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FOOLISH / FOOLS
FOOTBALL --- FORCE
FOREIGN AID --- FOREIGN POLICY --- FORESIGHT

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FOOLISH / FOOLS

see "FAILURE" for related links


A common mistake that people make when trying to
design something completely foolproof was to
underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
--Douglas Adams (1952—2001)
British comic radio dramatist and author.
_Mostly Harmless_

There's a sucker born every minute.
--attributed to Phineas T. Barnum (1810—1891)
American showman.

Drinking makes such fools of people, and people
are such fools to begin with it's just compounding
the felony.
--Robert Benchley (1889—1945)
American humorist and newspaper columnist.

-

It is like sport to a fool to do wrong, but wise
conduct is pleasure to a man of understanding.
--Bible
"Proverbs" 10:23 RSV


A fool’s lips bring him strife,
and his mouth invites a beating.
--Bible
"Proverbs" 18:6


Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent
and discerning if he holds his tongue.
--Bible
Proverbs 17:28 (NIV Bible)

& see

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
_Maxims_ #914

-

April Fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906]
{Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_}.

However big the fool, there is always a
bigger fool to admire him.
--Nicolas Boileau-Desprιaux (1636—1711)
French critic and poet.
_L'art poιtique_ [1674], canto 1

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and
complain - and most fools do.
--Dale Carnegie (1888—1955)
American writer and lecturer.
_How to Win Friends and Influence People_ [1936],
pt. 1 "Fundamental Techniques in Handling People"

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The clouds of mistrust and suspicion have been
cleared away.
(On 2 May 1938, accepting Italian annexation of
Abyssinia in exchange for Italian withdrawal from Spain.)
--Neville Chamberlain (1869—1940)
British Conservative politician, Prime Minister [1937—1940].


My good friends, this is the second time in our
history that there has come back from Germany to
Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is
peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom
of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go
home and sleep quietly in your beds.
--Neville Chamberlain (1869—1940)
British Conservative politician, Prime Minister [1937—1940].
In M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.)
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 825.
Cohan & Major explain:
Speaking to cheering crowds from a first-floor window of
10 Downing Street after his return from Munich, 1 Oct. 1938.
The sense of relief was shared in France, where a crowd of
half a million turned out to welcome Daladier back from
Germany. The phrase 'peace for our time' seems to be
based on words in the Order of Morning Prayer in the
Anglican liturgy: 'Give peace in our time, 0 Lord.'

-

The head of dullness loses nothing of the benumbing
and lethargizing influence by reiterated discharges.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and
Prime Minister [1868, 1874-1880].

I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere,
so we will patiently grope round for it.
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859—1930)
Scottish-born writer of detective fiction.
_The Lost World_

A fool and his money are soon parted.
--English proverb

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
--Euripides (485?—406 B.C.)
Greek dramatist.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -
and you are the easiest person to fool.
--Richard Feynman (1918—1988)
American theoretical physicist.

If 50 million people believe a foolish thing,
it is still a foolish thing.
--Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844—1924)
French novelist, man of letters, and winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1921.

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The heart of the fool is in his mouth, but the
mouth of the wise man is in his heart.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1733]


The learned fool writes his nonsense in better
language than the unlearned, but still 'tis nonsense.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard Improved_ [1748]

-

^

In cinema theatres up & down the United Kingdom newsreels
showing Adolf Hitler's troops rupturing the Treaty of Versailles
and the Locarno Pact by marching into the Rhineland were
received with murmurs of approval, applause and even cheers
as last week opened. Newsreels of Poilus marching up to
defend the French frontier were almost everywhere received
by Britons in silence. Inquiring reporters for Baron Beaverbrook
stopped 5,000 citizens to ask: "Do you on the whole prefer the
French or the Germans?" The answer, blazoned next day in
London's Daily Express, was that 21% had no preference,
24% preferred the French and 55% preferred the Germans.
--"Germans Preferred"
_Time_ [23 March 1936]

^

There is no fool to the old fool.
--John Heywood (1497—1580)
English playwright.
_Proverbs_ [1546]

Don't be mean to the fool; put a penny in
his cup, as you do for the blind beggar.
--Edgar Watson Howe (1854—1937)
American journalist and author.
_Sinner Sermons_ [1926]

Every man is a dam fool for at least ten minutes
a day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.
--Elbert Hubbard (1859—1915)
American editor, publisher, and author who
died in the sinking of the "Lusitania."
"The Philistine" magazine, published [1895—1915],
this entry from vol. 29 [1909].

Th' feller that agrees with ever'thing you
say is either a fool er he is gettin' ready
t'skin you.
--Frank McKinney (Kin) Hubbard (1868—1930)
American humorist.

There are two kinds of fools: one says, "This is
old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This
is new, therefore it is better."
--William Ralph Inge (1860—1954)
English writer and Dean of St. Paul's [1911—1934].

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it
needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.
--Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
English writer and poet.
_Plain Tales From The Hills_ [1888], "Three And An Extra"

To laugh at men of sense is
the privilege of fools.
--Jean de La Bruyθre (1645—1696)
French essayist and moralist.
_Les Caractθres_ [1688] "De la Sociιtι"

Few things are needed to make a wise man happy;
nothing can make a fool content; that is why most
men are miserable.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.

Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see
the world hath more fools in it than ever.
--Charles Lamb (1775—1834)
English essayist.

If one man says to thee, "Thou art a donkey," do not mind;
if two speak thus, purchase a saddle for thyself.
--Midrash (4th cent. B.C.—A.D. 12th cent.)

Hitler is no worse, nay better, in my opinion, than the
other lugs. He makes the German mistake of being
tactless, that’s all.
--Henry Miller (1891—1980)
American novelist and essayist.
Letter, March 1939, to author Lawrence Durrell. Published in
The Durrell-Miller Letters 1935-1980 [1988]. Written shortly
after the Nazis had marched into Czechoslovakia.

A knowledgeable fool is a greater
fool than an ignorant fool.
--Jean Moliθre [Jean Baptiste Poquelin]
(1622—1673) French comic dramatist.
"Les Femmes savantes" [1672]

I enjoy vast delight in the folly of mankind; and,
God be praised, that is an inexhaustible source
of entertainment.
--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [nιe Pierrepont] (1689—1762)
English writer.
Letter to the Countess of Mar.

You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of
the people some of the time, but you can make a damn fool
of yourself any old time.
--Laurence J. Peter (1919—1990)
Canadian teacher and author.
_Peter's Almanac_ [1982]

-

Wise men talk because they have something to say:
fools because they have to say something.
--Plato (427?—347 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.


As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they
that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers.
--Plato (427?—347 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.

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An old doting fool, with one
foot already in the grave.
--Plutarch (A.D. 46?—119?)
Greek philosopher and biographer.
_Morals. On the Training of Children_

For fools rush in where
angels fear to tread.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.
"An Essay on Criticism" [1711] l. 625

The ae half of the warld
thinks the tither daft.
--Sir Walter Scott (1771—1832)
Scottish novelist and poet.
"Redgauntlet" [1824]

What fools these mortals be.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.— 65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
_Epistles_, 1, 3

I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_As You Like It_, II, 7, 12

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Tomorrow I leave the land of hope [Russia] and
return to our Western countries of despair.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]

& see:

Soviet Russia represents a new civilization and a
new culture with a new outlook on life, involving a
new pattern of behavior alike in personal conduct
and in the relation of the individual to the community;
all of which I believe is destined to spread, owing to
its superior intellectual and ethical fitness, to many
other countries in the course of the next hundred
years.
--Beatrice Webb [nιe Potter] (1858—1943)
English Socialist economist.
Diary entry [28 July 1932].

& see:

Russia proves that you can change human nature
sufficiently in one generation ... these kids despise
a business man ... Service for profit is a sham ... I
believe they will make a race, the meanest of which
will be as noble as the best men of our day.
--Lincoln Steffens (1866—1936)
American journalist.
In _The Letters of Lincoln Steffens_ v. 2 [1938], pp.627-628.

& see:

In the abominable distress of the present world
now Russia's Plans seem to me salvation ... the
miserable arguments of its enemies, far from
convincing me, make my blood boil.
--Andre Gide (1869—1951) on 23 April 1932;
French novelist and critic who received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947.

& see:

The Soviet labour camp provided a freedom for its
inmates not usual in our own prisons in this country.
--Pat Sloan
British communist,
_Russia Without Illusions_ [1938]

& see:

Fear haunts workers in a capitalist land. Fear of
dismissal, fear that a thousand workless men stand
outside the gate eager to get his job, breaks the spirit
of a man and breeds servility. Fear of unemployment,
fear of slump, fear of trade depression, fear of
sickness, fear of an impoverished old age lie with
crushing weight on the mind of the worker ...
Nothing strikes the visitor to the Soviet Union more
forcibly than the absence of fear.
--Rev. Hewlett Johnson
_The Socialist Sixth of the World_ [1939].

The previous six entries from M.J. Cohan and
John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 744-745.

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The ultimate result of shielding men from
the effects of folly, is to fill the world
with fools.
--Herbert Spencer (1820—1903)
English philosopher.
_Essays_ [1891] vol. 3
"State Tamperings with Money and Banks"

Give me the young man who has brains
enough to make a fool of himself.
--Robert Louis Stevenson (1850—1894)
Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist.

As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous
woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.

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Better to keep your mouth shut and appear
stupid than to open it and remove all
doubt.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
Attributed, perhaps apocryphal.


Hain't we got all the fools in town on
our side? and ain't that a big enough
majority in any town?
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Life on the Mississippi_ [1883]

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Nothing is more difficult than to bear the applause of fools,
and I would willingly be hissed if I could only reward the
_Bravi_ of an ignoramus by boxing his ears.
--Carl Maria von Weber (1786—1826)
German composer and opera director.
_Literary Works_

Ninety-nine percent of the people in the
world are fools and the rest of us are in
great danger of contagion.
--Thornton Wilder (1897—1975)
American novelist and dramatist.
_The Matchmaker_ [1954], act I

If a man is a fool the best thing to
do is to encourage him to advertise
the fact by speaking.
--Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924)
American Democratic statesman and President [1913—1921].
In a speech in Paris, France [10 May 1919].

-

The world is full of fools, and he who
would not see it should live alone and
smash his mirror.
--anon. Adaptation from an original form
attributed to Claude Le Petit (1640—1665) {ODTQ}.

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coxcomb [KOKS-kohm], noun:
1 A fool.
4. A vain, showy fellow; a conceited, silly man, fond of display;
a superficial pretender to knowledge or accomplishments.

fatuous (adj) ['fζ-chu-wκs]
Smugly or unconsciously foolish, stupid.

spoony [SPOO-nee], adjective:
1. Foolish; silly; excessively sentimental.
2. Foolishly or sentimentally in love.
Nevertheless, because we're spoony old things
at heart, we like to believe that some showbiz
marriages are different.
--Julie Burchill, "Cut!"
_The Guardian_, [7 February 2001]



FOOTBALL

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see "SPORTS" for related links


If a man watches three football games in a row,
he should be declared legally dead.
--Erma Bombeck (1927—1996)
American humorist.
"Donahue" television talk show [22 May 1986].

Football is, after all, a wonderful way to get rid
of aggressions without going to jail for it.
--Heywood Hale Broun (1918—2001)
American sportswriter and sports commentator.
[Son of Heywood Broun.]
_Tumultuous Merriment_ [1979]

No, but I was only there nine years.
--former Dallas Cowboy running back
Walt Garrison, on whether he had
ever seen Coach Tom Landry smile.

Sometime, Rock, when the team's up against it, when things are
going wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to
go in there with all they've got and win just one for the
Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then Rock, but I'll know
about it, and I'll be happy.
--George Gipp (1895—1920)
American football player.
Whispered remark to his coach Knute Rockne
as he lay dying from a viral throat infection two
weeks after being named to the All-American
team, December 1920. In Red [Walter] Smith "One for
the Gipper,"
_New York Times_ [21 January 1981].

Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a
small boy than to fumble this football.
--John Heisman (1869—1936)
American football player and college football coach.

Gentlemen, you are about to play Harvard for
Yale. Never again in your lives will you do
anything so important.
--T.A.D. [Thomas Albert Dwight] Jones (1887—1957)
Yale football coach.

-

Football isn't a contact sport, it's a collision
sport. Dancing is a contact sport.
--Vince Lombardi (1913—1970)
American football player and coach of the
Green Bay Packers. He led the Packers to
five NFL championships including two Super
Bowl victories.
In James Michener's _Sports in America_ [1976].


Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.
--Vince Lombardi (1913—1970)
American football player and coach of the
Green Bay Packers. He led the Packers to
five NFL championships including two Super
Bowl victories.
In Jerry Kramer _Instant Replay_ [1968].


There are three important things in life: family,
religion, and the Green Bay Packers.
--Vince Lombardi (1913—1970)
American football player and coach of the
Green Bay Packers. He led the Packers to
five NFL championships including two Super
Bowl victories.
In Tom Dowling _Coach: A Season with Lombardi_ [1970].

-

Deep inside, we're still the boys of autumn,
that magic time of the year that once
swept us onto America's fields.
--Archie Manning (1949— )
American professional football player.

-

Well, we didn't block. And we made up
for it by not tackling.
--John McKay (1923—2001)
American football coach.
(During the 1976 season when his team, the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14.)


We can't stop a pass or a run, otherwise
we're in great shape.
--John McKay (1923—2001)
American football coach.
(During the 1976 season when his team, the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14.)


Another John McKay gem as told by Steve Spurrier:
Washington Redskins coach Steve Spurrier was a
member of the last winless NFL team, the 1976
Tampa Bay Buccaneers. "I remember a speech
our coach, John McKay, was giving us at one point
in the season," he told the New Yorker, "He was
emphasizing that games are lost in the trenches
by failing to block and tackle on the front lines.
And as he was talking he noticed a lineman asleep
in the back. He called his name, woke him up and
asked him 'Where are most games lost?' And the
lineman says 'Right here in Tampa, sir.'"


After a tough loss, the coach of American football's
Tampa Bay Buccaneers, John McKay, was asked
what he thought of the execution of his team.

He said it would be "a good idea".

http://www.superbowl.com/insider/story/6101081

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People have started asking me if we've got any talent
on this team. Well, I tell them, if we start winning
games we'll have talent. But since we're getting beat
to death, no, we don't.
--Joe Namath (1943— )
American football player.
In Rick Telander _Joe Namath and the Other Guys_ [1976].


JOURNALIST: 'Hey Joe [Namath],' How did you
do in Basket Weaving at [the University of] Alabama?'
NAMATH: 'I flunked out, I switched to something
easier--journalism.'

-

^

Before the kickoff, few people would have considered the football game scheduled for Yankee Stadium on Dec. 28, 1958, terribly significant. Football fans were more excited about the college bowl games coming up on New Year's Day than about the championship game being played by a bunch of professionals. The National Football League, after all, was still regarded as a pale imitation of the college game, and the last NFL matchup of the season was a distinctly down-menu item in the minds of most sports fans.

...[B]orn that day was the pro league's first superstar: Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas.

The scene is vividly recaptured by Tom Callahan in his biography of the quarterback, "Johnny U." In the last two minutes of the game, with the Colts trailing 17-14, Unitas completed four passes -- three in a row to the future Hall of Fame receiver Raymond Berry, for a total of 62 yards. He had moved his team from its own 14-yard line to the Giants' 13. With seven seconds remaining, Colts kicker Steve Myhra put the ball through the uprights to tie the score, 17-17, pushing the game into sudden death.

The drive to put the Colts in field-goal range was agonizingly dramatic, but Unitas looked like the coolest man in America. No sign of nerves. No showboating. There was a kind of sublime, icy confidence in the way he managed the Colts' advance. It was utterly professional -- and effective. In the overtime, Unitas led the Colts on an 80-yard drive -- including a white-knuckle third-and-14 completion to Berry -- before handing the ball to running back Alan Ameche for a one-yard plunge into the end zone and victory. This was decades before the celebrating star of a football game would pause onfield to make a paid announcement that his next stop was Disney World; Unitas turned down $500 to appear on "The Ed Sullivan Show" so that he could travel back to Baltimore with his teammates.

The Unitas story is pure blue-collar America, out of a vanished time, an era when athletes really did play -- trite though the phrase may be -- for the love of the game. Unitas was a ninth-round draft pick out of the University of Louisville, chosen by his hometown team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. But the Steelers cut him in 1955 before his first season even started. Unitas was working in construction and playing semi-pro ball on weekends for the Bloomfield Rams in Pittsburgh -- for $15 a game -- when, according to legend, a fan wrote a letter about him to the Colts that led to a tryout with the club. Joining the team in 1956, Unitas got his chance when Baltimore's starting quarterback, George Shaw, was injured in mid-season.

In "Johnny U," Mr. Callahan brings alive the days when professional athletes were not multimillionaire mini-conglomerates -- and when, despite their relative lack of gold-plated symbols of success, they were held in higher esteem than the preening, trash-talking prima donnas we know today. Unitas, together with the Colts he played for, embodied values that are as dated as the black high-top football shoes that were his trademark. Mr. Callahan captures this quality as successfully as he does Unitas's artistry in the two-minute drill. As we learn in "Johnny U," when the quarterback's teammate Alan Ameche and his wife bought their first house for $8,000, it was former construction worker Unitas who laid the floor.

--Geoffrey Norman "Blue-Collar Colossus,"
reviewing Tom Callahan's _Johnny U_
in _The Wall Street Journal_ [28 December 2006]

^

-

Back in the late 60s when Margaret and I had
been in Austin for just a week my boss took us
out to dinner at a restaurant called "The Barn."

Coming from NY, we didn't realize the popularity
of college football in Texas and halfway through
our meal word came that Texas has scored a
touchdown. I think _everyone_ in that restaurant
immediately got to their feet and with forefingers
and pinkies extended to the ceiling started singing
"The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You." It was a
joyous moment; one we'll never forget.

kap, posts to USENET group alt.fiftyplus.friends

-

For when the Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks--not that you won or lost--
But how you played the game.
--Grantland Rice (1880—1954)
American sports writer.
"Alumnus Football" [1941]

We count on winning. And if we lose, don't beef. And
the best way to prevent beefing is--don't lose.
--Knute Rockne (1888—1931)
Norwegian-born American coach who built
Notre Dame into a football powerhouse.
In Jerry Brondfield _Knute_ [1976].

Football is good for the country. Every American has that
feeling inside him that he'd like to hit somebody. He can't
do it in this kind of society. But he comes out to the ball-
park and he's almost in the game. It keeps him from going
soft. It's the fans' way of fighting for the country.
--Tom Roussel, football player, quoted in
Tom Dowling _Coach: A Season with Lombardi_ [1970].

-

[. . . ] College players legally could, and frequently did, "hack, throttle, butt, trip, tackle below the hips or strike an opponent with a closed fist three times" before being sent from the field, according to a report of the Harvard faculty's athletic committee in 1884. "In all the games observed, the manifestation of gentlemanly spirit was lacking," the committee concluded.

So-called momentum plays, such as the flying wedge, pitted an entire team's concentrated strength against one or two defensive players. Most players wore unpadded jerseys and shorts. Long hair was all that shielded their heads until the "head harness" appeared in the 1900s. With only three officials at most games -- one neutral and the other two representing the competing teams -- many fouls went unseen and unpunished. [. . . ]

--in the Wall Street Journal [1 December 2004]

-----

gridiron (noun)
1. Grating: a structure consisting of parallel bars
2. Sports football field: a field marked with parallel
white lines, on which football is played
3. Sports football: the game of football (informal)



FORCE

.
.

see: "POWER"
see: "STRENGTH"
see: "VIOLENCE"
see "WAR & PEACE" for other related links


Neither philosophy, nor religion, nor morality, nor wisdom,
nor interest will ever govern nations or parties against
their vanity, their pride, their resentment or revenge, or
their avarice or ambition. Nothing but force and power
and strength can restrain them.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
In a letter to Thomas Jefferson [9 October 1787].

He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.
--Samuel Butler (1612—1680)
English poet and satirist.
"Hudibras" [1663], pt. III [1678], canto III, l. 547

There is no force so powerful as an
idea whose time has come.
--Everett McKinley Dirksen (1896—1959)
American congressman and senator.
Referring to the Civil Rights Bill in a 1964
speech in the U.S. Senate.

A leader's fundamental choice is whether to approve the
use of force. If he decides to do so, his only vindication
is to succeed. His doubts provide no justification for failure;
restraint in execution is a boon to the other side; there are
no awards for those who lose with moderation. Once the
decision to use force has been made, the President has no
choice to but to pursue it with total determination — and to
convey the same spirit to all those implementing it. Nations
must not take military enterprises or major diplomatic
initiatives that they are not willing to see through.
--Henry Alfred Kissinger (1923— )
German-born American diplomat.
_White House Years_, Ch. 23 [1979]

Do you know what amazes me more than
anything else — the impotence of force to
organize anything. There are only two
powers in the world — the spirit and the
sword; and in the long run the sword
will always be conquered by the spirit.
--Napoleon I (1769—1821)
Emperor of France [1804—1815].

Only the incompetent wait until the last
extremity to use force, and by then, it
is usually too late to use anything, even
prayer.
--H. Beam Piper (1904—1964)
American science-fiction author.
"A Slave Is A Slave" [1962]

There is . . . but one response possible from us:
force, force to the utmost, force without stint or
limit, the righteous and triumphant force which
shall make right the law of the world and cast
every selfish dominion down in the dust.
--Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924)
American Democratic statesman and President [1913—1921].
In an address in Baltimore, Maryland on the first anniversary
of the U.S. entry into World War I [6 April 1918].

-----

countervail [kown-tur-VAYL], transitive verb:
1. To act against with equal force, power, or effect; to counteract.
2. To compensate for; to offset; to furnish or serve as an equivalent to.
3. To exert force against an opposing, often bad, influence or power.

juggernaut (noun)
1. crushing force: a force that is relentlessly destructive, crushing, and insensitive
2. U.K. huge truck: a very large long truck for transporting goods in bulk



Click picture to ZOOM
FOREIGN AID

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.

see "POLITICS" for related links


Foreign aid is a system of taking money from
poor people in rich countries and giving it to
rich people in poor countries.
--attributed to Lord Bauer (1915—2002)
Hungarian-born British economist.

If a free society cannot help the many who
are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1961—1963].
Inaugural Address [20 January 1961].

-

Our policy is directed not against any country or
doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation
and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a
working economy in the world so as to permit the
emergence of political and social conditions in
which free institutions can exist.
--George C. (Catlett) Marshall (1880—1959)
American general and statesman.
Speaking at Harvard University [5 June 1947].
In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 877.
Cohan & Major add:
This speech launched the so-called Marshall Plan
of aid to Europe. It was designed to rescue western
Europe from communist subversion, although the
aid was also offered to the Soviet Union and its East
European satellites. Stalin saved Washington much
embarrassment by returning a point-blank refusal and
by ordering the East European regimes to follow suit.
The governments of western Europe gratefully
accepted.

The Marshall Plan

& see

It was like a life-line to a sinking man. It seemed to
bring hope where there was none. The generosity of
it was beyond our belief.
--Ernest Bevin (1881—1951)
British trade unionist and statesman.
On the Marshall Plan [1 April 1949];
in Alan Bullock _Ernest Bevin_ [1983] p. 405.

& see:

The Marshall Plan will go down in history as one
of America's greatest contributions to the peace
of the world.
--Harry S. Truman (1884—1972)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945—1953].
_Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope_ [1955]

-

TOPICAL

"U.S. Is the World's Nanny"
October 23, 2006
Letter to the Editor
_The Wall Street Journal_

I'm wafting this idea upon the air in the hope that someone will read
it, and maybe even think about it: Our root defense problem is not
expenditures, it is that we've allowed ourselves to become the
world's policeman and nanny. As the operetta says, the policeman's
lot, and the nanny's, is not a happy one. We've inadvertently, over
generations of good works, created a global dependency. Like
spoiled children, our dependent "allies" envy and despise our
strength and success, even while demanding more and more of
us. It's past time for some "tough love." We'll be the least affected
by future wars and oppression, so maybe we should just quit helping
for a while, until our dependents stop shouting insults at us and
humbly beg for our help.

Don Vanderveldej
Gig Harbor, Wash.



FOREIGN POLICY

.
.

see "POLITICS" for related links


Wherever the standard of freedom and independence
... shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her
benedictions and her prayers be. But [America] does
not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy ... She
well knows that by once enlisting under other banners
than her own, were they even the banners of foreign
independence, she would involve herself, beyond
the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest
and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition,
which assume the colors and usurp the standard of
freedom.
--Secretary of State John Quincy Adams [4 July 1821],
in Walter LaFeber (ed.)
_John Quincy Adams and Continental Empire_ [1965].

The great questions of the time are not decided
by speeches and majority decisions — that was
the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and
blood.
--Otto von Bismarck (1815—1898)
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia 1862—1890.
He unified Germany with a series of successful wars and
became the first Chancellor 1871—1890 of the German Empire.
Speech to the Prussian Diet [30 September 1862].

Those who find America an especially violent
and oppressive country ("Amerika") have
apparently never read the history of England
or France, Germany or Russia, Indonesia or
Burundi, Turkey or Uganda.
--Eugene D. Genovese (1930— )
American historian.

Peace, commerce, & honest friendship with all
nations — entangling alliances with none.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Inaugural Address [4 March 180I],
in Saul K. Padover _Jefferson_ [1942] p.293.

-

The Chinese are a great and vital people who should
not remain isolated from the international community.
. . . It is certainly in our interest of peace and stability
in Asia and the world, that we take what steps we can
toward improved practical relations with Peking.
--Richard Nixon (1913—1994)
American Republican statesman, President [1969—1974].
First foreign policy report to Congress [February 1970].


Nations live or die by the way they respond to the particular challenges
they face. Those challenges may be internal or external; they may be
faced by a nation alone or in concert with other nations; they may come
gradually or suddenly. There is no immutable law of nature that says only
the unjust will be afflicted, or that the just will prevail. While might
certainly does not make right, neither does right by itself make might.
The time when a nation most craves ease may be the moment when it
can least afford to let down its guard. The moment when it most wishes
it could address its domestic needs may be the moment when it most
urgently has to confront an external threat. The nation that survives
is the one that rises to meet that moment: that has the wisdom to
recognize the threat and the will to turn it back, and that does so
before it is too late....

The naοve notion that we can preserve freedom by exuding goodwill is
not only silly, but dangerous. The more adherents it wins, the more it
tempts the aggressor.

--Richard Nixon (1913—1994)
American Republican statesman, President [1969—1974].
_The Real War_ [1980]


If when the chips are down, the world's most
powerful nation . . . acts like a pitiful, helpless
giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy
will threaten free nations and free institutions
throughout the world.
--Richard Nixon (1913—1994)
American Republican statesman, President [1969—1974].
Announcing a major United States offensive into Cambodia.

-

Americans hate foreign policy. Americans hate foreign
policy because Americans hate foreigners. Americans
hate foreigners because Americans _are_ foreigners.
[...] Being foreigners ourselves, we Americans know
what foreigners are up to with their foreign policy —
their venomous convents, lying alliances, greedy
agreements, and trick-or-treaties. America is not
a wily, sneaky nation. We don't think that way.
We don't think much at all, thank God. Start
thinking and pretty soon you get ideas, and
then you get idealism, and the next thing you
know you've got ideology, with millions dead in
concentration camps and gulags. A fundamental
American question is "What's the big idea?"
--P.J. O'Rourke (1947— )
American political satirist.
_Peace Kills_ [2005]

We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual
enemies. Our interests are perpetual and eternal and
those interests it is our duty to follow.
--Lord Palmerston [Henry John Temple] (1784—1865)
British politician.

Like the sorry tapping of Neville Chamberlain's
umbrella on the cobblestones of Munich.
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
On the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter [1980].

If a nation shows that it knows how to act with decency in industrial and
political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, then it need fear
no interference from the United States. Brutal wrongdoing, or an impotence
which results in a general loosening of the ties of a civilized society, may
finally require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western
Hemisphere the United States cannot ignore this duty; but it remains
true that our interests, and those of our southern neighbors, are in
reality identical.
--Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919)
American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909].
Letter to The Cuba Society of New York [20 May 1904],
quoted in Edmund Morris, _Theodore Rex_ [2001].

-

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace
and harmony with all.... The nation which indulges toward another
an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a
slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of
which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.
--George Washington (1732—1799)
American general and commander-in-chief of the
colonial armies in the American Revolution [1775—1783]
and first president of the United States [1789—1797].
Farewell Address [17 September 1796].


It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent
alliances with any portion of the foreign world.
--George Washington (1732—1799)
American general and commander-in-chief of the
colonial armies in the American Revolution [1775—1783]
and first president of the United States [1789—1797].


TOPICAL

It is preferable to continue to be envied because of
our success and attachment to principle, than to fall
any further into the company of those governments for
which cowardice is wisdom, ingratitude is Olympian
serenity, and the spitefulness of the weak is moral
indignation.
--Lord Black of Crossharbour,
"Britain has found its role — to be America's principal ally"

-

German pundits and critics of the Bush administration may scream
and shout as they might about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo: But had
the world continued on the course set out by them, Saddam Hussein's
regime of mass murder would still be in power and democracy would
still be but a distant dream to many in the Middle East for whom
freedom is now a tangible goal.

Certainly, the abuses at Abu Ghraib represent a moral setback
for the United States. Some critics of the Iraq war have even
called Abu Ghraib a moral "catastrophe." What these very critics
fail to see is that their own decades-long indifference to the
plight of the oppressed peoples of the Middle East, borne of a
convenient mix of knee-jerk pacifism and deep-seated economic
interests, represents a true moral catastrophe. European foreign
ministers and leaders comfortably sipping tea and brokering multi-
billion dollar business deals with dictators in expensive palaces
and then criticizing the US for its dealings in the Middle East is
hypocrisy of the highest degree.

Above all, European indifference and inaction in the face of mass
murder and genocide represent the greatest "moral catastrophe"
of recent times in the democratic West. Nothing, not historic pacifism
nor economic interests can justify the collective inaction on the part
of Europe's elites when confronted with mass graves and genocide
in Iraq, Rwanda, the Balkans or Sudan. Until Europeans come to
terms with the very real consequences of their own stifling
indifference and inaction, it will be difficult for Americans to take
seriously the endless litany of protest, derision and criticism echoing
from across the Atlantic.

--Claus Christian Malzahn,
"Terminator? Demokrator!", _Der
Spiegel_

-----

amity [AM-uh-tee], noun:
Friendship; friendly relations, especially between nations.



FORESIGHT

.
.

see "SUCCESS" for related links


The best way to suppose what may come,
is to remember what is past.
--George Savile, 1st Marquess Halifax (1633—1695)
English politician and essayist.
_Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections_ [1750]
"Miscellaneous: Experience"

Don't throw away the old bucket until you know
whether the new one holds water.
--Swedish Proverb

-----

prospicience (noun) [prκ-'spi-shκns]
Foresight, having the ability to foresee.
prospicient (adj.)
prospiciently (adverb)


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