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Old 12-28-2008, 02:42 PM   #43
WiNaDeYo
Avalon Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Lombardy, Italy
Posts: 222
Default Re: Do you feel the evil that flits through this board?

The Awakening is often referred to as being as painful as childbirth...now you men and childless women just can't understand what that's like! We can discuss that some other time... When one starts to awaken they often see new doors opening in their
persective and after the initial estatic gush of mental freedom, quite often they see their "world " fall apart by the seams.

It is at that time that one might need some help understanding things, so they go on a "truth" search encountering many truths and hype along the way. But nothing can stand in the way of their searching unless they become subdued by the darkness that dwells in the core of many "untruths". It is here where the Light Bringers can intervene, not by throwing stones or chanting strange formulas, but by getting directly in touch with this person, offering encouragement and a lovingly extended hand.

As I read this thread, I realize that many of you may have found your "truth" and that many are still searching. There is no evil in the searching, and what one finds must be decided upon by its finder. Those who have found their "truth" and are convinced that it is the One Truth should give testimony to their Discovery. But remember, you did not get there, where you are, always happy and gay. It's an up-hill climb for us all. Greet the ones backsliding down that you meet as you climb upward with love and encouragement!
You may incounter them going up again as you yourself may also backslide down a bit some day!

As far as the News Informers are concerned, I feel that they are necessary for this forum. Their intention is not to prolipherate fear, but to keep our attention keen. It is so important to understand at what point of time we are in, and to help understand where things might go as the sleepers seek to survive, at all costs. We all, here, realize that there isn't much time left to prepare. The Muckrakers are needed, not to scare us but to keep us centered.

Muckraker is a term associated with a group of American investigative reporters, novelists, and critics from the late 1800s -early 1900s, who investigated and exposed social issues such as conditions in slums and prisons, factories, insane asylums (as they were called at the time), sweatshops (forced labor, slavery), mines, child labor and unsanitary conditions
in food processing plants.

Muckrakers often wrote about impoverished people and took aim at the established institutions of society, sometimes in a sensationalist and tabloid manner. (See History of American newspapers for Muckrakers in the daily press). Muckrakers were
often accused of being socialists or communists. In the early 1900s, muckrakers shed light on such issues by writing books and articles for popular magazines and newspapers such as Cosmopolitan, The Independent, and McClure's.

The term muckraker now also applies to contemporary persons who follow in the tradition of that period, and now covers topics such as fraudulent claims by manufacturers of patent medicines, modern-day slavery, child prostitution, child pornography, etc.

Although the term muckraking might appear to have a negative connotation to it, muckrakers have often served the public interest by uncovering crime, corruption, waste, fraud and abuse in both the public and private sectors.

Theodore Roosevelt describes the muckrakers, 1906

"In Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward, with the muck-rake in his hand; who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor.

In "Pilgrim's Progress" the Man with the Muckrake is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of on spiritual things. Yet he also typifies the man who in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is
lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing. Now, it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be
performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck-rake, speedily becomes, not a help to society, not an incitement to good, but one of the most potent forces for evil.

There are, in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them. There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil man whether politician or business man, every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful.

Source: The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, Condensed from the Original Edition, Supplemented by Letters, Speeches,
and Other Writings, Wayne Andrews editor (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913, rep. 1958) pages 246-247...


Peace and Good Will
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