Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? -T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

"What good fortune for those in power that the people do not think."
--Adolf Hitler

"Through clever and constant application of propaganda people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."
--Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1923

"It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them. "
Adolf Hitler"

"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, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

"My ideal of education is hard. Whatever is weak must be hammered away. In the fortresses of my militant order a generation of young people will grow to strike fear into the heart of the world. Violent, masterful, unafraid, cruel youth is what I want. Young people must be all that. They must withstand pain. There must be nothing weak or tender about them. The free--magnificent predator must flash from their eyes again. I want them strong and beautiful...That way I can fashion things anew."
Adolf Hitler

“The Jewish people are to be exterminated,” says every party member. That’s clear, it’s part of our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination; right, we’ll do it. The wealth that they [the Jews] had, we have taken from them. I have issued a strict command…that this wealth is as a matter of course to be delivered in its entirety to the Reich. We had the moral right, we had the duty to our own people, to kill the people that wanted to kill us. We can say that we have performed this most difficult task out of love for our people. And we have suffered no harm from it in our inner self, in our soul, in our character.”
--Heinrich Himmler (1943), Hitler’s most faithful and obedient henchman

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
--Josef Stalin

"Fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power--Benito Mussolini "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."
--Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

"Once a government resorts to terror against its own population to get what it wants, it must keep using terror against its own population to get what it wants. A government that terrorizes its own people can never stop. If such a government ever lets the fear subside and rational thought return to the populace, that government is finished."
--Michael Rivero

"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
-- Tacitus

"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
--John F. Kennedy

The CIA is not now nor has it ever been a central intelligence agency. It is the covert action arm of the President's foreign policy advisers. In that capacity it overthrows or supports foreign governments while reporting "intelligence" justifying those activities. It shapes its intelligence, even in such critical areas as Soviet nuclear weapons capability, to support presidential policy. Disinformation is a large part of its covert action responsibility, and the American people are the primary target of its lies. 

— Ralph McGehee, Deadly Deceits

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Only because our elections have become so dependent on television and its emphatic emptiness, could a man of such sublime and complacent ignorance assume the highest office in the land.

Mark Crispin Miller (author of Bush Dyslexicon)

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Former Senator William Fullbright succinctly expressed the type of leadership we need: "The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures."

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Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. 

- John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963), Speech to UN General Assembly, Sept. 25, 1961

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world: indeed it's the only thing that ever has! -

- Margaret Meade

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"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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"The number of malnourished children represents an increase of 72% since international sanctions were imposed on Baghdad."

- UNICEF, Nov. 1997

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"Embargo should not be imposed on any nation. . . . It is a war against humanity and children suffer the most."

- JOHN PAUL II

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"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis" 

- Dante

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I am reminded of the old joke, "What do you get when you cross a canary with a gorilla?" "I don't know, but when it sings, you had better listen." Perhaps better than any image I can come up with, this joke describes Mr. Bush as Emperor. A weak, narrow, uninformed man married to a colossal, imperial military machine. And you had better listen.

- John Chuckman

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"One of the penalities for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." 

- Plato

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"Few of us can surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that The State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."

- Arthur Miller

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"My heart trembles for my country when I reflect that God is just."

- Thomas Jefferson

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"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

- Abraham Lincoln

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Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country." 

- President Theodore Roosevelt, 1908

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"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." -

- Samuel Adams

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Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

- Patrick Henry (from his Liberty or Death speech)

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The great liberal John Stuart Mill was correct when he said not all stupid people are conservatives, but most conservatives are stupid people. I would add that many who call themselves conservatives are reactionary and ruled by their hate and fears.

- Mike Hersh

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"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."

- Dresden James

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Quotes "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our Number one priority and we will not rest until we find him!"

- President Bush, September 13, 2001

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

- President Bush, March 13, 2002

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country." -- President Theodore Roosevelt, 1908

On May 4, 1970, four students were killed at the hands of the National Guard during a protest against the Vietnam War at Kent State University. They were participating in a demonstration to end that war. What is commonly seen now as a tragic assault on the Vietnamese people, was widely accepted at the time as a just war.

We must learn from our mistakes and insure that the voices of dissent are no longer repressed.

Author unknown

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

(Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, 1999, p. 65.)

“Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the ‘remaking’ of the Reich as they call it.”

(Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, 1999, p. 375.)

Inspiring thoughts from noble minds

Quotes from Dwight D. Eisenhower:

(From a great general who fought valiantly, but who HATED war)

"The only way to win World War III is to prevent it."

"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it."

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

"America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment."

"Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect."

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

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Adlai Stevenson......a brilliant, honorable man, a human being and a great gentleman:

Some of the things he said:

In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, July 26, 1952: "Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains."

Corruption in public office is treason.

We must fight falsehood and evil ideas with truth and better ideas.

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

When demagoguery and deceit become a national political movement, we Americans are in trouble, not just Democrats, but ALL of us;

"Thou shalt not bear false witness" is still the law of God and man, I hope. "Thou shalt not be afraid to bear true witness" is, I think, a good rule for all of us, including timid politicians.

The Republicans have a "me too" candidate running on a "yes but" platform, advised by a "has been" staff. October 5, 1952

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal--that you can gather votes like box tops--is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process. August 17, 1956

The Republican Party is the party which makes even its young men seem old. The Democratic Party is the party which makes even its old men seem young. August 14, 1952

If the Republicans stop telling lies about us, we will stop telling the truth about them.

Courage to do the right thing in public office is often at the price of the office. July 19,1952

Defeat begins in the heart........we must not allow the recklessness of despair to find any lodging in our hearts. September, 1952

Here's something Stevenson said 50 years ago....how prophetic!!! "It would seem that the overwhelming majority of the press is....against Democrats. And it is against Democrats, so far as I can see, not after a sober and considered review of the alternatives, but automatically, as dogs are against cats. As soon as a newspaper....I speak of the great majority, not of the enlightened ten percent.....see a Democratic candidate, it is filled with an unconquerable yen to chase him up an alley. September 8, 1952

Words are so easy, action is so difficult. To proclaim one's beliefs, to profess one's convictions is one thing... to enact them, to do them, to face the hard ugly realities, is quite another. July 19, 1956

The government must be the trustee for the little man, because no one else will be. The powerful can usually help themselves.....and frequently do. October 29, 1955

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And from one of the noblest of our founding fathers........Thomas Jefferson

The Press:

No government ought to be without censors, and when the press is free, no one ever will.

The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.

Representation:

When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous.

The people:

And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?

The most effective means of preventing tyranny is to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts

The man who loves his country...can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off.

The people are the ultimate guardians of their own liberties. In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy ...Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone.

• "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

-ABRAHAM LINCOLN, November 12, 1864

• "There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done...Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs."

-TEDDY ROOSEVELT, 1910, a couple of years before he broke from the Republican party to form the Bull-Moose party.

• "If fascism came to America it would be on a program of Americanism."

-HUEY LONG

• Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!

-ALBERT EINSTEIN

• There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America.

 -William J. Clinton (Our last ELECTED President)

Not so noble minds:

• "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."

-Benito Mussolini (cited by Lewis Lapham in Harper's, January 2002)

• The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders . . . All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism."

-HERMANN GOERING, Nazi Gestapo

I could go on and on for page after page with the wisdom of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, etc. But the quotations would invariably deal with the sovereignty of the people and the dangers of corruption in the press and in the government.

Let not our reluctance to speak up and act render the lives of these great Americans futile!!!!!!!!!

Matilda Lipscomb
matilda@letstalksense.com 

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