I love this poem!

What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by BRAD AARON MODLIN

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

1/?
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark

After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s

2/?
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—

something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted

3/?
Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,

and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.

The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.

4/?
And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,

and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person

add up to something.

5/5

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More from @TomLondon6

2 Jul
“Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda”
- Hannah Arendt
“One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive”
- Hannah Arendt
“Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow”
- Hannah Arendt
Read 9 tweets
30 Jun
“I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load, by all means possible.....except by getting off his back”
- Leo Tolstoy
“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking...”
- Leo Tolstoy
"The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth"
- Leo Tolstoy
Read 6 tweets
27 Jun
THIS is a beautiful, poignant, powerful poem by the Palestinian poet, Taha Muhammad Ali

Abd el-Hadi Fights a Superpower

In his life
he neither wrote nor read.
In his life he
didn’t cut down a single tree,
didn’t slit the throat
of a single calf.

1/?
In his life he did not speak
of the New York Times
behind its back,
didn’t raise
his voice to a soul
except in his saying:
“Come in, please,
by God, you can’t refuse.”



Nevertheless -
his case is hopeless,
his situation
desperate.

2/3
His God-given rights are a grain of salt
tossed into the sea.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury:
about his enemies
my client knows not a thing.

3/4
Read 4 tweets
27 Jun
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people”
- Howard Zinn
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient

1/2
all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem”
- Howard Zinn

@ExtinctionR
Read 13 tweets
26 Jun
YOU cannot understand politics unless you understand how PROPAGANDA works
“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state”
- Noam Chomsky
“The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until

1/2
Read 7 tweets
24 Jun
This is a poem by Allen Ginsberg about the 2003 Iraq War

Hum Bom!

Whom bomb?
We bomb'd them!
Whom bomb?
We bomb'd them!
Whom bomb?
We bomb'd them!
Whom bomb?
We bomb'd them!

Whom bomb?
We bomb you!
Whom bomb?
We bomb you!
Whom bomb?
You bomb you!
Whom bomb?
You bomb you!

1/?
What do we do?
Who do we bomb?
What do we do?
Who do we bomb?
What do we do?
Who do we bomb?
What do we do?
Who do we bomb?

What do we do?
You bomb! You bomb them!
What do we do?
You bomb! You bomb them!
What do we do?
We bomb! We bomb you!
What do we do?
You bomb! You bomb you!
Whom bomb?
We bomb you!
Whom bomb?
We bomb you!
Whom bomb? You bomb you!
Whom bomb?
You bomb you!

Whydja bomb?
We didn't wanna bomb!
Whydja bomb?
We didn't wanna bomb!
Whydja bomb?
You didn't wanna bomb!
Whydja bomb?
You didn't wanna bomb!
Who said bomb?
Who said we hadda bomb?
Read 9 tweets

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