things to consider...

when government fears the people there is liberty, when the people fear the government there is tyranny. - thomas jefferson

the most serious sorrow of empire is the irreversible damage we do to ourselves. - chalmers johnson

the winner will inevitably face the imperial problem of using power in global terms but from one particular center of authority, so preponderant and unchallenged that its world rule will almost certainly violate basic standards of justice. - reinhold niebuhr (1952, about the cold war)

every single empire, in it's official discourse, has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that is has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force as a last resort. - edward said

the american military is being used more and more for the protection of overseas oil fields and the supply routes that connect them to the united states and its allies. such endeavors, once largely confined to the gulf area, are now extending to unstable oil regions in other parts of the world. slowly but surely, the united states military is being converted into a global oil-protection service. -michael klane

although many of us have been taught it is not polite to discuss religion and politics in public, we must quickly unlearn that lesson. our collective failure to challenge presuppositions, think anew, and openly depate central religous concerns affecting society is a recipe for disaster. - c. kimball

the past is never dead. it's not even past. - william faulkner

once before, when a united states political party in control of the white house became captive to an excessive southern ideology and hawkishness laced with fundamentalism and adherence to scripture, national governance was transformed and the republic thrown off course. war became inevitable. - kevin phillips (referring to the buildup to the civil war)

values are what society holds; what churches hold is theology. - k. phillips

when john f. kennedy made his famous speech that the vatican would not tell him what to do, evangelicals and southern baptists breathed a sigh of relief. but today evangelicals and southern baptists are hoping that the vatican will tell catholic politicians what to do. - gary bauer

the republican party of lincoln has become a party of theocracy. - c. shays (r-conn)

ideology is a lot easier, because you don't have to know anything or search for anything. you already know the answer to everything. it's not penetrable by facts. - paul o'neill

if human nature has changed, the gene modification must have occurred almost overnight. - k. phillips (pointing out that the first financial mania collapsed around 1720, and the last the nasdaq in 2002)

even though war-related debt seems to have been part of each fatal endgame, the past leading world economic powers seem to have made another error en route. they did not pay enough attention to establishing or maintaining a vital manufacturing sector, thereby keeping a better international balance and a broader internal income distribution than financialization allowed. - k. phillips

banking is not the creator of our prosperity, but the creation of it. it is not the cause of our wealth, but the consequence of our wealth; and if the industrial energy and development which has been going on for so many years in this country were to be hindered or relaxed, then finance, and all that finance means, will follow trade to the countries which are more successful than ourselves. - joseph chamberlain (1904, addressing bankers in britain as the sun began to set on the british empire)

historically, the financialization of society has always been a symbol that a nation's economic position has entered a phase of deterioration. - william wolman and anne colamosia

the lesson of history is that we don't learn the lessons of history. - t. donlan

maybe if these fuckasses had been "reborn" through a study of history rather than a misguided and blatantly false interpretation of the bible calling for a final war between the forces of an anti-christ and those of god, a god who failed to appear with his or her armageddon every single time a former world empire has faded and believed the end-times were upon them, and espoused by evangelical, hellfire breathing conmen we could have avoided this mess. - me

your dream world is just about to end...