More memorable words. . .

We create alternative universes all the time, visible to the mind’s eye, if no other. “Remember. . . no matter where you go. . . there you are.” ~ Buckaroo Bonzai As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too.  Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action:  you liberate a city by destroying it.  Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their interests. Ban guns: Make the streets safe. . . for a government takeover! They. . . brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells.  They willingly traded everything they owned. . .  They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features. . . .  They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.  They have no iron.  Their spears are made of cane. . .  They would make fine servants. . . .  With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. ~the log of Christopher Columbus Fascism grows when people become too lazy to question authority. If we never dreamt of the impossible, the possible would never be. Sticks and stones may break my bones. . .  But it's words that cause the greatest pain. “Remember; if you’re a wizard, all you need to save the world is a woman-child, one elf, and a moron robot.” ~ Cheyenne Moon “Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit atrocities.” ~ Voltaire “The truth, or a white whale. . .  Both are impossible to capture.” ~Dana Scully – X-Files Don’t keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone.  Leave the beaten track occasionally and drive into the woods.  You will be certain to find something you have never seen before. . . Subvert the dominant paradigm! Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about. . . and kept us too busy with continuous changes and “crises” and so fascinated. . . by the machinations of the “national enemies,” without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreaful things that were growing, little by little, all around is. . .  Each step was so small, so inconsequetial, so well explained or, on occasion, “regretted,” that. . . unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these “little measures”. . . must someday lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. . .  Each act. . . is worse than the last, but only a little worse.  You wait for the next and the next.  You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you dont want to “go out of your way to make trouble.”  . . .And it is not just fear. . . that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty. . .  And you are an alarmist.  You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. . .  But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join you, never comes.  That’s the difficulty. . .  The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays.  But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms is changed.  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. . .  You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father. . . could never have imagined. ~ Milton Mayer – They Thought They Were Free: the Germans, 1938-45

“Today, it is a well-understood tactic of mind manipulation that if an unknown and unresolvable guilt can be established among a group of people. . ., that group can be controlled and subdued.  As long as the target group accepts the possibility that the guilt might be true in some ways, it remains introverted and creatively unproductive.  All its resources go into trying to resolve the ‘guilt’ that does not exist in the first place.” ~ Ingo Swann We are animals and have a taxonomic classification: Kingdom, Animalia; Phylum, Chordata; Class, Mammilia; Order, Primates; Family, Hominidae; Genus, Homo; Species, Sapiens. The approximately 700,000 physicians in the United States cause about 120,000 accidental deaths each year, resulting in 0.171 accidental deaths per physician.  The 80 million U. S. gun owners cause 1,500 accidental deaths each year representing 0.0000188 accidental deaths per gun owner.  That makes a physician approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than a gun owner. “Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.  It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.  And when the drums of war reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has ‘closed,’ the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.  Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all their rights unto the leader and gladly so.  How do I know?  For this is what I have done.  AND I AM CAESAR.” ~Julius Caesar Some people just don’t want to be confused with facts which contradict their preconceived opinions. “Take off your shirt.  I want to fondle your hooters.” ~ Douglas Brackman – LA Law “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.  Freedom is a well-armed lamb contesting that vote.” ~Benjamin Franklin “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.” ~Thomas Paine “Those who accept a little temporary safety in exchange for freedom, deserve neither freedom nor safety.” ~ Benjamin Franklin Step 5 to becoming a writer:   Note your interests, enthusiasms, and passions Step 13 to becoming a writer:   Let yourself fantasize Step 15 to becoming a writer:   Exaggerate, embellish, and enlarge ~ Scott Edelstein 30 Steps to Becoming a Writer Time will overcome tomorrow, and soon it shall be yesterday. ~ Cheyenne Moon When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I was not a Jew.  When they came for the Communists, I said nothing because I am not a Communist.  When they came for the Gypsys, I said nothing because I was not a Gypsy.  When they came for the Poles, I said nothing because I am not a Pole.  When they came for me, no one said anything because there was no one left to speak. “Why of course the people don’t want war . . . 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 parliment, 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 under attack, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.  It works the same in any country.” ~ Herman Göring, during his Nuremberg war crimes trial