Inspirational thoughts

"Without healthy self-esteem,
you could have 'everything' but
your life could still be a wreck"

-author unknown

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"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children."

- Charles Swindoll

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Quotes that definitely have a Viewpoint  

J. William Fulbright, US Senator: "To criticize one's country is to do it a service ... Criticism, in short, is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism - a higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar rituals and national adulation."  

Michael Parenti: "To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them."  

Edward Abbey: "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."  

Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun: "You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. That's their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead."  

Noam Chomsky: "The point of public relations slogans like 'Support our troops' is that they don't mean anything... That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk about."  

John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I should know; I was an EHM."  

The American Heritage Dictionary, 1983: "fascism - A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."  

Huey Long: "If fascism ever came to the United States, it would be wrapped in an American flag."  

Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas: "All democracies turn into dictatorships - but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea... That's the issue that I've been exploring: How did the Republic turn into the Empire ... and how does a democracy become a dictatorship?"  

Alex Carey: "The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."  

Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times: "The fact is ... that when totalitarian nations... play ball with U.S. business interests, we like them just fine. But when Venezuela's freely elected president threatens powerful corporate interests, the Bush administration treats him as an enemy."  

William Shirer: "For the last fifty years we've been supporting right-wing governments, and that is a puzzlement to me...I don't understand what there is in the American character... that almost automatically, even when we have a liberal President, we support fascist dictatorships or are tolerant towards them."  

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf: "The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the 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 a big one."  

President Thomas Jefferson: "The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."  

Recieved these in a e-newsletter, For Viewpoint archives, visit: 

 http://archives.gophercentral.com/newsletter_28.html 

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"It all began with Adam. He was the first man to tell a joke--or a lie. How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before. Adam was not alone in the Garden of  
Eden, however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant."  

-Mark Twain, 1867  

(saw this in an e-newsletter)

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"Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?"   

-A. L. Milne (Winnie the Pooh)  

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"Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain."   
 

---Carl G. Jung  

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"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion  
or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead."  

---Gelett Burgess 

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