Skepticism and critical thinking is not panacea, but can help to understand the world better
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May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Skepticism and critical thinking is not panacea, but can help to understand the world better |
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James Geary once wrote that "Aphorisms are like particle accelerators for the mind." When particles collide inside an accelerator, new ones are formed as the energy of the crash is converted into matter. Inside an aphorism, it is minds that collide, and what spins out is that most slippery of things, wisdom.
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THOUGH it was not understood a century ago, and though as yet the applications of the knowledge
to the economics of life are not generally realized, life in its physical aspect is fundamentally a struggle
for energy, in which discovery after discovery brings life into new relations with the original source.
[[Frederick Soddy, WEALTH, VIRTUAL WEALTH AND DEBT, 2nd edition, p. 49] ]
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Jan 24, 2020 | caucus99percent.com
"The trouble [with injustice] is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way, you're accountable."
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-- Arundhati RoyThe truth is never as interesting as wild speculation. --
In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is declared insane when he speaks of colors. --
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"...we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy; and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy."Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography
"Stand up for what you believe, even if you are standing alone."
Sophie Scholl
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"We've surpassed the $400 billion mark They call it 'not QE' because it's maturities of 12 months or less. But as of now, we have a $100-billion-per-month run rate of 'not QE.'"
Danielle DiMartino Booth
"Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later."
Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
"But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them."
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
"The barbarian hopes -- and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being.
We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles."
Hilaire Belloc
"'Woe to you, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. On the outside you appear righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. You snakes, you brood of vipers.'"
Matt 23: 23-33
"Realize that narcissists have an addiction disorder. They are strongly addicted to feeling significant. Like any addict they will do whatever it takes to get this feeling often. That is why they are manipulative and fakers. They promise change, but can't deliver if it interferes with their addiction."
Shannon L. Alder
"As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to his folly."
Proverbs 26:11
"This is the contempt in which they hold the majority of American people and the political process: the common people are easily led fools, and everyone else who is smart enough to know better has their price.
And they would beggar every middle class voter in the US before they will voluntarily give up one dime of their ill gotten gains."
Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009
"Remember that there will be trying times in the last days. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, dishonoring their parents, and ungrateful. To them nothing is sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and despise what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless and proud, and love pleasures of the world more than God. They may talk like they are religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Shun them."
2 Timothy 3:1-5
"When we talk about company culture in the context of financial services, the first thing that comes to mind is the risky, unethical, and sometimes criminal behavior in the banking industry, particularly during the financial crisis. And ten years on from the crisis, this behavior persists. [Persists? It remains their very business model] Instances of fraud, money laundering, and scandals related to foreign exchange and LIBOR continue to make the headlines.
This behavior puts a spotlight on the essential role of robust regulation and strict enforcement [which is the primary responsibility of the NY Fed]. But illicit and unethical behavior is rarely the result of an isolated 'bad apple.' [or a rogue trader] It's more often the symptom of a rotten culture. And rotten cultures don't appear overnight -- nor for that matter do positive, inclusive ones, where people feel empowered and accountable to upholding the values of the organization.
Culture is created -- intentionally or otherwise -- by the structures, incentives, and behavioral norms that shape our working lives."
John C Williams, President, NY Fed, Getting to the Core of Culture, 14 January 2020, London
"Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but then, in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy, without which man cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy: it's His privilege -- a grand one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I be underground there without God?
If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground. One cannot exist in prison without God; it's even more impossible than out of prison. And then we men underground will sing from the bowels of the earth a glorious hymn to God, with Whom is joy. Hail to God and His joy! I love Him!"
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
"Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror."
C. S. Lewis
"Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have existence."
Léon Bloy
"We shall not cease from exploring
And at the end of our exploration
We will return to where we started
And know the place for the first time
Through the unknown, unremembered gate."T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding
"It's déjà vu all over again."
Yogi Berra
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter -- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning -- --
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Dickie: Where are we going?
Stymie: I don't know, brother, but we're on our way.The Little Rascals, Free Wheeling
"The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil. Perhaps this is inherent. In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live. To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it. So the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The foolish thus have the field to themselves. None rebukes them."
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit."
Matthew 7:15-18
"Fear not, little flock, for your Father's delight is to welcome you into His Kingdom."
Luke 12:32
"It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought."
John Kenneth Galbraith
"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."
Søren Kierkegaard
"Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us."
Chalmers Johnson
"In a sense, blowback is simply another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows. Although people usually know what they have sown, our national experience of blowback is seldom imagined in such terms because so much of what the managers of the American empire have sown has been kept secret.
Even an empire cannot control the long-term effects of its policies. That is the essence of blowback."
Chalmers Johnson, Blowback
"...we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips."Shakespeare, Macbeth
"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy...
Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way."
Milton Meyer, They Thought They Were Free
"Many politicians are tantalizing storytellers, as they mix facts with fiction, grab our emotion and tell things they want us to believe. Their factoids are unremittingly reiterated, take a life on their own, and in the end become the very truth -- until the bubble bursts."
Erik Pevernagie
"The narcissist devours people, consumes their output, and casts the empty, writhing shells aside."
Sam Vaknin
"Fragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility."
Nassim Taleb
"Four sorrows are certain to be visited on the United States.
- First, there will be a state of perpetual war.
- Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.
- Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.
- Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens."
- Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 2005
"Seneca had made the bargain that many good men have made when agreeing to aid bad regimes. On the one hand, their presence strengthens the regime and helps it endure. But their moral influence may also improve the regime's behavior or save the lives of its enemies. For many, this has been a bargain worth making, even if it has cost them -- as it may have cost Seneca -- their immortal soul."
James Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
"If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don't hide the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are worldly, carnal, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind."
James 3:13-15
"Wash the plate, not because it is dirty, or because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next."
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
"How contrary are the teachings of Jesus to the feelings of nature. Without the help of His grace it would be impossible not only to put them into practice, but to even understand them.
Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be. Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them. Without love, deeds, even the greatest, count as nothing."
Thérèse Martin de Lisieux
"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small, and yet really not so small, blessings."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Wash the plate, not because it is dirty, or because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next."
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
"How contrary are the teachings of Jesus to the feelings of nature. Without the help of His grace it would be impossible not only to put them into practice, but to even understand them.
Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be. Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them. Without love, deeds, even the greatest, count as nothing."
Thérèse Martin de Lisieux
"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small, and yet really not so small, blessings."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Wall Street Banks and the Fed
"In the last days the culture of society will become angry and hard, and a trial for those who love God. For people will be self-centered, lovers of themselves and obsessed with money. They will boast of great accomplishments, and strut around in their prideful arrogance, mocking all that is good and kind. They will neglect to love even their own families, and act ungrateful and lawless.Many will become addicted to hateful and malicious thoughts and hateful words. Slaves to their desires, they will be ferocious, angry despisers of what is good and right. With brutal treachery, they will act without restraint, bigoted and blinded by clouds of conceit.
They will demand and find their delight in the pleasures of this world, and ignore their need to serve God. They may act religious, but they want to serve themselves."
2 Timothy 3:1-5
"Paul turned the Emperor and said, 'When they permitted you to mount your father's throne, it was only on the assurance that you'd keep the spice flowing. You've failed them, Majesty. Do you know the consequences?'"
Frank Herbert, Dune
"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.
When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!
Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."
Andrew Jackson, From the original minutes of his meeting with the Philadelphia bankers, February 1834, from Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States (1928) by Stan V. Henkels
"Democracy is held captive, not just by money, but by ideas -- the ideas that money buys."
William Greider
Mammon, Child of Pride
"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."Erich Fromm
"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups' willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America's political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.
If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.
The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation."
Charles Ferguson, Predator nation
"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."
Thomas Clement Douglas
"If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don't hide the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are worldly, carnal, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to make a way for others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no bias and is always sincere. And those who are peaceful will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness."
James 3:13-18
"God has ordered the world so that we may learn to help bear another's burdens; for no one is without fault, no one is without their burdens, no one is sufficient in themselves, no one is wise enough by themselves; therefore we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another."
Thomas À Kempis
"Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity."
Tacitus
"At times God will be the only witness to your righteous behavior. Sometimes God is the only one who will understand your motives. At such times all you can do is maintain your integrity, trusting that God always keeps His eyes on you. God looks favorably upon those who walk with integrity, doing what they know is right, regardless of how others perceive their actions. The most important thing is that you are a person of integrity before God."
Henry Blackaby, Integrity Upheld
"Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates. The truth is, no one really possesses it."
Simone Weil
Cromwell: Sir Richard is appointed Attorney General for Wales.
Thomas More: For Wales. Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world -- but for Wales?"Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons
"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery. These may, perhaps, succeed at first, and limp along on hope for awhile with a flourishing appearance. But time betrays their weakness, and they eventually fall into ruin of their own designs."
Demosthenes
"They are hypocrites -- they think the Church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking in the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believed they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared."
Margaret Atwood
"Demagogues are willing to do or say anything to gain office or to consolidate their power. Unconstrained by ideology, they have no concern for the consequences of their actions. Anything that serves to make them more powerful is good enough for them -- even if the political system that facilitated their rise should be destroyed in the process.
This, rather than some deep similarity to fascism, also explains the affinity between demagogues and political violence. True fascists venerate violence but also want to make it serve a purpose larger than themselves, like territorial conquest. Demagogues, on the other hand, tap into the most violent currents in a population simply to bolster their own popularity.
In the process, they often unleash lethal damage. They wreck the informal rules of civility that democracies require to survive. Once voters are activated along violent lines and fervently believe the myths propagated by the demagogue, the dam is broken; the ordinary rules of democratic politics no longer apply, and there is no telling what might come next."
Daniel Ziblatt
"The inability to identify with others was unquestionably the most important psychological condition for the fact that something like Auschwitz could have occurred in the midst of more or less civilized and innocent people. What is called 'fellow traveling' [collaboration] was primarily business interest: one pursues one's own advantage before all else and, simply not to endanger oneself, does not talk too much. That is a general law of the status quo."
Theodor Adorno
"I will not bow, and God grant that we will never bow, before the gods of evil."
Martin Luther King, But If Not
"O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!"William Shakespeare, Prologue, Henry V
"Since God has accepted you to be among the holy people that He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowances for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must also forgive others.
Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which brings us all together in harmony. And let the peace of the Lord rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful."
Col 3:12-15
"An old woman came down this way,
She had no bread left to eat they say,
The bread was gobbled by the corporate men,
And she fell in the gutter in the cold and rain,
And was never hungry again."Bertolt Brecht, Liturgie vom Hauch, 1927
There are those contentious and disorderly people, who engage in useless speculation and deceptive talk, and focus on divisive points of dispute... All things are good to the pure of heart, but to these corrupt and disbelieving controversialists nothing can be good, since both their minds and and their hearts are corrupted. They may say that they know God, but by their actions they deny Him, being corrupt and disobedient, and of no use for any good purpose."
Titus 1:10,15-16
"How terrible it will be for those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute what is bitter for what is sweet and what is sweet for what is bitter!"
Isaiah 5:20
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."
J.R.R. Tolkien
"We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination."
C.S. Lewis
"If the devil tells you something is too fearful to look at, look at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hear it. If you think some truth unbearable, bear it."
G.K. Chesterton
"The barbarian hopes -- and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being.
We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles."
Hilaire Belloc
"In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists."
Hannah Arendt
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture."
Thomas Merton
"One reason we rush so quickly to the vulgar satisfactions of judgement, and love to revel in our righteous outrage, is that it spares us from the impotent pain of empathy, and the harder, messier work of understanding.
Let me propose that if your beliefs or convictions matter more to you than people -- if they require you to act as though you were a worse person than you are -- you may have lost perspective."
Tim Kreider
"The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself: 'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity -- greedy, dishonest, adulterous -- or even like this tax collector over there."
Luke 18:11
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Jan 19, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?"
George Monbiot
"Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies."
Robert F. Kennedy
"`But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
`Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. `Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'
It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
`At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said `I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!'
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
`Hear me!' cried the Ghost. `My time is nearly gone.'"
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."
Alan Greenspan, apologising for his disastrous, ideologically-biased policies promoting financial deregulation , 23 October 2008
"Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast,
And each will wrestle for the mastery there...To speak the truth, as truth to me appeared,
Caused noisy protest, I was hooted down.
Such unpleasant incidents occurred
I ran off, to be on my own,
into a wilderness. Utterly forsaken,
I fell into that devil's grip, and was taken."Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
"Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been [or could be] passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun."
Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater
"Isn't it a riddle and awe-inspiring that things can be so beautiful, despite the horrors? I've seen something wondrous peering through my joy in the beautiful, a sense of its creator.
Only people can be truly ugly, because they have free will to separate themselves from this song of praise. It often seems they may drown out this hymn with cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But I have realized they will not succeed. And so I want to throw myself on the side of the victor."
Sophie Scholl
"Four sorrows are certain to be visited on the United States.
- First, there will be a state of perpetual war.
- Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.
- Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.
- Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens."
- Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire , 2005
"Do not be fooled into thinking that you will never suffer because you say that I dwell among you. It is your delusion and lying words. Do you really believe you can steal, murder, commit adultery, lie, and worship the gods of the world and those other new gods of yours, and then come here and stand before me in my own house and say, 'We are safe', only to go right back to all your lawlessness again? Do you not see that this house of yours, which you mark with my name, has become a den of thieves?"
Jeremiah 7:5-7
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Jan 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
The technocrats and neocons claim to be acting in the "national interest" but is that claim ever assessed in terms of logical validity or results.
As a part of the nation I am truly sceptical as to weather my life was somehow enhanced by the middle east conquest and disruption. I know there are other factors and they should be assessed one by one and an aggregate conclusion could be made. I know they like to resort to "national security" but seems a stretch to say that this has enhanced our security in the long term unless the plan is to destroy all life in the middle east (save a select few).Posted by: Jared | Jan 18 2020 17:43 utc | 151
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Jan 10, 2020 | thesaker.is
Лишний Человек on January 09, 2020 , · at 11:02 pm EST/EDT
Thank you for this excellent interview. You ask the kind of questions that we would all like to ask. It's regrettable that Chalmers Johnson isn't still alive. I believe that you and he would have a lot in common.Naxos has produced an incredible, unabridged cd audiobook of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. One of Gibbon's observations really resonates today: "Assassination is the last resource of cowards". Thanks again.
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Jan 08, 2020 | quoteinvestigator.com
In 1928 a columnist for the "Chicago Tribune" penned a sardonic passage about war and geographical knowledge: 7
In 1929 a newspaper in Canton, Ohio 8 and "The Washington Post" 9 both printed a one-liner quip on this topic that specifically referred to Americans:Wars should be stopped. At the same time they have their good points. How many of you reading this essay would have known whether Bolivia and Paraguay were in South America or at the North Pole if it hadn't been for the recent war scare? Think how much happier you are now that you know Paraguay is on top of the Alps -- or is it the Alps? Anyhow, geography makes us all better men and women. And war teaches us geography. Gittup!
Wars do some good, but they are a rather expensive way to teach Americans geography.
In 1932 a paper in Madison, Wisconsin: 10 and a paper in Greeley, Colorado published a different acerbic one-liner 11
Think of all those poor fellows dying over there just to teach Americans a little geography.
In 1987 the "Los Angeles Times" published some backstage notes about the Comic Relief concert broadcast by the HBO cable network. A joke by the comedian Paul Rodriguez caught the attention of the reporter who reprinted it in the article. This was the earliest close match to the popular modern jibe known to QI : 12
Paul Rodriguez got up to say "War is God's way of teaching us geography."
In 1996 the book "Comic Relief" containing extensive excerpts from comedy routines by top performers was published. The section for Paul Rodriguez included an instance of the quip with some surrounding material: 13
You know we live in such a pathetic world. It seems as if every year or so there's another new war breaking out somewhere. There was war in Sri Lanka. War in Beruit. War in Yugoslavia. In Croatia.
Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography.
Also in 1996 the book "That's Funny: a Compendium of Over 1,000 Great Jokes from Today's Hottest Comedians" was released, and it credited the line above to Rodriguez. 14
By 2001 the jape had been reassigned to the prominent humorist Ambrose Bierce. For example, in 2001 the "Los Angeles Times" published a commentary by Larry Minear who was the director of the Humanitarianism and War Project at Tufts University. Minear recounted the quip and credited Bierce: 15
If, as American writer Ambrose Bierce is said to have observed, "war is God's way of teaching Americans geography," Sept. 11 represents a wake-up call.
A writer in "The San Francisco Chronicle" noticed the linkage between the jibe and Bierce in the "Los Angeles Times", and he facilitated its dissemination by repeating it for his readers: 16
Yes, there have been a few enjoyable things in the news in recent days. How about this quote from the L.A. Times op-ed page, one attributed to Ambrose Bierce: "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."
The industrious quotation compiler Robert Byrne included an instance in "2,548 Wittiest Things Anybody Ever Said" where the words emblazoned on the back cover were ascribed to a well-known television comedian: 17
JON STEWART
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."
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Jan 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
75% Of Registered Voters Can't Identify Iran On A Map Zero Hedge
As thousands of American service members prepare for the worst in the Middle East following an American drone strike that killed Iran's second-most powerful man, just 23% of registered voters can identify the Islamic republic on an unlabeled map of the globe, according to a Morning Consult/Politico survey.
When shown an unlabeled map of just the Middle East, the number rose to a still-abysmal 28% . Eight percent of those thought Iran was Iraq on the second map - just like Joe Biden .
Of those surveyed, men were around twice as likely as women to identify Iran on both maps...
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Jan 08, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com
turcopolier , 17 September 2019 at 09:31 PM
jonstMatt -> turcopolier ... , 18 September 2019 at 12:54 AMWe have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies. If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL
I agree with your reply 100%
- Iranophobia goes back to 1979,
- Russophobia goes back to at least 1917 if not further, especially in the UK,
- Sinophobia for the US reaches back to the mid to late 1800's
these phobias are so entrenched now they're a huge obstacle to overcome,
Mark Twain: "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."
William Casey: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false"
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Jan 07, 2020 | www.nytimes.com
FedGod New York 6h ago
When small men cast long shadows .. The Sun is about to set ~An old Chinese proverb.
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Jan 07, 2020 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
Rome and the whole pagan world had gone mad, and Caesar was swimming in blood.. . "Four sorrows are certain to be visited on the United States.First, there will be a state of perpetual war. Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta. Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions. Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens." Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 2005
"Seneca had made the bargain that many good men have made when agreeing to aid bad regimes. On the one hand, their presence strengthens the regime and helps it endure. But their moral influence may also improve the regime's behavior or save the lives of its enemies. For many, this has been a bargain worth making, even if it has cost them -- as it may have cost Seneca -- their immortal soul." ~James Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
"If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don't hide the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God's kind of wisdom. Such things are worldly, carnal, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind." ~James 3:13-15
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Jan 17, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
BluebellWood -> Supermassive , 29 Nov 2018 12:41
Yep - education is the key.I remember at school we read Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language in an English class and then we were set a writing task as a follow-up, reporting on the same story using the same facts, from completely opposing points of view, using euphemism and mind-numbing cliches. Teach children to do this themselves and they can see how language can be skewed and facts distorted and misrepresented without technically lying.
How many children in schools are taught such critical thinking these days, I wonder? It might be taught in Media Studies, I suppose - but gosh, don't the right really hate that particular subject! Critical thinking is anathema to them.
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Jan 03, 2020 | thesaker.is
Sun Tzu on January 03, 2020 , · at 3:21 pm EST/EDT
"The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."
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Jan 03, 2020 | thesaker.is
Tom Welsh on January 03, 2020 , · at 5:39 pm EST/EDT
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends".It's like a queen sacrifice in chess, where the player gives up his own life to win the game.
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.unz.com
Digital Samizdat says: December 19, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT @Colin Wright
Echoing words once supposedly used by Hermann Goering: whenever I here the word 'philanthropist' these days, I instinctively reach for my revolver!
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
james , Dec 29 2019 17:18 utc | 7
@ 5 steven t johnson quote " I think money put into financial speculation is money not invested in satisfying human needs." you've just provided another description of wall st.. thanks...
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Dec 23, 2019 | en.wikipedia.org
The psychological phenomenon of illusory superiority was identified as a form of cognitive bias in Kruger and Dunning's 1999 study, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". [1] The identification derived from the cognitive bias evident in the criminal case of McArthur Wheeler, who robbed banks while his face was covered with lemon juice, which he believed would make it invisible to the surveillance cameras. This belief was based on his misunderstanding of the chemical properties of lemon juice as an invisible ink . [2]
Other investigations of the phenomenon, such as "Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence" (2003), indicate that much incorrect self-assessment of competence derives from the person's ignorance of a given activity's standards of performance. [3] Dunning and Kruger's research also indicates that training in a task, such as solving a logic puzzle, increases people's ability to accurately evaluate how good they are at it. [4]
In Self-insight: Roadblocks and Detours on the Path to Knowing Thyself (2005), Dunning described the Dunning–Kruger effect as "the anosognosia of everyday life", referring to a neurological condition in which a disabled person either denies or seems unaware of his or her disability. He stated: "If you're incompetent, you can't know you're incompetent ... The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is." [5] [6]
In 2011, David Dunning wrote about his observations that people with substantial, measurable deficits in their knowledge or expertise lack the ability to recognize those deficits and, therefore, despite potentially making error after error, tend to think they are performing competently when they are not: "In short, those who are incompetent, for lack of a better term, should have little insight into their incompetence -- an assertion that has come to be known as the Dunning–Kruger effect". [7] In 2014, Dunning and Helzer described how the Dunning–Kruger effect "suggests that poor performers are not in a position to recognize the shortcomings in their performance". [8]
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Dec 23, 2019 | astutenews.com
December 22, 2019 A Opinion Leave a comment It is amazing how easily, without resistance, the Western empire is managing to destroy "rebellious" countries that are standing in its way.
... ... ...
For instance, in 2015 and in 2019, I tried to sit down and reason with the Hong Kong rioters. It was a truly revealing experience! They knew nothing, absolutely zero about the crimes the West has been committing in places such as Afghanistan, Syria or Libya. When I tried to explain to them, how many Latin American democracies Washington had overthrown, they thought I was a lunatic. How could the good, tender, 'democratic' West murder millions, and bathe entire continents in blood? That is not what they were taught at their universities. That is not what the BBC, CNN or even the China Morning Post said and wrote.
Look, I am serious. I showed them photos from Afghanistan and Syria; photos stored in my phone. They must have understood that this was original, first hand stuff. Still, they looked, but their brains were not capable of processing what they were being shown. Images and words; these people were conditioned not to comprehend certain types of information.
But this is not only happening in Hong Kong, a former British colony.
... .... ...
You will maybe find it hard to believe, but even in a Communist country like Vietnam; a proud country, a country which suffered enormously from both French colonialism and the U.S. mad and brutal imperialism, people that I associated with (and I lived in Hanoi for 2 years) knew close to nothing about the horrendous crimes committed against the poor and defenseless neighboring Laos, by the U.S. and its allies during the so-called "Secret War"; crimes that included the bombing of peasants and water buffalos, day and night, by strategic B-52 bombers. And in Laos, where I covered de-mining efforts, people knew nothing about the same monstrosities that the West had committed in Cambodia; murdering hundreds of thousands of people by carpet bombing, displacing millions of peasants from their homes, triggering famine and opening the doors to the Khmer Rouge takeover.When I am talking about this shocking lack of knowledge in Vietnam, regarding the region and what it was forced to go through, I am not speaking just about the shop-keepers or garment workers. It applies to Vietnamese intellectuals, artists, teachers. It is total amnesia, and it came with the so-called 'opening up' to the world, meaning with the consumption of Western mass media and later by the infiltration of social media.
At least Vietnam shares borders as well as a turbulent history with both Laos and Cambodia.
But imagine two huge countries with only maritime borders, like the Philippines and Indonesia. Some Manila dwellers I met thought that Indonesia was in Europe.
Now guess, how many Indonesians know about the massacres that the United States committed in the Philippines a century ago, or how the people in the Philippines were indoctrinated by Western propaganda about the entire South East Asia? Or, how many Filipinos know about the U.S.-triggered 1965 military coup, which deposed the internationalist President Sukarno, killing between 2-3 million intellectuals, teachers, Communists and unionists in "neighboring" Indonesia?
Look at the foreign sections of the Indonesian or Filipino newspapers, and what will you see; the same news from Reuters, AP, AFP. In fact, you will also see the same reports in the news outlets of Kenya, India, Uganda, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Guatemala, and the list goes on and on. It is designed to produce one and only one result: absolute fragmentation!
***
The fragmentation of the world is amazing, and it is increasing with time. Those who hoped that the internet would improve the situation, grossly miscalculated.
With a lack of knowledge, solidarity has disappeared, too.
Right now, all over the world, there are riots and revolutions. I am covering the most significant ones; in the Middle East, in Latin America, and in Hong Kong.
Let me be frank: there is absolutely no understanding in Lebanon about what is going on in Hong Kong, or in Bolivia, Chile and Colombia.
Western propaganda throws everything into one sack.
In Hong Kong, rioters indoctrinated by the West are portrayed as "pro-democracy protesters". They kill, burn, beat up people, but they are still the West's favorites. Because they are antagonizing the People's Republic of China, now the greatest enemy of Washington. And because they were created and sustained by the West.
In Bolivia, the anti-imperialist President was overthrown in a Washington orchestrated coup, but the mostly indigenous people who are demanding his return are portrayed as rioters.
In Lebanon, as well as Iraq, protesters are treated kindly by both Europe and the United States, mainly because the West hopes that pro-Iranian Hezbollah and other Shi'a groups and parties could be weakened by the protests.
The clearly anti-capitalist and anti-neo-liberal revolution in Chile, as well as the legitimate protests in Colombia, are reported as some sort of combination of explosion of genuine grievances, and hooliganism and looting. Mike Pompeo recently warned that the United States will support right-wing South American governments, in their attempt to maintain order.
All this coverage is nonsense. In fact, it has one and only one goal: to confuse viewers and readers. To make sure that they know nothing or very little. And that, at the end of the day, they collapse on their couches with deep sighs: "Oh, the world is in turmoil!"
***
It also leads to the tremendous fragmentation of countries on each continent, and of the entire global south.
Asian countries know very little about each other. The same goes for Africa and the Middle East. In Latin America, it is Russia, China and Iran who are literally saving the life of Venezuela. Fellow Latin American nations, with the one shiny exception of Cuba, do zero to help. All Latin American revolutions are fragmented. All U.S. produced coups basically go unopposed.
The same situation is occurring all over the Middle East and Asia. There are no internationalist brigades defending countries destroyed by the West. The big predator comes and attacks its prey. It is a horrible sight, as a country dies in front of the world, in terrible agony. No one interferes. Everybody just watches.
One after another, countries are falling.
This is not how states in the 21st Century should behave. This is the law of attraction the jungle. When I used to live in Africa, making documentary films in Kenya, Rwanda, Congo, driving through the wilderness; this is how animals were behaving, not people. Big cats finding their victim. A zebra, or a gazelle. And the hunt would begin: a terrible occurrence. Then the slow killing; eating the victim alive.
Quite similar to the so-called Monroe doctrine.
The Empire has to kill. Periodically. With predictable regularity.
And no one does anything. The world is watching. Pretending that nothing extraordinary is taking place.
One wonders: can legitimate revolution succeed under such conditions? Can any democratically elected socialist government survive? Or does everything decent, hopeful, and optimistic always ends up as the prey to a degenerate, brutal and vulgar empire?
If that is the case, what's the point of playing by the rules? Obviously, the rules are rotten. They exist only in order to uphold the status quo. They protect the colonizers, and castigate the rebellions victims.
But that's not what I wanted to discuss here, today.
My point is: the victims are divided. They know very little about each other. The struggles for true freedom, are fragmented. Those who fight, and bleed, but fight nevertheless, are often antagonized by their less daring fellow victims.
I have never seen the world so divided. Is the Empire succeeding, after all?
Yes and no.
Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela – they have already woken up. They stood up. They are learning about each other, from each other.
Without solidarity, there can be no victory. Without knowledge, there can be no solidarity.
Intellectual courage is now clearly coming from Asia, from the "East". In order to change the world, Western mass media has to be marginalized, confronted. All Western concepts, including "democracy", "peace", and "human rights" have to be questioned, and redefined.
And definitely, knowledge.
We need a new world, not an improved one.
The world does not need London, New York and Paris to teach it about itself.
Fragmentation has to end. Nations have to learn about each other, directly. If they do, true revolutions would soon succeed, while subversions and fake color revolutions like those in Hong Kong, Bolivia and all over the Middle East, will be regionally confronted, and prevented from ruining millions of human lives.
By Andre Vltchek
Source: New Eastern Outlook
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Dec 23, 2019 | astutenews.com
~ Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin's
"What has happened in Finland now still makes the hair stand on end. I would still recall [Soviet leader] Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin's saying that every cook could become a minister, or words to that effect.
Now we can see that a saleswoman has become a prime minister and some other street activist and uneducated person has also become a member of the government.
Now we can actually see to some extent how the historical revenge of the reds on the whites, that is to say, the reds who wanted to liquidate the Finnish state already in the [Finnish Civil War of 1918], have now come to power and are now desperately trying to liquidate Finland, making it a euro-province which could be called either Suomi or Finland, but which, in fact, completely drags it down in the ideological philosophy at the end of the so-called Fukuyama history."
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Dec 22, 2019 | www.youtube.com
"The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five." ― Carl Sagan
The Missing Link , 19 hours ago
So interesting that the long held conspiracy theory that a certain insane group of people have actively been attempting to destroy 90% of the worlds population is now being propogated publicly. Getting ahead of the curve? Projection? I find it very intriguing that the same group of people who shouted down the conspiracy theories are now the conspiracy theorists. Funny world.
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Dec 22, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
McDee , December 21, 2019 at 4:10 pm
From "A Decade of Liberal Delusion and Failure" by Alex Pareene: If liberals want to get the next decade right, after the previous one in which we repeatedly failed to save the world while telling ourselves we were doing so, we will need to stop nudging and begin fighting.
Big Bill Haywood : A liberal is the guy that leaves the room when the fighting starts.
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Dec 21, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com
HuntingtonBeach x Ignored says: 12/18/2019 at 11:16 am
When you owe the bank a little money, the bank owns you. When you owe the bank a lot of money, you own the bank.
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Dec 21, 2019 | peakoilbarrel.com
Survivalist x Ignored says: 12/18/2019 at 3:24 pm
"Money is a token in a message flow system used to convey information to control the flows of matter and energy" ~ George Mobushttps://static.financialsense.com/historical/broadcast/insider/fsn2016-0415-mobus-u4t7x9w.mp3
I guess it's hard to convey information when you create tokens and splash them about in preferred corners.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
Tulsi voted "present" In other words, she abstained. As with the Dem debates, she is openly and directly refusing to participate in the kabuki theater production.
Here's the email she sent her supporters tonight:
Tonight I voted alongside my colleagues in the House of Representatives on whether or not to impeach President Trump.
I want to explain why I decided to stand in the center and vote "present" instead of choosing a partisan position.
Throughout my life, whether through serving in the military or in Congress, I've always worked to do what is in the best interests of our country. Not what's best for me politically or what's best for my political party. I have always put our country first. One may not always agree with my decision, but everyone should know that I will always do what I believe to be right for the country that I love.
After doing my due diligence in reviewing the 658-page impeachment report, I came to the conclusion that I could not in good conscience vote either yes or no.
Click here to read my full statement:
https://www.tulsi2020.com/press/2019-12-19-tulsi-gabbard-releases-statem...
A house divided cannot stand. And today we are divided. Fragmentation and polarity are ripping our country apart. This breaks my heart, and breaks the hearts of all patriotic Americans, whether we are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents.
So today, I come before you to make a stand for the center, to appeal to all of you to bridge our differences and stand up for the American people.
My vote today is a vote for much needed reconciliation and hope that together we can heal our country. Let's work side-by-side, seeking common ground, to usher in a bright future for the American people and our nation.
United we stand,
TulsiWarrior Tulsi. Go, girl.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
All pretense of our country being a representative democracy @snoopydawg
is gone. Ourtwo partyuniparty government has completely turned its back on serving the needs of the vast majority of the people of this country, and of the wider world. Profit sits at the head of our government. The monikers "Fascist" and "Totalitarian" are apt descriptors of the direction of our current trajectory. A dystopian future surely awaits us on this beautiful, fragile and life sustaining planet that we are trashing with such abandon.Other than that, things are going quite nicely. Nancy is wearing her power pants and fools are applauding.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
It still amazes me... that people actually think impeachment accomplishes anything other than diverting attention from the Dems giving Trump everything he wants.
Kayfabe.
Impeachment without conviction means next to nothing.
The Senate will not convict. Trumps chances of being re-elected are continuing to improve as Democratic Party insiders work overtime to see to it that Bernie Sanders has to fight the Republican Party, a MSM that either dismisses or ignores his candidacy, AND the Democratic Party which has, once again, stacked the deck against him.
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Dec 19, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
WoodsDweller on Wed, 12/18/2019 - 9:30pm
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/12/trump-has-joined-the-losers-of-presiden...... Never-Trump conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin released a scorching assessment ... "Even Trump knows he will be lumped in with the 'losers' in the presidential history rankings such as Richard Nixon and Andrew Johnson," wrote Rubin. "Impeachment will define his presidency, dwarfing any other foreign or domestic action. No wonder he rages against a speaker he is powerless to stop. His worst nightmare is to be humiliated, and if not now, history certainly will regard him as a pitiful, damaged man utterly unfit for the role he won through a series of improbable events ... Just as Watergate figures ... were lionized as defenders of the Constitution, so too will Pelosi and House Democrats ... be among those admired for their lucidity, intellect and character. ... For every clownish, contemptible, screeching and dishonest House Republican, there is a sober, admirable, restrained and honest Democrat.
"No letter, no tweet, no Fox News spin can repair the reputations of Trump enablers," Rubin wrote. The right-wing media that cheered them on will, like outlets that rooted for Jim Crow and demonized Freedom Riders, be shunned by decent, freedom-loving people who reaffirm objective reality. The Republican Party will be known not as the Party of Lincoln but the Party of Trump, a quisling party that lost its bearings and its soul to defend an unhinged narcissist.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Artful Dodger , Dec 19 2019 8:00 utc | 86
The Trump Card was and is a masterstroke of scripting live, non-stop, divisive, politically paralytic distraction while the US oligarchy goes all-tard-in for private power.Russ , Dec 19 2019 7:30 utc | 85
Since the whole impeachment farce already has been a political loser for the idiot Democrats, they'd have to be doubly stupid to double down on political stupidity by obstructing the transmission to the Senate, when most Americans just want this crap to be over with.Meanwhile the Senate Republicans, once they get the charges, would be stupid to do anything but vote them down immediately. Otherwise they'll become complicit in the odious circus and rightly incur their share of the political blame.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
olibur , 25 minutes ago link
"If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible."
US senator Harry S. Truman 1941
let me fify
"If we see that the Republicans are winning the war, we ought to help the Democrats; and if that the Democrats are winning, we ought to help the Republicans, and in that way let them kill as many as possible."
the entire world would be better off
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Babyl-on , Dec 18 2019 23:21 utc | 35
I would like to put forward my understanding of the "deep state" and see if I have any company.In my view the deep state (the interagency consensus) is the hired help of the oligarchy, which infects the gov and occupies every key position of power(except president for the first time in over 75 years).
People are constantly saying the deep state wants this or it wants that and that is off the mark. The deep state follows the orders of the oligarchy it does not make policy or make independent decisions.
In effect, the CIA is nothing more or less than a secret army of the oligarchy.
The dems funded the wall, they gave the treasonous Trump another 100+ billion to do Putin's bidding with, the dems fast tracked 115 Trump judges (Bernie could have stopped it and did not) at least two nuclear treaties were abandoned and a third will be soon. The oligarchy and its empire laugh at all the plebs caught up in their macabre pantomime covering the non-stop for 75 years slaughter of innocent people.
It should be clear who is in charge - the people who own the world run the world.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
H. L. Munchkin , 29 minutes ago link
LightBeamCowboy , 25 minutes ago linkIt could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar"Trump definitely understands that the primary reason why they are trying to impeach him is because they deeply hate him..."
"Hate" may be a useful shorthand here, but it really has nothing to do with what's going on.
"Drain the swamp" is useful shorthand, too, that means Trump is shutting off the flow of billions of dollars in corrupt money to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, and threatening to properly prosecute them for their crimes. The impeachment is really another crime waiting to be prosecuted, where the legislative branch has been hijacked to commit obstruction of justice on behalf of themselves.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
GeorgeV , Dec 18 2019 22:04 utc | 21
Watching the House impeachment live on TV reminds me of what the 19th century writer, historian and political observer Lord Acton said: "Never underestimate the influence of stupidity on history." This exercise in political sado-masochism however, must traced back to Hillary Clinton and the Clintonista hold on the Democratic Party. It began when Hillary started crying sour grapes about her loss in the 2016 election.In a previous post I have compared the Clintons and their followers to be the 21st Century's version of Typhoid Mary. Anybody who works with the Clinton's is invariably infected with corruption.
GeorgeV , Dec 18 2019 22:11 utc | 23
Oops! In my previous post I forgot to identify the author of that quote; it was Lord Acton. Many apologies to MoA readers.
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Dec 18, 2019 | www.unz.com
nsa , says: December 18, 2019 at 3:11 am GMT
@sally " ..the goal is to establish conflict ."
Good ole Jay Gould, the very archetype of a rapacious wall street oligarch, put it succinctly over 100 years ago when he reflected that "he could always pay half the working class to murder the other half". Truer words were never spoken.
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Dec 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
IG Report On FBI Spying Exposes Scandal Of Historic Magnitude For US Media Zero Hedge
BustainMovealota , 19 minutes ago link
Hadranian , 24 minutes ago linkThe tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
frankthecrank , 34 minutes ago linkDon't hold your breath waiting for justice. Most conspirators are busy doing book deals and TV gigs.
Sociopaths know no shame--they will not engage in any self introspection or seek any change in their behavior.
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Moneycircus , 8 hours ago link
Washington DC is simply rival gangs of crooks. Take your pick.
Amazing Polly links BCCI to The Finders to Ghislaine Maxwell to SRA ( Youth. Sex. Relationships. - We Ascend )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSDWgq2YUos
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
squid, 7 hours ago link
Meme Iamfurst , 6 hours ago linkThey want to do it by Christmas in the vain hope that this circus will all blow over by November. I think not.
While the typical BubisAmericanus will have forgotten all the details by then, me thinks the hard core democrats, I mean nomal'ish people that usually vote blue, simply stay home.
Part of me, however, thinks back to something that Harry Truman said, "in politics there are no accidents" .
Was this whole impeachment thing completely designed for the dems to fall on their sword and put the Donald back in for another 4? Dunno.
The Republicans will have both houses when in 2024 the the tax take will barley cover interest.
designed for the dems to fall on their sword and put the Donald back in for another 4? Dunno.
Been thinking along the same lines. May be the last thing they want is to be "on line" in 2021. I even wonder if CNN and BSNBC, etc, are there to DRIVE the decent Democrat to the Republicians.
I do think that things are not adding up.
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Dec 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Jasher , 6 hours ago link
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 6 King James Version (KJV)
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Dec 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Bavarian , 1 hour ago link
The wheels of justice turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine - Earl Warren
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Dec 10, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
flora , , December 9, 2019 at 7:58 pm
Bituman_2000An old lawyer adage: If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law , pound the table.
Karlan was pounding the table.
Starting to see a pattern. Absolute contempt for the plebs.
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Dec 10, 2019 | www.youtube.com
D Kahn , 1 hour agoPolitics is like religion. Facts mean very little before the over powering light of belief
Frank Stevens , 2 hours agoPatriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain
The Watch Show , 3 hours agoNobody goes to jail in Washington !!!
Rules for thee but not for me.
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Dec 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
TJ , Dec 8 2019 21:03 utc | 38
@29 john brewsterA long time ago I watched "Manufacturing Consent" and have since assumed that what passes for mainstream "news" is nothing more than propaganda, and that Mark Twain was entirely correct in his observation that if you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. Though it is sad when I see the likes of the once great Nature engage in such, all things must pass and I am sure they will too, most of what I read these days comes straight off arxiv.org so they have already been disintermediated in my life.
@32 c1ue
That will be £1,000,000 for linking to my post, please pay within 24 hours or legal action will be taken!
Do you see the point now?
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Dec 09, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks,
It still looks home, and short excursions makes;But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks,
And, never shocked, and never turned aside.
Bursts out, resistless, with a thundering tide."Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.goodreads.com
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." ― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ― Mark Twain tags: misattributed-mark-twain
"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it." ― Mark Twain
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always." ― Mahatma Gandhi
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." ― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays 2, 1926-29
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love." ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." ― George Orwell
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." ― Oscar Wilde
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." ― Oscar Wilde
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." ― Winston S. Churchill
"Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth." ― William Faulkner
"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." ― Flannery O'Connor
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.goodreads.com
"Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex." "So many books, so little time."
"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
"If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it."
"If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library."
"A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open."
"Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth..."
"Definition of rock journalism: People who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read."
"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
"It's better to have something to remember than anything to regret."
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
"My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can."
"Art is making something out of nothing, and selling it."
"There's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over."
"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff."
"The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced."
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Tuyzentfloot , Dec 5 2019 23:46 utc | 85
Propagandists are rarely smarter than the group they are trying to influence. Most Propaganda is about reinforcing groupthink and pulling it in a desired direction. But the influencers are with one leg inside the bubble. They are more pushing the bubble from the inside than pulling from the outside.
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Lochearn , Dec 5 2019 21:51 utc | 69
@ 23 psychohistorian"The US is dysfunctional on purpose to keep the masses under control and dumbed down/brainwashed."
This is an interesting statement which seems like a contradiction but is it? Surely there must be some functionality to be able to keep the masses dumbed down/brainwashed; it implies some sort of thought out strategy. How do we get the same narrative trotted out in media in exactly the same format from LA to Warsaw, from Lima to Bangalore if it's all so dysfunctional? Maybe decadence is preferable to dysfunctional as it implies a level of corruption which is typical of late empires.
But there's a deeper level to the comment. Netflix now gives us some great series on true crime where police behaviour is scrutinized in depth. We see cops plant evidence and set up victims for easy prosecution. In other words the cops are portrayed as dysfunctional and corrupt. Yeah, right. That makes us feel better. It also makes us feel that unlike drama we can make our own minds up about who is guilty and who is not. How delightfully postmodern.
The system has become so brazen that it can show us truths which sort of reinforce its very self. When it sets up false flags it can even give us clues and stuff to work on to the extent that every "terrorist" event that happens is considered by some people as a false flag when it may not be and everyone who supposedly died has not died when the reality is there is a mix -- some events are false flags some aren't; in some false flag events people are killed; in others maybe not.
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
ak74 , Dec 6 2019 2:14 utc | 98
As the great wise man, Frank Zappa proclaimed about the USA:"Politics/government is the entertainment division of the Military-Industrial Government."
American politics makes much greater sense (and is a hell of a lot more entertaining) if you understand this truism.
US Presidential Debates and impeachment hearings are a swell occasion for drinking games.
Every time a political hack, media shill, or academic invokes some variant of American Exceptionalism, take a shot of your favorite alcoholic beverage.
You will be drunk within half an hour--guaranteed!
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Likklemore , Dec 5 2019 16:13 utc | 7
Attributed to Mark Twain. Perhaps the learned professor karlan may affirm: "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."juannie , Dec 5 2019 17:49 utc | 32AND Ukraine wishing to join NATO: well, not so fast for Hungary. Hungary says it will block Ukraine from joining NATO over controversial language law
Budapest has signaled that it will not support Ukraine's bid to join NATO until Kiev reverses a law that places language restrictions on ethnic Hungarians and other minorities living in the country.Legislation that limits the use of Hungarian, Russian, Romanian, and other minority languages in Ukraine must be repealed before Hungary backs Ukraine's NATO membership, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday.
... ... ...
Mischi #1Jackrabbit , Dec 5 2019 18:03 utc | 34never underestimate the stupidity of people. Even professors.Or as I think it was Einstein that reportedly said: (I paraphrase from memory)
To truly understand the infinite, just contemplate human stupidity.casey @31: When these people get together ... does the mask come off?I doubt it. They have convinced themselves that they are right and/or are following the wishes of people who are right-thinking. In USA, most people are brainwashed to assume that people with lots of money are right-thinking (as in: they must be doing something right!).
Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.!!
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Dec 08, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
In all of this, it's worth remembering the observation of La Rouchefoucald that "hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue". The accusation of virtue signalling represents the refusal of vice to pay this tribute.
Phil 12.05.19 at 10:10 am ( 2 )
... in my experience the kind of people who talk about VS also talk about 'clicktivism' and similar; in other words, a lack of effort or cost is particularly characteristic of VS (and, in their eyes, particularly repugnant).nastywoman 12.05.19 at 11:13 am ( 4 )...And what's about all these people who wear these: "I'm a Deplorable" – T-shirts?SusanC 12.05.19 at 12:37 pm (no link)I thought the concept was supposed to be (a)not actually doing anything to reduce a problem; while (b) making ostentatious signs that purport to show you care about it.SusanC 12.05.19 at 12:45 pm (no link)A better example might be attending an Extinction Rebellion protest without changing your own consumption/pollution causing activities.
I wonder if it somehow relates to the Mary Douglas cultural theory of risk?
If so, we might tentatively include, e.g. Making a big noise about terrorism without really considering yourself to be at risk from it
"Vice signaling" was a good joke; I think it captures a notion that the affiliation the person is attempting to signal is not a universally shared one,
For that matter, terrorism itself, in its typical modern form, could be regarded as vice signalling: ostentatiously commiting public acts of violence ostensibly in support of a political cause, without regard to whether the political cause is in fact being advanced by their actions.cs 12.05.19 at 1:37 pm (no link)... I would say the implication is about the ostentation and a kind of insincerity. Insincerity in the sense that the person displaying the rainbow flag wants to be seen as the kind of person who cares about gay rights, when maybe they don't actually care about it all that much. That isn't quite the same as hypocrisy I think.MisterMr 12.05.19 at 2:02 pm ( 12 )I'll try to give my economic based explanation for this, based on this paper from Piketty:chedolf 12.05.19 at 4:14 pm ( 18 )Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right:Rising Inequality & the Changing Structure of Political Conflict
This paper has been cited here various times, however I'll drop this line from the abstract that summarizes the main finding:
Using post-electoral surveys from France, Britain and the US, this paper documents a striking long-run evolution in the structure of political cleavages. In the 1950s-1960s, the vote for left-wing (socialist-labour-democratic) parties was associated with lower education and lower income voters. It has gradually become associated with higher education voters, giving rise to a "multiple-elite" party systemin the 2000s-2010s: high-education elites now vote for the "left", while high-income/high-wealth elites still vote for the "right"
Do you think the criticism of Pharisees who pray theatrically in public was exclusively an attack on hypocrisy?Sashas 12.05.19 at 4:15 pm ( 19 )I would add to Phil @2 a third option.MrMister 12.05.19 at 4:34 pm ( 21 )
(a) You're a hypocrite.
(b) The thing you're signalling isn't actually a virtue.
(c) You're attacking me by reminding everyone of a virtue I don't have.I think the old-fashioned term for virtue signalling is sanctimony, not hypocrisy. Notably, sanctimony is also compatible with genuine belief and/or commitment. It does connote that the committed person has a degree of self-love over their commitments, and that perhaps the frequency or intensity of their display of their commitments is caused by an underlying desire to experience that self-love whenever the opportunity arises.Tohubohu 12.05.19 at 8:15 pm ( 26 )Sanctimony–correct word, I think–puts me in mind of that old bumper sticker, "I brake for animals" of which I once saw an example tidily shortened to: "I bake animals".Trader Joe 12.05.19 at 9:41 pm ( 29 )The problem I have with the whole concept is the stereotyping and bias implicit in it.Dr. Hilarius 12.05.19 at 10:24 pm ( 30 )When I see the Rainbow I'm supposed to think open minded, inclusive and left-thinking and that's fully o.k in the minds of liberals, but not in the minds of the Conservatives who see something else (which I'm not inclined to list).
When I see the MAGA I'm supposed to think closed minded, racist and right-thinking, but Conservatives would see hard-working Americans trying to make their country a better place.
Displaying a rainbow flag or wearing a MAGA hat strikes me as visible tribal identification more than virtue signaling. I think MrMister's mention of sanctimony is closer to the truth. Another poster mentioned Pharisees and public prayer. Consider a meeting to discuss replacing culverts to allow better passage of spawning salmon. The participants represent various interested parties, private and government. The meeting is disrupted by a person who proceeds to lecture all present about the history of racism, broken treaties and Native American reverence for nature. This person is not Native American. The speaker assumes that his/her information is unknown to the audience. The information does nothing to advance the goal of culvert replacement nor does it do anything to right historic wrongs. The speaker gets to feel superior. This is high-grade virtue signaling.SamChevre 12.05.19 at 11:17 pm ( 32 )It has been my experience that virtue signalling is often practiced on behalf of marginalized groups by people who do not belong to that group but presume to speak for them.
I'll second several commenters above: "virtue signalling" isn't primarily an accusation of hypocrisy. The related accusations targeted at the right are "sanctimony" and "prudishness" more than hypocrisy. The accusation is that you care more about "being seen as the sort of person who supports X" than about X.engels 12.06.19 at 2:19 am ( 37 )I think it means making a political statement in order to look good, where good is understood in a moral sense. That's a real phenomenon, especially in our age of online narcissism/personal branding, and it probably does affect the liberal-left more than the right because left-liberal politics tends to be more morally inspired.Bernard Yomtov 12.06.19 at 2:28 am ( 38 )I wouldn't use the term myself (or SJW)
I agree with SusanC at 7 and cs at 10 that the term is mostly intended to suggest that you support some cause or other that you don't really care about, as a way to identify yourself, or establish bona fides, with some group.steven t johnson 12.07.19 at 12:19 am ( 53 )https://www.primalpoly.com/virtue-signaling-further-readingengels 12.07.19 at 10:41 am ( 57 )https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/are-you-guilty-virtue-signaling
https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/identitieswhat-are-they-good-for/articles/virtue-signaling
https://www.nas.org/blogs/dicta/are_colleges_wasting_endowment_funds_on_virtue_signaling
I'm so far behind I'm still bemused by the thought that a flag lapel pin, pledges of allegiance and praying in public, are all virtue signalling. The tie-ins to libertarian economics and evolutionary psychology are even more puzzling, but maybe that's because I think they're just ideological scams/Vavilovian mimicry trying to pass off nonsense as real ideas.
I invented 'virtue signalling'. Now it's taking over the worldmtraven 12.07.19 at 6:47 pm ( 62 )
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/i-invented-virtue-signalling-now-its-taking-over-the-world/Bartholomew did not invent "virtue signalling", of course: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/20/virtue-signalling-putdown-passed-sell-by-dateDonald 12.08.19 at 12:42 am ( 64 )The term is related to " Social Justice Warrior".
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Dec 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Temporarily Sane | Apr 23, 2017 8:43:48 AM | 83
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.Terrence Zehrer , says: July 15, 2013 at 12:48 pmAldous Huxley
But the Pentagon is excellent at what it does – extort money from the US taxpayer. I call it treason."Massive military budgets erode the economic foundation on which true national security is dependent."
– Dwight Eisenhower
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Nov 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Teamtc321 , 20 minutes ago link
Libtard Logic......
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."- Joseph Goebbels
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Nov 28, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Savannah Thomas , 1 week ago (edited)"Censorship is telling a grown man that he can't eat steak, because the baby can't chew it." - Mark Twain
T B , 1 week ago (edited)"Biden to me is like having a flashlight with a dying battery and going for a long hike in the woods" - Joe Rogan 😅 1:28:33
Colin Hay , 1 week ago"When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence." - Gary Lloyd. We Americans are willingly blind to truth. It'll be the death of us.
John Merlino , 1 week agoGeorge Orwell said it best: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever."
Tenzin Nordron , 11 hours ago (edited)Matt Taibbi: "they're trying to sound like legitimate news, but they're also completely selling out at the same time " perfectly sums up news outlets today, on both sides.
Ricky Milano , 1 week agoWhen I was a kid, i heard, on live radio broadcast, Oswald shot to death in Dallas Police Station - still think that's a more blatant murder of Witness.
Adrienne Marini , 1 week ago"There isn't the shame of screwing something up like there used to be." - Welcome to Hell everyone, we have jackets!!!
Major Bloodnok , 6 days ago1:15:32 "There's also people that are like wolves trying to take out that baby joke wandering through the woods." So many good quotes in this podcast.
"We don't have any institutional respect anymore".. When even the broadsheets knowingly sow falsehoods or subtly mislead the public on a regular basis, you'd better be prepared for the harvest. You never win back respect from someone who's sussed out your con.
Matthew Weber , 1 week ago (edited)"That's why people call us fake news. They see us as doing PR for rich people"
John Merlino , 1 week ago"The press doesn't like to do stories where the problem is bi-partisan". We have an Autocracy masquerading as a two-party Democracy. "The press" works for the Autocracy and their most precious deception to protect is the appearance of two distinct parties.
Godwad , 1 week agoMatt Taibbi: "they’re trying to sound like legitimate news, but they’re also completely selling out at the same time " perfectly sums up news outlets today, on both sides.
Scott , 1 week ago“This Epstein case is probably the most blatant example of a witness being murdered.......” Rogan is too high to remember Lee Harvey Oswald.
DM R , 1 week agoHate is seductive, so everyone piles on.
swissgunner , 1 week agoTwitter, Google, Facebook and the like are now controlled and work for the State i.e the Government and CIA
Rosablue Hand-Made Originals , 16 hours ago (edited)If the Russians really did interfere with US and European elections then, based on the results, we owe them debt of gratitude.
"People are increasingly careful about what they put into their bodies. But they do not think about the news that way, or social media. They don't think about what they put in their brains. It's also a consumer product." -- This by Matt Taibbi has to be the Quote of the Day I will use to bore my former colleagues on LinkedIn today.
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Nov 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
Skip Scott , November 22, 2019 at 17:44
Hill's career advancement and access to the MSM depends on her faith in our "intelligence" agencies. And I doubt very much that Durham will be allowed to do his job probing the origins of RussiaGate. The evil ones will stop at nothing to keep control of the narrative.
“It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.” Mark Twain
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Nov 23, 2019 | quoteinvestigator.com
Dear Quote Investigator: Cynicism regarding official edicts is not a new phenomenon. Reportedly, the powerful German leader Otto von Bismarck once said:
Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.... ... ...
In conclusion, this saying was presented without a precise ascription in the earliest instances found by QI ; hence, it should be considered anonymous based on current data. Future researchers may discover additional pertinent citations. The first published linkage to Bismarck appeared in 1911, and yet the statesman died in 1897; hence, support for this attribution was weak.
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Nov 21, 2019 | www.goodreads.com
"The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing."
― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, and Selected Critical Prose
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Nov 15, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right."
John Kenneth Galbraith
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Nov 09, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"A business man who was also a biologist and a sociologist would know, approximately, the right thing to do for humanity. But, outside the realm of business, these men are stupid. They know only business. They do not know mankind nor society, and yet they set themselves up as arbiters of the fates of the hungry millions and all the other millions thrown in. History, some day, will have an excruciating laugh at their expense." ~Jack London, The Iron Heel
"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
"It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands of breasts. Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins."
Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis
"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the NSA] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
Senator Frank Church, 1975
"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments."
Michael Parenti
"People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves."
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
"Instead of flooding the entire economy with liquidity, and thereby increasing the danger of inflation, the Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thereby stabilizing the market as a whole."
Robert Heller, Federal Reserve Board , 1989
Now, we don't have the legal right to sell gold but I'm just frankly curious about what people's views are on situations of this nature because something unusual is involved in policy here. We're not just going through the standard policy where the money supply is expanding, the economy is expanding, and the Fed tightens. This is a wholly different thing."
Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Minutes from May 18, 1993
"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K."
Eddie George, Governor Bank of England, in a conversation with the CEO of Lonmin , September 1999
"Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune ."
Carl Jung
"His money came from human misery and death and despair, as always it does. Yet, there is none to reproach him, neither God nor man, and all fawn upon him and he will be a senator and crowds will laud him and he will have the ear of the President and all will honor his riches and consider him worthier than other men because of it.
Mankind adores its betrayers, and murders its saviors."
Taylor Caldwell, Captains and Kings
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Nov 09, 2019 | www.unz.com
Wilberweld says: November 7, 2019 at 2:11 pm GMT 100 Words Trump's problem was described in simple terms by John Connelly when talking with Henry Kissinger. "Henry", he said, "In Washington you are judged by the men you've destroyed". Trump has not destroyed anyone, not Comey, not Brennan, not Klapper. So he is viewed as weak, an easy target. So they just keep piling on. Attacking Trump is viewed as a "penalty-free activity
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Nov 09, 2019 | off-guardian.org
George Mc
Gore Vidal was always one of the most quotable commentators. Some example (probably paraphrased):
- "Any order that has successfully demonized the word 'liberal' has effectively stifled all opposition to itself."
- "America is the only country in the world that believes in socialism for the rich and private enterprise for the poor."
- "'Conspiracy theory' has become a code for 'unspeakable truth'."
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Nov 09, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
"I say enough! If Israel wants to be the only superpower in the Middle East then they can put their own asses on the line and do it themselves. I want to continue to eat."
-- snoopydawg
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"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it". George Orwell.
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable." H.L. Mencken
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." – Edward Bernays, inside his famous book Propaganda, 1928
"The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries." -David Rockefeller, Memoirs
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Nov 04, 2019 | www.goodreads.com
Milton Friedman was one of the most prominent neoliberal shysters.
"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."
― Milton Friedman tags: equality , freedom 405 likes Like "One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."
― Milton Friedman 339 likes Like "Well first of all, tell me: Is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it's only the other fellow who's greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system."
― Milton Friedman tags: capitalism , economics , greed 224 likes Like "The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another."
― Milton Friedman 164 likes Like "Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government-- in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player."
― Milton Friedman 153 likes Like "Now here's somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he's caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That's the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons"
― Milton Friedman tags: drugs , economics , law , morality 141 likes Like "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."
― Milton Friedman 136 likes Like "Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
― Milton Friedman tags: free-market 104 likes Like "I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible."
― Milton Friedman tags: fiscal-policy , taxation 91 likes Like "Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government."
― Milton Friedman 88 likes Like "Governments never learn. Only people learn."
― Milton Friedman 84 likes Like "When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced. When government pays its employees higher wages, those higher wages are at the expense of the taxpayer. But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody's expense. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. The whole pie is bigger - there's more for the worker, but there's also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector.That's the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. That's the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries."
― Milton Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement tags: free-market 82 likes Like "See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true."
― Milton Friedman tags: drug-war 69 likes Like "Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."
― Milton Friedman 65 likes Like "The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both"
― Milton Friedman 64 likes Like "In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic "what your country can do for you" implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man's belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, "what you can do for your country" implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshiped and served. He recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive."
― Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom 62 likes Like "Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government."
― Milton Friedman 55 likes Like "A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
― Milton Friedman 54 likes Like "Society doesn't have values. People have values."
― Milton Friedman tags: people , society 54 likes Like "The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy."
― Milton Friedman 49 likes Like "There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud"
― Milton Friedman tags: economics , ethics 49 likes Like "Even the most ardent environmentalist doesn't really want to stop pollution. If he thinks about it, and doesn't just talk about it, he wants to have the right amount of pollution. We can't really afford to eliminate it - not without abandoning all the benefits of technology that we not only enjoy but on which we depend."
― Milton Friedman, There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch tags: environmentalism 42 likes Like "Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power. Government is necessary to preserve our freedom, it is an instrument through which we can exercise our freedom; yet by concentrating power in political hands, it is also a threat to freedom. Even though the men who wield this power initially be of good will and even though they be not corrupted by the power they exercise, the power will both attract and form men of a different stamp."
― Milton Friedman 40 likes Like "He moves fastest who moves alone."
― Milton Friedman 40 likes Like "I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual's natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they're responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of."
― Milton Friedman tags: freedom 40 likes Like "Education spending will be most effective if it relies on parental choice & private initiative -- the building blocks of success throughout our society."
― Milton Friedman 38 likes Like "The key insight of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another."
― Milton Friedman 36 likes Like "For example, the supporters of tariffs treat it as self-evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number--for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs--jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume."
― Milton Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement tags: economics , friedman , job-creation , jobs , work 33 likes Like "This plea comes from the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. A country in which shooting down unidentified planes "on suspicion" can be seriously considered as a drug-war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I want to hand on to future generations."
― Milton Friedman tags: drugs , economics 33 likes Like "I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office."
― Milton Friedman
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Nov 03, 2019 | www.mcsweeneys.net
"No taxation without representation. I'm not sure how much representation, I don't have an exact number."
-- James Otis, 1761"We hold these truths to be self-evident but just worry that the vast majority of Americans won't be ready to embrace them."
-- Declaration of Independence, 1776"Crime butchers Innocence to secure a throne, and Innocence struggles with all its might to have a civil conversation with Crime."
-- Maximilien Robespierre, 1794"Power concedes nothing without a demand. But maybe we should try politely asking again!"
-- Frederick Douglass, 1857"A house divided against itself sounds expensive to rebuild."
-- Abraham Lincoln, 1858"The only thing we have to fear is any fundamental change to the status quo."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932"We shall compromise on the beaches, we shall compromise on the landing grounds, we shall compromise on the field and in the streets, we shall compromise in the hills, and we will see if surrendering makes sense long-term."
-- Winston Churchill, 1940
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Oct 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Batman11 , 8 minutes ago link
The prophecy on the neoliberal ideology emanating from the US.
"The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom. There was no man in the United States great enough to wear his boots and the bankers went anew to grab the riches. I fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America and use it to systematically corrupt civilization." Otto von Bismark (1815-1898), German Chancellor, after the Lincoln assassination
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Oct 30, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
likbez 10.30.19 at 10:03 am 27
The growing view on neoliberal MSM as "fake news" might be yet another symptom along the lines of classic Marxism "revolutionary situation" definition: when the elite can't rule "as usual" and "deplorable" do not want to live "as usual".
From Wikipedia
Lenin describes the "revolutionary situation" as follows:
"To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms:
(1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the "upper classes", a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for "the lower classes not to want" to live in the old way; it is also necessary that "the upper classes should be unable" to live in the old way;
(2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual;
(3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in "peace time", but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the "upper classes" themselves into independent historical action.
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Oct 28, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
- "When you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left." ~Clint Eastwood, Interview, Time Magazine, February 20, 2005
- "A mighty bubble of wealth is blown before our eyes, as empty, as transient, as contradictory to the laws of solid material, as confuted by every circumstance of actual condition, as any other bubble which man or child ever blew before." ~Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost
- "Life is a school of probability." Walter Bagehot
- "Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies comes to a point when he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others." Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
- "The banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, and balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustained recovery." ~ Jesse, July 2009
- "He who does not shout the truth when he knows it makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers." ~Charles Péguy
- "Being in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge creates direct responsibility for the consequences." ~Albert Speer
- "Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy." ~Captain G. M. Gilbert, Army Psychologist, Nuremberg Trials
- "Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse." ~Adlai Stevenson
- "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
- "We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe." ~John Henry Newman
- 'The banks are circling the wagons. Somebody's got a problem.' ~Charles R. Geisst, as quoted in There's Nothing Normal About the Fed Pumping Hundreds of Billions Weekly to Unnamed Banks on Wall Street
- "The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool." ~Stephen King, Needful Things
- "The bully type, the false 'tough,' has been the first to break down under the actual fire of battle. The quiet, the calm, the determined have made the best soldiers. Why? Obviously the bully is insecure in himself -- he blusters to muster his own courage." ~Pearl S. Buck, What America Means to Me
- "Narcissists damage and hurt but they do so offhandedly and naturally, as an afterthough. They are aware of what they are doing to others - but they do not care." ~Sam Vaknin, Malignant Self-Love
- "We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion." ~George Orwell
- "Crowd-pleasers [demagogues] are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy -- then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece." ~Hunter S. Thompson
- The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato." ~Karl Popper
- "A confident, aggressive delivery style - often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases - makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others ... they are masters of impression management; their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial - but convincing - verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan. The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team." ~Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits
- "There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true." ~Søren Kierkegaard
- "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists." ~Hannah Arendt
- "Narcissists are unstable and go through repeated cycles of self-destruction, with other people usually paying the heft of the price. Narcissists tend to be divisive, vindictive, confrontational, aggressive, hate-filled, raging, incoherent, judgment-impaired, and irrational. Narcissists are liars, confabulators, and miserable failures, although some of them are geniuses at disguising the fact that they are, in fact, losers." ~Sam Vaknin
- "Any idea pushed into the popular mind with considerable force will keep on going until some opposing force -- or the slow resistance of friction -- stops it at last." ~Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- "Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now we are witnessing a transformation: a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, that we are not going to be judged." ~Czeslaw Milosz, The Discreet Charm of Nihilism
- "Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates. The truth is, no one really possesses it." ~Simone Weil
- Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum. Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall.
- "People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right." ~John Kenneth Galbraith
- "When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak." ~Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
- "I understand why an equality that was founded upon God involved neither contradiction nor disorder. Demagogy enters at the moment when, for want of a common denominator, the principle of equality degenerates into the principle of identity." ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras
- "Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege." ~Thomas Clement Douglas
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Oct 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
pogohere , Oct 26 2019 20:46 utc | 115
chu teh @44 & 112
God is a comedian whose audience refuses to laugh.
chu teh , Oct 26 2019 19:08 utc | 112
karlof1 | Oct 25 2019 22:15 utc | 54
re: source of "God has an infinite sense of humor"...
Was told that in 1994[?] conversation w Jerry, a fellow worker, abt the baffling condition of Mankind. Never heard it before or since. At the time it was one of most incisive and impinging viewpoints; it still is.
It was said to me dryly, not coy and no smile, almost plaintively as tho it would be ignored and pass thru unrecognized. I never met a more rational or sharper mind.
Once, I remarked I was looking for an obscure book that was mentioned in another book, as "1 of the 3 best autobios ever written in English" by someone I never heard of. J:"Who and what?" Me:"Kropotkin and Revolutionist".
J:"Oh, sure! I think my wife still has a copy" and he brought it in next day.[An awesome read, too!]
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Oct 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Don Bacon , Oct 26 2019 22:16 utc | 33
The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101.President Harry Truman probably received as much flak as any politician ever did, especially after he canned war-hero General MacArthur. But Truman wasn't a candy-ass current politician complaining about dirt-digging. No, he gave back more than he got, in spades.
What was "give-em-hell" Harry Truman's attitude? Some Truman quotes:
--"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."
--"It's the fellows who go to West Point and are trained to think they're gods in uniform that I plan to take apart"
--"I didn't fire him [General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail."
-- "I'll stand by [you] but if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen ."
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Oct 27, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Greg Gerner , , October 25, 2019 at 8:36 am
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France
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Oct 23, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
"The degree to which [neo]liberals are coming to inhabit an alternate reality, impenetrable by facts or reason, is actually frightening." -- Steve Maher
Actually, the issue at stake is patriotism. You must return to your world and put an end to the Commies. All it takes are a few good men. --QExit polls not involving George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton tend to be quite accurate. --Doug Hatlem
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Oct 23, 2019 | medium.com
It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives
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Oct 08, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
anne , October 04, 2019 at 09:26 AM
ken melvin -> EMichael... , October 04, 2019 at 01:26 PMhttps://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/1179716954426359808
Branko Milanovic @BrankoMilan
The tragedy of American politics is that the educated "Brahmin left" are warmongers with good conscience, while the "Merchant Right" is utterly corrupt. Only W succeeded in combined the worst parts of the two.
4:16 AM - 3 Oct 2019
Private prisons, detention centers, Saudi Arabia, Russia, ... these deals were all made before the election in 2016. Who amongst Trump's circle made them? This is what needs be brought out.
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Oct 07, 2019 | nlm.nih.gov
1: It would be funny if it weren't so sad. Teratology. 1973 Feb;7(1):1-2. PubMed
PMID: 4693741.
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Aug 31, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Bugs Bunny , , August 31, 2019 at 7:58 am
A shrink friend once said "cynicism is the most logical reaction to despair".
Off The Street , August 31, 2019 at 10:52 am
I try to be despairing, but I can’t keep up.
Attributed to a generation or two after Lily Tomlin’s quote about cynicism.Out of curiosity, would it be cynical to question that political scientist’s grant funding or other sources of income? These days, I feel inclined to look at what I’ll call the Sinclair Rule* , added to Betteridge’s, Godwin’s and all those other, ahem, modifications to what used to be an expectation that communication was more or less honest.
* Sinclair Rule, where you add a interpretive filter based on Upton’s famous quote: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
jrs , August 31, 2019 at 11:43 am
It’s good to look at funding sources. But it’s kind of a slander to those who must work for a living when assuming it’s paychecks (which we need to live in this system) that corrupt people.
If it’s applied to the average working person, maybe it’s often true, maybe it has a tendency to push in that direction, but if you think there are no workers that realize the industry they are working in might be destructive, that they may be exploited by such systems but have little choice etc. etc., come now there are working people who are politically aware and do see a larger picture, they just don’t have a lot of power to change it much of the time. Does the average working person’s salary depend on his not understanding though? No, of course not, it merely depends on him obeying. And obeying enough to keep a job, not always understanding, is what a paycheck buys.
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Aug 22, 2019 | www.jambell.com
Latin word Translation Comment ad hoc "for this thing" set up temporarily for a particular purpose e.g. an ad hoc committee ad infinitum "to infinity" as in Latin agenda (pl.) "things to be discussed/done" as in Latin but usually incorrectly used in the singular e.g. an agenda! alias "elsewhere", "sometimes" another identity alibi "at" or "in another place" proof of not being in the location of a crime/misdemeanour ante meridiem (a.m.) "before noon" in the morning post meridiem (p.m.) "after noon" afternoon anno domini (A.D.) "in the year of (our) Lord" as in Latin ad nauseam "to sickness" to the point of being sick bis "two times" as in Latin (Used in singing instructions.) ceteris paribus "with the rest of the things the same/equal" all other factors held constant confer (cf.) "bring together" compare c. or circa "about" approximately compos mentis "having mastery of (one's) mind" in full possession of one's mental faculties exempli gratia (e.g.) "by the grace of example" for example ego "I" sense of importance of self et cetera (etc.) "and the rest of the things" and so on ex libris "from the books" belonging to the book collection of ex post facto "from the deed/fact, afterwards" deduced or discovered after the event with the benefit of hindsight gratis gratia "favour" or "kindness" for no payment habeas corpus "may you have the body" the right to be brought to trial within a reasonable period after arrest and imprisonment ibidem "there in the same place" as in Latin id "it" (neuter) that part of the personality which indulges the "libido"(=sexual urge) and/or behaves impulsively (psychoanalytical terminology) idem (id.) "the same thing" as in Latin id est (i.e.) "that is" that is in flagranti delicto "in the blazing crime" caught in the act in loco parentis "in the place of a parent" as in Latin in vitro "in glass" in a test tube ipso facto "by the very fact" as in Latin inter alia "among other things" among other things! memento "remember!" a token to remember someone/something by memorandum (memo) "something which is to be remembered/mentioned/spoken about" as in Latin mens sana in corpore sano "a healthy mind in a healthy body" as in Latin modus operandi "way/method of operating" way of working moratorium Americanisation of classical Latin 'mora' – "delay" an American politician's decision to stop or delay doing something nil nil/nihil "nothing" nothing, no score nota bene (N.B.) "note well" as in Latin omnibus "with everything"; "for everyone" a compilation of all the magazines/programmes; a means of transport all can use ("-bus") par "equal", "the same" used in golf to suggest a target score for a hole which players attempt to equal; also "below par" meaning not up to the usual standard (of health, achievement) post mortem "after death" examination after death post partum "after giving birth" as in Latin pro persona (p.p.) "instead of the person" as in Latin. Used when a letter is being signed (with authorisation) on behalf of someone else. primus inter pares "first among equals" an old description of the relationship between Prime Minister and Cabinet in the U.K. pro bono "for good" in the public interest or for no money (American lawyers may work part-time "pro bono".) quid pro quo "something given in exchange for something" as in Latin; a £ sterling (pound) is still called a "quid". quod videas (q.v.) "a thing which you may see " as in Latin referenda "things which are to be referred/carried back to the people" votes on a single issue by all or part of the electorate. (Sometimes – ungrammatically – called "referendums".) scilicet scirelicet "it is permitted to know" to wit, namely, that is to say sic "thus", "in this way" as in Latin sine die "without a day" without a specific date being set for the resumption of (e.g. court) proceedings sine qua non "without which (thing) not" a sine qua non is something indispensable status quo "the state in which" the existing/prevailing situation sub iudice "under a judge" the subject of ongoing/incomplete judicial proceedings subpoena / sub poena "under punishment" a demand to comply with a court request e.g. attendance in court, which imposes an automatic penalty if it is not obeyed tempus fugit "time runs away" Time flies! ter "three times" as in Latin ultra vires "beyond (his) powers" as in Latin viz. from viet, a contraction of videlicet – "it is permitted to see": the "et" resembled a "z" in medieval Latin script.
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Decline of neoliberalism in not a pretty picture. And neoliberal elite in the USA is really crazy...
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Aug 13, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
im1dc , August 12, 2019 at 11:15 AM
I need to learn how to use this as an Occam's Razor to cull candidates for PRES"Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power."
Bertrand Russell
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Aug 11, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"'We didn't truly know the dangers of the market, because it was a dark market,' says Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency -- the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] -- who not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. 'They were totally opposed to it,' Born says. 'That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden?'"PBS Frontine, The Warning
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Aug 04, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification for existing from it.
For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks.
And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."
Pierre Bourdieu, L'essence du néolibéralisme
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Aug 04, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness.
George Frederick Watts, Mammon A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair. Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt.
The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture."
Thomas Merton
"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification for existing from it.
For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks.
And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."
Pierre Bourdieu, L'essence du néolibéralisme
"How good is our God! When we are no longer able to come to Him, He comes to us. We are each of us like a small mirror, in which God searches for His reflection."
John Vianney
Stocks continued their move to the downside today, taking back only a little bit of it into the close.
The NDX finally closed the big gap it had left open a few weeks ago. These gaps keeps getting closed in these moves up. We are not seeing any breakaway gaps. That speaks volumes about these rallies, a word to the wise.
The SP 500 fell back to its 61.8% Fibonacci retracement in the most recent rally.
I have not yet labeled this latest episode as a blow off top, because I want to see it set a lower low first.
Gold held its gains from yesterday fairly well, as the Dollar continued to move even lower.
I was a little concerned about the big gold gain, because a portion of it was clearly due to short covering as the front runners of the Non-Farm Payrolls report short side play got smoked.
The action next week, the first week in August, will be most interesting.
I think we might look with some concern to the autumn, particularly September and October.
Have a pleasant weekend.
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01 August 2019
Stocks and Precious Metals Charts -
Whipsaw City
"Remember, my brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world's eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. God chooses those that the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think that they are wise. And He chooses those that are powerless to shame those who are powerful."
1 Corinthians 1:26-27
"Seneca had made the bargain that many good men have made when agreeing to aid bad regimes. On the one hand, their presence strengthens the regime and helps it endure. But their moral influence may also improve the regime's behavior or save the lives of its enemies. For many, this has been a bargain worth making, even if it has cost them -- as it may have cost Seneca -- their immortal soul...
The Rome he has been trained to serve, the Rome of Augustus and Germanicus, was gone. In its place stood Neropolis, ruled by a megalomaniac brat."
James Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero
"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
Stocks were rallying with a vengeance, regaining much of what was lost yesterday.
And then this afternoon, Trumpolini blindsided the markets with an angry tweet about China, adding a new ten percent tariff to consumer related goods.
And the equity markets and the Dollar took a nosedive, while gold just rocketed higher. They were taking the gold bears out of the pits on stretchers.
But not Citi, rumored to be the big Bank gold short. They were grabbing fistfuls of gold contracts the past two days, as you can see on the clearing report below. Think that they were tipped by some well placed advisor? Naw, couldn't be. They would never do that.
This would be much more amusing from a greater distance. But today was right up there.
Get right, sit tight.
And have a pleasant evening.
Posted by
Jesse
at
4:26 PM
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Gold Demand Trends Q2 2019
"Time is coming when markets search frantically for physical collateral to find that paper far exceeds underlying collateral for several metals and other resources. I am warning that when markets fall in sustained negative response to bursting bubbles, widespread deleveraging will reveal insufficient hard collateral underlying traded asset-backed securities.The words rehypothecation and hyper-rehypothecation may be rediscovered or remembered again, forgotten somehow during much of the decade since the Great Financial Crisis."
Harald Malmgren
Key highlightsCentral banks bought 224.4t of gold in Q2 2019
This took H1 buying to 374.1t – the largest net H1 increase in global gold reserves in our 19-year quarterly data series. Buying was again spread across a diverse range of – largely emerging market – countries.Holdings of gold-backed ETFs grew 67.2t in Q2 to a six-year high of 2,548t
The main factors driving inflows into the sector were continued geopolitical instability, expectation of lower interest rates, and the rallying gold price in June.A strong recovery in India's jewellery market pushed demand in Q2 up 12% to 168.8t
A busy wedding season and healthy festival sales boosted demand, before the June price rise brought it to a virtual standstill. Indian demand drove global jewellery demand 2% higher y-o-y to 531.7t.Bar and coin investment in Q2 sank 12% to 218.6t
Combined with the soft Q1 number, the H1 total ended at a ten-year low of 476.9t. A 29% y-o-y drop in China accounted for much of the global Q2 decline.Gold prices shot to multi-year highs
The gold price broke through US$1,400/oz for the first time since 2013. Among the factors driving this rally were expectations of lower interest rates and political uncertainty, with further support coming from strong central bank buying.
You may see the price of gold in various currencies here.
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12:19 AM
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LE CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
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Aug 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Patrick Armstrong -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 03 August 2019 at 01:10 PM
Somebody in the twitterverse asked the twits this question: "Name a job that you can completely suck at and still keep your job?" Instantly answered by Max Blumenthal "Beltway think tank senior fellow"
Patrick Armstrong
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Aug 01, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
anne -> Fred C. Dobbs... , July 31, 2019 at 09:24 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/17/nyregion/l-kill-the-lawyers-a-line-misinterpreted-599990.htmlJune 17, 1990
'Kill the Lawyers,' A Line Misinterpreted
In reference to the review of ''Guilty Conscience,'' (May 20) Leah D. Frank is inaccurate when she states that when Shakespeare had one of his characters state ''Let's kill all the lawyers,'' it was the corrupt, unethical lawyers he was referring to. Shakespeare's exact line ''The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers,'' was stated by Dick the Butcher in ''Henry VI,'' Part II, act IV, Scene II, Line 73. Dick the Butcher was a follower of the rebel Jack Cade, who thought that if he disturbed law and order, he could become king. Shakespeare meant it as a compliment to attorneys and judges who instill justice in society.
DEBBIE VOGEL
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Jul 25, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
"It's not just America. The whole world has sort of turned muddy. By and large, the world is increasingly run by ignoramuses, wackos and psychotics. This was long before Donald Trump. But we've got more crazy people running the world now than ever.
I thought once Hillary called those people 'deplorables' it was all over. She was dead from that moment. She lost millions of votes on that by criticizing people who were considering an alternative to her.
I don't think that Robert Mueller is all there. I more than think; I know more. The bottom line is they had the investigation. If I were the press, I would start writing about what the Democrats need to do. And if I were the Democrats, I'd start talking about what they are going to do to make America a better place for most people.
I think it's the one reason a guy like Donald Trump ran. They understood where he was coming from. That Trump is just a blowhard. They laughed at him. They knew Trump doesn't know what he's talking about. But Trump wasn't the same old big smile and a lot of good words. The Democrats have been going around saying, 'We're for the people, we're for the little guy.' And all they do is run to Wall Street for money. And the one guy that didn't, Sanders, was sabotaged by the Democratic National Committee.
If I were the Democrats I would stop worrying about Donald Trump and start talking to the American people about jobs and health care.
What did these hacked messages from the DNC say, anyway? It was about cutting off money for Sanders. Everything that was leaked showed that the Democratic Party was working against the one guy who wasn't running on campaign funds from the big corporations."
Seymour Hersh
"The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue."
Edward R. Murrow
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."
Laurence J. Peter
"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
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Jul 26, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"It's not just America. The whole world has sort of turned muddy. By and large, the world is increasingly run by ignoramuses, wackos and psychotics. This was long before Donald Trump. But we've got more crazy people running the world now than ever."
Seymour Hersh
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Jul 22, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers -- who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government.
There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing."
Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Second Bank of the United States
"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.
When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!
Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."
From the original minutes of the Philadelphia bankers sent to meet with President Jackson February 1834, from Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States (1928) by Stan V. Henkels
"There is no clean way to make a hundred million bucks. Somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses got the ground cut out from under them. Decent people lost their jobs. Big money is big power, and big power gets used wrong. It's the system."
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
"I've seen it for years. I've seen a media, which has basically ignored the declining middle class, that doesn't talk about poverty at all, and has no sense of what is going on in the minds of millions of ordinary Americans. They live in a bubble, talk about their world, worry about who's going to be running 18 years from now for office. Meanwhile, people can't feed their kids."
Bernie Sanders
"There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself."
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
"Some madness doesn't act mad to begin with, sometimes it will knock politely at the door, and when you let it in, it'll simply sit in the corner without a fuss -- and grow."
Nathan Filer
"And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil."
John 3:19
"The ultimate purpose of crime is to establish an endless empire. It seeks a state of complete insecurity and anarchy, founded upon the tainted ideals of a world thought doomed to annihilation.
When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven mad by fear and horror, and when chaos has become the supreme law, then the time for the empire of lawlessness will have come."
Friedrich Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse
"At that time many will turn away from the faith, and will betray and hate each other. And false prophets will appear, and deceive many. And because of the increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. But those who stand firm to the end will be saved. And the gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come."
Matthew 24:10-14
"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."
Søren Kierkegaard
"Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is a pious, hollow hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, or hidden, that shall not be made known. Whatever has been said in the darkness shall be heard in the light: and what has been whispered behind closed doors shall be shouted from the roof tops."
Luke 12:1-3
"A sentiment of trust in the legal money of the State is so deeply implanted in the citizens of all countries that they cannot but believe that some day this money must recover a part at least of its former value.
To their minds it appears that value is inherent in money as such, and they do not apprehend that the real wealth, which this money might have stood for, has been dissipated once and for all.
This sentiment is supported by the various legal regulations with which the Governments endeavor to control internal prices, and so to preserve some purchasing power for their legal tender.
Thus the force of law preserves a measure of immediate purchasing power over some commodities and the force of sentiment and custom maintains, especially amongst peasants, a willingness to hoard paper which is really worthless."
John Maynard Keynes, Economic Consequences of the War
"The love of wicked men converts to fear;
That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both
To worthy danger and deserved death."William Shakespeare, Richard II
"All the world marveled at this, and gave their allegiance to the beast. They worshiped the dragon for giving such power to him. as they also worshiped the beast. 'Who is as great as the beast?' they exclaimed. 'And who is able to resist him?' The beast was allowed to speak great blasphemies against God. And he was given the authority to do what he willed, but only for forty-two months."
Revelation 13:3-5
"But 'tis strange.
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence."William Shakespeare, Macbeth
"A baited banker thus desponds,
From his own hand foresees his fall,
They have his soul, who have his bonds;
'Tis like the writing on the wall.How will the caitiff wretch be scared,
When first he finds himself awake
At the last trumpet, unprepared,
And all his grand account to make!For in that universal call,
Few bankers will to heaven be mounters;
They'll cry, 'Ye shops, upon us fall!
Conceal and cover us, ye counters!'When other hands the scales shall hold,
And they, in men's and angels' sight
Produced with all their bills and gold,
'Weigh'd in the balance and found light!'Jonathan Swift, A Run Upon the Bankers
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Jul 22, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.
I know nothing that I may say can influence you. You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party.
There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy.
You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel."
Jack London, The Iron Heel
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Jul 22, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty. Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction.
Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.
Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates. The truth is, no one really possesses it."
Simone Weil
"As everything in what used to be called creation becomes a commodity, human beings begin to look at one another, and at themselves, in a funny way, and they see price tags. There was a time when people spoke, at least occasionally, of 'inherent worth' -- if not of things, then at least of persons.
It is sometimes said that since everything is for sale under the rule of The Market, nothing is sacred. Does anyone doubt that if the True Cross were ever really discovered, it would eventually find its way to Sotheby's? The Market is not omnipotent -- yet. But the process is under way and it is gaining momentum."
Harvey Cox, The Market as God
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Jul 22, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Psychopathic workers very often were identified as the source of departmental conflicts, in many cases, purposely setting people up in conflict with each other. The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team."
Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits
"What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to Power, and the power itself in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is increasing -- that resistance has been overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but competence.
The first principle of our humanism is that the weak and the failures shall perish. And they ought to be helped to perish. What is more harmful than any vice? Active pity for all failure and weakness -- Christianity ."
Friedrich Nietzsche
"I'm not against business, or profits, or becoming wealthy. I have no problem with people becoming billionaires -- if they got there by winning a fair race, if their accomplishments merit it, if they pay their fair share of taxes, and if they don't corrupt their society. But that's not how most of the people mentioned in this book became wealthy.
Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That's what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me."
Charles Ferguson
"Satan's monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament. Certainly, he has no choice. He has chosen to have no choice. He has wished to 'be himself,' and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been granted. To admire Satan, then, is to give one's vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography."
Satan and his Antichrist C. S. Lewis
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Jul 22, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"The historical evidence is overwhelming. Many societies have done well for a while – until powerful people get out of hand. This is an easy pattern to see at a distance and in other cultures. It is typically much harder to recognize when your own society now has an elite less subject to effective constraints and more able to exert power in an abusive fashion. And given the long history of strong institutions in the United States, it appears particularly difficult for some people to acknowledge that we have serious governance issues that need to be addressed."
Simon Johnson
"It is as popular now as ever to blame poor people for their station in life. Republican politicians love to talk about how poor people could stop being poor if only they made better choices or worked harder. If only they'd stop buying iPhones, they could afford insurance! These assholes - and I do not use that slur lightly - have no clue what it is like to grow up poor. They have no clue how hard it is in many places in the US just to keep the lights on and food on the table.
It is easy for them, from the comfort of their cushy offices and homes, with full bellies and bank accounts, to pretend that poor people like my mother are poor because they are stupid or lazy or ignorant or irresponsible rather than confront the broken systems that perpetuate poverty in Appalachia and all across the US.
Poor people don't contribute to reelection funds, but those who profit from poor people sure do. Therefore, truth be told, most politicians couldn't care less about the plight of the poor. There's so much profit to be made from poor people - think payday loans, high-interest rent-to-own stores, for-profit colleges, and overpriced mobile homes - that politicians and their crony-capitalist donors have a vested interest in keeping them poor."
Joshua Wilkey, My Mother Wasn't White Trash
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Jul 22, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"When you live under such an oligarchy, there is always some crisis or the other that takes priority over boring stuff such as healthcare and pollution. If the nation is facing external invasion or diabolical subversion, who has the time to worry about overcrowded hospitals and polluted rivers? By manufacturing a never-ending stream of crises, a corrupt oligarchy can prolong its rule indefinitely."
Yuval Noah Harari
"And I begin to realize that in every chapter of Shortest Way Home -- indeed, almost on every page -- there is an expression of the same underlying idea, which is that you can substitute experience with problem-solving skills, and approximate perspective, ideology, even morality with sheer intelligence and boldness.
This closely resembles the arrogance of tech billionaires who believe that although they have neither the knowledge nor the experience nor the wisdom, they can solve the world's problems anyway, because, well, because look how successful they've been at everything else.
You almost want to cheer them on. Until you realize that they are dead wrong, that if they want to help solve the world's problems they had better stop sucking all the oxygen and money out of the room and start paying taxes and letting there be a return to a balance of power."
Dan Simon, Mayor Pete's autobiography says it all
"But there is a sort of 'Ok guys, you're mad, but how are you going to stop me' mentality at the top."
Robert Johnson, Audacious Oligarchy
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Jul 22, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Ideologues are often willfully blind, on both the right and the left. It serves them. Their selective blindness allows them to avoid thinking seriously about the world -- and especially the state of their own souls.
Most of their lives are spent in the expedient serving of themselves. The good they do, the good things they may think, the public service that they may provide is generally inner directed. It is designed to make themselves feel good about themselves, and superior and apart from other people, whom they secretly despise.
They are incapable of genuine repentance, because they blind themselves to their sins, and wash them away in their disgust with others whom they imagine are so much worse."
Jesse
"The downward spiral of dumbness in America is about to hit a new low."
Hunter S. Thompson
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Apr 16, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must try to learn from history. History is ourselves.I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings, by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters. "
Kenneth Clark, Civilisation
"At the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America's political and economic elite. A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world."
Jeffrey Sachs
"Assange is a deeply polarizing figure. That's almost certainly why the Trump DOJ believes it could get away with indicting him based on a theory that would clearly endanger core journalistic functions: because it hopes that the intense animosity for Assange personally will blind people to the dangers this indictment poses.
But far more important than one's personal feelings about Assange is the huge step this indictment represents in the Trump administration's explicitly stated goal to criminalize journalism that involves reporting on classified information. Opposition to that menacing goal does not require admiration or affection for Assange. It simply requires a belief in the critical importance of a free press in a democracy."
Glenn Greenwald
"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
... As Chalmers Johnson noted, 'Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us.'
And no one could have seen it coming.
As previously noted, we are in a time of hysteria, and people are doing and saying some very headstrong things, that may be sowing the seeds for their future troubles. And we may expect a reckoning, one which will be remembered.
Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
Have a pleasant weekend.
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Jun 21, 2019 | en.wikiquote.org
- Helen Thomas
- I think American policy is pro-Israel. If you take a vote in Congress, maybe you might get five people vote against any further aid to Israel or to continue its occupation. But that's about it. They control -- They have vast power.
- Paul Jay
- Who's they?
- Helen Thomas
- The Zionists.
- All presidents rail against the press. It goes with the turf.
- Hearst newspaper column, (15 October 2003).
- Every President hates the Press. Every president thinks that all information that comes to the White House is their private preserve after they all promise an open administration on the campaign trail, but some are even more secretive than others. Some want to lock down everything.
- Phone interview on The Majority Report , 2004-04-02
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- "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." --George Bernard Shaw, Irish Dramatist & Socialist
- "We [corporations] are the government!" Actor John Colicos (1978)
- "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
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Jun 11, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Cult leaders [demagogues] arise from decayed communities and societies in which people have been shorn of political, social and economic power. The disempowered, infantilized by a world they cannot control, gravitate to cult leaders who appear omnipotent and promise a return to a mythical golden age.
The cult leaders vow to crush the forces, embodied in demonized groups and individuals, that are blamed for their misery. The more outrageous the cult leaders become, the more they flout law and social conventions, the more they gain in popularity.
Cult leaders are immune to the norms of established society. This is their appeal. Cult leaders demand a God-like power. Those who follow them grant them this power in the hope that the cult leaders will save them."
Chris Hedges, Cult of Trump
"Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity. What our modernized liberal leaders offer is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation."
Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion
"We of the Republic sensed the truth that democratic government has innate capacity to protect its people against disasters once considered inevitable, to solve problems once considered unsolvable. We would not admit that we could not find a way to master economic epidemics just as, after centuries of fatalistic suffering, we had found a way to master epidemics of disease. We refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster. In this we Americans were discovering no wholly new truth; we were writing a new chapter in our book of self-government.
Franklin Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address
"The problem of the last three decades is not the 'vicissitudes of the marketplace,' but rather deliberate actions by the [corporatist] government to redistribute income from the rest of us to the one percent."
Dean Baker
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Jun 10, 2019 | off-guardian.org
harry law
Trumps promises before the election about the trillions wasted in futile wars, and promising to redirect those trillions into US infrastructure etc, turned out to be outrageous lies. Here are some quotes from HL Mencken which in my opinion sum up the passengers in the out of control US clown car, Trump, Bolton, Pence and Pompeo.
- The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
- The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.
- The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.
- Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
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May 21, 2019 | www.unz.com
onebornfree , says: Website May 20, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMT
On The Fundamental Nature of All Governments:This just in:
"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and counterfeiting [via central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature."onebornfree
"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock
"If measured by the standards of natural law and justice, all politicians, of all parties and virtually without any exception, are guilty, whether directly or indirectly, of murder, homicide, trespass, invasion, expropriation, theft , fraud, and the fencing of stolen goods on a massive and ongoing scale. And every new generation of politicians and parties appears to be worse, and piles even more atrocities and perversions on top of the already existing mountain, so that one feels almost nostalgic about the past. They all should be hung, or put in jail to rot, or set to making compensation." Hans Herman Hoppe
"There is only one political party in America, it's the money party and it has two branches." Gore Vidal
"Politics -- whether local or national -- is always a con game. And the con generally increases with the scale. The bigger the "we," the bigger the swindle." Bill Bonner
"Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars. The better you lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely you would be promoted. . . . Outside of their duplicity, the only thing they had in common was a desire for absolute power. I did things that, in looking back on my life, I regret. But I was part of it and loved being in it' " James Jesus Angleton, head of Agency counterintelligence from 1954-1975
"Why should any self-respecting citizen endorse an institution grounded on thievery? For that is what one does when one votes. If it be argued that we must let bygones be bygones, see what can be done toward cleaning up the institution of the State so that it might be useful in the maintenance of orderly existence, the answer is that it cannot be done; you cannot clean up a brothel and yet leave the business intact. We have been voting for one "good government" after another, and what have we got?" Frank Chodorov, Out of Step (1962)
And there's plenty more where that came from
Regards, onebornfree
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- Never underestimate the power of the State to act out its own massive fantasies. - Don DeLillo
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Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Circe , Apr 28, 2019 2:19:06 PM | link
Here's a fantastic quote recommended by my favorite anti-Jew, Jew.
"War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide that for yourself."Thank you Gary Keenan
Here's a quote from him: Jewish power, as I define it, is the power to silence opposition to Jewish power.
Careful, you don't facilitate this power by self-censorship.
Just as people who own guns don't want their rights restricted by someone who gets a crazy notion, people who value the truth don't want their right to express it restricted either by same person with a crazy notion.
I reject war for any kind of supremacy.
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"Not everyone who calls out to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven." ~Matt 7:21
"They do not see the image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He wishes: if once they did this they would begin to see how much He requires, and they would earnestly come to Him, both to be pardoned for what they do wrong, and for the power to do better.
And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves. For that contracted, defective range of duties, which falls so short of God's law, is just what they can fulfill; or rather they choose it, and keep to it, because they can fulfill it.
Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient; – they think they know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and in consequence they are very well content with themselves, and rate their merit very high, and have no fear at all of any future scrutiny into their conduct, which may befall them.
And such, I say, is the religion of the natural man in every age and place; – often very beautiful on the surface, but worthless in God's sight; good, as far as it goes, but worthless and hopeless, because it does not go further, because it is based on self-sufficiency, and results in self-satisfaction...
Yes, it is the ignorance of our understanding, it is our spiritual blindness, it is our banishment from the presence of Him, who is the source and the standard of all Truth, which is the cause of this meagre, heartless religion of which men are commonly so proud.
In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, traitors, heady, high-minded having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."
John Henry Newman\
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."1 Cor. xiii
"Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is a pious, hollow hypocrisy."Luke 12:1
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees- hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. You outwardly appear righteous, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."Matthew 23:27-28
"And they took offense at him."Matthew 13:57
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.'
Then these righteous ones will reply, 'Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?'
And the King will say, 'I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.'
Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, 'Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal consumption prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry, and you didn't feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn't give me a drink. I was a stranger, and you didn't invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn't give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn't visit me.'
Then they will reply, 'Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?'
And he will answer, 'I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.'
And they will go away into eternal darkness without hope, but the righteous will go into eternal life."
Matthew 25: 31-46
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"National Socialism was a revulsion by my friends against parliamentary politics, parliamentary debate, parliamentary government-against all the higgling and the haggling of the parties and the splinter parties, their coalitions, their confusions, and their conniving. It was the final fruit of the common man's repudiation of 'the rascals'. Its motif was, 'Throw them all out.'
I fooled myself. I had to. Everybody has to. If the good had been twice as good and the bad only half as bad, I still ought to have seen it. But I didn't want to see it, because I would have then had to think about the consequences of seeing it, what followed from seeing it, what I must do to be decent. I wanted my home and family, my job, my career, a place in the community."
Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free
"The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Plunder, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
Tacitus
"It is always the soul that dies first, even if it's departure goes unnoticed. And it always carries the body along with it. Man is nourished by the invisible, man is nourished by that which is beyond the personal. He dies from preferring the opposite."
Jacques Lusseyran
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Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Apr 16, 2019 7:26:23 PM | link
Ah yes, Prescient observation regarding Venezuela:
"The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely proportional to its enemy status."--John McEvoy
So, lets employ this maxim to Russiagate and the Skripal Saga and the respective national media. In the first case, the Russian public's completely ignored unless it's a member of the so-called opposition while Putin and Russia get slandered constantly. The same treatment goes for the UK media and a case could be made that the two act in tandem, implying innerconnectivity between their spy agencies as suspected.
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- "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." --George Bernard Shaw, Irish Dramatist & Socialist
- "We [corporations] are the government!" Actor John Colicos (1978)
- "I don't want to run the empire, I want to bring it down!" ~Dr. Cornel West
- "There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare." Sun Tzu
- "Propaganda is one hell of a drug." Abby Martin
"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep." ~Rumi
"If you want revolution, be it." ~Caitlin Johnstone
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Apr 04, 2019 | www.unz.com
renfro , says: April 3, 2019 at 12:24 am GMT
@Johnny Walker Read "People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction."
― Umberto Eco"What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?"
― Voltaire"Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it."
― Mercedes"Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous form of insanity."
― Robert Graves
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Zero hedge comment. link
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lgfocus | Feb 14, 2019 6:27:23 PM | 32
One of my favorite quotes
"All states can be placed on a continuum which ranges from states whose authority is based on their power to states whose power is based on their authority." Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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Feb 11, 2019 | www.unz.com
Anon7 , says: February 3, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."George Orwell
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The men the American public admire [and reward] most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest [and punish] most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. ~ H. L. Mencken 1880-1956 [updated 2019]
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Dec 08, 2018 | www.alternet.org
Guest • 6 years ago
- I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.~Thomas Jefferson~
- When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain." – Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1815
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Dec 06, 2018 | www.unz.com
Moi , says: December 5, 2018 at 11:23 am GMT
@anon and this too?"All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."
d.h. lawrence
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Dec 04, 2018 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences."
Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope , 1966
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Nov 20, 2018 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Money is not humanity's best subject. And although our body of scientific knowledge grows with each passing year, when it comes to financial matters, we somehow keep stepping on the same rake -- that inescapable pattern of financial boom and bust."
James Grant
"There's a verbal tic particular to a certain kind of response to a certain kind of story about the thinness and desperation of American society; about the person who died of preventable illness or the Kickstarter campaign to help another who can't afford cancer treatment even with 'good' insurance; about the plight of the homeless or the lack of resources for the rural poor; about underpaid teachers spending thousands of dollars of their own money for the most basic classroom supplies; about train derailments, the ruination of the New York subway system and the decrepit states of our airports and ports of entry...
'I can't believe this in the richest country in the world. '
The social wealth of a society is better measured by the quality of its common lived environment than by a consolidated statistical approximation like GDP, or even an attempt at weighted comparisons like so-called purchasing power parity. There is a reason why our great American cities, for all of our supposed wealth, often feel and look so shabby. The money goes elsewhere...
Poverty -- both individual and social -- is a policy, not an accident, and not some kind of natural law. These are deliberate choices about the allocation of resources. They are eminently undoable by modest exercises of political power, although if the state- and city-level Democratic leaders of New York and northern Virginia are the national mold, then our nominally left-wing party is utterly, hopelessly beholden to the upward transfer of social wealth to an extremely narrow cadre of already extremely rich men and women."
Jacob Bacharach, The Egregious Lie Americans Tell Themselves
"Today, the first and perhaps the only duty of the philosopher is to defend man against himself: to defend man against that extraordinary temptation toward inhumanity to which - almost without being aware of it - so many human beings today have yielded."
Gabriel Marcel
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Nov 20, 2018 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings."
William Arthur Ward
"The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, 'Little children, love one another.' The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, 'Teacher, why do you always say this?' He replied with a line worthy of John: 'Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.'"
Jerome, Commentary on Galatians , 4th century
"For whosoever will cling to his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."
Mark 16:25
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Nov 19, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
MyLessThanPrimeBeef , , November 16, 2018 at 6:49 pm
My humble opinion on the subject is, like numismatic coins, typos make the thing (whatever that is) more valuable.
That opinion helps me, many times, to persist in my laziness to correct.
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- You can't fake creativity, competence, or sexual arousal. ~Douglas Coupland
- The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare. ~Daniel Patrick Moynihan
- Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence. ~ Niklaus Wirth
- Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder. ~Laurence J. Peter
- Competence is a narrow ideal. Competence makes the trains run on time but doesn't know where they're going. ~George H. W. Bush
- Competence doesn't seem like a big deal until you are forced to realize that your own government has none. ~Bruce Sterling
- Remember, 'Rome was not built in a day.' Instant success is never possible. Competence results only from sustained, consistent, self-disciplined effort over an extended period of time. ~ Bud Wilkinson
- Obscurity and competence - that is the life that is best worth living ~Mark Twain
- Morally, a philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything except a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of treachery ~Bertrand Russell
- Look for competence not claims. Anthony de Mello
- Sincerity does not equal competence. Isaac Bonewits
- Friendships are nice. So is competence. ~Michael Crichton
- Churches often confuse loyalty with competence. ~Phil Cooke
- Creativity is not a substitute for competence. ~ Mason Cooley
- The test of true competence is the end result. ~ L. Ron Hubbard
- ...true self-esteem comes from competence, not the other way around. ~Susan Cain
- To know one's own limitations is the hallmark of competence. ~Dorothy L. Sayers
- When your team questions your competence, your ability to influence is shot. ~John Fairclough
- Maturity is largely about acquiring the confidence and the competence to make your own decisions. ~Susan Maushart
- There are three qualities a leader must exemplify to build trust: competence, connection, and character. ~John C. Maxwell
- All conversation, in addition to whatever else it does, displays, and asks for recognition of, our competence. ~Deborah Tannen
- People value honesty. They value integrity. They value competence and courage and all those kinds of things. ~Richard A. Kidd
- One of the best uses of your time is to increase your competence in your key result areas. ~Brian Tracy
- A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence. ~Stephen Covey
- I mistrust total competence. I've always felt life is a series of small disasters we try to get through. ~Michael Palin
- Trust has two dimensions: competence and integrity. We will forgive mistakes of competence. Mistakes of integrity are harder to overcome. ~Simon Sinek
- What would you call the highest happiness? Wratislaw was asked. The sense of competence, was the answer, given without hesitation. ~John Buchan
- The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology. ~H. L. Mencken
- Discipline is the habit of taking consistent action until one can perform with unconscious competence. Discipline weighs ounces but regret weighs tons. ~Jhoon Goo Rhee
- An intellectual may be defined as a man who speaks with general authority about a subject on which he has no particular competence. ~Irving Kristol
- If you want to be successful, don't seek success - seek competence, empowerment; do nothing short of the best that you can do. ~Jaggi Vasudev
- Everybody's got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is. The important thing is staying inside the circle. ~Warren Buffett
- If you have competence, you pretty much know its boundaries already. To ask the question (of whether you are past the boundary) is to answer it. ~Charlie Munger
- If we have a strength, it is in recognizing when we are operating well within our circle of competence and when we are approaching the perimeter. ~Warren Buffett
- We now operate in a world in which we can assume neither competence nor good faith from the authorities. The consequences of this simple, devastating realization define American life. ~ Chris Hayes
- Every discipline develops standards of professional competence to which its workers are subject... Every scientific community is a society in the small, so to speak, with its own agencies of social control. ~Abraham Kaplan
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Nov 05, 2018 | www.goodreads.com
"Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand."
― Archibald Putt
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Nov 03, 2018 | www.technied.com
1."I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important
titan knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."-- Albert Einstein
2. One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one
extraordinary' man.-- Elbert Hubbard, The Rovcroft Dictionary' and Book of Epigrams, 1923
3. The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
-Karl Marx
4. Education makes machines which act like men and produces men who act like machines.
-- Erich Fromm5. Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be
mass-produced by unskilled labor.-NASA in 1965
... ... ...
11. "Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not
manage, and those who manage what they do not understand."-- Archibald Putt
12. "For years there has been a theory that millions of monkeys typing at random on millions of
typewriters would reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. The Internet has proven this
theory to be untrue."-- Robert Wilensy
13. "If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls Royce
would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone
inside."-- Robert X. Cringelv
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Oct 26, 2018 | caucus99percent.com
"Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."
-- Frederick Douglass
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Oct 23, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Hal C | Oct 22, 2018 1:12:06 PM | 16
The one death is a tragedy quote is often misattributed to Stalin. See here and here and here.What is apparent, however, is that the large American media outlets suddenly have discovered Yemen as a club to use in retribution for the murder of one of their own.
Hal C
ploddy | Oct 22, 2018 6:21:34 PM | 77
Parroting / Aping that "Stalin" red-rag quote betrays a woeful ignorance or else deviousness. There is a great abundance of evidence that it was coined in the early 20c by the German playwright Tucholsky, based on earlier similar expressions, and subsequently recycled by many, including for example, Remarque.
Furthermore, close reading of almost all recorded sources of that and similar observations shows that has usually been used an an expression of hopelessness or fortification, and not of cruelty or indifference.
That the erroneous attribution to Stalin originated in the Washington Post in the 'forties ought to tell even the dim-witted among us something useful about gullibility and skepticism.
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- It would be easy for us, if we do not learn to understand the world and appreciate the rights, privileges and duties of all other countries and peoples, to represent in our power the same danger to the world that Fascism did." ~Ernest Hemingway
- "Americans are too broadly under informed to digest nuggets of information that seem to contradict what they know of the world. Instead, news channels prefer to feed Americans a constant stream of simplified information, all of which fits what they already know. That way they don't have to devote more air time or newsprint space to explanations or further investigations... Politicians and the media have conspired to infantilize, to dumb down, the American public. At heart, politicians don't believe that Americans can handle complex truths, and the news media, especially television news, basically agrees." ~Tom Fenton
- "The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. The public will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened." ~Josef Stalin
- "Governments don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking, That is against their interests. They want obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept it." ~George Carlin
- "As news organizations are increasingly driven by a bottom-line mentality, the news we get becomes more and more sensational. What is the difference between Time and Newsweek? Between ABC, NBC, and CBS News? Between the Washington Post and the New York Times? For all practical purposes, none. The concentration of media power means that Americans increasingly get their information from a few sources who decide what is "news." ~Oliver Stone
- "The major news media serve at the pleasure of a commercial oligarchy that pays them, and pays them handsomely, for their pretense of speaking truth to power... The prominent figures in our contemporary Washington press corps regard themselves as government functionaries, enabling and codependent." ~Lewis H. Lapham
- "Most newspapers are part of huge conglomerates, and the policy that comes down is that you don't rock any boats. You can't make the government upset because the value of the company is the broadcast licenses, and the government will not renew them, and we can't make our corporate owners mad because they will fire us, and we can't make the advertisers mad or they will pull their advertising. So the media can't say anything that will upset the power structure. And that's what has happened to the press." ~Paul Craig Roberts
- "The war against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it." ~George Orwell
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Oct 19, 2018 | www.facebook.com
"Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will." Frederick Douglass.
"There are three classes of citizens. The first are the rich, who are indolent and yet always crave more. The second are the poor, who have nothing, are full of envy, hate the rich, and are easily led by demagogues. Between the two extremes lie those who make the state secure and uphold the laws."
Euripides
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Oct 02, 2018 | caucus99percent.com
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." ~ George Bernard Shaw, Irish Dramatist & Socialist
"We [corporations] are the government!" ~Actor John Colicos (1978)We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress. ~Frederick DouglassPretty much anything that is happening in politics today is a distraction from something else that is essential to our survival. One needs to choose their battlefields, carefully.
The drama of the deep state in full factional meltdown makes Mario Puzo look like a dime store hack.
"If you want revolution, be it." ~Caitlin Johnstone
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Oct 02, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with one another on war, neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases the power and profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both. The plutocrat-owned mass media plays up the differences between Democrats and Republicans to hysterical proportions, when in reality the debate over which one is worse is like arguing over whether a serial killer's arms or legs are more evil.
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Sep 29, 2018 | www.unz.com
A very shrewd observation, widely misattributed to Voltaire, states that "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." Or put another way, individuals are reluctant to publicly challenge those whose power they fear. Certainly, this simple standard helps to explain many important aspects of America's severely malfunctioning political system.
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Sep 17, 2018 | www.quotesigma.com
Best Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French political leader as well as military general. He was the first military general who became the emperor of France and rose to the prominence during the French Revolution. Below is a list of some the famous quotes by Napoleon Bonaparte.
- "Victory belongs to the most persevering." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Ability is of little account without opportunity." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures, but in the use made of them." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "A leader is a dealer in hope." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "If you want a thing done well, do it yourself." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "A true man hates no one." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Courage is like love; it must have hope to nourish it." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "The best cure for the body is a quiet mind." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "It is the cause, not the death that makes the martyr." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Chance is the providence of adventurers." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "In politics, an absurdity is not a handicap." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "In politics never retreat, never retract never admit a mistake." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "If you wish to be success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Vengeance has no foresight." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "The greatest general is he who makes the fewest mistakes." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "In politics, an absurdity in public business is going into it." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "The best way to keep one's word is not to give it." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Incidents should not govern policy; but, policy incidents." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "The most insupportable of tyrannies is that of inferiors." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "Every private in the French army carries a Field Marshall wand in his knapsack." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "There is no place in a fanatic's head where reason can enter." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "The torment of precautions often exceeds often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny." – Napoleon Bonaparte
- "One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority." – Napoleon Bonaparte
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Sep 12, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Moribundus ,The really dangerous American fascist... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power...They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest.
Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.
~quoted in the New York Times, April 9, 1944
Henry A. Wallace
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Sep 09, 2018 | www.unz.com
Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website September 6, 2018 at 1:59 pm GMT
@Them Guys Johnny's Post is very Accurate..."So far as the consequences of ticking off Jews are concerned: I was making particular reference to respectable rightwing journalism, most especially in the U.S. I can absolutely assure you that anyone who made general, mildly negative, remarks about Jews would NOT -- not ever again -- be published in the Wall Street Journal opinion pages, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The New York Sun, The New York Post, or The Washington Times. I know the actual people, the editors, involved here, and I can assert this confidently."
-- Joey Kurtzman, Jew editor of Jewcey.com. Read that back and let the overwhelming arrogance of Jewdom sink in and think exactly about what he's bragging on.As: This articles Writer, and several other UNZ Writers can confirm, from their personal experience of daring to write and speak out, about the too many to count or list here, issues regarding Jews, and Jewish agendas that have been and continue to be so destructive to...EVERYBODY else that are, Non-Jewish Goyim gentiles. Wakey, Wakey, You Whitey's. Them Guys -- A recent Gerard Menuhin article quotes the German writer Theodor Fontane: 'The reason people are silenced is not because they lie, but because they tell the truth. When people lie, their own words can be used against them. When they tell the truth, there is no other countermeasure except violence.'
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Sep 06, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
"Every nation gets the government it deserves."
Joseph de Maistre, Letter 76, on the topic of Russia's new constitutional laws (27 August 1811)
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Sep 02, 2018 | www.goodreads.com
- Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it."
- "Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence."
- "The common prejudice that love is as common as "romance" may be due to the fact that we all learned about it first through poetry. But the poets fool us; they are the only ones to whom love is not only a crucial, but an indispensable experience, which entitles them to mistake it for a universal one."
- "Love, by its very nature, is unworldly, and it is for this reason rather than its rarity that it is not only apolitical but antipolitical, perhaps the most powerful of all antipolitical forces."
- "When all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing. "
- "Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility."
- "And the distinction between violent and non-violent action is that the former is exclusively bent upon the destruction of the old, and the latter is chiefly concerned with the establishment of something new."
- "For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same."
- "Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core."
- "Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act."
- "The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle."
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Aug 30, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk
Nuno Strybes , August 28, 2018 at 12:43
When the Tories talk about 'free markets', they are talking about markets free from democracy.
May's rhetoric is laughable .basically all her speeches read : 'the sky is green, the snow is black etc etc' -- totally detached from reality and a spent political force, as their recent membership numbers showed, with more revenues from legacies left in wills than from actual living members.
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Aug 24, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
Jean August 16, 2018 at 7:34 am
It sure was
Democrats are now the biggest danger
Trump ran against the bush republicans and Gop policies and won
Trump: Bush Worst president ever
When was the last time that happened? For any party?
EVER Reply LarcoMarco , August 16, 2018 at 12:35 pm
" Everything in Washington has been a lie It's all big lie. " -- Donald Trump at his height of lucidity. Unfortunately, that YouTube clip was from 2007.
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Aug 23, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Originally from: The Strange Decline of H.L. Mencken - The American Conservative
Mencken turned his scathing wit and rhetoric of ridicule on the political elite of American society with a sense of humor missing from today's political journalism.
President Wilson was "the archangel Woodrow," Harding "that numskull Gamaliel," Hoover "Lord Hoover." William Jennings Bryan was "a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany with no sense of dignity. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses."
Electing Calvin Coolidge, he wrote, was like being presented with a sumptuous banquet and "staying your stomach by plucking flies out of the air." When once asked why if he despised politics so much he wasted his time writing about it, Mencken answer was simple: "why do people go to zoos."
... ... ...
For all his flaws, Mencken had a keen insight into the American political scene. If you doubt that, finish by pondering this observation: "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Fran Macadam July 8, 2018 at 11:36 pm
Gandydancer , says: July 9, 2018 at 6:05 am"In our system of government, everybody gets what the majority deserve."
His pythy comments are still clever and to the point, since human nature doesn't change.
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
OK, I've pondered it. Referring to our affirmative action president, Barack Obama, are you? Uncle Billy , says: July 9, 2018 at 7:28 am
Given our past few Presidents and Congresses how could anyone not be a cynic? I am not optimistic. As that great American philosopher Laurence Peter Berra said "the future ain't what it used to be."
Winston , says: July 9, 2018 at 10:14 am
" an essayist from almost a century ago who generally isn't addressing directly any issues people today care about."
His comments about politics and politicians are just as relevant today as they were then.
"In our system of government, everybody gets what the majority deserve."
Because of the large percentage of bogus and misattributed quotes found online, I always research a quote before I store it away in my "quotes" document. Although it sounds like something Mencken would say, I can't find that one.
Here are a few I have which I agree with completely:
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."
"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods." Colin Chattan , says: July 9, 2018 at 11:47 am
Some Mencken quotes that I find memorable (taken from http://www.aei.org/publication/h-l-mencken-on-democracy-government-and-politics/ ):
- The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods.
- Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
- Democracy, too, is a religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
- Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.
- Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
- Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
- If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner."
6 is my favourite. As a Canadian I don't have to look any farther than the Canadian scene to recognize their validity.
Colin Chattan , says: July 9, 2018 at 12:32 pm
Of course one should temper Mencken's cynicism with Churchill's practical realism in the famous quote (from https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/ ): "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Paradoctor , says: July 9, 2018 at 2:18 pm
Prohibition lives; the drugs counterproductively banned changed, is all. The hypocrisy of Puritanism remains.
As for morons in the White House, I nominate W and the orange conman.
Paradoctor , says: July 9, 2018 at 2:29 pm
and remember the Alzheimer's patient?
polistra , says: July 9, 2018 at 3:10 pm
Basically he sounds like Jeff Bezos.
I AM THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE. MY IQ IS 300. ANYONE WITH AN IQ < 300 MUST DIE. ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH MY VIEWS AS OF THE CURRENT PICOSECOND IS A SOYBOY WEAKLING LOSER LIVING IN MOMMY'S BASEMENT AND MUST DIE.
We already have Bezos and Elon and Zuck and Republicans and Democrats and all the other monstrous Randian self-proclaimed "gods". We don't need another one.
Tom Blanton , says: July 9, 2018 at 8:57 pm
On many levels, Mencken exposed government for what it is. Among writers today, this just isn't done. From big-government progressives to small-government conservatives, political writers today tend to love government and somehow they have faith it can work. So, of course they all reject Mencken – he makes them all look like the fools they are.
EliteCommInc. , says: July 10, 2018 at 6:53 am
as i read and tipped at what few articles of mr mencken i had read i thought . . . but it is darkness on darkness writing. taking one to the void and then leaving them there
then i located the following quotations:
"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking."
― H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy
"Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it."
― H.L. Mencken, A Little Book in C Major
"The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful."
― H.L. Mencken
"You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth."
― H.L. Mencken
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Aug 10, 2018 | www.unz.com
fnn , August 10, 2018 at 1:08 pm GMT
Emperor Septimius Severus said to his sons: "Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, scorn all others"This is the stage the American Empire is at today. Except now the "soldiers" include the FBI, CIA and NSA. The deep state/permanent govt has the state security organs and Trump is trying to hold on to the loyalty of the uniformed military.
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Aug 09, 2018 | www.goodreads.com
"The American people are free to do exactly what they are told." ― Ward Churchill
"Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it." ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
"The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits atrocities but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future." -- George Orwell, 'As I Please' Tribune (4 February 1944)
"The chief function of propaganda is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time so they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on their mind." -- Adolf Hitler, 1925
"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history." ― George Orwell
"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." ― George Orwell, 1984
"Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing." ― Criss Jami, Killosophy
"Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." ― Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
"The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits -- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage." ― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
"Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it." ― Lysander Spooner
"We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN." ― B.W. Powe, Towards a Canada of Light
"You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic." ― Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100/Methuselah's Children
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." ― George Orwell, 1984
"All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescabably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda." ― Upton Sinclair
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary." ― H.L. Mencken, In Defense Of Women
"The whole purpose of propaganda is to make the obvious seem obscure, or offensive" ― Stefan Molyneux
"Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news -- things which on their own merits would get the big headlines-being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals." ― George Orwell, Animal Farm
"The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned.
The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.
With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."
― Henry A. Wallace"I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stock yards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it." ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
"The media -- stenographers to power." ― Amy Goodman
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." ― Hermann Göring
"Information is controlled because the free flow of truth is not always expedient for those wishing to maintain control."
― Bryant McGill , Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life"Propaganda is as powerful as heroin; it surreptitiously dissolves all capacity to think." ― Gil Courtemanche, A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
"The truth is not in the commercial media because the truth is a dagger pointed at its heart, which is its pocketbook." ― George Seldes, Facts and Fascism
"We feel this is a matter of free speech, people should have the right to put alternative views across and criticise multinationals, especially those who spend a fortune pushing their own propaganda." ― Helen Steele
"Few people have the guts to say outright that art and propaganda are the same thing."
― George Orwell , Essays "Social media was initially created to communicate and then became a tool to propagate."
― Sindhu BiswalIt is in the moment of defeat that the inherent weakness of totalitarian propaganda becomes visible. Without the force of the movement, its members cease at once to believe in the dogma for which yesterday they still were ready to sacrifice their lives. ― Hannah Arendt , The Origins of Totalitarianism
"The media are less a window on reality, than a stage on which officials and journalists perform self-scripted, self-serving fictions."
― Thomas Sowell , The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy"Propaganda campaigns in general have been closely attuned to elite interests. The Red scare of 1919-20 have served well to abort the union-organizing drive that followed World War I in the sell and other industries. The Truman-McCarthy Red scare helped inaugurate the Cold War and the permanent war economy, and it also served to weaken the progressive coalition of the New Deal years. The chronic focus on the plight of Soviet dissidents, on enemy killings in Cambodia, and on the Bulgarian Connection helped weaken the Vietnam syndrome, justify a huge arms buildup and a more aggressive foreign policy, and divert attention from upward redistribution of income that was the heart of Reagan's domestic economic program. ― Noam Chomsky , Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
>"Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred." ― Sharyl Attkisson , The Smear: How the Secret Art of Character Assassination Controls What You Think, What You Read, and How You Vote
"The corporate controlled government is the real enemy." ― Steven Magee
"Totalitarian propaganda perfects the techniques of mass propaganda, but it neither invents them nor originates their themes. These were prepared for them by fifty years of imperialism and disintegration of the nation-state, when the mob entered the scene of European politics. Like the earlier mob leaders, the spokesmen for totalitarian movements possessed an unerring instinct for anything that ordinary party propaganda or public opinion did not care or dare to touch. Everything hidden, everything passed over in silence, became of major significance, regardless of its own intrinsic importance. The mob really believed that truth was whatever respectable society had hypocritically passed over, or covered up with corruption."
― Hannah Arendt , The Origins of Totalitarianism tags: 1969 , fake-news , imperialism , post-truth , propaganda , totalitarian-movement , totalitarian-propaganda , totalitarianism 0 likes Like
"The second role is "the task of the public," which should be very limited. It is not for the public, Lippman observes to "pass judgment on the intrinsic merits" of an issue or to offer analysis or solutions, but merely, on occasion, to place "its force at the disposal" of one or another group of "responsible men" from the specialized class. The public "does not reason, investigate, invent, persuade, bargain or settle." Rather, "the public acts only by aligning itself as the partisan of someone in a position to act executively," once he has given the matter at hand sober and disinterested thought. "The public must be put in its place," so that we "may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd." The herd "has its function": to be "the interested spectators of action," not the participants; that is the duty of "the responsible man."
― Noam Chomsky , On Anarchism tags: democracy , freedom , indoctrination , propaganda , society 0 likes Like
― Noam Chomsky , On Anarchism"Our market-intensive societies measure material progress by the increase in the volume and variety of commodities produced. And taking our cue from this sector, we measure social progress by the distribution of access to these commodities. Economics has been developed as propaganda for the takeover by large-scale commodity producers."
― Ivan Illich , The Right to Useful Unemployment and Its Professional Enemies" the Nazis, without admitting it, learned as much from American gangster organizations as their propaganda, admittedly, learned from American business publicity." ― Hannah Arendt , The Origins of Totalitarianism
"I watch Fox news for the comedy, MSNBC when I need to be reminded that mind midgets exist and CNN when I want to check out the latest in media lies and special interest propaganda." ― James Scott, Senior Fellow, The Center for Cyber Influence Operations Studies (CCIOS)
"Privilege is when you contribute to the oppression of others and then claim that you are the one being discriminated against."
― DaShanne Stokes "Politicized science is like a prostitute with an STD. You know she has been fucked by a dirty politician." ― A.E. Samaan"Those with unearned privileges often spin things as 'political correctness' to further silence those they wish to oppress." ― DaShanne Stokes
"History has been stolen from us and replaced with guilt inducing lies." ― Stefan Molyneux
"NATO bombing of Serbia was undertaken by the 'international community,' according to consistent Western rhetoric -- although those who did not have their heads buried in the sand knew that it was opposed by most of the world, often quite vocally. Those who do not support the actions of wealth and power are not part of 'the global community." ― Noam Chomsky , 9-11
"The point of Political Correctness is not and has never been merely about any of the items that it imposes, but about the imposition itself. (The Rise of Political Correctness)" ― Angelo Codevilla
"People afraid of outsiders are easily manipulated. The warrior caste, supposedly society's protectors, often become protection racketeers. In times of war or crisis, power is easily stolen from the many by the few on a promise of security. The more elusive or imaginary the foe, the better for manufacturing consent. The Inquisition did a roaring trade against the Devil." ― Ronald Wright , A Short History of Progress
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If a dog on a leash does not run off, no one will regard him as a loyal companion on the basis of this fact alone.
"When social cooperation is disrupted, state power is always strengthened."
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Aug 06, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
At very least, a leader should be able to tell right from wrong... and sadly, too often in this world, "nice guys finish last".
"There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain."
Plato
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"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
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Jul 31, 2018 | www.sott.net
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Jul 24, 2018 | forum.quoteland.com
"A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth."
~ G. Goebbels (Joseph Goebbels), Propaganda officer for Adolf Hitler
http://aig.smartbusiness.org/home/area/Creation_Clubs/docs/102quotes.asp
http://www.computec-int.com/bsc/war/excuse.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/feb/22akd.htm
http://www.ppp.org.pk/speeches/speech12.html"Tell a lie a hundred times and it becomes the truth."
~ Goebbels, 1939
http://www.ius.bg.ac.yu/apel/materijali/info-warfare.html"In politics, a lie unanswered becomes truth within 24 hours."
~Willie Brown, California political leader (current mayor of San Francisco)"A lie told often enough becomes truth."
~ Lenin, Marxist revolutionary (1870-1924)
http://www.geocities.com/allaxul9/quotes.html
http://www.flexpress.net/quotes.htm
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/~s214560/quotes.html
http://www.mitcharf.com/~mitcharf/quotes/"When a myth is shared by large numbers of people, it becomes a reality."
~Lawrence Blair"Convince enough people of a lie, and it becomes truth."
~Ron AmundsonA lie that can be passed off as truth becomes truth
"Love is the basis for all the values. Action with love is right conduct. Speak with love, and it becomes truth . Thinking with love results in peace. Understanding with love leads to non-violence. For everything, love is primary. Where there is love there is no place for hatred." ~Sathya Sai Baba, discourse of 20-5-1995
the word, spoken loudly enough becomes truth
...a wise old owl....and a crafty old cat...
The following website might be useful in determining the origin of the Big Lie quotation.
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/repetition.html
This has both the Lenin quote and Goebbels expansion that is presumably based on it. Ironic isn't it that the extreme right and left of the political spectrum have such close thoughts. Perhaps its more of an indication of the similarity of totalitarian regimes, regardless of the ideology.
Here are 3 quotes attributed to Hitler in Mein Kampf :
The broad mass of a nation .. .will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.
Only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.
The greater the lie, the greater the chance that it will be believed.
http://www.quoteland.com/author.asp?AUTHOR_ID=594
* * *
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov[This message was edited by thenostromo on 12-12-05 at 05:26 PM.]
Volume 1, chapter 10, it seems. The context of the comments is always worth checking. The English translation is here .
"This most of all shows the assertion that the lost War was the cause of the German collapse to be a lie. No, this military collapse was itself only the consequence ... of an ethical and moral poisoning, of a diminution in the instinct of self-preservation and its preconditions, which for many years had begun to undermine the foundations of the people and the Reich.
"It required the whole bottomless falsehood of the Jews and their Marxist fighting organization to lay the blame for the collapse on that very man who alone, with superhuman energy and will power, tried to prevent the catastrophe he foresaw and save the nation from its time of deepest humiliation and disgrace By branding Ludendorff as guilty for the loss of the World War they took the weapon of moral right from the one dangerous accuser who could have risen against the traitors to the fatherland. In this they proceeded on the sound principle that the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads and they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others; yes, even when enlightened on the subject, they will long doubt and waver, and continue to accept at least one of these causes as true. Therefore, something of even the most insolent lie will always remain and stick-a fact which all the great lie-virtuosi and lying-clubs in this world know only too well and also make the most treacherous use of."
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Jul 15, 2018 | caucus99percent.com
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
@dkmichApparently we've always been corrupt, just not so brazen.
Just another example of the fact that all power corrupts absolutely. (Lord Acton understated it.)
"The only rule of which everybody in a totalitarian state may be sure is that the more visible government agencies are, the less power they carry, and the less is known of the existence of an institution, the more powerful it will ultimately turn out to be...Real power begins where secrecy begins. (Arendt, p403)
"We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy"
Chris Hedges
"I say enough! If Israel wants to be the only superpower in the Middle East then they can put their own asses on the line and do it themselves. I want to continue to eat."
-- snoopydawgthe little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-1.9) All about building progressive media.
America is a psyop wearing a cowboy hat
"The gatekeepers must change." Prince
"I don't want to run the empire, I want to bring it down!" ~Dr. Cornel West "...isn't the problem here that the government takes on, arbitrarily and without justification, an adversarial attitude towards its citizenry?" ~CantStoptheMacedonianSignal
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Jul 11, 2018 | www.unz.com
Fran Macadam , June 27, 2018 at 6:58 pm GMT
National security means making sure the investments of the oligarchy are secured by the nation. Gen. Smedley Butler had it right 80 years ago.
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Jul 11, 2018 | www.unz.com
Steve3455 , June 28, 2018 at 4:40 pm GMT
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the clergyman who defied the German Nazi regime and got executed for his resistance, once observed that "war is not the opposite of peace, 'security' is the opposite of peace." I might also add it is the opposite of freedom and civilization as well, because both require trust.
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Jul 09, 2018 | www.reddit.com
_NerdKelly_ 14 hours ago (636 children)
A social media user responding to Schwarzenegger then told him to, "stick to lifting and making movies Snowflake is a title you do not want."
Schwarzenegger fired back hours later with some "advice" for the commenter.
"I never mind picking up new titles. Mr. Universe, Mr. Olympia, Terminator, Governor If you want to call me Snowflake, that's fine - it would have been a fantastic Mr. Freeze line. But let me give you some advice," he wrote.
"If you're going to call someone a snowflake because they believe in a different policy than you, you might want to look in the mirror. When you see an idea you disagree with, you can get angry, or you can learn," Schwarzenegger continued. "We can all be better if we don't simply react. Pause, reflect, learn, and then decide if you still want to call someone a Snowflake. Good luck with everything."
I'm loving these quality retorts lately.
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Jul 09, 2018 | www.reddit.com
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
-Lyndon Johnson 1964
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Jul 08, 2018 | www.unz.com
AnonFromTN , July 5, 2018 at 5:2 6 pm GMT
Martyanov's book might be good and well-researched. However, you don't need to read it to know one simple thing: the greatest danger of propaganda is that those who pay for it actually believe it. Thus, instead of fooling others, you fool yourself. To add insult to injury, you do it at an enormous cost.
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Jul 08, 2018 | www.unz.com
Minnesota Mary , September 8, 2015 at 8:40 pm GMT
@MoiAmerican Exceptionalism = National Narcissism. Same with Jewish Exceptionalism. Both lead to hubris which will be the undoing of America and Israel.
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Jul 06, 2018 | www.nytimes.com
Clovis Florida July 1
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."
― George Orwell, 1984
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Jul 06, 2018 | www.nytimes.com
A. Reader
Birmingham July 1Krugman wrote: "And by then the world trading system may be broken beyond repair."
This reminds me of a quotation from Walter Bagehot's 1873 classic _Lombard Street_ that a NYT columnist used about ten years ago:
"Those who live under a great and firm system of credit must consider that if they break up that one they will never see another, for it will take years upon years to make a successor to it."
[And I do hope that columnist wasn't Prof. Krugman!]
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Jul 05, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Giant Meteor -> NoDebt Thu, 07/05/2018 - 13:47 Permalink
Thanks, here is some additional reading material ..
The Unfortunate Fallout of Campus Postmodernism- The roots of the current campus madness
"In a 1946 essay in the London Tribune entitled "In Front of Your Nose," George Orwell noted that "we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unfortunate-fallout-of-c
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Jul 05, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
Mukadi , July 4, 2018 at 10:24 pm
Joe Tedesky , July 5, 2018 at 12:02 amJuly 4 Is Matrix Reinforcement Day
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/07/03/tomorrow-is-matrix-reinforcement-day/
"Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." Major General Smedley Butler
Good on you Mukadi for posting this link. PCR did a great analogy of our American war culture. Joe
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Jul 05, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
zhenry , July 4, 2018 at 10:43 pm
Unfettered Fire , July 4, 2018 at 7:52 amDivine right, infalibility of Pope and Kings over the poor 99% / Divine right and infalibility of corporations and the invisible hand of the market over the 99%. Thank you
Tristan , July 4, 2018 at 12:05 pmThe latest revolt has been the Revolt of the Elites these past 40 years:
"Basically, the only reason we do not have good things like most other advanced countries have is because the greedy sociopaths running things for decades wanted our unlimited federal money for themselves.
Unlimited money? HOW CAN THAT BE? Yes, since the 70s, they understood that the federal government could issue any amount of money for anything that is physically possible.* And they wanted that money for themselves instead of using our money for the good of all as directed by our Constitution (Article 1, Section 8).
They devised the scam of privatization to get the money and TOOK IT GLOBAL, getting money from our country and many others that could issue money with almost no constraints (meaning that the constraint is 'what is physically possible', or put another way, real resources are the constraint).
But of course they needed plausible LIES to dupe the public, right? And so they pretended that our federal money is finite and 'like a household budget' to dupe us so they could implement their scam. They lie about our national 'debt', for example; it is actually our NATIONAL SAVINGS ACCOUNT. They lie about having to raise taxes in order to have nice things. Every fearmongering thing they tell us is a LIE – about the deficit, about 'can't afford', about 'have to make cuts to some programs', and on and on."
https://whatifitoldyouthis.blogspot.com/2018/07/privatization-biggest-scam-we-all-need.html
I might add that we citizens of the U.S. are more often than not referred to by the media and government officials as consumers. An Orwellian shift that many haven't even noticed, yet these two definitions are so completely different, while the consequence is the denuding of the meaning of what a citizen is and is replaced with the corporate ideal that a citizen is nothing more than a cog, a consumer, and in essence citizenship is irrelevant in a globalized oligarchy.
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Jul 05, 2018 | www.goodreads.com
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." ― George Bernard Shaw
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them." ― George Bernard Shaw , Mrs. Warren's Profession
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." ― George Bernard Shaw
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Jul 04, 2018 | www.youtube.com
RebelThoughts82 , 3 years agoGeorge Carlin - The American Dream But there's a reason. There's a reason. There's a reason for this, there's a reason education SUCKS, and it's the same reason it will never, ever, EVER be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you've got. Because the owners, the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want: They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. Thats against their interests.
Thats right. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don't want that! You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something?
They'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! It's a big club, and you ain't in it! You, and I, are not in the big club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on.
Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don't give a fuck about you .they don't give a fuck about you they don't give a FUCK about you. They don't care about you at all at all AT ALL.
And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Thats what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It's called the American Dream,because you have to be asleep to believe it.
pabnaful , 4 years agoCarlin to me represented the Mark Twain of our time. He was a great American. He told us the cold harsh truth and didn't hold back.
J Wraith , 2 years agoWorkers in America today are just replacements for slaves but in a more systematic and legal way. we are treated as herd of animals and made to believe that this is the way we are supposed to be treated. We are ruled by fear and led to believe that we have no choice but to comply with the way ruling class designed the system to their advantage. The reason workers don't make living wage in America is because they need to be treated as less than human so enormous amount of wealth can be built for a certain class of people on the backs of these poor workers. They are cleverly labeled as unskilled workers in order to be denied a fare wage or living wage when manual labor made everything possible. Workers are not aware of their rights and they are deliberately kept ignorant by intense and ruthless propaganda of the ruling class. Under capitalism it's getting harder and harder for workers and they are just being drained by working long hours and being squeezed into little boxes with no chance to ever find happiness or being able to raise a family. Even after living 20 or 30 years in America workers can't afford to buy a home or afford a place to be able to be able to live happily with their family. Only future for an American worker that is left is to be too old to be able to raise a family or die alone with no money left. American workers are deliberately left into a poverty trap. What's the benefit of being paid so little in the first place and then spend all the money on rents to live in a ghetto, pay taxes and start over from zero every month? This is the reason for so many suicides in America. Cuba and North Korea have virtually no suicides. We don't even have rights to speak for ourselves. Corporate media speak for us. No one represents us. Politicians represent rich people. Even these YouTube comments are censored, regulated, compartmentalized, and blocked from being viewed by others but the commenter itself unless the comments are favorable toward ruling class world views. American education system is also very discriminatory and it's more about business and privilege than a real education where people are on a level playing field. America is a prison and a plantation. There are no ways to set anyone free and that is how it's designed.
Natalie Rosen , 11 months agoGeorge Carlin is my favorite comedian but I always found his later work to be full of vague empty platitudes designed to cater to lazy angry malcontents who just generally have a bad attitude about pretty much everything (but who think that they're sooo brilliant.)
Pertev Dural , 4 years agoThe GREATEST comedian that ever lived. He had profound insight and described it in sometimes a profane way. I never cared that he did that because what he said was the TRUTH. If he were alive today he would be amazed at how prophetic he was. Rest in Peace, George Carlin and know there are so many who think you were brilliant!
Gilles Tremblay , 3 years agokill the innocents and steal their oil and other resources, this is American dream.
Alex J , 3 years ago"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell (on what I fugure he could have told about the infamous 1%...)
PrivateAttorney , 3 years agoAmerica has always been an elitist, oligarchical state. People talk about the founding fathers and their enlightened vision for a free, democratic republic conveniently forgetting or omitting that most of them owned black slaves. The 18th and 19th centuries were all fine and dandy if you were rich, white land owners but absolutely abysmal if you were a different colour. Not only was the indigenous population raped and pillaged of its natural resources during the 19th century but it's arguable that the US Government in collusion with corporations and banks committed genocide on a grand scale. I'm not someone who hates America but this happens frequently in world history. Subjugate indigenous populations, exhaust natural resources and then establish a military hegemony in far flung areas of the globe to exploit even more. The British Empire from the late 17th to the early 20th century excelled at this. Countless other empires in history have done exactly the same. It's all too predictable and doesn't reflect well on humanity.
Jay McD , 9 months ago (edited)There are FOUR classes of society, not three. There's the Poor, the Middle, and the Rich who are used as commodities for the Ruling Class. They are the ones who control the government and the corporations, not "the rich". The Ruling Class is made up of a dozen or so families and their bankster cronies. THAT'S IT!
The Ruling Class have funded both sides of every war in the past 100 years, oversee and control our govt., and are using the fake left right paradigm to bring in their communistic (through legislation created by the left) corporatocracy (though the right) that we are seeing come to fruition in America and throughout the world.
That audience ought to consider themselves lucky to have sat there that night and heard this live and in the flesh! my God I would have had shivers up my spine! What a brave man, I'm surprised he wasn't murdered shortly afterward but he knew he was near his end and let it rip. If he had said this a few decades earlier and in the prime of his career I'd say he most definitely would've been killed, but today, as he said "Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care" people are passively and willfully ignorant, once they have their bread and circuses and can go along to get along!..fuck it.
Johnny Reb , 3 years ago,,they want your retirement money" yep, its happened already. at least here in poland. sad very sad. we are screwed.
Adam Whiteside , 4 years agoGeorge Carlin cuts through the bullshit of "democracy" and tells the truth. About the 1% of the planet who now have more wealth than the 99%. Democracy is, and always has been, a farce. Feudalism is back. When does the revolution start?
Laughter is our way of expressing emotion when we don't know how to react. It's instinctive within our species. Comedians make their living by saying stuff that's so real and common place. but making it humorous and light hearted. True comedians take you on a journey, like a story. There is a point and a theme. George Carlin is the man.
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Jul 04, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Bogdog -> consider me gone Tue, 07/03/2018 - 19:32 Permalink
"It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved."
-W. Somerset Maugham
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...Stokman described the struggle between the capitalist countries for markets and colonies Before he could finish, Ivan interrupted indignantly, "But what has this got to do with us?".. "Don't talk like a kid," Knave sneered at Ivan. "You know the old saying, 'When masters fall out their men get the clout'" (2a).
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Jun 17, 2018 | www.unz.com
Carlton Meyer , Website June 16, 2018 at 4:28 am GMT
From my free on-line book:http://www.g2mil.com/strategy.htm
Military Strategists
"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the greatest liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."
H.L. Mencken
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Jun 10, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
Frederic Bastiat -- (1801-1850) in Economic Sophisms
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Jun 09, 2018 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, 'You're too arrogant! And if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I'll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God.'" ~Martin Luther King, It's a Dark Day In Our Nation"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who murder your prophets and stone those sent to save you. How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Behold, your house is now yours, but is made desolate." ~Matthew 23:37-39
"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects... Power will achieve its murderous potential. It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse ." ~R. J. Rummel, Death by Government: A History of Mass Murder and Genocide Since 1900
"Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it." ~Frank Herbert, Dune
"Fascism is capitalism plus murder." ~Upton Sinclair
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Jun 04, 2018 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"The greatest want of the world is the want of men -- men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall." ~Ellen G. White
"I have tired of hearing the argument from my friends about how we could not expect anything better from various folks given the perverse incentives. I cannot accept that. I know of several people who have failed to take advantage of their good government jobs when they moved to the private sector. They have done reasonably well, but they have not enriched themselves at the expense of everyone else. I know of even more who have prostituted themselves. The institutions may provide the opportunity, but it is the person who acts on it." ~HBK
"And because of the increase in lawlessness, the love of the many will grow cold; but those who endure until the end shall be saved; and the good news of the kingdom of heaven will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then shall the end will come." ~Matthew 24:11-14
"Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's [God's] will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
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May 18, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Valissa Rauhallinen , a day ago
This depressing reality inspired me to review some of my favorite Orwell quotes.Randal , a day ago"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." -- George Orwell
"At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to state this or that or the other, but it is "not done" Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals." --George Orwell
"War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength."
― George Orwell, 1984Can't resist adding this Mencken quote to honor the SST community.
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable. -- H. L. Mencken
" There is a certain amount of talk that Russia has "betrayed" Syria (or Donbass) or "backed down" or something. "Paul von Hindenburg , a day agoThat's the emotive way of expressing it, but there's also I believe a legitimate case to be made that Russia cannot continue to let Israel attack its allies with impunity, whilst giving the impression of cheerful collaboration with an Israel that intends to defeat Russian objectives in Syria, and not pay a high price for it.
" Will Europe knuckle under? "
Of course it will. Can one imagine the three stooges Merkel, Macron and May actually meaningfully standing up to Washington on an issue of real substance? The question answers itself.
What good is their "blocking statute" going to do? How will exhortations to European companies not to obey US sanctions and supposed powers to block US court decisions (in Europe) make companies with substantial assets in the US and wide open to seizure and even imprisonment not "choose" not to invest in business with Iran?
Maersk, Total, Munich Re and Allianz have all stated their intention to pull out of Iran already.
At least it makes clear who wears the pants in Europe, and it's Uncle Sam. If the peoples of Europe are ever going to change that they are going to have to sweep away an entire political elite and do a lot more than just pass irrelevant gestural statutes. Ending NATO (that should have been ended in 1991) and stopping pretending to believe in the Russia bogeyman are among the minimum measures needed.
The Europeans are being asked to go all in with Washingtons resumption of harsh sanctions against Iran as well as Russia. How much will these hardened Atlanticists sacrifice for victory over the dread forces of ' nationalism'?Babak Makkinejad -> Paul von Hindenburg , a day agoThe trade between Iran and European countries for much of last year may be found here:JJackson , 16 hours agohttps://financialtribune.co...
By violating JCPOA, US, has in effect, reprised how USSR treated members of Warsaw Pact, telling them who would be their friends and wh would be their enemies.
Neither Greece, nor Italy, nor Romania have any beef with Iran but US not only is eviscerating their livelihoods without any care, but also exposes them to be semi-sovereign.
US also has exposed the vacuity of the political posture of EU for its lack of substance. Soft power stands revealed as flaccid power i.e. no power to do anything.
It is, of course, Europeans' own fault - they have had decades to build the structures of independent power (from US) and never did. Preferring to - as Mukhtar of the Bedu would say - free ride on the coattails of the United States.
Saving JCOPA, I am afraid, will not be remembered as "their finest hour" but rather as "their farcest hour".
Mr. Skripal has been released from hospital and has been disappeared along with his daughter. A Royal wedding makes for a great opportunity to 'take out the trash'.RaisingMac , 14 hours agoWill Ferkel, Macaroni and Dis-May stand up to The Hegemon? Of course not! They're not going to choose doing business with Iran over doing business with the US. Iran will continue its journey into the Russo-Chinese orbit.Ulenspiegel , 21 hours ago"Washington's sanctions on Russia have cost Europe a lot but it still dutifully signs up for more."Karel Whitman -> Ulenspiegel , 12 hours agoThe situation is quite nuanced in Germany: The German exports to Russia (143 million citizens) are small, in 2017 it was only 26 billion EUR. In contrast, to Austria (8 million citizens) it was 63 billion EUR.
Obviously, all losses due to sanctions could easily be replaced with exports to other destinations in the last few years.
The German manufacturer are limited by lack of workforce.
Overall, there is no high pressure to spend political capital for Russia or Iran (3 billion EUR exports in 2017) when it comes to exports. They are markets with potential that will still be there in a few years.
On the other hand, the German reactions after some US meddeling in respect to Nord Stream 2 were very blunt and the political equivalent of showing the middle finger.
I seem to recall our earlist encounter, as I recall I may have opted out of further discussions, since I felt you had purely economic "Scheuklappen". This made you one way or another the German I never was. Meaning one way or another a welcome co-citizen on this blog but concerning your "larger stance" a stranger.Babak Makkinejad -> Ulenspiegel , 15 hours agoBut the elimination of exports to Russia and Iran does matter to smaller countries. Germany is not yet EU and EU is not yet Germany.James Thomas , a day ago"Will Europe knuckle under?"In my opinion this is why Brexit, Catalan independence, and the holding together of the Eurozone are such a big deal to the Borg. If the EU breaks up and each country is able to develop their own foreign policy, it will be much harder to keep the Europeans in line. That will not do.
If Putin wants to interfere in other countries democracy (known as "promoting democracy" when we do it) he should help the five star movement in Italy. If the five star movement manages to take power and kill the austerity programs like they have promised - debt to gdp in Italy will go over %130 ... and everyone who has read Reinhart and Rogoff will know that the Euro is done for.
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May 16, 2018 | www.theroot.com
Tillerson was the country's top diplomat until March, when he was fired by Donald Trump and replaced by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. NBC News reports that Tillerson called on the graduates to maintain a "fierce defense of the truth."
"As I reflect upon the state of our American democracy, I observe a growing crisis in ethics and integrity," Tillerson said in his speech. " If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom. "
He added, "When we as people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth, even on what may seem the most trivial of matters, we go wobbly on America."
"A responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what truth is and is not, what a fact is and is not and begin by holding ourselves accountable to truthfulness and demand our pursuit of America's future be fact-based -- not based on wishful thinking, not hoped-for outcomes made in shallow promises, but with a clear-eyed view of the facts as they are, and guided by the truth that will set us free to seek solutions to our most daunting challenges."
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Apr 16, 2018 | caucus99percent.com
"The Democratic Party is better than the Republican Party in the way that manslaughter is slightly better than murder: It might seem like a lesser crime, but the victim can't really tell the difference." -- Michael Harriot
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"Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage."
- Winston Churchill
"A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest."
- Winston Churchill
"Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut."
- Winston Churchill
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Mar 02, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
p
2–Sherlock's Rule: When considering a problem, remove everything from consideration which seems untrue. What is left is probably the truth.
3-Occam's Razor: In considering a complex phenomenon with many factors and a variety of explanations, remember that the simplest explanation that accounts for the factors is probably correct.
4- The KISS principal" "Keep it Simple, Stupid." (Army Rule) pl
Lyttenburgh
, 02 March 2018 at 01:58 AM"Duck Rule: If it walks like a duck, squawks like a duck and has feathers, it probably is a duck."Babak Makkinejad said in reply to Lyttenburgh... , 02 March 2018 at 09:58 AMThis is cornerstone of the delusion known as the positivism, which gives too much attention to the form over substance. I fail to see how this might be of any use.
No.Fatima Manoubia , 02 March 2018 at 10:05 AMPositivism posits that the Duck is an empirically derived conception - solely based on sense data - and its comprehension does not require the existence (or the assumption ) of a metaphysical system.
It is a form of Scientism - elevating "Science" to the level of Metaphysical Truths - ignoring the shaky metaphysical basis of empirical sciences themselves.
From my part, that rule about ducks I only follow it....with ducks....Karel Whitman said in reply to Lyttenburgh... , 02 March 2018 at 10:05 AMPeople are harina de otro costal , there are people who can fool you all the way during long time, and you will not be able to notice unless you have your natural instincts from childhood intact, something very difficult in such an opressive and conservative society as the US is, where almost all your natural instincts get castrated at early ages, especially in the case of women..
Lyttenburgh,Fatima Manoubia , 02 March 2018 at 10:06 AMyes, admittedly this surely sounds a bit provocative.
But, how else then trusting our perception could we ever judge on matters? Everyday life? Should we start to consider that something that walks like a duck, squawks, and has feathers could be a camel too? Never mind if Bactrian Camel or Dromedary?
Anyway, what i have tested one time after another is that the toast always ( always! ) falls on the side of the butter....
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Feb 25, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
albert , February 17, 2018 at 2:23 pm
" Democracy is not under stress – it's under aggressive attack, as unconstrained financial greed overrides public accountability ."
I request a lessatorium* on the term 'democracy', because there aren't any democracies. Rather than redefine the term, why not use a more accurate one, like 'plutocracy', or 'corporatocracy'.
-- -- -- -
* It's like a moratorium, you just do less of it.
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My state of mind brings together these two sentiments and surpasses them: I am pessimistic because of intelligence, but a willed optimist. I think, in every circumstance, of the worst scenario so I can marshal all of my reserves of will and be ready to overcome the obstacle. I never allow myself illusions, and I have never had disappointments. I am always specially armed with endless patience, not passive or inert, but patience animated by perseverance. –Antonio Gramsci, letter to his brother Gennaro, December 1929. Translation DJG.
Every collapse brings intellectual and moral disorder in its wake. So we must foster people who are sober, have patience, who do not despair when faced with the worst horrors yet who do not become elated over every stupid misstep. Intelligence makes us pessimists, and our will makes us optimists.–Antonio Gramsci, first Prison Notebook, 1929-1930. Translation DJG.
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Feb 05, 2018 | andolfatto.blogspot.com
- "Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." Andre Gide
- The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it (P.J. O'Rourke)
- But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you – the social reformers – see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them (Isaiah Berlin)
- I believe that sex is one of the most natural, wholesome things that money can buy (Steve Martin)
- Nothing so needs reforming like other people's habits (Samuel Clemens)
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Jan 29, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
All Risk No Reward -> SickDollar Jan 28, 2018 4:58 AM Permalink
'Zactly.
"The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks."
~Lord Acton"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."
~Napoleon Bonaparte"Let the American people go into their debt-funding schemes and banking systems, and from that hour their boasted independence will be a mere phantom."
~William Pitt, (referring to the inauguration of the first National Bank in the United States under Alexander Hamilton)."The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country, than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger."
~Andrew Jackson
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Jan 28, 2018 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success." ~Lord Acton
The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him.
He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison
"Many commentators automatically assume that low intergenerational mobility rates represent a social tragedy. I do not understand this reflexive wailing and beating of breasts in response to the finding of slow mobility rates. The fact that the social competence of children is highly predictable once we know the status of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents is not a threat to the American Way of Life and the ideals of the open society.
The children of earlier elites will not succeed because they are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and an automatic ticket to the Ivy League. They will succeed because they have inherited the talent, energy, drive, and resilience to overcome the many obstacles they will face in life."
Greg Clark, The Economist, 13 Feb. 2013
"You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bandaged the injured or brought back the strays or looked for the lost; rather, you have ruled them with harshness and tyranny. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd; they were scattered and became prey for every wild beast of the field." ~Ezekiel 34:2-5
"You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know." ~William Wilberforce
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Jan 27, 2018 | theconservativetreehouse.com
lieutenantm , , January 27, 2018 at 4:58 am
"Everything you want is on the other side of fear." – Jack Canfield"The future ain't what it used to be." – Yogi Berra
"I can resist anything but temptation." – Oscar Wilde "
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." – Al Capone
"In acting, sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made." – George Burns
"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." – George Orwell
Dennis Morrisseau USArmy Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WARLieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion FireCongress.org Second Vermont Republic, VFM POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT 05775 dmorso1@netzero.net 802 645 9727
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Jan 20, 2018 | mentalfloss.com
Literally meaning "who benefits?," cui bono? is a rhetorical Latin legal phrase used to imply that whoever appears to have the most to gain from a crime is probably the culprit. More generally, it's used in English to question the meaningfulness or advantages of carrying something out.
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Jan 06, 2018 | www.wiseoldsayings.com
- "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." ~Latin Proverb
- "A good example is the best sermon." English (on advice)
- "A penny saved is a penny earned." ~Scottish Proverb
- "A stitch in time saves nine." ~unknown
- "Advice after mischief is like medicine after death." ~Danish (on advice)
- "Advise no one to go to war or marry. " ~Spanish (on advice)
- Avoid a cure that is worse than the disease. ~Aesop (c.620-560 BC)
- Before you marry keep both eyes open; after marriage keep one eye shut. Jamaican (on marriage)
- "Better late than never." ~Roman Proverb
- "Better three hours too soon than a minute too late." ~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
- "Choose the hills wisely on which you must do battle." ~unknown
- "Do good to thy friend to keep him, to thy enemy to gain him. " ~Ben Franklin (1706-1790)
- "Don't believe everything you hear. " ~Aesop (c.620-560 BC)
- "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." ~Ben Franklin (1706-1790)
- "Focus on what's right in your world instead of what's wrong." ~unknown
- "Get out of harms way." ~Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
- "Grin and bear it. " ~unknown
- "If you are hiding, don't light a fire." ~Ghanaian (on common sense)
- "If you can't bite, better not show your teeth." ~Yiddish (on common sense)
- In night there is counsel. Greek (on advice)
- Interest on debt grows without rain. ~Yiddish (on indebtedness)
- It is better to prevent than to cure. ~Peruvian (on common sense)
- It is easy to advise the wise. ~Serbian (on advice)
- "Keep an open mind." ~unknown
- "Lend your money and lose your friend." William Caxton (1421-1491)
- "Live life to the fullest because you may not have it tomorrow." reader's name lost
- "Live your own life, for you will die your own death. " ~Latin (on life and living)
- Make haste slowly. ~Suetonius (c.69-140)
- Marry in haste, repent in leisure. ~unknown
- "Neither a borrower nor a lender be. " ~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
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"If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security."
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"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
― Karl Rove
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Jan 01, 2018 | www.investopedia.com
George Lucas on Creativity
- "Everybody has talent, it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is." Lucas on finding one's way in the world.
- "None of the films I've done was designed for a mass audience, except for 'Indiana Jones.' Nobody in their right mind thought 'American Graffiti' or 'Star Wars' would work." Lucas on working against the grain, thinking outside the box, and the potential rewards that await those who succeed at doing so.
- "Even in high school I was very interested in history – why people do the things they do. As a kid I spent a lot of time trying to relate the past to the present." Lucas on his studies.
- "'American Graffiti' was unpleasant because of the fact that there was no money, no time, and I was compromising myself to death." Lucas on his experience creating the first real success of his career.
- "There should be a point to movies. Sure, you're giving people a diversion from the cold world for a bit, but at the same time, you pass on some facts and rules and maybe a little bit of wisdom." Lucas on what he hopes to derive from and communicate through the medium of film.
- "You can't do it unless you can imagine it." Lucas on the primary role of the imagination as an ignition switch to action.
- "If the boy and girl walk off into the sunset hand-in-hand in the last scene, it adds 10 million to the box office." Lucas on how the narrative qualities of a film can be dictated by the market. (For more, see: Top 10 Successful Movie Franchises.)
George Lucas on Work
- "It's hard work making movies. It's like being a doctor: you work long hours, very hard hours, and it's emotional, tense work. If you don't really love it, then it ain't worth it." Lucas on the need to love your work in order to both stay sane and do the work properly.
- "When you are a beginning filmmaker you are desperate to survive. The most important thing in the end is survival and being able to get to your next picture." Lucas on how larger ambitions sometimes need to wait.
- "Working hard is very important. You're not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard." Lucas on the paramount importance of hard work.
- "You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead." Lucas on ignoring critics and other distractions.
- "Whatever has happened in my quest for innovation has been part of my quest for immaculate reality." Lucas on the aesthetic and even spiritual dimension of his career.
- "I realized why directors are such horrible people – in a way – because you want things to be right, and people will just not listen to you, and there is no time to be nice to people, no time to be delicate." Lucas on the personality that authority demands of a director. (For more, see: Why Is The Star Wars Franchise So Valuable?)
George Lucas on Luck and Grit
- "Good luck has its storms." Lucas on the way that happy accidents tend to come in clusters.
- "The secret is not to give up hope. It's very hard not to because if you're really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side." Lucas on the immense difficulty of doing anything of lasting value, and the absolute necessity of ignoring all doubt in the pursuit of such goals.
- "A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, 'If you don't know how to make the right decision, you're not a director.'" Lucas on directing films, and by extension, leadership of any enterprise.
- "A film is sort of binary – it either works or it doesn't work. It has nothing to do with how good a job you do. If you bring it up to an adequate level where the audience goes with the movie, then it works, that is all." Lucas on how the overall effect of something outstrips the individual parts. (See also: 7 Real-Life Ways To Become A Billionaire.)
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"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing [a people] to slavery" Thomas Jefferson. Rights of British America, 1774 ME 1:193, Papers 1:125
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XXX:
The various psychopaths of the world are powerless if we walk away. Completely decouple, with no overt malice. Our attention validates the actions of the criminal elite.
YYY:
Walk away from what? You can vote with your dollar, which is what I sort of think you are getting at. Things like sending our children to war, invasive GMO crops and pollutants arr things we cannot simply walk away from.
We are in a sticky situation. What is the average citizen to do while their constituates betray their trust daily? At the moment, sadly there isn't much we can. Standing in a free speech zone and protesting doesn't actually do much. I dont think violence in the streets of DC will do much. At this point all we can do is keep talking about it and to help inform the misinformed. Stick to facts, use history (a lot has come out about Vietnam) to open eyes. Frustrating yes, lost no. Dont walk away.
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Nov 28, 2017 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the greatest of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours."
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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[... "In our age, there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia," Orwell wrote. Earlier in the essay he had said, "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." ...]
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Oct 31, 2017 | www.goodreads.com
- 'In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.'
- "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."
- "I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you."
- "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
- "Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed."
- "In heaven, all the interesting people are missing."
- "There are no facts, only interpretations."
- "The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends."
- "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
- "Man is the cruelest animal."
- "Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?"
- "Faith: not wanting to know what the truth is."
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May 5, 2010 | librarianbyday.net
As part of National Privacy week I thought I would share some of my favorite quotes about privacy. Hopefully they will get you thinking about privacy, if you weren't before, and spark some conversation.
10 . Our work to improve privacy continues today. – Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook
I don't think I really have to comment on this one, its just amusing.
9 .Law-abiding citizens value privacy. Terrorists require invisibility. The two are not the same, and they should not be confused. ~ Richard Perle
According to Wikipedia – "Richard Norman Perle is an American political advisor and lobbyist who worked for the Reagan administration as an assistant Secretary of Defense and worked on the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004. He was Chairman of the Board from 2001 to 2003 under the Bush Administration."
8. The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable. -Anon., U. S. Privacy Study Commission, 1977
If we ignore small gradual erosions to privacy, especially in the name of convenience or safety, we risk a much larger overall loss that we aren't aware of until its too late.
7. Every CEO of a social network should be required to use the default privacy settings for all of their accounts on the service . – Anil Dash
Word.
6. It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority. – Ben Franklin
Its a great reminder. There is nothing wrong with asking questions and wanting answers, especially in regard to privacy.
5. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. – Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google
Oh really? I do all sorts of things I don't want anyone to know about, nothing crazy or illegal, but personal and private. I don't want those things broadcast. Thanks.
4. You already have zero privacy. Get over it. – Scott G. McNealy CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc
This was said in 1999, yes, really.
3. No matter how many times a privileged straight white male technology executive pronounces the death of privacy, Privacy Is Not Dead. People of all ages care deeply about privacy. And they care just as much about privacy online as they do offline . Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity "
Privacy doesn't mean the same to everyone and the end of it will affect people of different social and economic classes differently.
2. Once conversations that should be private are undertaken in a public forum, they become theater – meant for the onlookers more than the participants. – Are we surrendering our privacy too easily?
This is fascinating to me. The process of being watched changes how we behave both offline and online. Just as you question the reality of reality tv so should you consider the validity of statements and actions carried out in a public forum where the participant knows there is an audience.
1. Just because something is publicly accessible does not mean that people want it to be publicized. – " Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity "
This is hands down my favorite privacy quote. There is a huge difference between something happening in public and it being publicized. If you're not keeping up with what danah boyd says about privacy you should be. She has a firm understanding of the nuances of online privacy and she explains them clearly so anyone can understand.
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Oct 08, 2017 | steemit.com
It was either Mark Twain or Samuel Clemens who said "In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
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www.moonofalabama.org
Below is a listing of the quotes you see displayed on all Antiwar.com pages. .
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. ~Abba Eban About the quote: Israeli diplomat (1915-2002)
Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. ~Abraham Flexner
- Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. ~Abraham Lincoln
- I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends. ~Abraham Lincoln
- America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. ~Abraham Lincoln
- We must recognize the chief characteristic of the modern era -- a permanent state of what I call violent peace. ~Admiral James D. Watkins
- Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. ~Adolph Hitler
- In war, truth is the first casualty. ~Aeschylus
- Any excuse will serve a tyrant. ~Aesop
- One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one. ~Agatha Christie
- The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight. ~A. J. P. Taylor
- No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic. ~A. J. P. Taylor
- Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is after. ~Alan Watts About the quote: from the book "The Way of Zen"
We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives...inside ourselves. ~Albert Camus
- When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid, it can't last long." But though a war may be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. ~Albert Camus
- The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants. ~Albert Camus
- Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. ~Albert Einstein
- It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. ~Albert Einstein
- The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. ~Albert Einstein
- Force always attracts men of low morality. ~Albert Einstein
- Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. ~Albert Einstein
- The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. ~Albert Einstein
- It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. ~Albert J. Nock
- What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood. ~Aldous Huxley
- Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- The next war ... may well bury Western civilization forever. ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- The demands of internal growth are incomparably more important to us...than the need for any external expansion of our power. ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood. ~Alexander Berkman
- Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. ~Alexander Hamilton
- O peace! how many wars were waged in thy name. ~Alexander Pope
- All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it. ~Alexis de Tocqueville
- Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy. ~Alfred Adler
- War is organized murder and torture against our brothers. ~Alfred Adler
- Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy. ~Alfred Adler
- War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man. ~Alfred Adler
- At least we're getting the kind of experience we need for the next war. ~Allen Dulles
- The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations. ~Ambrose Bierce
- Since the end of the World War II, the United States has fought three "small" wars...we lost all three of them and for the same reason--hubris. ~Andrew Greely About the quote: Andrew Greely is a columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times. You can read his articles at http://www.suntimes.com/index/greeley.html
- Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it. ~Anne O'Hare McCormick
- A great war leaves a country with three armies: an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. ~Anonymous (German) About the quote: (quote from 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' edited Eric Groves, Sr., pub. Quirk Books, 2008)
- Brute force is not our salvation, especially as directed by State central planning and done with little regard for the innocents... ~Anthony Gregory About the quote: Anthony Gregory is a writer and musician from Berkeley, CA. You can read his articles at www.lewrockwell.com About the quote: Anthony Gregory is a writer and musician from Berkeley, CA. You can read his articles at www.lewrockwell.com War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus. ~Antoine De Saint-Exupery
- Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible. ~A. Philip Randolph About the quote: Randolph (1889-1979) was an African American civil rights leader. (quote from 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' edited Eric Groves, Sr., pub. Quirk Books, 2008)
- Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor. ~A pirate, from St. Augustine's "City of God"
- Old men declare war because they have failed to solve complex political and economic problems. ~Arthur Hoppe About the quote: Hoppe (1925-2000) was an American writer. (quote from 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' edited Eric Groves, Sr., pub. Quirk Books, 2008)
- All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. ~Arthur Schopenhauer
- Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths...I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? ~Barbara Bush About the quote: Mrs. Bush spoke these words on ABC's "Good Morning America," March 18, 2003.
- No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots. ~Barbara Ehrenreich
- War is the unfolding of miscalculations. ~Barbara Tuchman
- You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians. ~Barry Goldwater
- The world cannot continue to wage war like physical giants and to seek peace like intellectual pygmies. ~Basil O'Connor
- War is never a solution; it is an aggravation. ~Benjamin Disraeli
- There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Benjamin Franklin
- All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. ~Benjamin Franklin
- When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration? ~Benjamin Franklin
- I hope....that mankind will at length, as they call themselves responsible creatures, have the reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats... ~Benjamin Franklin
- Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin
- We Americans have no commission from God to police the world. ~Benjamin Harrison About the quote: from an 1888 address to Congress
- The Atomic Age is here to stay-- but are we? ~Bennett Cerf
- Let us not deceive ourselves; we must elect world peace or world destruction. ~Bernard M. Baruch
- War does not determine who is right, only who is left. ~Bertrand Russell
- Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man has a right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has quarrel with mine, although I have none with him? ~Blaise Pascal
- The terrorist is the one with the small bomb. ~Brendan Behan
- After each war there is a little less democracy left to save. ~Brooks Atkinson About the quote: Atkinson was an American journalist who lived from 1864-1984. (quote from 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' edited Eric Groves, Sr., pub. Quirk Books, 2008)
- Blind faith in your leaders or in anything will get you killed. ~Bruce Springsteen About the quote: This was part of Springsteen's introduction to his 1985 version of Edwin Starr's song 'War.' In this war – as in others – I am less interested in honoring the dead than in preventing the dead. ~Butler Shaffer
- No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace, or ensure it of victory in time of war. ~Calvin Coolidge
- The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes. ~Carl P. G. von Clausewitz
- War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means. ~Carl P. G. von Clausewitz
- Politics is the womb in which war develops. ~Carl P. G. von Clausewitz
- The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. ~Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu About the quote: from "The Spirit of Laws" (1748)
- The voice of protest...is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum...is bidding all men...obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. ~Charles Eliot Norton
- If a war be undertaken...before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime. ~Charles Eliot Norton
- War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals. ~Charles Evans Hughes
- The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded. ~Charles-Louis De Secondat About the quote: From "The Spirit of Laws," 1748
- [War] is a positive, precise and specific evil, of gigantic proportions ...making within the sphere of its influence all true grandeur impossible. ~Charles Sumner About the quote: From his 1845 speech "The True Grandeur of Nations."
- Almost all war making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat- including men--from reluctant citizens... ~Charles Tilly
- Name me an emperor who was ever struck by a cannonball. ~Charles V of France
- The truth is that neither British nor American imperialism was or is idealistic. It has always been driven by economic or strategic interests. ~Charley Reese
- War, n: A time-tested political tactic guaranteed to raise a president's popularity rating by at least 30 points. It is especially useful during election years and economic downturns. ~Chaz Bufe
- The failure to dissect the cause of war leaves us open for the next installment. ~Chris Hedges
- After victory, you have more enemies. ~Cicero
- True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else. ~Clarence Darrow
- Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant. ~C.L. Montague About the quote: Quote from "Among the Dead Cities," by A.C. Grayling (Walker & Co., 2006).
- Chauvinism is a proud and bellicose form of patriotism...which equates the national honor with military victory. ~Colonel James A. Donovan, Marine Corps
- The dangerous patriot...is a defender of militarism and its ideals of war and glory. ~Colonel James A. Donovan, Marine Corps
War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures. ~Congressman Ron Paul
- Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms. ~Congressman Ron Paul
- As a rule of thumb, if the government wants you to know it, it probably isn't true. ~Craig Murray
- Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised "for the good of its victims" may be the most oppressive. ~C. S. Lewis
- Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did. ~C.S. Lewis
- You cannot win a War on Terrorism. It's like having a war on jealousy. ~David Cross
- We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower About the quote: from 1953 There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
- "Rules of engagement" are a set of guidelines for murder. ~Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
- We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Tyrants seldom want pretexts. ~Edmund Burke
- A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. ~Edward Abbey
- Our "neoconservatives" are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell. ~Edward Abbey About the quote: A naturalist and author, Abbey lived from 1927-1989.
- The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other--instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals. ~Edward Abbey About the quote: A naturalist and author, Abbey lived from 1927-1989.
- Violence is an admission that one's ideas and goals cannot prevail on their own merits. ~Edward M. Kennedy About the quote: Kennedy (b. 1932) is a U.S. Senator (D, MA). (from 'The Anti-War Quote Book,' Quirk Books, Ed. by Eric Groves Sr.)
- We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it. ~Edward R. Murrow
- History is littered with wars which everybody knew would never happen. ~Enoch Powell
- The first casualty of war is not truth, but perspective. Once that's gone, truth, like compassion, reason, and all the other virtues, wanders around like a wounded orphan. ~Ente Grillenhaft
- We must get away from the idea that America is to be the leader of the world in everything. ~Francis John McConnell
- The State acquires power... and because of its insatiable lust for power it is incapable of giving up any of it. The State never abdicates. ~Frank Chodorov
- The pertinent question: if Americans did not want these wars should they have been compelled to fight them? ~Frank Chodorov
- It is not that power corrupts but that power is a magnet to the corruptible. ~Frank Herbert
- All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. ~Frank Herbert
- War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. ~General Smedley Butler
- War is just a racket...I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. ~General Smedley Butler
- Our enemies are innovative and resourceful...They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. ~George W. Bush About the quote: From remarks by the president at the signing of The Defense Appropriations Act for 2005 (8/5/04)
- What experience and history teach is this-that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. ~Georg W. Hegel
- The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. ~Herman Goering
- The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. ~James Madison
- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~John Adams
- Whether or not patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, national security can be the last refuge of the tyrant. ~Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe About the quote: from 1/14/05
- The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall. ~Marcus Tullius Cicero
- What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. ~Marcus Tullius Cicero
- Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ~Margaret Mead
- The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same. ~Marie Beyle
- It takes more courage to get out of a war than it does to get into one. ~Mark Couturier
- Look at you in war...There has never been a just one, never an honorable one, on the part of the instigator of the war. ~Mark Twain About the quote: from "The Mysterious Stranger," published 1910.
Man is the only animal that is cruel. It kills just for the sake of it. ~Mark Twain
- Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. ~Mark Twain
- Why, the Government is merely...a temporary servant...Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. ~Mark Twain
- Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. ~Mark Twain
- The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is being attacked, and every man will be glad of these conscience-soothing falsities ~Mark Twain
- I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. ~Mark Twain About the quote: From an interview, 9/15/1900
- Be loyal to your country always, and to the government only when it deserves it. ~Mark Twain
- Let not your zeal to share your principles entice you beyond your borders. ~Marquis de Sade
- Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain. ~Marquis de Sade
- Is it not a strange blindness on our part to teach publicly the techniques of warfare and to reward with medals those who prove to be the most adroit killers? ~Marquis de Sade
- What is more immoral than war? ~Marquis de Sade
- There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism. ~Noam Chomsky About the quote: from his book "Necessary Illusions" (p. 270)
- Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. ~Noam Chomsky
- Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich. ~Sir Peter Ustinov
- There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. ~Sun Tzu
- The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more and tolerated by all. ~Tacitus
- To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. ~Tacitus
- The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media. ~William Colby, former CIA director About the quote: as quoted by Dave McGowan in his book "Derailing Democracy"
- If you want war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men ever are subject... ~William Graham Sumner
- The greatest crime since World War II has been US foreign policy. ~William Ramsey Clark About the quote: William Ramsey Clark was US Attorney General under Lyndon B. Johnson
- The statesman who yields to war fever...is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. ~Winston Churchill
- When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise. ~Winston Churchill
- Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies. ~W. L. George
- To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of national life... ~Woodrow Wilson
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"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them".
"There are only two important days in the life of any person, the day that your are born and then day you find out why."
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Jul 24, 2017 | eli.thegreenplace.net
I've already written about this quote in the review of Programming Pearls , but I like it so much that I want to dedicate a separate post in the Quotes category for it:
One part of a programmer's job is solving today's problem. Another, and perhaps more important, part of the job is to prepare for solving tomorrow's problems.I just can't over-emphasize how true this is, and how important.There's a lovely quote by Mark Twain in "The adventures of Tom Sawyer" about the difference between working and playing:
Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it --namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.Taken from the "Big Bang" book by Simon Singh:I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use -- Galileo GalileiFrom Joel On Software, in one simple sentence, usability is:From Bruce Eckel's blog:Something is usable if it behaves exactly as expected.
This plays well with Perl's mottos of "element of least surprise" and "DWIM - Do What I Mean".
Programming is not about racing to throw together a solution. It's about changeable systems.
So true... as anyone who has experience working with people for whom programming is "racing to throw together a solution" knows. Unfortunately, these are the majority of programmers. They pour mountains of code into their editors, spend immense amounts of time debugging it, and feel this is the way it should be.
How precious it is to work with people who understand that programming is really "about changeable systems".
Think about it, it has both optimistic and pessimistic meanings, I think.
"In the end, everything always works out. And if it didn't work out yet, it means it's not the end yet" -- anonRandom quotes:
- "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" - John Lennon
- Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. --Friedrich Nietzsche
Think about it... it's so true
PS: Shamefully ripped it from use.perl
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Jul 23, 2017 | www.unz.com
- Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Danish
- Bad news is always true. Spanish
- Bad news is the first to come. Italian
- A bad thing that does no harm is the same as a good one that does no good. German
- An empty bag is heavier than a full one. Bulgarian
- When the bait is worth more than the fish it's time to stop fishing. Negro
- Why should two bald men fight over a comb. Russian
- You will not believe he's bald till you see his brains. English
- A bald-headed man cannot grow hair by getting excited about it. Sudanic
- If the ball does not stick to the wall, it will at least leave a mark. Spanish
- In the next world bankers have to count red-hot coins with bare hands. Russian
- You went to the barber before us and of course you have the longer hair. Malay
- A barber learns to shave by shaving fools. English
- One barber shaves another gratis. English
- It is a barber's news. Greek
- He who goes barefoot cannot do others harm. Polish
- Fraud squats under a good bargain. Italian
- When the purchase has been made it is too late to bargain. Swiss
- On a good bargain think twice.
- A great barker sees nothing. Kalmuk
- He barks; so he will not bite. Indian
- No battle was ever lost because of the small people. German
- A dead bee makes no honey. English
- Beans come from the place where the beans are. Bantu
- He must have iron nails that scratches a bear. English
- All know the bear, but the bear knows nobody. Finnish
- The brains don't lie in the beard. Danish
- A man without a beard is like a loaf that has no crust. Russian
- One does not beat the corn on account of the chaff. Russian
- Man cannot divide beauty into dollars. Polish
- Beauty's only skin deep but ugly goes to the bone. English
- Whose bed is warm, his dinner is cold. Serbian
- Bed is a medicine. Italian
- They came to shoe the Pasha's horses, and the beetle stretched out his leg. Persian
- It is unlawful to beg from a beggar. Oriental
- Sue a beggar and get a louse. English
- If you don't give the beggar anything, don't tear his bag. Irish
- The beggar of crumbs gets more than the beggar of loaves. Indian
- Beggars fear no rebellion. English
- Never stand begging for what you have the power to take. Spanish
- Begging is an easy trade, only the standing at the door is hard. Arabic
- He is not done who is beginning. French
- The beginning and the end stretch out their hands to each other. German
- He who begins and does not finish loses his labor. French
- Belief can never be poured into anyone with a spoon. Russian
- If you believe, it is a deity; otherwise, a stone. Indian
- He does not believe who does not live according to his belief.
- He that believes all, misseth; he that believes nothing misseth. English
- It is by believing in roses that brings them to bloom. French
- While the great bells are ringing no one hears the little ones. Danish
- The belly hates a long sermon.
- An empty belly hears nobody. English
- An empty belly knows no law. Russian
- The belly thinks the throat is cut. English
- The beloved one has no pimples. Bantu
- The best is cheapest. German
- The best is often times the enemy of the good. English
- Better is better. German
- Better less and better. Russian
- If better were in better would come out. Danish
- He is a big man, but a small coat fits him. Irish
- Every bird must hatch its own eggs. English
- When a bird sleeps with a rook, it will caw like a rook. Serbian
- Birds pay equal honors to all men.
- If you cannot bite, never show your teeth. English
- Never bite, unless you make your teeth meet. Scottish
- Never make two bites of a cherry. English
- Beyond black there is no color. (i.e. the limit has been reached.) Persian
- He who blackens others does not whiten himself. German
- He who compels you to blame him has made up his mind to forsake you. Arabic
- He who wants to blame sometimes finds the sugar sour. German
- There are none so blind as they who willfully shut their eyes. Arabian.
- Amongst the blind one forgets how to see. German
- One does not speak of color to a blind man. English
- A pebble and a diamond are alike to a blind man. English
- When the blind man carries the lame man, both go forward. Swedish.
- A blind man comes into possession of eyeglasses. Siamese
- Light is light, though the blind man sees it not. German
- It is a blind man's question to ask why those things are loved are beautiful.
- For whom does the blind man's wife adorn herself? Spanish
- Blind men should judge no colors. English
- In the kingdom of blind men, the one-eyed is king. English
- No one can blow and swallow at the same time. German
- A blow from a frying pan, though it may not hurt, sullies. Spanish
- A blow with a pestle will make no impression on one to whom a wink is of no effect. Singhalese
- Beware of the man who cannot deal blows. Abyssinian
- He who carries the bludgeon owns the buffalo. Indian
- With houses and gold, men are rarely bold. German
- A bold man has luck in his train. Danish
- He was a bold man that first ate an oyster. English
- The bones before being thrown into the street were on the master's table. Negro
- A load of books does not equal one good teacher. Chinese
- He who knows books has four eyes. Bulgarian
- I wept when I was born and every day shows why.
- He borrowed a loaf from the batch.
(i.e. had intercourse before marriage.) French- If borrowed trousers be not too slack towards the ankle, they make a tight fit around the calves. Sudan
- Draw your bow but do not discharge the arrow; it is better to frighten a man than to strike him. Chinese
- If the bow is drawn taut, the arrow will fly fast. Chinese
- While the boy is small, you can see the man. Chinese
- The ugliest things are a poor braggart and a rich thief. Breton
- All the brains are not in one head. Italian
- Everyone gives himself credit for more brains than he has. Italian
- A young branch takes on all the bends that one gives it. Chinese
- Many are brave when the enemy flies. Italian
- The sweat of a brave man is blood. Bantu
- A brave man needs but a short dagger. German
- Make your head into a cart and your feet into wheels and you'll get bread. Indian
- He thinks of everything who wants bread. French
- They are bread and cheese.
(i.e. sworn friends.) Italian- His bread is baked for his lifetime.
(i.e. he is well provided for.) Belgian- The bread never falls but on its buttered side. English
- He who does not breed is always craving. Spanish
- He that is an enemy of the bride does not speak well of the wedding. Spanish
- Brothers are like hands and feet. Chinese
- A mad bull is not to be tied up with a packthread. English
- The bull without a tail drives away the flies from the other bulls. Georgian
- None knows the weight of another's burden.
- It is not the burden, but the over-burden, that kills the beast. Spanish
- A heavy burden does not kill on the day it is carried. Bantu
- Light burdens borne far become heavy. German
- Who doth not burn doth not inflame. Italian
- To burn one's house to get rid of the mice. English
- He who has burnt his mouth with milk blows on ice cream. Turkish
- He to whom nature hasn't given horns shouldn't butt. German
- The butterfly often forgets it was a caterpillar. Swedish
- It is not well to buy of those to whom you must take off your hat. Danish
- Buy what is old and you must buy again. Welsh
- It is good to buy when another wants to sell. Italian
- The buyer needs a hundred eyes, the seller not one. Italian
- O buyer, remember the day when you will sell. Semitic
- If you bring things to the buyer you sell them at half-price. Indian
- A person who buys an ox by the footmark. Bantu
- All the buzzards in the settlement will come to the grey mule's funeral. Negro
- Two "anons" and a "by-and-by" are an hour and a half.
- By the street of "by-and-by" one arrives at the house of never.
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Jul 23, 2017 | www.unz.com
- Behind the able man there are able men. Chinese
- Pierce the abscess.
(i.e. come to the point.) Bantu- An abscess heals when opened.
(i.e. peace comes by sharing your troubles with another.) Bantu- Abundance causes poverty. German
- Abundance creates daintiness. Italian
- Abundance is a friendly fellow, he is loved by big and small. Semitic
- The abuse of a thing is no argument against its use. Latin
- It is honorable to be accused by those who deserve to be accused. Latin
- The pig which is once seen in the crevice of the fence is accused of all faults. Finnish
- He who accused too many accuses himself.
- Acorns were good till corn was discovered. Latin
- One does not sleep to sleep, but to act. German
- Virtue consists in action. Dutch
- For the sake of one good action a hundred evil ones should be forgotten. Chinese
- Action is the proper fruit of knowledge.
- One actor cannot perform a play. Chinese
- He is a man who acts like a man. Danish
- Adversity comes with instruction in its hand. Welsh
- When the rabbit has escaped comes advice. Spanish
- He who will not take advice gets knowledge when trouble overtakes him. Kaffir
- Advice given in the midst of a crowd is loathsome. Arabian
- After-advice is a fool's advice. German
- Good advice is no better than bad advice unless it is taken at the right time. Danish
- Advice is not compulsion. German
- Advisers are not the payers. French
- Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than small-pox.
- Failing to obtain a lovely woman, affection is lavished on animals. Sanskrit
- The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected. Spanish
- Don't let your age ask: "Where was your youth?" Serbian
- Age makes many a man white but not better. Danish
- They agree like the clocks of London. (i.e. there is no agreement.) English
- Without conversation there is no agreement. Montenegrin
- He who aims at an iron target gets the bullet in his face. German
- Ale sellers should not be tale-tellers. English
- "All but" saves many a man. Danish
- "Almost" and "very nigh" saves many a lie. English
- "Almost" never killed a fly. German
- Who lives by the altar must serve the altar. German
- There is no fall for an ambassador. Turkish
- Don't say amen to an unacceptable prayer. Turkish
- An amiable person is never good-for-nothing. Sudanic
- He that boasts of his ancestors confesses he has no virtue of his own.
- Mules make a great fuss about their ancestors having been asses. German
- There is no higher ancestry than Adam. Philippine
- He that is slow to anger is of great understanding.
- He that can reply calmly to an angry man is too hard for him. English
- The animal with long ears, after having drunk, gives a kick to the bucket. Italian
- Who sees with the eye of another is as blind as a mole. German
- When another man suffers a piece of wood suffers. Arabian
- It is not easy to know your butter in another man's cabbage. Danish
- Another man's horse and your own whip can do a great deal. Danish
- From another's cart you must get off halfway. Polish
- He who builds on another's ground loses his stone and mortar. Italian
- Another's misfortune is only a dream. French
- No answer is also an answer. Danish
- Who answers suddenly knows little.
- A coconut-shell full of water is an ocean to an ant. Indian
- Even an ant is eight spans long as measured by its own hand. Tamil
- In the ant's house dew is a deluge. Persian
- The blow falls more lightly when anticipated. Latin
- The higher the ape goes, the more he shows his tail. English
- Waiting on the table is a powerful way to get up an appetite. Negro
- It is difficult to satisfy one's appetite by painting pictures of cakes. Chinese
- He who would not lose his appetite should not go into the kitchen. German
- See how we apples swim! Quoth the horse-turd. English
- A gentle word will make the argument strong. Welsh
- Even workhouses have their aristocracy. Maga
- Stretch your arm no further than your sleeve will reach. English
- Two are an army against one. Icelandic
- A featherless arrow does not fly. Sudanic
- The perfection of art is to conceal art.
- An artist lives everywhere. English
- He who wants a good deal must not ask for a little. Italian
- To ask in anger is to go to sea in a storm. French
- Do not ask me whose son I am, but who I am. Russian
- Never ask of him who has, but of him who wishes you well. Spanish
- Asking costs little. Italian
- He who first asks does not give very willingly. Polish
- He that asks faintly begs a denial. English
- He denies himself who asks what is impossible to grant.
- Because he cannot beat the ass, he strikes his saddle. Latin
- is summoned to the wedding, it is to carry
- When all men say you are an ass it is time to bray. Hungarian
- If an ass kicks you, don't kick him back. Italian
- The ass loaded with gold still eats thistles. English
- Whip the saddle, that the ass may meditate. Bulgarian
- He that makes himself an ass must not take it ill if men ride him.
- What good can it do an ass to be called a lion? English
- They invited an ass to the wedding feast and he said: "Assuredly they want some more wood and water." Bosnian
- To lather an ass's head is only wasting soap. Spanish
- That's a vicious animal, when one attacks him, he defends himself. French
- Things hardly attained are longer retained. English
- Two attorneys can live in a town, when one cannot. English
- If my aunt had been a man, she'd have been my uncle. English
- Go to your aunt's house but not every day. Spanish
- He who is in a position of authority, never coughs.
(i.e. need not remind others of his presence.) Sudanic- It is not for a man in authority to sleep a whole night.
- Avarice increases with wealth. Italian
- Awls are not carried in a sack. Bulgarian
- The axe attacks the forest, from whence it got its own handle.
Indian
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Jul 22, 2017 | www.unz.com
Minneapolis was the only city in the world that was under Trotskyist leadership, where, as one reporter put it a few years ago, being a Trotskyist was a career advancement opportunity.
My father had graduated from the University of Minnesota business school with an MBA in 1929 and hoped to become a millionaire in Latin American mining. But then the stock market crash and depression occurred, and he discovered that capitalism wasn't fair. He read widely, and joined Jim Cannon's Socialist Workers Party, the Trotskyist party.
I knew most of his fellow felons growing up as a little boy. I remember visiting him in jail, and everyone singing the Internationale and other songs to fan the flames of discontent.
After 1945 he followed Max Shachtman's Independent Socialist League , and Max became a mentor of mine. Other members of the Minneapolis 17 who moved to Chicago was the group's lawyer, Al Goldman, who spent much of his life trying to track down who killed his two German colleagues Emma Goldman and Karl Liebknecht. Al Russell also often visited from New York. Dad's former cellmates helped me acclimatize when I moved to New York in 1960. So here, as in statist Russia, prisons were indeed the University of the Revolution.
My father said that his year in jail was the happiest year of his life. (He wasn't much of a "people person.") He was assigned to the library, where he collected the proverbs in this collection. After we moved to Chicago, he stenciled many proverbs on each wall of our house, from the living room down to the bathrooms.
He also compiled a dictionary of everything that Lenin and Trotsky had said about virtually every political subject. As a teenager, my friend Gavin MacFadyen and I used to sit down in the basement (where the banned books and pamphlets were kept in the 1950s) and pore over the index cards with these maxims. This was a great help in our Social Science classes at the University of Chicago's Laboratory School. (Gavin was expelled for being a bit too attentive to what we learned.) Unfortunately, this collection somehow got lost in Dad's move down to Florida when he retired from his position as editor of Dental Abstracts . He had edited Traffic World, but the FBI came around to his boss and asked why they had hired a Marxist. His boss was about to accuse others of Communism, so Dad was fired. But the American Dental Association, which hired him as an editor, said that they didn't care about his politics, and he worked happily there for perhaps 20 years. (He died at the age of 95 in 2003.)
Informally, Dad also edited the pacifist Liberation magazine, whose mailing address was our house on Dorchester in Hyde-Park Kenwood (about a block or so from where Obama's house now is.) Along with Sidney Lens, he became an advocate of Rev. A. J. Muste.
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Jun 14, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
im1dc, June 14, 2017 at 08:59 AM
Timely Thought of the Day:anne , June 14, 2017 at 11:49 AM"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."Fred C. Dobbs - , June 14, 2017 at 12:21 PMThere is no reason to think that this passage, however interesting, was written or spoken by George Orwell.
In a Time of Universal Deceit - Telling
the Truth Is a Revolutionary Acthttp://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/24/truth-revolutionary/
Hey, "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act" remains a great thought for today, whoever said it.ilsm - , June 14, 2017 at 02:59 PMorwell also did not actually say 'we should love those rough men in the night who slaughter for us so we can sleep in 68 degree air conditioning bc the Saudi remain in power........'im1dc - , June 14, 2017 at 02:26 PMAnd GC Scott's Patton's speech was a compilation.......
My copy of Barlett's does not list this Orwell quote and Fred's link pretty well dispells it from being definitively an Orwell quote, although not absolutely.libezkova - , June 14, 2017 at 03:21 PMIt is possible that he did SAY IT to some group or other in England, rather than write it in one of his books, essays, or articles and that is how it survives today with his attribution.
Such attribution is not unheard of for older English authors. Apparently they drank a lot in pubs and clubs.
Keep in mind that even today the English don't 100% agree that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's plays or poems, at least not without help from another.
A similar saying was used by Ron Paul in 2008-"Truth is treason in the empire of lies."== quote==
Entry from August 15, 2011"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"
"In a time/state of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act" is a statement often attributed to author George Orwell (1903-1950). The saying doesn't appear in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948), his essay "Politics and the English Language" (1946), or any other of Orwell's writings. The saying has been cited in print since at least 1984 (when it was attributed to George Orwell).A similar saying was used by author and presidential candidate Ron Paul in 2008-"Truth is treason in the empire of lies."
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Jun 07, 2017 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your 'little men,' your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945===
"Representative institutions no longer represent voters. Instead, they have been short-circuited, steadily corrupted by an institutionalized system of bribery that renders them responsive to powerful interest groups whose constituencies are the major corporations and wealthiest Americans. The courts, in turn, when they are not increasingly handmaidens of corporate power, are consistently deferential to the claims of national security..." Sheldon Wolin, Inverted Totalitarianism
===
"It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.
The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him.
He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison
===
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
Samuel Johnson
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Apr 04, 2017 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"I believe order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must try to learn from history. History is ourselves.Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark was a television documentary series outlining the history of Western art, architecture and philosophy since the Dark Ages. The series was produced by the BBC and initially aired in 1969 on BBC2.I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings, by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are all part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters."
Kenneth Clark, Civilisation
"At the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America's political and economic elite. A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world."
Jeffrey Sachs
https://www.youtube.com/embed/w6qYjisp51M?list=PLYRSFu5IDQUMvSFgB6u8RfvK8B6c1h8iS
The summation of the series.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mt-vqdgvsoo
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"When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise - to deny the political character of the modern corporation - is not merely to avoid the reality.
It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that disguise are those we instruct in error."
John Kenneth Galbraith
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Feb 26, 2017 | classiclit.about.com
- "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
- "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
- "Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself."
- "No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- "Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments."
- "This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half."
- "Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short."
- "Man serves the interests of no creature except himself."
- "Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
- "Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than just ribbons?"
- "Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as it had always gone on--that is, badly."
- "Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever."
- "Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others."
- "The distinguishing mark of man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief."
- "Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse--hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life."
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Feb 26, 2017 | en.wikiquote.org
- Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.
- Book II, 2.40-[3]
- Ἀμαθία μὲν θράσος, λογισμὸς δὲ ὄκνον φέρει
- Ignorance produces rashness, reflection timidity
- Book II, 40.3
- But the prize for courage will surely be awarded most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.
- Book II, 2.40-[3]
- The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
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Wikipedia
Vae victis (IPA: [ˈwai ˈwiktiːs]) is Latin for "woe to the vanquished", or "woe to the conquered".[1] It means that those defeated in battle are entirely at the mercy of their conquerors and should not expect-or request-leniency.Most of the incidents related by ancient historians about early Roman history are considered legends, with the Gaulish sack of Rome one of the first events which modern scholars are confident actually occurred. According to tradition, in 390 BC, an army of Gauls led by Brennus attacked Rome, capturing all of the city except for the Capitoline Hill. Brennus besieged the hill, and finally the Romans asked to ransom their city. Brennus demanded 1,000 pounds (327 kg) of gold and the Romans agreed to his terms.[2] According to Plutarch's life of Camillus and Livy's Ab Urbe Condita (Book 5 Sections 34–49),[3][4] the Gauls provided steelyard balances and weights which were used to measure the amount of gold. The Romans brought the gold, but claimed that the provided weights were rigged in the Gauls' favor. The Romans complained to Brennus, who took his sword, threw it onto the weights, and exclaimed, "Vae victis!" The Romans thus needed to bring more gold as they had to counterbalance the sword as well. Livy and Plutarch claim that Camillus subsequently succeeded in defeating the Gauls before the ransom had to be paid, although Polybius, Diodorus Siculus and a later passage from Livy contradict this.[2]
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hardware.slashdot.org
Matt Bury ( 4823023 ) writes:
gtall ( 79522 ) writes:"Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources." -- Abba Eban
Which is frequently misquoted as, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing after they have exhausted all other possibilities."
So when the starving mob are at the ruling elites' gates with torches and pitch forks, they'll surely find the resources to do the right thing.
The "misquote" is a phrase uttered by Winston Churchill.
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Dec 28, 2016 | www.quora.com
See also
Operation Mockingbird Cancel UpdateA disclaimer: I just like Quorans debunking or showing the stupidity behind some of the worst FB memes.
Barbara Honegger , studied at Stanford University Written Nov 25, 2014 I am the source for this quote, which was indeed said by CIA Director William Casey at an early February 1981 meeting of the newly elected President Reagan with his new cabinet secretaries to report to him on what they had learned about their agencies in the first couple of weeks of the administration.
The meeting was in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House, not far from the Cabinet Room. I was present at the meeting as Assistant to the chief domestic policy adviser to the President. Casey first told Reagan that he had been astonished to discover that over 80 percent of the 'intelligence' that the analysis side of the CIA produced was based on open public sources like newspapers and magazines.
As he did to all the other secretaries of their departments and agencies, Reagan asked what he saw as his goal as director for the CIA, to which
he replied with this quote, which I recorded in my notes of the meeting
as he said it. Shortly thereafter I told Senior White House correspondent Sarah McClendon, who was a close friend and colleague, who in turn made it public. Barbara Honegger bshonegg@gmail.com
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craazyman November 26, 2016 at 8:40 am
It's incredible how many otherwise smart people can't think for themselves.
- Once a newspaper touches a story the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonist. -Norman Mailer
- I am unable to understand how a man of honor can take a newspaper in his hand without a shudder of disgust. -Charles Baudelaire
- The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. -Thomas Jeffereson
- Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. -Thomas Jefferson
- If you're not careful, the newspaper will have you hating people being oppressed and loving the people doing the oppressing -Malcolm X
- Journalism is organized gossip. -Edward Egglestone
- If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read it, you are misinformed. -Mark Twain (allegedly, but it could be misinformation)
It's hard to know what to believe! You can believe your own eyes, but even your mind connects the dots without you knowing it.
This is not the Washington Post's finest hour - although they probably haven't had one of those for years at this point. I'm down to the Redskins coverage in the WaPo, which is still quite good actually. I used to be a Washington Post paper boy, so I'l put one last quote from Charles Osgood
It was while making newspaper deliveries, trying to miss the bushes and hit the porch, that I first learned about accuracy in journalism -Charles Osgood
(All quotes from quotegarden.com)
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Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide. (Joseph P. Kennedy)Even the best-intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest man to do. (La Bruyere)
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer "Present" or "Not Guilty." (Theodore Roosevelt)
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. (Mark Twain)
When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads. (Ron Paul)
It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. (Aung San Suu Kyi)
Oddly, submission to powerful, frightening, even terrible persons, like tyrants and generals, is not experienced as nearly so painful as is submission to unknown and uninteresting persons - which is what all luminaries of industry are. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty. (Edward Gibbon)
***
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. (Eric Hoffer)
Everyone has observed how much more dogs are animated when they hunt in a pack, than when they pursue their game apart. We might, perhaps, be at a loss to explain this phenomenon, if we had not experience of a similar in ourselves. (David Hume)
***
Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception. (Niccolò Machiavelli)
The promise given was a necessity of the past. The word broken is a necessity of the present. (Niccolò Machiavelli)
If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. (Carl Sagan)
Anyone who can handle a needle convincingly can make us see a thread which is not there. (E.H. Gombrich)
We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN. (B.W. Powe)
Frank and explicit - this is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the mind of others. (Benjamin Disraeli)
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. (Arthur Conan Doyle)
***
In politics, stupidity is not a handicap. (Napoleon)
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are stupider. (Plato)
Revolutionary movements attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them. (Bernard Shaw)
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. (Pericles)
Freedom isn't free. It shouldn't be a bragging point that 'Oh, I don't get involved in politics,' as if that makes someone cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn't insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable. (Bill Maher)
***
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. (George Orwell)
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back. (Leo Tolstoy)
Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few. (David Hume)
Power worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible. (George Orwell)
When smashing monuments, save the pedestals - they always come in handy. (Stanislaw Lem)
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I have a problem with people who take the Constitution loosely and the Bible literally. (Bill Maher)
Religion: a sixteenth-century term for nationalism. (Sir Lewis Namier)
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. (Seneca)
***
All truths that are kept silent become poisonous. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
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