informant38
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...But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not...
Milton, Areopagitica

Except he had found the
standing sea-rock that even this last
Temptation breaks on; quieter than death but lovelier; peace
that quiets the desire even of praising it.

Jeffers, Meditation On Saviors


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9.11.02

We have already been a nation in mourning once in this young century. If we become one again, we need to once more find the compassion to remain human in an inhuman world. We need to understand that our civilian reality is not the reality of the soldier and to have the grace and dignity to honor that difference.
Santayana said: "To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman." Let's be clear who the criminals are.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the commander-in-chief of one of the greatest armies ever raised, said: "I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed.
"I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of the line -- the survivors of a regiment of a thousand that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war."

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