Woe to the Complacent!

God the Socialist Declares
(via Prophet Amos)

AM 6:1A, 4-7
Thus says the LORD the God of hosts:
Woe to the complacent in Zion!
Lying upon beds of ivory,
stretched comfortably on their couches,
they eat lambs taken from the flock,
and calves from the stall!

Improvising to the music of the harp,
like David, they devise their own accompaniment.
They drink wine from bowls
and anoint themselves with the best oils;
yet they are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph!
Therefore, now they shall be the first to go into exile,
and their wanton revelry shall be done away with.

Which Pledge?

To explain: I used the flag image at https://img0.etsystatic.com/009/0/6965197/il_fullxfull.436152288_p051.jpg and imposed over it the lines of the Pledge of Allegiance by Rev Bellamy from http://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/1779: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and for the Republic for which is stands - one Nation indivisible - with Liberty and Justice for all." Bellamy was a socialist and hated the divisions of the Civil War." (EDIT: That is Bellamy's handwriting.)

* "What, to the Slave, is your Fourth of July?"


* "The United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."

* "Wall of separation between Church & State."

* "But this opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them the ... principles of ’76, now look to a ... government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations... This will be to them a next best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest stepping-stone to it."

* "I hope we shall ... crush in it’s (sic) birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations;which dare ... to challenge our government"
.

Jean Jaurès on Workers' Power and War

Give the working class confidence in the power of progress through law. Design mechanisms by which it will have access, as a class, as an organized and united collective, to the vast wealth of modernity. Draw a broad, straight path before it...And as the republican nation makes an effort to attain justice, it will be the duty of the working class, in return, to voluntarily organize and discipline itself. It will also be in its interest. It has nothing to gain by putting its protests into a brutal form...Acts of destruction not only have the effect of betraying humanity...but by giving the illusion of immediate power, they also distract the workers from the pursuit of true power, which lies in forming ever larger groups and in taking ever more methodical action.
Jean Jaurès, L'Armée Nouvelle, p 36

"Among Europe's elite, many captains of industry speak openly of a war to end the movement for workers demands."

"Your violent and chaotic society even when it pretends to seek peace carries within it war just as rain clouds carry the storm."

"At a time when we are threatened with murder and butchery, there is but one hope of saving the peace and that is for the proletariats to join ranks, workers of France, England, Germany, Italy, Russia let us implore these millions of men to unite to dispel this horrible nightmare."