Dissident Veteran For Peace: March 2012

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Quotable: How the Light Gets In

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Source: Leonard Cohen. "Anthem".

Labels: poetry, quotations

# posted by VFPDissident @ 3/25/2012 07:33:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Quotable: The Opposite of Sin

... the opposite of sin is not virtue ... No, the opposite of sin is faith, as is affirmed in Rom. 14:23, "whatsoever is not of faith is sin." And for the whole of Christianity it is one of the most decisive definitions that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.

Source: Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, Part II, Sect. A, Ch. 1.

Labels: Christianity, quotations, religion