Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.
quote by Nelson Mandela
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
quote by Nelson Mandela
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.
The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
quote by Steven Biko
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system thereby the oppressed become the oppressor.
Schumacher wouldn't have let him past voluntarily. Of course he did it voluntarily, but he had to do it.
quote by Murray Walker
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Women are oppressed in the east, in the west, in the south, in the north. Women are oppressed inside, outside home, a woman is oppressed in religion, she is oppressed outside religion.
quote by Taslima Nasrin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.
quote by Milton Friedman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Not What Was Meant
When the Academy of Arts demanded freedom
Of artistic expression from narrow-minded bureaucrats
There was a howl and a clamour in its immediate vicinity
But roaring above everything
Came a deafening thunder of applause
From beyond the Sector boundary.
Freedom! it roared. Freedom for the artists!
Freedom all round! Freedom for all!
Freedom for the exploiters! Freedom for the warmongers!
Freedom for the Ruhr cartels! Freedom for Hitler's generals!
Softly, my dear fellows...
The Judas kiss for the artists follows
Hard on the Judas kiss for the workers.
The arsonist with his bottle of petrol
Sneaks up grinning to
The Academy of Arts.
But it was not to embrace him, just
To knock the bottle out of his dirty hand that
We asked for elbow room.
Even the narrowest minds
In which peace is harboured
Are more welcome to the arts than the art lover
Who is also a lover of the art of war.
poem by Bertolt Brecht
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Frail (You Might As Well Be Me)
You lead me
I do need redemption
Whenever I don't know
I feed you balance
We will not rest
Until the search ends
I bleed for you
I voluntarily give myself
I need my fraility
Oh so soon
I will unfold
I bleed for you
I voluntarily give myself
song performed by by The Gathering from How To Measure A Planet?
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Universal Freedom Is......
Freedom from hunger and freedom from pain
freedom from loss and so freedom from gain.
Freedom to give and freedom to share
freedom from want and that of despair.
Freedom to think and freedom to know
freedom to achieve and freedom to grow.
Freedom from bondage and freedom of liberation
freedom from ignorance and any unknown situation.
Freedom to come and freedom to leave
freedom to stay and freedom to conceive.
Freedom from struggle and freedom of ease
freedom to enjoy and the capacity to please.
Freedom from failure and freedom of success
freedom from denial and freedom of access.
Freedom from illusion and freedom of reality
freedom to become what we are in actuality.
Freedom to live and freedom to die
freedom to laugh and freedom to cry.
Freedom to speak and freedom to listen
freedom to act based on a wise decision.
Freedom from hate and freedom of love
freedom of below and freedom of above.
Freedom of the past and freedom of the present
freedom of the future and what it can represent.
Freedom from war and freedom of peace
freedom to begin and freedom to cease.
Freedom from sickness and freedom of health
freedom from poverty and mishandled wealth.
Freedom from wrong and freedom being right
freedom of the day and freedom of the night.
Freedom to choose and freedom to reject
freedom to imagine what there is to expect.
Freedom from lust and freedom from greed
freedom from anger and freedom from breed.
Freedom from jealousy and freedom from pride
freedom from within and freedom from outside.
Freedom of always not having anything to hide.
Freedom from space and also freedom from time
freedom from attachment and freedom from crime
Freedom to work and freedom to play
freedom to believe and freedom to pray.
Freedom to experience a rebirth someday.
Freedom from the body and freedom from the mind
freedom from the ego and freedom from being blind.
Freedom of transcendence being of the spiritual kind.
Universal freedom is eternal and infinite bliss
we should all therefore be able to realise this.
poem by George Krokos
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Extension 33
Living at the y, extension 33,
Nothing to care or to worry.
Once I was in love with a blind man,
But my auntie told me, dont do it, its not worth it.
Living at the y, 33 years,
No one to call or to write to.
Once I was in love with a married man,
But my instincts told me, dont tell him, itll kill you.
Im sad I didnt marry the blind man,
But whats a life with three blind children?
Im glad I never told the married man,
It saved my pride and freedom.
Living at the y, in 33 rooms,
Nowhere to visit or write to.
Once I was in love, it nearly killed me,
But now I have my pride and freedom.
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom,
Freedom, freedom, freedom and pride.
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom,
Freedom, freedom, freedom and pride.
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom,
Freedom, freedom, freedom and pride.
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom,
Freedom, freedom, freedom and pride.
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom,
Freedom, freedom, freedom and pride.
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom,
Freedom, freedom, freedom.
song performed by by Yoko Ono
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Freedom Alas!
To Fredrick Douglass a new name was formed
as a sign of freedom from the captivity
he seldom forgets to quake when
oppressor draws near in fits of rage
for the praise abolitionist raise
To own a man isn't right
to beat a man for his own delight
and to antebellum south, dissent did fly
'til freedom alas should be his lot
away from the tyrant's whip
and the power of master's wife
to weeping over servant's plight
To all hatred - death shall rise
when humanity in all glory known
finds a way to journey home
and discovers in a heart of gold
tolerance beyond all discrimination
is found in the young love's face
a blessing and exalted place
far from the tyrant's hand
Safety alas in church of white
to find forgiveness in love of Christ
who cries over the broken from above
to rain down on hatred's head
Tolerance for the slave's own plight
that saved man in his own right
to live freed from darkness wrought
in time of discrimination bound
Where blind men rule the black man's course
and freedom so rarely found
constantly in thoughts of oppressed
until peaceful rest, fearlessly strong - at last
is found in a place where hope abounds
And wounds unseen are finally
bound up with careful love
that silences the wrath of the intolerant
in one simple inclusion where hatred dies
poem by Lillian B. Rose
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Freedom Of The Soul
Am I not supposed to be singing emancipation?
Am I not supposed to be dancing in elation?
Am I not supposed to be jumping in rejuvenation?
How can I sing when my heart is bleeding?
It is not the wounds of yesterday
It is not the wounds of the past
It is the wounds of today
My heart is bleeding
As they sing free at last
As they jump in emancipation
As they sigh a sigh of relief
But my heart is bleeding
For they sing freedom when they are not free
How is freedom freedom if your soul is in bounds?
How is freedom freedom if your spirit is still in chains?
The freedom of the soul is greater than the freedom of the flesh
We have not been freed from the oppression of sin
The inward oppression is worse than the outward oppression
We are oppressed by sin and depressed by its consequences
Unless a man repents from sin he shall remain inbounds!
poem by Philani Zincume
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Absolute Freedom
Freedom from within
Freedom to think beyond universe
Freedom from living up to other ideas or expectations
Freedom to stand against all odds
Freedom from gods will
Freedom from triumph and disaster
Freedom from democracy and aristocracy
Freedom from scams and scandals
Freedom from caste, creed and color
Freedom from meaning less dogma
Freedom from fear and hatred
Freedom from life and death
poem by Sunnieyd Inquilab
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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And What About Freedom?
sad indeed,
there are other freedoms still
freedom from having no ideas, from this dryness,
freedom from having you
as a poet on forced wit and half-cooked cleverness
freedom from a reader
who has nothing to offer
except his own loneliness
his having nothing to do
freedom from long bored
to death
freedom from having nothing
to say and comment
freedom from this feeling of emptiness
this bigotry
this indigestion of dumb thoughts
freedom from impertinence, immateriality, irrelevance,
freedom from thinking about freedom
freedom from freedom itself
there are more
freedom from pain
is useless now
that you are dead.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Did You Say That Your Only Freedom From Pain Is Death?
sad indeed,
there are other freedoms
still
freedom from having no ideas, from this dryness,
freedom from having you
as a poet on forced wit and half-cooked cleverness
freedom from a reader
who has nothing to offer
except his own loneliness
his having nothing to do
freedom from beng bored
to death
freedom from having nothing
to say and comment
freedom from this feeling of emptiness
this bigotry
this indigestion of dumb thoughts
freedom
from impertinence, immateriality, irrelevance,
freedom from thinking about freedom
freedom from freedom itself
there are more
freedom from pain
is useless now
that you are dead.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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352
sad indeed,
there are other freedoms
still
freedom from having no ideas, from this dryness,
freedom from having you
as a poet on forced wit and half-cooked cleverness
freedom from a reader
who has nothing to offer
except his own loneliness
his having nothing to do
freedom from beng bored
to death
freedom from having nothing
to say and comment
freedom from this feeling of emptiness
this bigotry
this indigestion of dumb thoughts
freedom
from impertinence, immateriality, irrelevance,
freedom from thinking about freedom
freedom from freedom itself
there are more
freedom from pain
is useless now
that you are dead.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Freedom Is…
Freedom…
Freedom…
What is freedom?
It’s a footprint in the sand…
A whisper on the wind.
It’s a thought…
An emotion.
It’s a choice…
A gift.
Freedom is what freedom is.
Freedom is a pot on the stove…
The water in a glass.
It’s a smile on a mouth…
A tear on the cheek.
It’s a choice…
A gift.
Freedom is what freedom is.
Freedom is a breeze in your hair…
The heat in the air.
It’s the heart in your chest…
The veins in your arms.
It’s a choice…
A gift.
Freedom is what freedom is.
What is freedom?
Freedom is what freedom is.
poem by Stacey Stevens
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Effects Of Freedom And Entitlements
There were times when those oppressed,
Use to beg and request their freedom.
With a wish to have their interests accepted,
And intergrated.
Well...
All requests today are now subjected to scrutiny.
With the effects of freedom and entitlements given,
Proven not to be beneficial to anyone's progress.
The obviousness of disrespect and the crumbling of values,
Can no longer go undetected to protect those living with regrets.
Unless they are one of 'those' with a nose too high up in the air,
To avoid a stench they from the trenches helped create.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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