AngryJerkface

There are those who see the future as a place of sunshine, honey and sylvan glades. Others see it as a time when eggs moulder in their shells, corpses lie rotting in the streets and the little children weep. Who is to say which is correct? —From Smily Smile Or Breaking Heart? by Jeremy Christian, Ortyx Press, 1992

“Iron covered the fields and roads: iron points reflected the ray of the sun. This iron, so hard, was borne by a people whose hearts were harder still.” —From Bullfinch’s Mythology, “Legends of Charlemagne,” attributed to Ogier the Dane, circa 800 A.D.

Nothing lives long, Only the earth and the mountains. —Death song of White Antelope, Cheyenne War Chief

Beware of smiles. A heart-bound oath spoken with ease often means duplicity. Betrayal is a two-edged sword that can mortally strike your enemy while only wounding you—if you are wise, if you are ruthless, and if you know exactly when the betrayal will take place, and more importantly, by whom. Then the spiteful traitors will die in their own trap. Li Quan, Warrior/philospher China, 700 B.C.

…there have always been secrets, and there has always been power. It’s just that some of it has been out in the open, and some of it has been in the shadows. That’s the worst— you can never be sure what’s going on in the shadows. That twilight world where there are only half-truths and half-lies, and no such thing as trust. —From a report to a Congress Committee on hidden cabals and covert operations, August 23, 1954

Sometimes I wondered if it was possible that the whole structure of government wasn’t just some sort of absurd joke, and that underneath it all, underpinning the whole structure and fabric of our society, there was a covert and secret society that had it all nicely arranged for their own ends. After all, if Adam Weshaupt had gotten his way, then the Illuminati would be running the world. Maybe they were. The only consolation is that they’d bomb themselves out of existence, which isn’t much of a consolation, is it? —Paul Trew The Secrets of Power Swine Press 1996

Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame… —Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab, (1813)

For man also knoweth not his time; as the fishes are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. —Ecclesiastes 9:11-12

Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible the the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves…in comparison. —Heinrich Heine 1797-1856

Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neith is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them—and then, the opportunity to choose. —C.Wright Mills 1916-1962