======================= Q u o t e s . . . ======================= - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --> [Send the 1-line message GET QUOTES RESOURCE ACTIV-L to ] [LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET for a copy of this file. ] --> [Send GET ACTIV-L ARCHIVE ACTIV-L to above address for a ] [listing with brief descriptions of other files available] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "In the councils of government, we must guard against the aquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will exist." Dwight David Eisenhower, in his farewell address, Jan. 17, 1961 From: jeffb@music.asd.sgi.com ================================================================== foy@aerospace.aero.org (Richard Foy) Standard Disclaimer "My country is the world and my religion is to do good." -Thomas Paine ================================================================== ADD: lib/re*/stats; lib/re*/econ* ; lib/elsalv/AI* (below; clean up) incl. Robert White. lib/nica/* stuff *********** Q u o t e s *********** "They keep telling us that in war truth is the first casualty, which is nonsense since it implies that in times of peace truth stays out of the sick bay or the graveyard." --Alexander Cockburn, at the beginning of the latter part of this column, concerning the Panama invasion and today's Panama [The Nation, Feb. 4, 1991] ################################################################## "Naturally the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along ... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." Hermann Goering, 1936 ################################################################## "I would no more teach children military training than teach them arson, robbery, or assassination" --Eugene Debs [Poster from Donnelly/Colt catalogue, Box 188, Hampton, CT 06247] ################################################################## "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!" --Albert Einstein MARK ################################################################## "What then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be an equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal, who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him, and who from that moment onward had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life." --Albert Camus, writer, France. [From "When the State Kills...The death penalty: a human rights issue" by Amnesty International] # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # "...the death sentence is abominable, as abominable as the crime itself. Our state must be based on love, not hatred and victimization. Our penal code must be based on rehabilitation rather than annihilation." --Chenjerai Hove, poet, Zimbabwe [From "When the State Kills...The death penalty: a human rights issue" by Amnesty International] # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # "I remember the one who was executed, Lim Seng, and I hoped by his death there [would] be less narcotic addiction in our country, but today we have more. There is now a Narcotic Command, the whole Command to deal with narcotics addiction. So therefore the life of that man that was snuffed out to discourage drug addiction has been lost in vain..." --Teodulo Natividad, author of the 1972 Dangerous Drugs Act, Philippines [From "When the State Kills...The death penalty: a human rights issue" by Amnesty International] ################################################################## ============== W A R N I N G ============== Beware of weird cult which: <*> Uses promises of money, a job, and other favors to recruit people; <*> Indoctrinates beginners in an armed camp until they're thoroughly brainwashed; <*) Employs terror, assassination, murder, and threats thereof; <*> Is particularly interested in the young, and those who follow orders without question; <*> Holds against their will members who wish to leave; <*> Goes by many names, e.g., The Service, military, Armed Forces, ROTC, JROTC, recruiters, Defense, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, Green Berets. [Bumpersticker from Donnelly/Colt catalogue (Box 188, Hampton, CT 06247) by War Resisters League (339 Lafayette St., NY 10012)] ################################################################## Bernie Sanders, now [1990] the first independent-socialist Congressman in 60 years [Quoted in The Nation, June 11, 1990:] "Last year, in order to benefit the rich and the powerful, the U.S. Congress and the President passed legislation which is probably the biggest single rip-off in the history of this country -- the bailout of the crooks and swindlers who destroyed the American savings and loan industry. How ironic that the congress was able to find $500 billion in order to bail out the real estate speculators and junk bond dealers, but the same Congress can find no money for out children, for the environment, for health care or for the needs of our senior citizens." ################################################################## "The contras have ROUTINELY attacked civilian populations. Their forces kidnap, torture, and murder health workers, teachers, and other government employees." -- Americas Watch(*) "_Terrorism_ is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against NONCOMBATANT TARGETS by subnational groups or clandestine state agents" -- U.S. Department of State, _Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1983_, Sept. 1984. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (*)From the Americas Watch report _With Friends Like These_, edited by Cynthia Brown (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985). For the contras' history and human rights practices, see also Christopher Dickey, _With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua_ (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), and Reed Brody's _Contra Terror in Nicaragua: Report of a Fact-Finding Mission, September 1984-January 1985 (Boston: South End Press, 1985). A study enumerating the former Somoza Guardsmen among contra leaders is "Who Are the Contras?" prepared by the staff of the Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus of the U.S. Congress, _Congressional Record_, April 23, 1985, pages H2335-H2339. [From _What Are We Afraid Of?_ by John Lamperti, South End Press 1988] ------------------------------------------------------------------ "There can be no doubt, on the basis of what we head and saw, that a planned strategy of terrorism is being carried out by the contras along the Honduras border" --Chairmen of Americas Watch and Helsinki Watch, after a personal visit to study the "great divergence between President Reagan's rhetoric and the conclusions of the [Americas Watch] report" on contra atrocities. Orville Schell and Robert Bernstein, Wall St. Journal, April 23, 1985. ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken, their testicles cut off, and their eyes poked out. They where killed by slitting their throats, and pulling the tongue out through the slit." From a survivors account of a contra attack. Jonathan Steele and Tony Jenkins, Manchester Guardian Weekly, Nov. 25, 1984. ################################################################## "The United States has a government, security organizations and allies. The Soviet Union, however, has a regime, secret police and satellites. Our leaders are consummate politicians; their are wily, cunning or worse. We give the world information and seek influence; they disseminate propaganda and disinformation while seeking expansion and domination" --Stephen Cohen on loaded language in _Sovieticus: American Perceptions and Soviet Realities_ (NY: Norton, 1985) pp 29-31 ################################################################## Definition of "Foreign Aid:" "The transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries" [Source: quoted by someone on the UseNet] ################################################################## "I regard the death penalty as a savage and immoral institution that undermines the moral and legal foundations of a society. I reject the notion that the death penalty has any essential deterrent effect on potential offenders. I am convinced that the contrary is true -- that savagery begets only savagery." -- Andrei Sakharov [From "The Death Penalty -- Cruel & Inhuman Punishment" a pamphlet by Amnesty International [322 8th Ave., New York, NY 10001] ################################################################## "As one whose husband and mother-in-law have both died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder." -- Coretta Scott King [From "The Death Penalty -- Cruel & Inhuman Punishment" a pamphlet by Amnesty International [322 8th Ave., New York, NY 10001] ################################################################## "The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment.... While police and law enforcement officials are the strongest advocates of capital punishment, the evidence is overwhelming that police are no safer in communities that retain the sanction than in those that have abolished it. It also is evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant, and the underprivileged members of society." -- United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall [From "The Death Penalty -- Cruel & Inhuman Punishment" a pamphlet by Amnesty International [322 8th Ave., New York, NY 10001] ################################################################## Former president Jose Napoleon Duarte, in a 1980 interview, when asked about the origins of the conflict in El Salvador had this to say: "Fifty years of lies, fifty years of injustice, fifty years of frustration. This is a history of people starving to death, living in misery. For fifty years the same people had all the power, all the money, all the jobs, all the education, all the opportunities. Those who did not have anything tried to take it away from those who had everything. But there were no democratic systems available to them, so they have radicalized themselves, have resorted to violence. And of course this second group, the rich, do not want to give up anything, so they are fighting." Raymond Bonner, the interviewer, was surprised by Duarte's sympathetic explanation for the revolution, and added: "But what struck me more...was what he [Duarte] had not said. He had said nothing about Castro or Cuba. He had not mentioned the Sandinistas or Nicaragua. There was no talk of the cold war and the Soviet Union. (Duarte was to raise those themes later, when they reflected the views of the Reagan administration in Washington) What Duarte was saying was that the revolution had been caused and fueled by the conditions in El Salvador" [see New York Times Magazine, Feb. 22, 1981; see also Bonner's book _Weakness and Deceit:U.S. Policy and El Salvador_ (New York:Times Books, 1984), page 24. Above quoted in John Lamperti's AFSC study _What Are We Afraid Of? An Assessment of the `Communist Threat' In Central America_] ################################################################## "When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist" --Dom Helder Camara Brazilian Bishop Nobel Peace Prize nominee ################################################################## "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the houses of its children." --Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 [Source: Physicians for Social Responsibility] ################################################################## "In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up." --Pastor Martin Niemoller. ################################################################## "The [Reagan] administration was committed to...a massive increase in the state sector of the economy in the traditional American way, through the Pentagon system -- a device to force the public to invest in high technology industry by means of the state-guaranteed market for the production of high technology waste (armaments), and thus to contribute to the general program of public subsidy, private profit, called ``free enterprise''" Noam Chomsky, _Libya in U.S. Demonology_, Covert Action Information Bulletin #26, Summer 1986. ################################################################## "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." -- George Orwell, "Notes on Nationalism," 1945 [Found in: Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, _The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism_, 1979, South End Press (See AML resource files lib/resources/south.end.press for ordering info)] ################################################################## "The testimony of armed forces personnel, the details of thousands of case studies and other information examined by Amnesty International lead to the conclusion that actions attributed by authorities to "death squads" are routinely carried out by regular units of the armed forces which include the military and the security services, and by special intelligence units that incorporate civilian gunmen under their supervision and control." [Conclusions, p. 44] "Amnesty International has concluded that the Salvadoran `death squads' are simply used to shield the government from accountability for the torture, `disappearance' and extrajudicial executions committed in their name. The squads are made up of *regular army and police agents*, acting in uniform or plain clothes, *under the orders of superior officers*." [emphasis added] [Who Runs the ``Death Squads''", pp. 8-9] "The Salvadorian Government maintains that `death squad'-style killings are the work of extremist groups beyond its control. However, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that the squads are made up of regular troops and police -- that they form an intrinsic part of the security apparatus" [Back cover] ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Tens of thousands of people have been the victims of extrajudicial execution and "disappearance" by El Salvador's armed forces since 1980... None of the armed forces officers responsible have been brought to justice, most remain in positions of command." [Conclusions, p. 44] "Murders of tens of thousands of Salvadorian citizens have gone without even a semblance of investigation. Witnesses to abductions or killing have recorded license numbers of vans used by ``death squads''. But the authorities have then refused to make public the identity of institutions of individuals to which the vehicles were registered..." [Page 37] ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Efforts by El Salvador's independent and church-run human rights organizations to investigate these killing have been hampered by the harassment, intimidation, imprisonment, torture, mutilation, extrajudicial execution and "disappearance" of their members..." "The military court system in El Salvador has routinely failed to prosecute military personnel accused of involvement in torture, "disappearance" and extrajudicial execution. The exclusive jurisdiction of the military courts over members of the armed forces provides a shield behind which armed forces personnel commit grave crimes with impunity." ------------------------------------------------------------------ [This 50 page report, with pictures (which are clearer in the Spanish edition), is only $5 from Amnesty International, Publications, 322 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10001. Ask for "El Salvador: ``Death Squads'' -- A Government Strategy", first published in October, 1988; or call Amnesty at: (212)807-8400 (ask for "publications")] ****************************************************************** "All sectors of Salvadorian society have been the target of ``death squad''-style killings...in a great many cases the choice of victim has been indicator of who lies behind the ``death squads''. Those targeted have been members of groups perceived to be in opposition to the government, or to represent a nucleus around whom such opposition could coalesce, including students, trade unionists, members of cooperatives, church workers and peasants." [Page 25] ################################################################## [two longer quotes...] "War is a racket. Our stake in that racket has never been greater in all out peace-time history. It may seem odd for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force--the Marine Corps.... "I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in . I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras 'right' for American fruit companies in 1903... "Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best *he* could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three *continents*" --Marine Corps Major General Smedley D. Butler. Twice wounded in action and twenty times decorated, Smedley Butler was also one of the few Americans to be twice awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. ---------------------- Butler commanded a marine detachment sent to Nicaragua in 1910...here's his description of how he managed that intervention: "Dr. Madris [the president of Nicaragua] grew cold toward the Nicaraguan investments of Brown Bros. and Seligman & Co. Another revolution immediately 'occurred' and our State Department sent a representative to see that the revolution was successful. Near Bluefields was the property of a large American gold mine, whose stock was owned mainly by Pittsburgh financiers and partly by the then Secretary of State, Philander CD. Knox. President Madris refused to recognize the validity of the gold mining concession and 225 Marines immediately were dispatched to Bluefields to 'protect American lives and property.' I commanded those Marines and in order to be sure that there was an American life to protect in Bluefields I made certain that local American consul was on the job. There wasn't another American in miles..." ["America's Armed Forces", in _Common Sense_, October 1935 to Feb. 1936 (an article in five parts) [see part I, p.6; part II, p.8; part III, pp. 13-14]] "The failure of US policy makers to press for a negotiated end to the war in El Salvador has placed our country in league with a clique of assassins masquerading as an army... ################################################################## See lib/elsalv/robertW for powerful quotes of former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White, written to NYT, Nov '89 ################################################################## Few concepts during this quarter-century have been as important, as controversial, as misunderstood, and as misinterpreted as secrecy in government. No idea during this period [1946-1971] has had a greater impact upon Americans and upon the American way of life than that of the containment of Communism. Both are inseparably intertwined and have nurtured each other in a blind Pavlovian way. Understanding their relationship is a matter of fundamental importance. -L. Fletcher Prouty, "The Secret Team" [From dave%ratmandu.csd@sgi.com (dave ratcliffe): A quote from L. Fletcher Prouty, Colonel, USAF (Ret.). i went back to his home in alexandria, VA last year and interviewed him for five days.. on his life in the military, especially his 9 years from 1955 thru 1963 acting as the liason..from the Pentagon to the CIA for logistical support of all covert ops world wide. His book, "The Secret Team, The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World," Prentice Hall, (c) 1973, has a wealth of information in it about how the world of covert activity has come into existence in/by the US gov. since WWII.] ################################################################## Life is mainly froth and bubble Two things stand like stone: Kindness in another's trouble; Courage in one's own --??? [Saw it posted on the net years ago. Not very political, but I like it -- Harel] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Quatrain and administrative things I just looked in the _Oxford Dictionary of Quotations_, and what do you know? That poem segment that is in QUOTES RESOURCE is in it: "Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone, Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in your own." -- Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870), "Ye Wearie Wayfarer," Fytte 8 What kind of creative/administrative/paperworky things does AML need done? I might be interested! Tom Lee, "The Lamplighter" | "One should always be in love. That is | / BITNET: TAB47@ISUVAX | the reason why one should never marry." | (o) Internet: tjlee@iastate.edu | | / or: tab47@ccvax.iastate.edu | -- Oscar Wilde | Heya! ################################################################## "Jet Airplane; Wrist Watch; Ball-point Pen; Radical/Leftist Idea" --me I later found something related in Donnelly/Colt's catalogue: All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident. --Schopenhauer. [Sticker from Donnelly/Colt catalogue Box 188, Hampton, CT 06247] ################################################################## "It will be a blow to [Salvadoran president Cristiani] politically, at the very moment -the very hour- when we ought to be encouraging him to go forward...he is doing exactly what we've been trying to accomplish over the last 10 years We ought to give President Cristiani a chance to succeed" --Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn), Sept. 89, voting against a foreign aid bill provision which would have tied sending the last third of Salvadoran aid to congressional acceptance of an Administration report on human rights and peace talks progress. [Associated Press, 9/20/89, from misc.headlines.unitex #451] ################################################################## ############################################################### # Harel Barzilai for Activists Mailing List (AML) # ################################################################ { For more info about ACTIV-L or PeaceNet's brochure send } { inquiries to harel@dartmouth.edu / mathrich@umcvmb.bitnet } To join AML, just send the 1-line message "SUB ACTIV-L " to: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET; you should receive a confirmation message within 2 days. Alternate address: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU Qs/problems: Rich Winkel, MATHRICH@UMCVMB.["MISSOURI.EDU" or "BITNET"]