Historical quotes
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" Great military peoples have conquered their known world time and time
again through the centuries, only to die out in the inevitable ashes of
their fire. Well over two thousand years ago, the Chinese philospher,
Laotzu, concluded that:
"Weapons often turn upon the wielder,
An army’s harvest is a waste of thorns."
We may have to resort to arms in the future, as we have in the past. We may
have to use them to prevent atomic war from being launched against us. But
let us have the wisdom to realize that the use of force is a sign of
weakness on a higher plane, and that a policy based primarily on recourse
to arms will sooner or later fail." — Charles Lindburgh, Of Flight and
Life, 1948
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"Today American’s would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to
restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if
they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or
promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all
peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from
this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented
with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for
the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world
government."
— Henry Kissinger speaking at Evian, France, May 21, 1992 Bilderburgers
meeting. Unbeknownst to Kissinger, his speech was taped by a Swiss delegate
to the meeting.
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"We tell the people what they need to know, what they want to know."
— Frank Sesno, CNN "News"
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"We need a common enemy to unite us."
— Condolezza Rice, March 2000
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"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear-kept us in a
continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national
emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some
monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not
blindly rally behind it …"
— General Douglas MacArthur, 1957
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"I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes.
The moral effect should be good…and it would spread a lively terror…. "
— Winston Churchill commenting on the British use of poison gas against
the Iraqis after World War I
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"… somehow we find it hard to sell our values, namely that the rich
should plunder the poor."
— former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
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"The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic,
constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented but nobody talks
about them. "
— Harold Pinter
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"If there has to be a blood-bath [of our own youth], let’s get it over
with."
— Ronald Reagan, Governor of California during the Vietnam War
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"History is the history of war — of leaders of countries finding reasons
and rationals to send the young people off to fight."
— John Stockwell, former CIA official and author
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"We [the U.S.] has over 200 incidents in which we have put our troops into
other countries to force them to our will."
— John Stockwell, former CIA official and author
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"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 to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
— Leading Nazi leader, Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials before he
was sentenced to death
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"Just who are these goddamn reds, anyway? A goddamn red is anyone who wants
30 cents when I am paying 25."
— John Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath"
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"The American oligarchy increasingly has less in common with the American
people than it does with the equivalent oligarchies in Germany or Mexico or
Japan."
— Lewis Lapham, editor of Harpers
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"If the world operates as one big market, every employee will compete with
every person anywhere in the world who is capable of doing the same job.
There are lots of them and many of them are hungry."
— Andrew Grove, president of Intel Corp., in his book "High Output
Management"
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"[Nationalism is] a set of beliefs taught to each generation in which the
Motherland or the Fatherland is an object of veneration and becomes a
burning cause for which one becomes willing to kill the children of other
Motherlands or Fatherlands."
— Howard Zinn, historian
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"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by
his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about
them."
— George Orwell, writer
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"The agony and moral anguish that ought to accompany an act of mass killing
— yes, even in a war [the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991]– seemed wholly
absent from American culture."
— Ruth Rosen, history professor
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"Indonesia plays a key role in maintaining regional stablity. It is a
leader in ASEAN and is a fundimental force for peace and properity … We
did not have a discussion about East Timor."
— Secretary of Defense William Cohen at a press conference, January 1998,
after meeting with Indonesian President Suharto who is responsible for the
deaths of 500,00 – 1,000,000 following his US-sanctioned coup against
Indonesian President Sukarno in 1965, and the deaths of 200,000 during
Indonesia’s US-sanctioned invasion and occupation of East Timor in 1975
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" Scare the hell out of the American people."
— Senator Arthur Vandenburg, telling President Truman what the he needed
to do in order to to tax the American people to pay for the weapons and
covert activities of the US National Security State that was being planned,
to destroy the Russian Communist State
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" The men who possess real power in this country have no intention of
ending the cold war."
— Albert Einstein
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" No triumph of peace can equal the armed triumph of war." "In strict
confidence …I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country
needs one."
— Theodore Roosevelt
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" There is no regime to reactionary for us provided it stands in Russia’s
expansionist path. There is no country too remote to serve as the scene of
a contest which may widen until it becomes a world war."
— Henry Wallace, Vice-President under Franklin Roosevelt 1941-1945
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" The only way to abolish war is to make peace heroic."
— John Dewey
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" War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own
battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village,
stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like
wild beasts against each other."
— Thomas Carlyle
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" Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the (U.S.)
media."
— Noam Chomsky
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"The U.S. will not permit constructive programs in its own domains, so it
must ensure that they are destroyed elsewhere to terminate " the threat of
a good example".
— Noam Chomsky
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"Patriotism is the last resort of scoundrels."
— Samuel Johnson
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"Patriotism is the principle that will justify the training of wholesale
murderers."
— Leo Tolstoy
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