#unit

The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media--none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#family

If the people of God were to transform the world through fascination, these amazing teachings had to work at the center of these peculiar people. Then we can look into the eyes of a centurion and see not a beast but a child of God, and then walk with that child a couple of miles. Look into the eys of tax collectors as they sue you in court; see their poverty and give them your coat. Look in to the eys of the ones who are hardest for you to like, and see the One you love. For God loves good and bad people. ↗

— Shane Claiborne

#community #giving #jesus #love #change

Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s what part of it means to be alive. But inside our heads — at least that’s where I imagine it — there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let fresh air in, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live for ever in your own private library. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#library #life #little-room #loss #lost-opportunity

The first and most imperative necessity in war is money, for money means everything else - men, guns, ammunition. ↗

— Ida Tarbell

#else #everything #first #guns #imperative

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#class #community #else #money #more

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#giving #ignorance #journalism #keeps #opinions

The issue is whether the ultimate civil authority of the United States can tolerate actions in contempt of constitutional lines of authority. Any lessening of civil power over military power must inevitably lead away from democracy. ↗

— Harold Russell

#any #authority #away #civil #constitutional

The blood and sweat shed by United States and United Nations troops proved to be the prime mover behind the realisation of freedom throughout the post-war period. ↗

— Kim Y. Sam

#blood #freedom #nations #period #post-war

The establishment wonders why we can't get more of the black vote. It's because it's not doing the things necessary to establish a deeper relationship with the black community. Most black people don't think alike. Most black people just vote alike. ↗

— J. C. Watts

#because #black #black community #community #deeper

So I was shampooing at 14. But I've always thought that had I the opportunity for an education, I would have been an architect. There's no question about it. ↗

— Vidal Sassoon

#always #architect #been #education #had