who love even those who have done some injustice or unfairness to them. The world, in other words, needs more true leaders. More to the point, the world needs more Joe Overtons.”

via Joseph P. Overton: Character for a Free Society | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty.

Can You Believe that We Believed That?

Posted on by
1

Majority Acceptance Does Not Equal Truth

Centuries ago people generally accepted without question and as “fact” that the earth was flat.  Everyone now but a few know that this is not true and finds it preposterous that people once believed that.  Even more egregious, was the fact that the majority of people in the United States accepted that blacks should be treated as property and counted as three-fifths of a human in the constitution.

Race is merely a social construct.

Race was invented but nevertheless, people  readily accepted the concept that there was more than one human race.  People were divided by the color of their skin and racist systems were devised to keep the lie perpetuating.  When the human genome was decoded in 2000, scientists discovered that over 99.9% of our DNA is identical and that everyone alive today is related.

These are just a couple of examples, but everyday we are faced with misinformation, propaganda, and advertising that is trying to convince us of some “constructed truth.”  Usually they use fear to help make the case and many of us take the bait, hook, line, and sinker.  Don’t be duped.  Use the internet, check out multiple sources, have intelligent dialog with others, and check out “facts” before you repeat them.  This is our time; we are not the past and we are not the future.  With hindsight we can look back on people of the past with disdain, however unless we are alert, we are creating similar glaring and obvious dis-beliefs to boggle future societies.  Will they look back on us and say, “Can you believe they allowed people to convince them that….?”

I’m Barbara Talley, The Poet who speaks and inspires.   To find more about me, check out my promo sheet or visit  my website.

Dr. Martin Luther King on Hope

Posted on by
Reply

Dr. King’s life was dedicated to uplifting his fellow-man, the downtrodden, the poor, the hopeless, and the forgotten.  In Trumpet of Conscience, Dr. King reflected on hope, “If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose the courage to be, the quality that helps you to go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.”

This year the economic situation is taking center stage.  Young people fresh out of college are trying to find jobs and mature adults laid off from their once secure jobs are having trouble finding (any) job and especially ones commensurate with their former income.  Two years ago this time our minds were on the catastrophic devastation in  Haiti.  (Note: Please don’t forget about them; they still need our help!) Last year it is on the senseless Arizona killings and the worsening respect for our public officials and for life itself.  This coupled with massive job layoffs, increasing numbers of people facing life altering health challenges, and those with jobs facing furloughs or no pay raises makes the need to pull together and help each other even more critical.  People are hurting.  United we stand and divided we fall.  We cannot let our fellow brothers and sisters lose hope and we can’t lose hope either.

Keep Hope Alive

We’ve got to do what we can to “keep hope alive.”  Not only for those in our families that are facing challenges, but also for the jobless, homeless, and hopeless people everywhere.  Reflect on the time in which Dr. King lived and how he responded to difficulties.  In spite of everything he endured, the hoses and attack dogs, his home bombed, being spit on, jailed, ridiculed, and threatened with death, he still had hope and faith.   You may not think that you have enough to share, but what the world needs now is love, encouragement, hope, and perhaps a big smile.  Now I know those things won’t pay the bills,  but they can perhaps lift someone’s spirit and help them get through that day. You never know when you might need a little encouragement.  Perhaps a smile might be just what you need to make it through a day.  Dr. King never gave up on his dream and fought for it until his dying breath.  So, don’t give up on your dream either and when you feel like giving up, remember Martin.

I’m Barbara Talley, The Poet who speaks and inspires.   To find more about me, check out What does Barbara do? or visit  my website.

Find Your Own Truth

Posted on by
Reply

Discernment is the Goal

Oprah routinely asks her guests, “What do you know for sure?”  That’s a good question for all of us to reflect on and answer. Part of our responsibility for receiving this gift of life is to be searching and discerning.  We must take this life seriously. One of the best ways to do this is to learn to discern the good from the bad, truth from falsehood, and right from wrong.  That’s our job, to stay in the light and on the straight path.  We must independently investigate truth and not accept everything that we hear, see, and are taught.  We are responsible for living our best life so, we must be true to ourselves.

We Must Validate Truth

We must use our brains, our thought processing center, our human CPU (central processing center) to validate our input.  It is our thoughts that create our reality.  Reflect on the Buddha’s words, “We are what we think, having become what we thought.” The goal is to create more and more good in this life.  Surely our purpose for enduring this earthly existence with all of its pains, trials, and tribulations  couldn’t have been to “create more bad, evil, falsehood, and wrongs.”  No intelligent mind could come to this conclusion after serious reflective contemplation and meditation!

So, what do you know, for sure?

I’m Barbara Talley, The Poet who speaks and inspires.   To find more about me, check out What does Barbara do? or visit  my website.

Are We Getting More Violent?

Posted on by
Reply

We are living in a world that we collectively helped create, either by our conscious moral  involvement or by our apathetic silence. If I only watched the news, I’d become depressed about our world and feel helpless and hopeless.  But I understand the power of our thoughts to create a more peaceful and loving humanity. Our beliefs and perceptions don’t merely record our history, but they collectively help create it.  What we think, what we believe, what we expect, is what we create.

We Need to Ask the Right Questions

I haven’t seen the statistics for 2010 yet, but violent crimes declined in 2009 according to the FBI. Periodically murders get national focus, when they are horrific, scandalous, or when the victims include someone in the public eye (like the Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords).   The media highlights it; we think about it, and within a few days we forget.   Meanwhile the environment, politics,  and climate that creates these atrocities continue. Everyone still wants to be able to have their own gun, even high-capacity magazines capable of executing such tragedies.  We need to ask the right questions if we are to get the right answers.  Why are atrocities like the one in Arizona, Virginia Tech and Columbine with young people as the executioners continuing to happen?  According to Gary Null’s  video, The Drugging or Our Children, the number of psychotropic drugs given to our children between 1995-2000 doubled.  Some say they are safe.  Others say they are not.  Do your own research.

Are We Getting Worse?

The repetitive showing of a single incident makes you think that we are getting worse as a society.   Maybe we are, maybe we aren’t.  At the very least it makes us more fearful and when in fear we are more likely to give away our rights or make brash statements or decisions.  Did you know that the murders in the US have been declining steadily between 2000-2009, dropping from 17,300 to 15,241?   Washington DC gets the rap for being a very violent city, but did you know that between 1991 and 2010 homicides in DC have dropped from 479 annually to 131 in 2010?   There is a lot I don’t know.  What I know for sure is that fear is used to control and what we believe becomes our reality.   So, what do you know for sure?  What is your truth?  Before you pass on information or contribute to mass fear and hysteria, check it out.

I’m Barbara Talley, The Poet who speaks and inspires.   To find more about me, check out my promo sheet or visit  my website.