“The U.S. military does not keep us safe; the U.S. military puts
every single person in this country at extreme risk, 24/7, 365.”
~ Mike Malloy
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier, Smedley D. Butler
“I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it,
than for what I don’t want and get it.”
~ Eugene V. Debs
1990 file photo of author Kurt Vonnegut visiting at the Beverly Hills Hotel, promoting his new book tha deals with the environment. (Photo by Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“There’s only one rule that I know of,
babies —
God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
Kurt Vonnegut, the beloved novelist we have to thank for Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle would have turned [93] today. Aside from his terrific and inventive page-turners, Vonnegut is often remembered for his outspokenness about both political and moral issues, as well as the importance of art. He advocated humanism both in interviews and in his books. It makes sense, then, that many of his novels contain quotable advice on how to live well.
Here’s some of the best advice gleaned from his novels, essays, and interviews:
The photographs in the New York Times told contrasting stories last week. One showed two Taliban soldiers in civilian clothes and sandals, with their rifles, standing in front of a captured U.N. vehicle. The Taliban forces had taken the northern provincial capital of Kunduz. The other photograph showed Afghan army soldiers fully equipped with modern gear, weapons, and vehicles.
Guess who is winning? An estimated thirty-thousand Taliban soldiers with no air force, navy, or heavy weapons have been holding down ten times more Afghan army and police and over 100,000 U.S. soldiers with the world’s most modern weaponry – for eight years.
Always Question Authority 