| LIBERTADKORPS |
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| WISDOM Y INSPIRACION
www.geocities.com/libertadkorps Naomi Klein, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM 2007 Naomi Klein clearly explains how Neocons destroyed our nation and our world, and what we can do about it. Naomi Klein is a brilliant writer and scholar, the new Chomsky. I am proud of this edit: I edited her 600 page book down to 6 pages. Aboslutely Mandatory reading. Iraq War Veterans Testifying Before Congress, May 26, 2008 �Toohoolhoolzote was not impressed. He crossed his arms and shifted on his feet and muttered something angrily: �Who are you, that you ask us to talk, and then tell me I shan�t talk? Are you the Great Spirit? Did you make the rivers run for us to drink? Did you make the grass to grow? Did you make all these things, that you now talk to us as though we were boys?� General Howard noticed a few heads nodding in agreement. �What did he say?� the general snapped at the interpreter�. Now it was White Bird�s turn to speak. He was an old medicine man, a chief from the Salmon River gold regions, and his people had seen their share of trouble with the whites. White Bird looked at Howard sternly: �If I had been taught from early life to be governed by the white man, I would be governed by the white man. But the earth rules me!� General Howard moved forward threateningly: �Then you do not propose to comply with the orders of the government?� Toohoolhoolzote stopped for a moment: �The Indians may do what they want, but I am not going on no reservation.�� Diana Yates, CHIEF JOSEPH: THUNDER ROLLING DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAINS Howard Zinn, Lecture at Binghamton University, NY, Nov 8 2008 "Newspapers this morning report highest unemployment in decades. The government needs to create jobs. Private enterprise is not going to create jobs. Private enterprise fails, the so-called free market system fails again and again. When the Depression hit in the 1930s, Roosevelt and the New Deal created jobs for millions of people. And there were people out there on the fringe who yelled, �Socialism!� Didn�t matter. People needed it.... There is the interest of Exxon and Halliburton, and there�s the interest of the worker, the nurse�s aide, the teacher, the factory worker. Those are different interests.... No, the government is not looking out for your interest.... Governments do not represent the interests of their people. See? That�s why governments keep getting overthrown.... That's why governments lie�. If they told the truth, they would be out of office.... If you look at history, you see people felt powerless until they organized, and they got together, and they persisted, and they didn�t give up, and they built social movements. Whether it was the anti-slavery movement or the black movement of the 1960s or the antiwar movement in Vietnam or the women�s movement, they started small and apparently helpless; they became powerful.... We�re not powerless. We just have to be persistent.... If you join some group, it will make you feel better.... Life becomes more interesting and rewarding when you become involved with other people in some great social cause." Noam Chomsky, THE PROSPEROUS FEW AND THE RESTLESS MANY, 1994 "There are two important consequences of Globalization: First, it extends the Third World Model to Industrialized Nations. In the Third World there is a two-tiered society: a sector of extreme wealth and privilege, and a sector of huge misery and despair among useless, superfluous people.... South Central Los Angeles once had factories. They moved to Eastern Europe, Mexico, Indonesia.... As you'd expect, this whole structure of decision-making answers to transnational corporations and international banks and raises decision-making to the executive level, leaving a 'democratic deficit,' parliaments and populations with less influence. Not only that, but the public doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know." Noam Chomsky, UNDERSTANDING POWER, 2002 "So long as power remains privately concentrated, everybody, everybody, has to be committed to one goal, and that�s to make sure that the rich folk are happy, because unless they are happy, nobody is going to get anything. So if you�re a homeless person sleeping in the streets of Manhattan, your first concern must be that the guys in the mansions are happy, because if they�re happy, they�ll invest, and the economy will work, and things will function, then maybe something might trickle down to you somewhere along the line. But if they�re not happy, everything is going to grind to a halt, and you�re not even going to get anything trickling down." Noam Chomsky, UNDERSTANDING POWER, 2002, p 200 �The United States is off the spectrum: What�s called �libertarianism� here is unbridled capitalism. Now if you have unbridled capitalism, you have extreme authority. If capital is privately controlled, then people must rent themselves in order to survive. Now you can say, �well they freely rent themselves in a free contract,� but that�s a joke. If your only choice is �do what I tell you or starve,� that isn�t a choice�it�s wage slavery. Now there are consistent libertarians, and if you read the world they describe, it�s a world so full of hate that no human would want to live in it. This is a world where you don�t have any roads because you don�t see any reason why you should cooperate in building a road you�re not going to directly use. If you need a road, you get together with other people who need it and you build it, and then you charge people to ride on it! Now who would want to live in a world like that? It�s a world built on hatred. The whole thing�s not worth talking about. It couldn�t function for one second. And even if it could, all you�d want to do is get out, escape, commit suicide or something.� George Orwell, DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON, 1933 "The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people, people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from normal standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work. Some of the lodgers in our hotel lived lives that were curious beyond words.... Within limits, it is actually true that the less money you have, the less you worry. Hunger reduces one to an utterly spineless, brainless condition, more like the after-effects of influenza than anything else.... It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.... "Paddy and I had scarcely a wink of sleep, for there was a man near us who had some nervous trouble, shell-shock perhaps, which made him cry out 'Pip!' at irregular intervals. It was a loud, startling noise, something like the toot of a small motor-horn. You never knew when it was coming, and it was a sure preventer of sleep.... He must have kept ten or twenty people awake every night. He was an example of the kind of thing that prevents one from ever getting enough sleep when men are herded as they are in these lodging houses.... "Being a beggar, he said, was not his fault, and he refused either to have any compunction about it or to let it trouble him. He was the enemy of society.... In the summer he saved nothing, spending his surplus earnings on drink, as he did not care about women. If he was penniless when winter came on, then society must look after him. He was ready to extract every penny he could from charity, provided that he was not expected to say thank you for it.... "He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve.... He had a curious theory about this: Life on earth, he said, is harsh because the planet is poor in the necessities of existence. Mars, with its cold climate and scanty water, must be far poorer, and life correspondingly harsher. Whereas on earth you are merely imprisoned for stealing sixpence, on Mars you are probably boiled alive. This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man.... "I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning." Friedrich Nietzsche, TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS, 1888 "Nothing is ugly except the degenerating man. Everything ugly weakens and saddens man. It reminds him of decay, danger, impotence; it deprives him of strength. Wherever man is depressed at all, he senses the proximity of something ugly. His feeling of power, his Will to Power, his courage, his pride, all fall with the ugly and rise with the beautiful. Every suggestion of exhaustion, heaviness, old age, weariness, disease, lack of freedom, the smell of dissolution, all evoke the same reaction: the value judgment Ugly. A hatred is aroused�but whom does man hate then? There can be no doubt: the decline of his type. Here he hates out of the deepest instinct of his species." Friedrich Nietzsche, DER ANTICHRIST, 1888 "What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the Will to Power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is being overcome.... Formula of my happiness: A yes, a no, a straight line, a goal.... Out of life's school of war: What does not kill me makes me stronger." Friedrich Nietzsche, THE DAWN, 1881 "I would not know what to say to workers of factory slavery, provided they do not consider it altogether shameful to be used up as they are, as gears of a machine. Phew! To believe that higher pay could abolish your misery, to be talked into thinking that such an increase could transform the Shame of Slavery into a Virtue! Phew! To have a price upon which you become a gear! Are you co-conspirators in the current folly of nations who want to produce as much as possible and be rich as possible? What vast sums of Inner Worth are thrown away. Better to emigrate, and in savage fresh regions seek to be Master of the World and master of myself! Keep changing locations so long as slavery beckons: Never avoid adventure. Be prepared for death. What began at home as dangerous discontent will once outside gain a wild beauty and be called Heroism." Hugo Chavez, Presidente de Venezuela, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil, January 2005 "When imperialism feels weak, it resorts to brute force. The attacks on Venezuela are a sign of weakness, ideological weakness. Nowadays almost nobody defends neoliberalism. Up until three years ago, just Fidel Castro and I raised these criticisms at Presidential meetings. We felt lonely, as if we infiltrated those meetings. Just look at the internal repression inside the United States, the Patriot Act, which is a repressive law against US citizens. They put into jail a group of journalists for not revealing their sources. They won't allow them to take pictures of the dead soldiers coming home from Iraq, many of them Latinos. Those are signs of Goliath's weaknesses. The south also exists. The future of the north depends on the south. If we don�t make that better world possible, if we fail, and through the rifles of the US Marines, and through Mr. Bush's murderous bombs, if there is no south to resist the offensive of neo-imperialism, and the Bush doctrine is imposed upon the world, the world shall be destroyed. Every day I become more convinced, there is no doubt in my mind: It is necessary to transcend capitalism. But capitalism cannot be transcended from itself, but only through socialism, true socialism, with equality and justice. I�m convinced it is possible to do in a democracy, but not in the type of democracy imposed from Washington. We have to re-invent socialism: It cannot be the kind of socialism we saw in the Soviet Union, but it will emerge as we develop new systems built on cooperation, not competition. Privatization is a neoliberal imperialist plan. Healthcare cannot be privatized because it is a fundamental human right, nor can education, water, electricity, other essential public services. They cannot be surrendered to private capital that denies the people of their rights!" Karl Marx, DAS KAPITAL, 1867, Chapter 28: Bloody Legislation Against the Expropriated �The proletariat created by the forcible expropriation of the people from the soil, this �free� proletariat could not possibly be absorbed as fast as it was thrown upon the world: They were turned en masse into beggars, robbers, vagabonds.... Henry VIII. 1530: Beggars old and unable to work receive a beggar�s license. On the other hand, whipping and imprisonment for sturdy vagabonds. For the second arrest for vagabondage� half the ear sliced off; but for the third relapse the offender is to be executed as a hardened criminal�. Edward VI. 1547, ordains that if anyone refuses to work, he shall be condemned as a slave to the person who has denounced him as an idler. All persons have the right to take away the children of vagabonds and to keep them as apprentices, the young men until the 24th year, the girls until the 20th�. Elizabeth, 1572: Unlicensed beggars above 14 years of age are to be severely flogged and branded on the left ear; in case of a repetition of the offence, if they are over 18, they are to be executed.... James I: Any one wandering about and begging is declared a rogue and vagabond�. Agricultural people, expropriated from the soil, driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds, then whipped, branded, tortured by laws grotesquely terrible, into the discipline necessary for the wage system.... The constant generation of a relative surplus-population keeps the law of supply and demand of labour, and therefore keeps wages, in a rut that corresponds with the wants of capital.� Karl Marx, DAS KAPITAL, 1867, Chapter 33: Modern Theory of Colonisation �The great beauty of capitalist production consists in this, that it not only constantly reproduces wage-worker as wage-worker, but produces always, in proportion to the accumulation of capital, a relative surplus population of wage-workers. Thus the law of supply and demand of labour is kept in the right rut: the social dependence of the labourer upon the capitalist. But in the colonies this pretty fancy is torn asunder: The law of supply and demand of labour falls to pieces. The wage-worker of today is tomorrow an independent peasant or artisan working for himself. They soon cease to be labourers for hire; they become independent landowners, if not competitors with their former masters. Think of the horror! The excellent capitalist has imported bodily from Europe, with his own good money, his own competitors! Therefore let the Government put upon the virgin soil an artificial price, independent of the law of supply and demand, a price that compels the immigrant to work a long time for wages before he can earn enough to buy land. The funds resulting from the sale of such land the Government is to employ to import more have-nothings from Europe, and thus keep the labour market full for the capitalists. The great republic America has therefore ceased to be the Promised Land for immigrant labour. The only thing that interests us here is the secret discovered in the new world: Production and accumulation of capitalist private property requires the annihilation of self-earned private property; in other words, the expropriation of the labourer.� Noam Chomsky, 1998 �Go on to Adam Smith: He argued that under conditions of perfect liberty, markets will lead to perfect equality. Maybe the first real break with this is capitalist ideology. So after Ricardo, you start getting the conception that it�s better for the poor if I�m rich. As capitalist ideology becomes dominant, this conception, that you�ll only hurt the poor by helping them, takes over. So Malthus and Ricardo and others said that if you can�t survive by what you can gain on the marketplace, go somewhere else. And people fought against it. The British army was putting down riots in the 1820�s and 1830�s because people simply would not accept the fact that they had no right to live. And that goes way back to the Enclosure of the Commons: Look at what was called liberty in England: Liberty meant liberty for property, which meant taking away from people their traditional rights. The rights to the commons meant forests, pasturelands, grazing lands: With proprietary rights established, with liberty given to owners, that land was taken away from everyone else. Thereafter you had formal liberty, but popular deprivation, which proletarianized the British working class�. And we all recognize there�s something quite wrong with one person having superfluities and another person starving.� Noam Chomsky, UNDERSTANDING POWER, 2002 �There�s complete disaffection about everything: People don�t trust anyone, they think everyone�s lying. The whole civil society has completely broken down. Take these guys in militias: They�re high school graduates, mostly white males, a segment of society that has really taken a beating. I mean, real wages in the United States have dropped about 20% since 1973. Their wives now have to work just to put food on the table, their families are broken up. Their kids are running wild. I mean, a lot of people don�t even read. We should bear in mind how illiterate our society has become. So these groups certainly represent a response to worsening conditions. Or take this guy called Unabomber. When I read his manifesto, I thought if I don�t know him, I know his friends�they�re the kind of people I run into on the Left all the time: demoralized, fed up, desperate. The LA riots were not a constructive response: South Central Los Angeles was just a riot, the reaction of a completely demoralized devastated poor working-class population. All people could do was mindlessly lash out, just steal from stores. The only effect was: we�ll just build more jails. Can you marginalize a large part of the population as superfluous because they�re not helping you make those dazzling profits�can you set up a world in which production is carried out by the most oppressed people for the happiness of rich people? Could it lead to a civil war? It definitely could. There�s a streak of independence and opposition to authority in the United States. It can show up in antisocial ways, like running around with assault rifles. But it can show up in healthy ways, like opposition to illegitimate authority. My friend was listening to one of my gloomy disquisitions and said: �Y�know, what you are describing is an organizer�s dream.� And I think that is true.� Mohandas Gandhi "Non-violent resistance implies the very opposite of weakness. Defiance combined with non-retaliatory acceptance of repression from one's opponents is active, not passive. It requires strength.... If we were to drive out the English with the weapons with which they enslaved us, our slavery would still be with us.... An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." Mohandas Gandhi �First they ignore you, then they attack you, then you win.� Mohandas Gandhi "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall, think of it, always." Martin Luther King, Memphis, April 1968 "We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now, because I have been to the mountaintop, and I have seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. And I am happy tonight. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." Malcolm X, November 1963 �The House Negroes lived in the house with master. They dressed pretty good. They ate good cuz they ate his food. If master's house caught on fire, the House Negro would fight harder to put out the fire than the master would. If master got sick, House Negro would ask, �Oh what's the matter, boss, we sick?� We sick! On that same plantation there was the Field Negro: The Negro in the field caught hell. The Field Negro did not get anything; he was beaten from morning to night. He ate leftovers; he wore old cast-off clothes; he lived in a shack, in a hut. He hated his master. He was intelligent. I say he was intelligent. When massa�s house caught on fire, he didn't try to put it out; that ol� Field Nigga he prayed for a breeze! If someone came up to that ol� Field Nigga and said, �Hey man let's go, let�s separate, let's run,� he did not ask, �Well where we gonna run to?� That ol� Field Nigga say, �Any place better than this place, let�s go!�� Well, I�m a Field Nigga." Ralph Waldo Emerson, �Nature� 1836 "Crossing a bare common in snow puddles at twilight under a clouded sky, I have enjoyed a most perfect exhilaration. Standing on the bare ground, my head uplifted into infinite space, all mean egoism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all: I see the spectacle of morning. The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in a sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. Not less excellent was the charm, last evening, of a January sunset. The western clouds divided and subdivided themselves into pink flakes modulated with tints of unspeakable softness, and the air had so much life and sweetness that it was a pain to come within doors. The leafless trees become spires of flame in the sunset, with the blue east for their background, and the stars of dead calices of flowers, and every withered stem and stubble rimed with frost, contribute something to the mute music." Ralph Waldo Emerson, �Divinity School Address� 1838 "In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn. The mystery of nature was never displayed more happily.� Ralph Waldo Emerson, �Self-Reliance� 1841 "Insist on yourself; never imitate: Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare, Franklin, Washington, Bacon or Newton? Every great man is unique�. Society never advances: It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is scientific. For everything that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, but loses old instincts. The civilized man has built himself a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but fails to tell the hour by the sun. The man in the street does not know a star in the sky. His notebooks impair his memory, his libraries overload his wit, the insurance office increases the number of accidents, and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber, whether we have lost by refinement some energy, by Christianity some vigor of wild virtue.... Society is a wave: The wave moves onward; the water of which it is composed does not. The people who make up a nation today, next year die, and their experience dies with them. It is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. A political victory, the recovery of your sick, the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event raises your spirit, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles." Ralph Waldo Emerson, �Thoreau� 1862 "Henry David Thoreau graduated Harvard in 1837, but without any literary distinction. After leaving the University, he joined his brother in teaching private school, which he soon renounced.... Never idle nor self-indulgent, he preferred when he wanted money, earning it by some manual labor agreeable to him, such as building a boat or a fence, planting, grafting, surveying or other short work. With his hardy habits and few wants, his skill in wood-craft, and his powerful arithmetic, he was very competent to live in any part of the world. His habit of ascertaining the measures and distances of objects, and his intimate knowledge about Concord, made him drift into the profession of land-surveyor. His accuracy and skill were readily appreciated, and he soon found all the employment he wanted.... "He was bred to no profession; he never married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay tax to the State; he ate no meat; he drank no wine; he never knew the use of tobacco; and though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, no doubt wisely for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and Nature. He had no talent for wealth, and he knew how to be poor. A fine house, fine dress, the manners and talk of highly cultivated people, were all thrown away on him. He much preferred the company of a good Indian. He declined invitations to dinner-parties. He said, �They take their pride in making their dinner cost much; I take my pride in making my dinner cost little.� "He chose to be rich by making his wants few: There was somewhat military in his nature, as if he did not feel himself except in opposition.... In 1845 he built himself a small framed house on the shores of Walden Pond, and lived there two years alone�. In 1847 he refused to pay his town tax and was put in jail�. No opposition or ridicule had any weight with him: It was of no consequence if everyone present held the opposite opinion.... No truer American existed than Thoreau: He listened impatiently to news from London circles, and though he tried to be civil, these anecdotes fatigued him. What he sought was the most energetic nature, and he wished to go to Oregon, not London.... But idealist as he was, standing for the abolition of slavery, he found himself not only unrepresented, but almost equally opposed to every class of reformers: Before the first friendly word had been spoken for Captain John Brown, he sent notices to most houses in Concord that he would speak in a public hall on the character of John Brown. The Abolitionist Committee sent word that this was premature and not advisable. He replied, 'I did not send to you for advice, but to announce that I am to speak!' "The length of his walk made the length of his writing, and if shut up in the house, he did not write at all. He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths of his own. He knew every track in the snow or on the ground, and what creature had taken this path before him: Snakes coiled round his legs; fishes swam into his hand, and he took them out of the water; he pulled the woodchuck out of his hole by his tail, and he took foxes under his protection from hunters.... No college ever offered him a diploma.... The scale on which his studies proceeded was so large as to require longevity, and we were the less prepared for his sudden disappearance. The country knows not yet, nor in the least part, how great a son it has lost." Henry David Thoreau, �Civil Disobedience� 1848 "This American government: It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished, and we would have done somewhat more if the government had not got in our way. I believe we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as respect for the right: Law never made men one whit more just.... �See a file of soldiers marching over hill and dale off to the wars, against their common sense and conscience, which makes it very steep marching indeed. They have no doubt it is a damnable business. Now what are they? Men at all? Visit the Navy Yard and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make with its black arts, a mere shadow of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, yet already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniment.... �I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin and Jefferson, sit down with their hands in their pockets and say they don�t know what to do, and do nothing. At most, they give only a cheap vote. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.... "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison: It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race should find them, on that separate but more free and honorable ground, the only house in a Slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.... "Some years ago, the State commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman: 'Pay,� it said, �or be locked up in jail.' I declined to pay. I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing: 'Know by all ye men present that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any society that I have not joined.' This I gave to the town clerk, and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a member of any church, has never made a like demand on me since.... "I have paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into jail once on this account, for one night, and as I stood there considering the walls of solid stone two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron a foot thick, and the iron grating straining the light, I was struck by the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones to be locked up. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of mortar and stone. As the State could not reach me, it had resolved to punish my body, just as boys, if they cannot come against some man whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, and lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.... "The authority of government must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute monarchy to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is progress toward true respect for the individual. There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as the higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived. A State which bore this kind of fruit would pave the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen." General George S. Patton, WAR AS I KNEW IT �Formula of battle victory: Speed, Simplicity, Boldness�. Move forward always: Never dig in. Never retreat. Never surrender. Move forward until your tanks run out of gas, then fight on foot to the last bullet�. Your weapons are best in the world when firing; when not firing they are junk; see that they are firing all the time�. If weather conditions are hard for you, they are just as hard on the enemy�. A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood�. Speed saves lives�. Do not take counsel of your fears.� General George S. Patton, WAR AS I KNEW IT �If we take the general accepted notion of bravery as a quality that knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened. The courageous man forces himself, in spite of his fear, to carry on. Discipline, pride, self-respect, and the love of glory are attributes which will make a man courageous even when he is afraid.� General George S. Patton, Commander, Third Army, Dec 25, 1944 �Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech thee, of thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for battle. Graciously harken to us as soldiers who call upon thee that, armed with Thy Power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy Justice among men and nations. Amen�. To each soldier and officer of Third Army, I wish a Merry Christmas. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We march in our might to complete victory. May God�s blessing be upon you on this Christmas Day.� General George S. Patton, Commander, Third Army, Jan 1, 1945 �From the bloody corridor at Avranches, to Brest, across France to the Saar, into Germany and now on to Bastogne, your record has been one of continuous victory. Not only have you invariably defeated a cunning and ruthless enemy, but you have overcome by your indomitable fortitude every aspect of terrain and weather. Neither heat nor dust nor floods nor snow have stayed your progress. The speed and brilliancy of your achievements are unsurpassed in military history. My sincere New Year�s wish is that we shall continue victory upon victory, our dead comrades shall be avenged, and we shall restore peace to a war-weary world. In closing I can find no fitter expression for my feelings than to quote to you the immortal words spoken by General Scott at Chapultepec when he said, �Brave soldiers, veterans, you have been baptized in fire and blood, and have come out steel.� General George S. Patton, WAR AS I KNEW IT �I woke up at 0300 on the morning of November 8, 1944, and it was raining very hard. I tried to go back to sleep, but finding it impossible, got up and started to read Rommel�s book, INFANTRY ATTACKS. By chance I turned to a chapter describing a fight in the rain in September 1914. This was very reassuring because I felt if the Germans could do it, I certainly could, so I went back to sleep, and was awakened at 0515 by the artillery preparation. The rain had stopped and the stars were out. The discharge of over 700 guns sounded like the slamming of so many heavy doors in an empty house, while the whole eastern sky glowed and trembled with the flashes. I even had a slight feeling of sympathy for the Germans, who must now know that the attack they had long feared had at last arrived. I remembered that I had always demanded the impossible, that I dared extreme occasion, and that I had not taken counsel of my fears.� "Now I�m not looking for absolution, forgiveness for the things I do, But before you jump to any conclusions, Try walking in my shoes, try walking in my shoes. You�ll stumble in my footsteps, to keep the same appointments I kept, If you try walking in my shoes, try walking in my shoes.� Martin Gore, Depeche Mode, �Walking In My Shoes� Eric Idle, "The Galaxy Song" "Whenever life gets you down Mrs. Brown, And things seem hard or tough, And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft, And you feel you've had quite enooooough: Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving, And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour, That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, A sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see, Are moving at a million miles a day, In an outer spiral arm at 40,000 miles an hour, Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars, It's a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light years thick, But out by us, it's just 3,000 light years wide. We're 30,000 light years from galactic central point, We go round every 200 million years, And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe. The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, In all directions it can whizz, As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, Cuz there's bugger all down here on Earth!" |