Thomas Jefferson is Suddenly "Not Worthy" Because He Owned Slaves... ABSURD! What About George Washington? He Owned Slaves TOO.

Headline: Thomas Jefferson statue to be removed from New York City Council chamber... 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/19/us/thomas-jefferson-statue-new-york-city/index.html

Adrienne Adams... a Light Skinned Black Woman
She Has Some White People as Ancestors...
Maybe Jefferson Himself?
or Maybe George Washington!

"Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder who owned over 600 human beings," Councilmember Adrienne Adams, co-chair of the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, said in a presentation before the commission. "It makes me deeply uncomfortable knowing that we sit in the presence of a statue that pays homage to a slaveholder who fundamentally believed that people who look like me* were inherently inferior, lacked intelligence, and were not worthy of freedom or rights." 

*Well, Not Exactly Like You... People That Look Like You Worked in the House... and Were Treated Differently because they were the Master's Children.  Most were taught how to read and Write and were Given Names...

For Example: Most were Named Jefferson... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jeffersons

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Having written that "all men are created equal" as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, he also enslaved more than 600 people and fathered at least six children with Sally Hemings, a woman he enslaved.

Not everyone supported the removal of the statue. Sean Wilentz, a American history professor at Princeton University, wrote in a letter read to the commission: "The statue specifically honors Jefferson for his greatest contribution to America, indeed, to humankind."

https://news.yahoo.com/thomas-jefferson-statue-removed-york-152934678.html

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,[Except Blacks and Women] that they are endowed by their Creator [Named Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, Odin, Thor, KRSNA, Buddha or a Thousand Other Names] with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”[Unless your Pursuit uses Marijuana or Psychedelics as a Sacrament] - DANG... So Many Disclaimers...

If a statue of Jefferson is unfit for City Hall, so is the statue of George Washington, owner of 577 human beings. And if we accept the principle that it is a moral mistake to put two of the most influential early Americans on pedestals there, we should remove Washington from the former site of Federal Hall downtown. Rename Washington Heights and Washington Square. And if slaveholder-founders are unfit for honors in America’s largest city, what are we doing naming the nation’s capital, and dozens of cities and counties and streets and parks, after them? Valid Questions... You may find some answers reading about our founding Fathers on Wiki... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington

https://www.nps.gov/thje/index.htm Take a Tour of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC...  Founding Father... Revolutionary... Renaissance Man. Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, first Secretary of State for the United States of America, and a complex, 19th-century man with a wide ranging impact on the very makeup of America itself.

https://www.monticello.org/house-gardens/ Monticello is the autobiographical masterpiece of Thomas Jefferson—designed and redesigned and built and rebuilt for more than forty years. Its gardens were a botanic showpiece, a source of food, and an experimental laboratory of ornamental and useful plants from around the world.

Concerned about losing access to the port of New Orleans, in 1803 President Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to Paris to attempt to buy the city from France, authorizing them to offer France up to $10 million for it.

Meanwhile, Napoleon had concluded that it wasn’t worth the cost for France to try to hold onto its vast North American territory. So when Monroe and Livingstone arrived to commence negotiations, they were astonished when France offered to sell the United States not just New Orleans, but the entire Louisiana Territory. They did not have authority to negotiate any such deal, but when France offered the entire territory for only $15 million (only $5 million more than they were prepared to offer for New Orleans alone), the deal was too good for them to turn down. On April 30, 1803 they signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, by which the United States would acquire 828,000 square miles of land, at a price of three cents per acre (sixty cents per acre in current dollars). The deal would double the size of the United States. “This is the noblest work of our whole lives,” Livingston remarked.

When the commissioners returned to the United States with the remarkable treaty, Jefferson was amazed and delighted. But the road to ratification was anything but smooth. There were very serious objections to the constitutionality of the treaty and there was also the inconvenient fact that the United States didn’t actually have $15 million. But in the end, the proponents of the purchase prevailed, the U.S. borrowed the money from financiers in Great Britain, and on October 20, 1803 (two hundred eighteen years ago today) the Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty—one of the best real estate bargains in history. “From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank,” Livingston said.

Thanks to several great comments the post has been edited to clarify that the funds were loaned by financiers in Great Britain, not the British government.

SLAVERY IN AMERICA: History You Won't Learn in School... Because Republicans are Rewriting History and Pretending Reality Does Not Exist... Use the Internet To Learn What Really Happened...

Hey Kids! SLAVERY IN AMERICA WOULD BE AN EXCELLENT TOPIC TO WRITE A TERM PAPER ON... DO RESEARCH, TELL THE STORY, FORM CONCLUSIONS, PUBLISH... GET AN "A" GRADE IN SCHOOL...  and Make Republicriminals Mad as Hell because you told the Truth!

Briefly: Starting in 1619, European People Kidnapped African People and Brought them in Sailboats to America, The Carribean and South America. The African People Were Used to Work in The Fields Growing Sugar Cane, Cotton and Tobacco...

...and TO THIS DAY in 2021... People of African Descent are Discriminated Against... Including Mass Incarceration of Black Men and Endless Murders by The Police... While The American Civil War Technically Ended Slavery, Conditions are Still Horrible for Black People in America... 

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa, forced into slavery in the American colonies and exploited to work as indentured servants and labor in the production of crops such as tobacco and cotton. By the mid-19th century, America’s westward expansion and the abolition movement provoked a great debate over slavery that would tear the nation apart in the bloody Civil War. Though the Union victory freed the nation’s four million enslaved people, the legacy of slavery continued to influence American history, from the Reconstruction, to the civil rights movement that emerged a century after emancipation and beyond.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/aug/15/400-years-since-slavery-timeline

In 1619, a ship with 20 captives landed at Point Comfort in Virginia, ushering in the era of American slavery...

Many Americans’ introduction to US history is the arrival of 102 passengers on the Mayflower in 1620. But a year earlier, 20 enslaved Africans were brought to the British colonies against their will.

As John Rolfe noted in a letter in 1619, “20 and odd negroes” were brought by a Dutch ship to the nascent British colonies, arriving at what is now Fort Hampton, then Point Comfort, in Virginia. Though enslaved Africans had been part of Portuguese, Spanish, French and British history across the Americas since the 16th century, the captives who landed in Virginia were probably the first slaves to arrive into what would become the United States 150 years later.

Four hundred years on, the captives’ arrival has informed nearly every major moment in American history, even if that history has been framed around anyone but Africans and African Americans.

“Historians, elected political figures [and] community leaders would prefer to sort of imagine the United States as a kind of mythic, Anglo-Saxon Christian place,” says Michael Guasco, an early American history professor at Davidson College.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

In 1992, Toni Morrison told the Guardian: “In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”

1619 Project: #MoscowMitch McConnell is Reviving Interest in The 1619 Project Again... Now, It's a GOP CANCEL CULTURE CAUSE! He Wants the US Government to BAN Teaching the History of Slavery in the USA... In Public Schools...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project

The 1619 Project is a long-form journalism project developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from The New York Times, and The New York Times Magazine which "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States' national narrative."

FULL ISSUE OF THE NY TIMES ARTICLE:

 https://pulitzercenter.org/sites/default/files/full_issue_of_the_1619_project.pdf

Historical Marker: 1619 First Africans in America
Remember: the Pilgrims Arrived in 1620
at Plymouth Rock... Widely Taught in History Class

Nikole Hannah-Jones Responds To Republican Efforts To Censor 1619 Project:

The Pulitzer-winning journalist said efforts to censor the project, which examines American racism since 1619, are about “trying to prohibit the teaching of ideas they don’t like.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nikole-hannah-jones-responds-to-ongoing-republican-efforts-to-censor-1619-project_n_609055d3e4b0c15313f7223b

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Hey TrumpNiks® Are You Tired of Everybody Laughing at You? Simply #RUNAWAY from the GOP... Stop Believing Lies!

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and in other news: 

Newsmax issued a retraction and apology on its website saying it found "no evidence" that earlier claims about Coomer and the 2020 election were true. [Trump's Big Lie That The Election was Stolen] https://www.businessinsider.com/newsmax-settles-dominion-executive-eric-coomer-defamation-lawsuit-and-apologizes-2021-4

Newsmax Issues Retraction And Apology To Dominion Employee Over Election Stories... CAUGHT! Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire! 

 https://www.npr.org/2021/04/30/992534968/newsmax-issues-retraction-and-apology-to-dominion-employee-over-election-stories

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Please Email Your Elected Representatives and Say: "Legalize Marijuana Nationwide, Tax It and Free All The Cannabis Prisoners." or at the very Least, Like and Share this Post. 

---> Let's End CrazyLaws® <--- https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2020/10/please-email-your-senators-and.html

More Money Going Into the Government from VOLUNTARY Taxes, Less Wasted on Law Enforcement and Incarceration. I Wouldn't Pay a Penny because I Don't Smoke... I Sure Am Tired of Paying $40,000 a Year Per Prisoner to Lock 'em UP for WEED...

In General, I DO NOT DO EVIL... and That Includes Enforcing Crazy Laws... I Question How some Laws Happened... For Example: Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs" was Designed to Arrest People That Were Protesting Against The War in Vietnam... also Arrest People for Being Black... I Ask Were The Laws Passed in order to Satisfy Corporations that Bribed Politicians? Like: Magic Mushrooms are Illegal BUT Therapeutic  for Mental Health Problems... Big Pharma Would Lose a Lot Of Business is People JUST GOT HEALED... Their Goal is to Sell Pills and Pills that Do Not Work are Certain to Get REPEAT CUSTOMERS... "Just Take It For Another Couple of Months and It'll Help You." or another Couple of YEARS...

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SG Posted on The Facebook RAM DASS Group: 

What do you think Ram Dass’ position is on pickled okra?

Great Question! I Often See Posts about Bizarre Subjects Here... and I Appreciate the Absurdist Mockery! For Example: There was a Long and Boring Debate About Vegetarianism... As If anyone Cares What you Eat...  

I have a serious question from what I have experienced visually. Has Anyone ever closed their eyes and seen spinning mandalas? This has happened to me in a span of two years every now and the I could close my eyes and this mandala would appear after I closed my eyes and lay down. I'd sit there and just watch them spinning while I am highly entertained. I'd watch them for as long as I could.

I Replied! I see Magic Geometric Patterns in Orange and Black when I Close My Eyes... I Consider it a Blessing... But I Have Difficulty Gazing at Stars at Night Because I See Fantastic Patterns in the Sky... I only see the VERY Brightest Stars and Planets... I also Love to do Psychedelic Art on Potatoshop and I Seem to Get Visuals when I Look Away from the Computer...

The Beatles asked the Question and Answered it... in a Song Lyric... "What do you see when you turn out the Light? - I Can't Tell You But I Know It's Mine." https://youtu.be/0C58ttB2-Qg

What does Ram Dass say about people or what will happen to people who lie a lot?

I am related to a prolific liar; he believes all the lies he spins and the lies always reach more ears than the truth. It has previously caused a lot of emotional pain in my family. We have forgiven, forgiven and forgiven. Recently, it has all come to a head; I have walked away from this liar and let the people who believe his falsehoods go too. I have taken responsibility for my part. But this is the end and the pattern will now stop repeating. Myself and my little family are moving forward without the toxicity the lies have caused. We have spoken our truth.

I have meditated, chanted and prayed and the answer has come to me mainly through this group.

I am now happy because I know I have the strength within me to stop my part in the circle of lies and hatred.

I forgive them all, move on with love in my life and now know that the things that have hurt and frustrated me are attachment to people that have no love and respect.

That's their issue to deal with. They are working out their Karma. I've learned the lessons that I previously haven't and now I'm free.

Don't worry about what they're saying. Care about what you are thinking saying and doing. Tis' the truth and love that sets us free ❤

I Replied: That Sounds a LOT Like Donald Trump! Remember: It Takes Two People to Make a Lie Work. The CON MAN and The CHUMP... So... Step #1 is To Stop Believing Lies... 

I Don't Believe in Karma... It seems like a "Convenient" excuse Thought up by Rich People to Explain Why it's OK For Poor People to Starve... Look at the Caste System in India... EXCEPT INSTANT KARMA... I Believe that the Reason Dick Cheney had Four Heart Attacks was That He Behaved EVIL... and What Goes Around Comes Around... 

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Thank You Joe Biden... 

The Vaccine is Working and America Is BACK! 

We Survived Four Horrible Years With #TotalFailureDonald - Except the Half a Million People Who Died from That "HOAX" Disease... ANYWAY... HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN! https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/30/disneyland-reopening-celebrated-with-custom-mickey-ears-and-masks.html

What IF Abraham Lincoln Had Simply Said Bye Bye? Wouldn't We All Be Better Off IF the South was a Separate Country?

Think About it... What Would the USA Be Like If There Simply Was No Civil War?

In My Humble Opinion... Texas Should Be A Country of It's Own. The People There are Waco! #MAGAKillers, Weird Religious Nuts, Idiot Presidents and a Few Good Country and Western Singers. Well, we could Still Have the Singers Tour America but all those other Defective Brains can just GTFO! 

The Last Time Texas Did Anything of Value was Sept. 12, 1958 When Jack Kilby Invented the Integrated Circuit at Texas Instruments. AND THAT was 60 Years Ago! Reality: They are a Drain on the USA. Texas Receives More Payments in Food Stamps, Welfare, Unemployment and Medicare than they Pay in Federal Taxes. 

And They can take the Entire South With Them. We the Taxpayers will be Paying a Fortune for Hurricane Relief, AGAIN... Some Places Just are NOT VALID to Live in. Uninhabitable! The Gulf Coast of Texas all the way to Florida and Up the Atlantic to Virginia... Don't Build a House There... It WILL Get Wiped Out By A Hurricane... REALLY! PAY ATTENTION TO REALITY! Don't Build a House There!

I was wrong to state that there were ZERO people of value to come out of the American South since Jack Kilby in 1958 (with the exception of a Few Good Country and Western Singers). In Fact, Dr Martin Luther King and all his Coworkers were Southerners. And they were Great! But It IS TRUE to state that there were NO WHITE PEOPLE from the South that were of any value in the last 60 years... I see today on TV That Senator Rick Scott is Meeting with Mad King Donald to discuss the Hurricane. Scott made it illegal to talk about Global Warming or Climate Change in any Official Florida Government Documents when he was Governor. It Seems that simply pretending there is no problem FAILS to stop Mother Nature... He also looks like Golum from the Lord of the Rings... I realize that it's not nice to make fun of ugly people but... I Can't look at him without thinking of "My Precious." He Ain't Got No Alibi, He's U.G.L.Y.

"Everybody" criticizes Joe Biden for Being Wrong about the 1994 Crime bill and The Mass Incarceration of Black Men. HOWEVER...

While it is true that the EXTREME punishment for Crack Cocaine in comparison to Powdered Cocaine did lead to VAST Quantities of Black Men to be Incarcerated... Is That Good For America? Think this through... It is unlikely for a person to have children WHILE IN PRISON...  Jails Separate Inmates by SEX. Men in one Facility and Women in a Different one... The Effect is that This LAW has prevented Black GENES from reproducing. Classic GENOCIDE. Future Generations will be Whiter... as Black Women who live in the general population sometimes select White Men as Lovers... and the Black Men In Prison WILL NOT BE PART OF THE GENE POOL... So, we have to decide... Is Genocide a Good Thing? Some say That Depends on The Genes... I will let you ponder that thought. 

My Opinion: Genocide is INSANE. Let the Prisoners OUT. Make the punishment for crack equal to the punishment for Powdered Cocaine RETROACTIVELY. The Freed Prisoners will go back to their families and perhaps they will help raise their own children... get useful jobs... do something of Value to Society. AND... We will save Millions of Dollars Currently wasted on Incarceration!

Lame Duck Members of Congress may now VOTE FOR WHAT IS MORALLY RIGHT. Ignore Trump and Represent the People of the USA.

With no need to get re-elected, there is no need to obey donors. The wishes of the Rich can be rejected in favor of doing what the majority wants... It would be like a DEMOCRACY with REPRESENTATIVES of the People... Instead of Bought Puppets of the 1%.

Let me hear you sing "Freedom, Freedom, FREEDOM!"

With a Universal Basic Income everyone would spend an additional $1,000 a month at American Businesses... and Jeff Bezos could simply pay for it all...

https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Income-Radical-Proposal-Society/dp/0674052285

Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy... 

Supreme Court Upholds MUSLIM BAN... an insane ruling... What's NEXT? Reverse Roe v Wade? Take away Women's Right to Vote? Legalize Slavery? Prohibit Alcohol? ANYTHING'S POSSIBLE!

With Trump's Supreme Court maybe we can get back to the good old days... In 1776, "We the People" meant rich white men only.

Compulsive Hoarding of Money Syndrome CAN BE CURED.

While the historical solutions of the USA in 1776 and France in 1789 appear appealing on first glance, they would simply not work in a global economy of 2017. A 12 step program might be more efficient. Greed Freaks Anonymous can help the most absurdly addicted capitalists.

We live in Feudalism 2.0 and Wage Slavery. Employee Owned Businesses or Customer Owned Businesses are a better way.

What we have today is an economic system where the super rich have purchased Senators and Congressmen who pass laws designed to steal from the poor and give to the rich.  It's a lot like Feudalism where the Lords owned the land and the peasants worked it as serfs. Nowadays we are wage slaves. There IS an alternative...

WINCO is an example of an employee owned business.
https://www.wincofoods.com/

North Coast CO-OP grocery store is an example of a customer owned business. http://www.northcoast.coop/

Coast Central Credit Union is an alternative to Giant Banks like Bank of America. It was "Too big to fail" so the taxpayers paid for their real estate gambling addiction.
https://www.coastccu.org/

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Great Book:What Then Must We Do...  Gar Alperovitz talked about his book, What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution, in which he argues that the U.S. economy needs to be more responsive to ordinary citizens. He also talked about the need to build on the “Occupy” movement.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?312536-1/must

Democracy Collaborative engages with communities and institutions to connect them with innovative strategies, models and training to build community wealth in their neighborhoods.
http://democracycollaborative.org/

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Yes, there is an alternative to capitalism: Mondragon shows the way by Richard Wolff.

Are we to believe, with Margaret Thatcher, that an economic system with endlessly repeated cycles, costly bailouts for financiers and now austerity for most people is the best human beings can do? Capitalism's recurring tendencies toward extreme and deepening inequalities of income, wealth, and political and cultural power require resignation and acceptance – because there is no alternative?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/24/alternative-capitalism-mondragon

The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

and now for something completely different... original art designed to entrance the viewer automatically... feel free to see hundreds of my creations on Google Image Search keyword = vandergreg

Alien Flowers

Good Book "Democracy in Chains" by Nancy Maclean recommended by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America.

“This sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself is at the heart of Democracy in Chains. . . . [MacLean] takes the time to meticulously trace how we got here. . . . If you're worried about what all this means for America's future, you should be. . . . And if someone you know isn't convinced, you have just the book to hand them.”
—NPR

As July of 2017 drew to a close, an extraordinary story unfolded in the halls of Congress. A GOP controlled House of Representatives had passed a bill that would deprive 24 million Americans of health insurance in order to give an 800 billion dollar tax cut to corporations and those making over $250,000 a year. A similar bill in the Republican controlled Senate stalled in part because several Republican senators felt it did not go far enough in stripping health insurance from America’s most vulnerable individuals.

Welcome to the race backwards toward the Gilded Age.

https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Chains-History-Radical-Stealth/dp/1101980966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498775256&sr=8-1&keywords=democracy+in+chains