Thursday, April 28, 2022

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

George Orwell

"Evil has only the power we give it."

Ray Bradbury

"Virologists, your work affects every human on Earth. Profoundly. To see this, all a person has to do is look around him these days, at what is called 'COVID.' It proceeds from your so-called discovery of SARS-CoV-2.

I view you virologists as I would view the court magicians and soothsayers and high priests who surrounded and advised the leaders of tribes and nations in ancient times.

Those 'experts' huddled with the leaders in their very private rooms and spun stories and predictions, and recommended strategies to deal with supposed ongoing and looming crises.

And then the leaders took actions that affected the lives of all the people.

So it is now. With you virologists.

So my demands are entirely within bounds. If you have a shred of honesty, and if you stop and think about it, what I’m demanding is prosaically simple:

You account for every step you take. In real time. Where you work. Right there, you submit yourselves to the detailed scrutiny of independent outsiders.

That’s my bottom line.

And I challenge any scientist, analyst, investigator, doctor, researcher, reporter, alt. reporter who says what I’m demanding is not necessary. You’re wrong. You’re dead wrong.

You either haven’t thought things through, or you’re lying."

Jon Rappoport

"If all of the sudden, everyone turned off the TV, if we were to simultaneously stop being cud-chewing television watchers, if we were to cut our ties to degenerate actors and content-producers and opinion shapers, there would be an almost immediate revolution: cultural and perhaps even political.  We would come to our senses, rediscover objective reality, and reclaim our minds, our souls, and our liberties in short order.

Our lords and masters certainly know this. We are in a prison of our own making, and the key is in our hands. It’s a little black piece of plastic with an aptly named button: 'power'."

Larry L. Beane

"People who say China is as evil as the US simply haven’t learned enough or thought honestly enough about the evils of the US.

China is better than the US. That’s not because China is flawless, it’s because the US spending the 21st century slaughtering people by the millions and working to destroy any nation who disobeys it makes it quantifiably worse than literally anyone else.

China is a surveillance state. The US empire is a surveillance state that also kills millions of people in wars of aggression."

Caitlin Johnstone

"Russian oligarchs, American pols, and state-connected billionaires are all cut from the same cloth: they didn't earn, or fully earn, their wealth and position in society. But we must expect this. Rule by elites, at least to an extent, is indeed inevitable. Every society, across time and across place, manifests this. Democracy doesn't solve or change it, but merely transfers status away from merit and toward politics. Democracy simply creates different—worse—elites in the form of a permanent managerial, bureaucratic class that no more reflects the consent of the governed than Putin represents the will of all Russians."

Jeff Deist

"In the rest of the world, outside this hemisphere, our interests are remote and our power to enforce our will is relatively slight. Nothing we can do for Europeans will substantially increase our trade or add to our, or their, well-being. Nothing we can do for Asiatics will materially increase our trade or add to our, or their, well-being. With all countries in Europe and Asia, our relations should be formal and correct. As individuals we may indulge in hate and love, but the Government of the United States embarks on stormy seas when it begins to love one power and hate another officially."

Charles Burris

"America is indeed so blessed, only Americans themselves could make a botch of it.

And it appears we are determined to botch it…

It is Americans who transformed America from a creditor nation to a debtor nation…

It is Americans who have shoveled ourselves into a $30 trillion debt hole — a $280 trillion debt hole when factoring all debts, public and private…

It is Americans who have wasted trillions and trillions of dollars buccaneering around the globe in ill-conceived, ill-planned and ill-starred wars of choice…

It is Americans who impose sanctions on foreign nations… sanctions that will likely hasten the dollar’s demise as the world’s primary reserve currency… and hence hasten America’s economic falling…

It is Americans who assume God’s special providence is limitless, that it will continue, forevermore, world without end.

Yet we hazard that even God’s providence has its limits. How much more He will shower upon the United States of America, we do not know.

Yet we fear the United States of America may soon require God’s special providence as

never before…"

Brian Maher

"Consider all that has happened to date concerning this global collaboration. What started with a 'claim' that a deadly virus had escaped from a Chinese lab that began to affect the entire world, turned out to be a complete and total fraud meant only to stoke fear, and allow for a global takeover of humanity at a level never before fathomed by any intelligent individual. A world of differing thought and culture suddenly became a world consumed by a singular false purpose; this almost instantaneously, and so the story goes. The only conclusion that can be considered is that this world is controlled by the very, very few. Since the beginning, the world acted in concert, something that is virtually impossible, but it happened nonetheless. Blame was at once concentrated, and then became irrelevant due to the supposed spread of something that has never once been separated, isolated, or identified, and has never been proven to even exist. This mattered not to the mindless horde of what is referred to as the 'public,' as they followed along the path of compliance just as they were instructed and expected to do. The threat was widely promoted by the state players, and the sheep succumbed and ran for cover.

All of this hype and fear-mongering by the powerful was ultimately very effective, and the people at large did exactly as they were expected to do, even to the point of destroying their own sustenance in favor of obeying the orders of their claimed betters. What mindset is necessary in order for the masses to allow such a travesty of reality to become normalized? Is it one of stupidity or is it one of fear and cowardice? I think it is one of fear, stupidity, and cowardice, and these attitudes lead only to a state of oppression, and not to any claim to freedom."

Gary D. Barnett

"Anyone who wishes is entitled to make the personal decision of 'better dead than Red' or 'give me liberty or give me death.' What he is not entitled to do is to make these decisions for others, as the prowar policy of conservatism would do. What conservatives are really saying is: 'Better them dead than Red,' and 'give me liberty or give them death'—which are the battle cries not of noble heroes but of mass murderers."

Murray Rothbard

"Getting rid of the pandemic is something nature takes care of. Getting rid of the pandemic controls and the urge to bludgeon people into compliance is a much harder task. It will not likely be accomplished by any political movement. 

The answer is likely to be bound up with noncompliance. Many people are already there. They are done obeying. Many people have quit their jobs. They have moved. They have upended their lives in shocking ways. They have completely rethought their relationship to civic institutions and leaders. And they are ready for something entirely new."

Jeffrey Tucker

"Country is a concept of peace, of balance, of living and letting live. But State is essentially a concept of power.… And we have the misfortune of being born not only into a country but into a State.…

The State is the country acting as a political unit, it is the group acting as a repository of force.… International politics is a 'power politics' because it is a relation of States and that is what States infallibly and calamitously are, huge aggregations of human and industrial force that may be hurled against each other in war. When a country acts as a whole in relation to another country, or in imposing laws on its own inhabitants, or in coercing or punishing individuals or minorities, it is acting as a State. The history of America as a country is quite different from that of America as a State. In one case it is the drama of the pioneering conquest of the land, of the growth of wealth and the ways in which it was used … and the carrying out of spiritual ideals.… But as a State, its history is that of playing part in the world, making war, obstructing international trade … punishing those citizens whom society agrees are offensive, and collecting money to pay for it all."

Randolph Bourne

"It is vitally important to understand one thing above all else... there is nothing new under the sun. Every 'new' political movement or cultural upheaval has happened a thousand times or more in the past. Every 'new' form of governance is just a rehashed version of a system that came before it. Every 'new' economic structure is one of a handful of preexisting and ever repeating trade methodologies. Every 'new' revolution and rebellion is a fight for the same basic goals against the same persistent foes that have always existed since the dawn of civilization. All of human history can be condensed down to a few fundamental and irreconcilable conflicts, desires, values and ambitions."

Brandon Smith

"Politicians couldn’t find the Constitution with a hunting dog and a Ouija board."

Daniel Miller


No comments: