Thursday, September 09, 2010
Connect-the-Dots
There's a sucker born every minute.
-Original author disputed.
If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.
-Edward Bernays (American, the "Father of Public Relations"), 1928
Never give a sucker an even break.
-Original author disputed.
Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.
-Edward Bernays, 1928
Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies.
- Mohandas Gandhi
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
-John Lennon
Now let me say this -- all we said here -- what NEEDS to be said -- We think a illegitimate child is a child that don't know where their daddy is. America is a illegitimate child because she has no mother. And this is what the problem is. If I work in a coal mine, in a steel mill, and I come here today, and put on a suit but don't take a bath, you got stink sitting up here with you. And what has happened to America is we ain't never cleaned up the filth over 400 years. We put a new suit on, and a new dress on, and then wonder who's stinkin'? It's you's the one that's stinkin'. That's what this is. And until we clean this out, until we clean it up-- My momma used to grab me and wash my face. America ain't got to mamma that's washing her face.... All we do is we went from this filth we was in to puttin' on some new clothes, and nobody has said, "Hey, somewhere we got to apologize."
-Dick Gregory, 2008
I don't want to be part of the United States, I don't want to be part of the American people, and have them write of us as they wrote of Rome, "They made a desert, and they called it peace."
-Robert F Kennedy, 1968
We're going in there, and we're killing South Vietnamese, we're killing children, we're killing women, we're killing infant people, because we don't want to have the war fought on American soil, or because they are 12,000 miles away and they might get to be 11,000 miles away. I very seriously question whether we have that right. Those of us who stay here in the United States, we must feel it. When we use napalm, and when a village is destroyed, civilians are killed, this is also our responsibility.
-Robert F Kennedy, 1968
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 tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
- Hermann Goering
The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies.
-Adolf Hitler
I'm blaming me. And I'm blaming you. We are the American people. And we permitted that.
-Robert F Kennedy
If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for rights.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. Dangerous passions of pride, hatred and selfishness are enthroned in our lives; truth lies prostrate on the rugged hills of nameless Calvaries. The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
- Mohandas Gandhi
