1
" In the heat of the battle, all internal barriers break down; the puppet bourgeoisie of businessmen and shopkeepers, the urban proletariat, which is always in a privileged position, the lumpen-proletariat of the shanty towns - all fall into line with the stand made by the rural masses, that veritable reservoir of a national revolutionary army; for in those countries where colonialism has deliberately held up development, the peasantry, when it rises, quickly stands out as the revolutionary class. For it knows naked oppression, and suffers far more from it than the workers in the towns, and in order not to die of hunger, it demands no less than a complete demolishing of all existing structures. In order to triumph, the national revolution must be socialist "
― Jean-Paul Sarte
4
" Frank heard the glass of water thump on the stand that he now imagined might be beside the bed, which meant it was. Finally something firm to grasp, in his mind and with his hand. He reached out very slowly, as he didn’t want to risk tearing the gauze that was so precariously holding his vital organs together. He felt wood. His fingers slid shakily over the corners of the table, feeling their reality, their solidity. He tried to picture it in his head, all rough hewn and unpainted, but the white kept slipping in, even though he knew Mexicans rarely painted anything with a neutral color. Still, there it was, a whitewashed bed stand in his mind. He tried to overlook it, and reached up higher to find the glass cylinder full of what his body was screaming out for, water.That was why he felt so tight, he figured. His tissues and muscles had all dried up, and he needed to rehydrate them before even attempting to move. So at last, grasping the all important container, his fingers straining against its mighty heft, he slowly slipped it to and then off of the edge of the little table. Vast oceans of bluey refuge sloshed against their constraints, spilling their powerful waves over the side, across his sleeping hand, and onto the bed sheets below that were undoubtedly as white as Santa’s fucking beard.But the spill, the great cresting of the breakers over the levee walls, tremendous in its awesome power and glory, had only served to excite him, to intrigue him, the refreshment that the backside of his hand was lapping up osmotically served only to stoke the great thirst within him, and with God steadying his hand, he tipped his gauze laden head up, muscled the glass towards his mouth with veins rippling in his arms, and tipped it.It was not a perfect pour. Water splashed against his forehead, his eyes still clenched tightly in their death struggle against the white, as he had no idea where his mouth was at that point anyway. But he really didn’t give a shit where the life giving fluid went, for he had become a very gauzey sponge, and his tissues would reach their strange and parched tendrils across the entire room if they must to soak up the precious juices that would in turn dissolve their steely grip and allow him to rise from his low perch and sallie forth across the blue fields of agave that awaited a non-suicidal tourist’s itinerary, just outside the door he could not remember but which must surely be bolted to an opening that must surely be the gateway to the very room in which he must surely be attempting to drink. "
6
" For every group, malevolence is always somewhere else. Maybe we understand at this point in history that it can occur at night in darkened rooms where small children sleep. However, surely not in academia. Surely lying and deception do not occur among people who go to conferences, who write books, who testify in court, and who have PhDs.At one point I complained to a Florida judge that I was astonished to an expert witness lying on the stand [about child sexual abuse research]. I thought one had to tell the truth in court. I thought if someone didn't, she didn't get her milk and cookies. I thought God came down and plucked someone right out of the witness stand if he lied in court. I thought a lying expert witness would step out of court and get hit by a bus. A wiser woman than I, the judge's answer was, “Silly you." Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 "
7
" During the Senate debate on the intervention in Iraq, Sen. Clinton made considerable use of her background and 'experience' to argue that, yes, Saddam Hussein was indeed a threat. She did not argue so much from the position adopted by the Bush administration as she emphasized the stand taken, by both her husband and Al Gore, when they were in office, to the effect that another and final confrontation with the Baathist regime was more or less inevitable. Now, it does not especially matter whether you agree or agreed with her about this (as I, for once, do and did). What does matter is that she has since altered her position and attempted, with her husband’s help, to make people forget that she ever held it. And this, on a grave matter of national honor and security, merely to influence her short-term standing in the Iowa caucuses. Surely that on its own should be sufficient to disqualify her from consideration? "
― Christopher Hitchens