Utopian States: Striving for Perfection

Galileo was treated like a heretic for having a different viewpoint. Today one sees a lot of that. When a leader offers a viewpoint different from the media, the legal system, or the major political parties, that person becomes branded a heretic, shunned, ignored and abused. Galileo was a great man for standing his ground and maintaining his viewpoint even when forced to publically state otherwise. In the end, he prevailed. For keeping his viewpoint, expeditiously agreeing with the powers when necessary and ultimately prevailing, he is a hero.

Galileo

Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was a Tuscan (Italian) physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the “father of modern observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics”, the “father of science”, and “the Father of Modern Science.” The motion of uniformly accelerated objects, taught in nearly all high school and introductory college physics courses, was studied by Galileo as the subject of kinematics. His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter, named the Galilean moons in his honor, and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, improving compass design.

Galileo’s championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime. The geocentric view had been dominant since the time of Aristotle, and the controversy engendered by Galileo’s presentation of heliocentrism as proven fact resulted in the Catholic Church’s prohibiting its advocacy as empirically proven fact, because it was not empirically proven at the time and was contrary to the literal meaning of Scripture. Galileo was eventually forced to recant his heliocentrism and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Roman Inquisition.

Twenty five thousand to one hundred thousand protesters marched from the White House to the capitol to demand an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq. These people are heroes in an age of inactivity and government propaganda. Well done!

Protesters went up the capitol’s south lawn and up the stairs to confront the police. There was a “die-in” surrounding the Capitol. Iraq veterans conducted a ceremony to memorialize the fallen US soldiers and Iraqis. About two hundred protesters were arrested trying to deliver their anti-war massage to Congress.

Nearly 4,000 US soldiers and, possibly, up-to-1-million Iraqis have died since the US invasion in March 2003. More have died after they have been transported to hospitals outside Iraq and after initial treatment due to war related injury.

One poster showed a picture of Osama Bin Laden, accompanied by the words “He’s Free, Are We?” Hundreds of printed posters proclaimed the need to impeach George Bush and end the war.

It was a nice day to protest. I hope they had fun in the sun. I had fun hearing about their actions. Keep up the good work!

See http://www.ivaw.org/ for further information.

Although I was a hawk in 1968, I now regret that attitude. I now consider the protestors and protest organizers of the Vietnam War era to be Utopian heroes. I salute the protesters of the 1968 era!

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet/ is a great site for information about the Vietnam War Protests.

In August 1963, the first organized Vietnam War protests took place in New York and Philadelphia held by American pacifists during the annual commemorations of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings

On May 2, 1964 400 to 1000 students marched through Times Square, New York and another 700 in San Francisco in the first major student demonstration against the war. Smaller numbers also marched in Boston, Seattle, and Madison, Wisconsin.

In mid-October of 1965, the anti-war movement had significantly expanded to become a national and even global phenomenon, as anti-war protests drawing 100,000 were held simultaneously in as many as 80 major cities around the US, London, Paris and Rome.

In 1966 Anti-war demonstrations were again held around the country and the world March 26 with 20,000 taking part in New York City.

On April 15, 1967 about 400,000 people marched to the UN building in New York City to protest the war, where they were addressed by critics of the war such as Benjamin Spock, Martin Luther King, and Jan Barry Crumb, a veteran of the conflict. On the same date 100,000 marched in San Francisco. The next day, a large demonstration took place at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. As many as 100,000 demonstrators attended the event, and at least 30,000 later marched to the Pentagon for another rally and an all night vigil.

News reel of the 1967 protests at:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/videodir/pacificaviet/pentagon67.ram

On October 15, 1969. Millions of Americans took the day off from work and school to participate in local demonstrations against the war.

On 4 May, 100,000 anti-war demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C. to protest the shooting of the students in Ohio and the Nixon administration’s incursion into Cambodia.

Common slogans and chants of the Vietnam Protests:

“Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?”

“The chant “One, two, three, four! We don’t want your fucking war!”

“Draft Beer, not boys”

“Hell no, we won’t go”

“Make love, not war”

“Eighteen today, dead tomorrow”

Two hundred thirty one years ago this July 4th, five brave and articulate men had drafted the American Declaration of Independence and presented it to the Continental Congress.

At the signing, of the American Declaration of Independence in July of 1776, Benjamin Franklin is quoted as having stated: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately,” a play on words indicating that failure to stay united and succeed would risk being tried and executed, individually, for treason. The Declaration was drafted by John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The full Declaration was reworked somewhat in general session of the Continental Congress. Congress, meeting in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, finished revising Jefferson’s draft statement on July 4, approved it, and sent it to a printer.

The reasons for demanding independence from England were stated in the Declaration of Independence. They are numbered and presented below exactly as worded in the Declaration. They gave six basic reasons: Suppression of government, Rule by England, Suppression of justice, Economic duress, Military occupation and The Ignorance of England.

The “He” in the Declaration refers to the King of England.

1.) {Suppression of government} He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
2.) {Suppression of government} He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
3.) {Suppression of government} He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
4.) {Suppression of government} He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
5.) {Suppression of government} He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.
6.) {Suppression of government} He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
7.) {Suppression of government} He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
8.) {Suppression of justice} He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
9.) {Suppression of justice} He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
10.) {Economic duress} He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
11.) {Military Occupation} He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
12.) {Suppression of justice} He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
13.) {Suppression of government} He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
14.) {Military Occupation} For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
15.) {Suppression of justice} For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
16.) {Economic duress} For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
17.) {Economic duress} For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
18.) {Suppression of justice} For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
19.) {Suppression of justice} For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
20.) {Suppression of justice} For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
21.) {Suppression of government} For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
22.) {Suppression of government} For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
23.) {Rule by England} He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging war against us.
24.) {Economic duress} He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
25.) {Rule by England} He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
26.) {Rule by England} He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
27.) {Rule by England} He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
28.) {Ignorance } In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

You might want to consider your present government against the same yardstick that these five used. The yardstick: Dysfunctional government, poor justice, poor economic management, excessive force & spying and ignorance of problems.

Mahatma Gandhi is the number one Utopian Hero. He preached non-violent activism. He turned the other cheek. He sacrificed by spending many years in jail, by being poor, and by fasting. He became the inspiration for other peaceful reform. He changed nations for the better. Humanity owes him. Feel free to be inspired and motivated by his quotes which follow.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation.

Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or a system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite to violence.

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.

Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

If you don’t find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.
In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

Live simply that others may simply live.

No cost is too heavy for the preservation of one’s honor.

Non-violence does not signify that man must not fight against the enemy, and by enemy is meant the evil which men do, not the human beings themselves.

One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.

Where there is love there is life.

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

The good man is the friend of all living things.

The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

There is more to life than increasing its speed

To conceal ignorance is to increase it. An honest confession of it, however, gives ground for the hope that it will diminish some day or the other.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.

We must become the change we want to see.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

When asked what he thought of Western civilization: “I think it would be a good idea”.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it–always.

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and co-operation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace. Dwight D. Eisenhower

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. Dwight D. Eisenhower

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone. Dwight D. Eisenhower

May we, in our dealings with all the peoples of the earth, ever speak the truth and serve justice. Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure. Dwight D. Eisenhower

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 not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. Dwight D. Eisenhower, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book… Dwight D. Eisenhower

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953

Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech at Dartmouth College, June 14, 1953

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog. Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech to the Republican National Committee, January 31, 1958

We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective. Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, April 2, 1957

“…in [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

“During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude…”

- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson:

“…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”

- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63

The Lives of Others (original title in German: Das Leben der Anderen) is an Academy Award-winning German movie, marking the feature film debut of director/screenwriter Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. It won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, along with seven Deutscher Filmpreis awards including best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor and best supporting actor, after having set a new record with 11 nominations. It was also nominated for and won Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards.

The thriller/drama is about the cultural scene of East Berlin, monitored by secret agents of the Stasi, the GDR’s secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe as Stasi agent Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his chief officer Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as his lover Christa-Maria Sieland.

The plot begins in 1984 East Germany. The Stasi agent Gerd Wiesler, a heart-felt supporter of the communist regime, is assigned to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman, who is suspected of Western leanings. Stasi agents secretly bug Dreyman’s apartment. In the attic of the apartment building hide Wiesler and an assistant who take turns monitoring the activity below 24 hours a day. They report anything that might be relevant.

Dreyman is a supporter of the regime, but dislikes the way dissidents are treated. When Jerska, an artist friend commits suicide because he has been blacklisted for several years, Dreyman publishes anonymously in West Germany an article on suicide rates in the GDR: while it publishes detailed statistics on many things, since the 70s it does not publish any statistics on suicide rates, presumably because they are embarrassingly high.

The East Germans blackball artists, performers, writers and others that speak about government, especially anything negative. Some lose their jobs or passion and commit suicide.

Back to present time in America…

American spy agencies like NSA monitor ALL communications – the East Germans of 1984 only monitored selected people. American Computers scan communications for key word combinations – the Germans required human listeners to monitor dialog. Some Americans and family members were imprisoned without protection of Constitutional amendments – the same happened to East Germans in 1984.

Americans are blackballed from their profession by labeling them felons. A felon can merely be a person that has defended himself from the aggravated assault of a confused or malicious police officer. East Germans were blackballed by similar labels and laws.

Dreyman was on the verge of prison for publishing an article on suicide rates in the GDR. I wrote a proposal to the National Science Foundation to report trends in significant statistics such as suicide rates only to have my proposal not only completely rejected but ridiculed.

I watched the movie and wondered if America isn’t as bad as the evil East Germany Stasi. This is a great movie because it causes the viewer to reflect on the merits and morals of government. The writer, screenwriter and director get my nomination as Utopian heroes.

Leon Shenandoah, chief of Onondaga Nation, and Tadodaho (”Firekeeper”) of the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations Confederacy [or "Iroquois"], whose symbol is The Tree of Peace, passed over into spirit Monday July 22, 1996, at 7:20 a.m. EST, at age 81. In his peoples’ culture, Leon was both president and pope, but more the latter.

This gentle, soft spoken, humble holy man was principal chief of a surviving sovereign nation of indigenous people. And spiritual elder of one of the western hemisphere’s oldest cultures. And Firekeeper of the Grand Council of the eldest democracy in North America, founded in ancient times by the Peacemaker—a virgin-born messenger from the Creator.

Leon served his people as Tadodaho for nearly 30 years, remaining true to the spiritual nature of his office. The first Tadodaho was raised up by the Peacemaker many centuries ago.

http://www.championtrees.org/yarrow/leon.htm

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Sendler is consitered a Utopian hero because she risked her life so that others could have and enjoy life. Utopian heroes are those that further life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that advance human rights significantly, or that further the just recognition of the necessities of human life as law.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070314/ap_on_re_eu/poland_holocaust_hero

Poland honors woman who saved 2,500 Jews By RYAN LUCAS, Associated Press Writer

WARSAW, Poland – A 97-year-old woman credited with saving 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust was honored by parliament Wednesday at a ceremony during which Poland’s president said she deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sendler was cited for organizing the “rescue of the most defenseless victims of the Nazi ideology — the Jewish children.”

Sendler led about 20 helpers who smuggled Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to safety between 1940 and 1943, placing them in Polish families, convents or orphanages.

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John Newton (1725–1807) wrote Amazing Grace to celebrate his conversion from being a supporter of slave trade. John was on board a slave ship on May 10, 1748, returning home during a storm, when he experienced a “great deliverance.” In his journal, he wrote that the ship was in grave danger of sinking. He exclaimed “Lord, have mercy upon us!” He was converted, though he continued in the business of slave trading. Many years later, he left the slave trade, eventually became a minister in the United Kingdom, and spoke out against it.

A typical slave ship would leave port with 600 slaves. They were kept in irons and horrible conditions for the entire voyage. By the time the ship arrived, only 200 slaves would be alive, the rest having died of dysentery and other disease contracted on the ship. Out of these wretched and hellish, conditions a beautiful song was born.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear,
And Grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that Grace appear,
The hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
We have already come;
‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And Grace will lead me home. (Lead me home!)
The Lord hast promised good to me,
His word my hope secures!
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yea, when this heart and flesh shall fail
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be for ever mine.