war

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out… and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel…. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for “the universal brotherhood of man” – with his mouth. ~ Mark Twain

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country. ~ Bertrand Russell, attributed

I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. ~ George McGovern

american torture

Torture: If the Americans are doing it, and they’re not accountable, then who’s going to come to our rescue?   ~Moazzam Begg, Detainee #558 in Guantanamo Bay.

leaders & God

I believe that God wants me to be president.
~ George W. Bush

I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany.
~ Hitler – Berlin March, 1936

God is not on the side of any nation, yet we know He is on the side of justice. Our finest moments [as a nation] have come when we faithfully served the cause of justice for our own citizens, and for the people of other lands.
~ George W. Bush

If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the Lord God will always help us.
~ Adolf Hitler, at the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival on the Buckeburg, 3 Oct. 1937

Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.
~ George W. Bush

Never in these long years have we offered any other prayer but this: Lord, grant to our people peace at home, and grant and preserve to them peace from the foreign foe!
~ Hitler – Nuremberg, Sept. 13, 1936.

superiority by violence

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.   ~ Samuel P. Huntington

freedom

If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom.
~ Robert Frost

money

We’re not a democracy. It’s a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we’re a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy.  ~Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General

Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy. ~John Pierpont Morgan

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.  ~Thomas Jefferson

daring greatly

If we work in marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity.  

~Daniel Webster

It is not the critic who counts: not the man (or woman) who points out how the strong man (person) stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man (or woman) who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself (herself) for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he (she) fails, at least he (or she) fails while daring greatly, so that his (her) place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

~ Theodore Roosevelt. “Citizenship in a Republic,” Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

patriotism

American preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps, than those faced by us under South Africa’s apartheid, or Christians under Communism.

We had obvious evils to engage; you have to unwrap your culture from years of red, white and blue myth. You have to expose, and confront, the great disconnect between the kindness, compassion and caring of most American people, and the ruthless way American power is experienced, directly and indirectly, by the poor of the earth.

You have to help good people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them. This is not easy among people who really believe that their country does nothing but good, but it is necessary, not only for their future, but for us all.

~Peter Storey, former president of the Methodist Church of South Africa

war & protest

A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men’s (other’s) lives should not stake their own.  ~ H.G. Wells

The soul of our country needs to be awakened . . .When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders.  ~Veterans Fast for Life

violence

How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder.... But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is not murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it take?
~ Adin Ballou, The Non-Resistant, 5 February 1845

There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used.... Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed.
~ Gil Bailie