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"I used to think that the causes of war were predominantly economic. I came to think that they were more psychological. I am now coming to think that they are decisively "personal," arising from the defects and ambitions of those who have the power to influence the currents of nations." ~ B. H. Liddell Hart "The failure to dissect the cause of war leaves us open for the next installment." ~ Chris Hedges "The best defence of peace is not power, but the removal of the causes of war, and international agreements which will put peace on a stronger foundation, than the terror of destruction." ~…

"White House and State Department foreign-policy experts are overwhelmingly directed towards military and diplomatic issues, not development issues." ~ Jeffrey Sachs "We are not at war (except with our own demons)." ~ Jeffrey Sachs "Tax the rich. End the wars. Break the power of lobbies in Washington. These are the demands of Occupy Wall Street. They are very important. The US corporations dominate Washington. The big oil companies, Wall Street banks and the military-industrial complex - they rule this country and their influence and power has to be broken." ~ Jeffrey Sachs Rather than…

"For most of the history of the American empire, government has been a tool for preserving and furthering the power and might of white male corporate elites." ~ Cornel West "We better rethink the position of the United States in the world and whether we want to be an empire. Being an empire puts all of us in jeopardy. The American Empire, while it was just wreaking havoc on other nations, didn't bother us." ~ Howard Zinn "The American empire should be destroyed." ~ Aleksandr Dugin "The American empire is hovering between life and death." ~ Mohsen Rezaee Power is never permanent. America…

The really big problem with China is that there are the unfair trade practices, like currency manipulation, illegal export subsidies and the theft of intellectual property, but then there's also things that the WTO doesn't cover that it should, which is the use of sweat shops and pollution havens. ~ Peter Navarro Any time you read that your government is erecting tariff barriers, supporting threatened industries with subsidies, or interfering in any way with free trade between individuals or nations, you must realize that your standard of living is being lowered as a result. ~ John Pugsley…

Counterintuitive actions prove we can trust real knowledge and do the opposite of what we feel makes sense. ~ Penn Jillette Counterintuitive action makes a fellow feel smart. ~ Penn Jillette As counterintuitive as it seems, generosity begins wherever you are. It is important to make generosity a priority. ~ Andy Stanley Real life does not come naturally. It is counterintuitive. It is a skill we have to learn. That's because the way to real life is not something we get, but something we give. ~ J.P. Moreland You have learned to be compliant. You've been taught success comes from doing…

"Thanks to economists, all of us, from the days of Adam Smith and before right down to the present, tariffs are perhaps one tenth of one percent lower than they otherwise would have been. And because of our efforts, we have earned our salaries ten-thousand fold." ~ Milton Friedman "Tariffs that save jobs in the steel industry mean higher steel prices, which in turn means fewer sales of American steel products around the world and losses of far more jobs than are saved." ~ Thomas Sowell "As history has repeatedly proven, one trade tariff begets another, then another - until you've got a…

The combat of WAR and an economic WAR have a lot of similarities. You do have to be skilled, aggressive, know your enemy and your strong attributes and limitations. Both skills are needed although one may be more natural. ~ Richard Marcinko To me, the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover. ~ Stephen K. Bannon Europe is war. Economic war. It is the increase of hostilities between the…

"Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men." ~ Milton Friedman "One who uses coercion is guilty of deliberate violence. Coercion is inhuman." ~ Mahatma Gandhi "Coercion created slavery, the cowardice of the slaves perpetuated it." ~ Jean-Baptiste Rousseau "Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within." ~…

"The world has never been as divided as it is now, what with religious wars, genocides, a lack of respect for the planet, economic crisis, depression, poverty, with everyone wanting instant solutions to at least some of the world's problems or their own. And things only look bleaker as we head into future." ~ Paulo Coelho To me, the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover. ~Stephen K.…

"History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse." ~ Eric Alterman "I expect to see trade wars, foreign policy disasters, a few race riots, a decrease in personal liberty, higher taxes, higher inflation and probably, economic collapse. The silver lining is, secession will probably become more feasible." ~ Charley Reese "At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of…

"First there was racism. Then liberals created institutional racism and coded racism. You can only hear it with a dog whistle." ~ Evan Sayet "What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism." ~ Rand Paul "In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it." ~ Henry Louis…

"Am I my brother's keeper?" There you have the whole Biblical understanding that you are your brother's keeper. You also have a whole other understanding in which you are not your brother's keeper. And I've heard some extremely bright people take this position. ~ Elie Wiesel We are not our brother’s keeper we are our brother and we are our sister. We must look past complexion and see community. ~ Maya Angelou The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. Religion reminds every man that he is his brother's keeper. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. All life is…

"Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony." ~ Noam Chomsky "I believe - though I may be wrong, because I'm no expert - that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil." ~ Dustin Hoffman "The scope of America's global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow, limited by both domestic and external restraints." ~ Zbigniew Brzezinski "The history of mankind is a history of the…

America and her allies are stepping into a very thick forest and they will be lost in no time. There is an unsustainable debt crisis on the horizon. The dollar's supremacy in the world is fading. The economy is shifting from the West. Internal factions risk tearing countries apart. Unemployment off the charts, crime rate through the roof, portions of society ignoring laws, no social safety net, pensions eroded or devoured by a volatile stock market and the plummeting dollar. North America is losing global influence. Multinational corporations are not investing in North America due to the…

"We can at least try to understand our own motives, passions, and prejudices, so as to be conscious of what we are doing when we apeal to those of others. This is very difficult, because our own prejudice and emotional bias always seems to us so rational." ~ T. S. Eliot "It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias." ~ Simone de Beauvoir "There are only two ways to be quite unprejudiced and impartial. One is to be completely ignorant. The other is to be completely indifferent. Bias and prejudice are attitudes to be kept in hand, not attitudes to be…