we are all on the witness stand

My front yard.

There are children in cages and it makes you want to scream until you vomit. Children, kept by America like mad dogs at the pound. Dirty. Unloved. Even their names don’t matter. Their lives don’t matter.

This is what America is now.

Incredible weapons are built and sold for profit to countries that use them on civilians, and that means money for America. Profit from blood. And you can scream if you want, nothing will change. Nothing can slow down the profit or the death.

This is what America is now.

You are sick to your stomach because race hate is now on the national menu and a plateful is cheap. The people belly up and chow down. It’s easy, they are told, go ahead and hate.

Rape the women, rape the children, rape the planet, there’s money to be made, and every cent goes to the people who already have more than they could use. Rape it all.

This is what America is now.

This is what America has become.

james lee jobe 

Real practice has no purpose or direction, so it can include everything that comes.​ 

Shunryu Suzuki

Grandchild and her kitten

These poems are like a dog’s dirty footprint in the middle of the kitchen floor, or like a traffic signal that has gone dark; someone is always right there to complain. 

If you can get beyond complaint and praise, there is a river. Did you know that? It is always summer there under the shade trees, and the trout are biting.

james lee jobe

Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can quietly become a power no government can suppress, a power that can transform the world.

​Howard ​Zinn

Davis, California - train tracks in B&W, jlj

Yet another policeman killed yet another unarmed Black man today and we are all on the witness stand, every one of us must testify.

The whole nation must swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Can you imagine such a thing; three hundred million people and this time no lies?

james lee jobe

Wisdom isnʼt something that others can give to us. While they can teach us, it remains words and external knowledge. But when it comes to the crunch, we have to make wisdom arise ourselves.

Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto, “The Forest Container of the Rains Retreat”

Photographer unknown

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Thanks!  --  jlj