EXTREME ANECDOTES, PART I

OPEN YOUR EYES!

"You must choose:

Do you wish to see (perceive) nothing, or do you want to see things as they really are?

It is not hard to see things as they really are, it is simply a matter of tearing down walls, ridding oneself of defenses and presumption, rendering oneself vulnerable, an idiot, a fool.

But it is not easy to see things as they really are, because it is painful, it is real, it requires response, it’s an incredible commitment.

To go nine-tenths of the way is to suffer at every moment utter madness.

To go all the way is to become sane.

     Most people prefer blindness.

But most people are a dying race."

— Paul Williams

 THE MAN IN THE ARENA

"It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spens himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with these cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

— Theodore Roosevelt

THE WARRIOR PATH

"Our culture must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self-collected and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech and the rectitude of his behavior."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

 THE MASSES ARE LIKE MACHINES

"What do you expect? People are machines. Machines have to be blind and unconscious; they cannot be otherwise, and all their actions have to correspond to their nature. Everything happens. No-one does anything. 'Progress' and 'civilization', in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as a result of conscious efforts. They cannot appear as a result of unconscious mechanical actions. And what conscious effort can there be in machines? And if one machine is unconscious, and so are a thousand machines, or a hundred thousand, or a million. And the unconscious activity of a million machines must necessarily result in destruction and extermination. It is precisely in unconscious involuntary manifestations that all evil lies. You do not yet understand and cannot imagine all the results of this evil. But the time will come when you will understand."

— G. I. Gurdjieff

 THE MASSES ARE LIKE INSECTS

"Cities are like hives in which humans scuttle frantically about like insects. Nearly identical housing projects, condominiums, and high-rises form the shell of the hives, with congested streets and tracks being like the chemical trails. The metaphorical 'insects' of the hive, unlike true insects, lack a hive mind; in fact, they seem to lack any willingness to co-operate or help one another in the absence of threats or rewards. The drones and workers dredge through tedious and demeaning jobs, usually spending their non-working time entranced in front of their televisions, partaking of mind-numbing intoxicants, sleeping fitfully and dreamlessly, or mindlessly reproducing to ensure the cycle of despair continues. The pathetic denizens of the hive cannot leave, as they have become too dependant upon it; bound to their jobs by invisible chains and unable to conceive of a world without the conveniences of mass-transit and free delivery."

— anonymous (RWT)

 THE COMPUTER IS WATCHING YOU

"When technology reaches a certain level, people begin to feel like criminals. Someone is after you, the computers maybe, the machine-police. You can’t escape investigation. The facts about you and your whole existence have been collected or are being collected. Banks, insurance companies, credit organizations, tax examiners, passport offices, reporting services, police agencies, intelligence gatherers. Devices make us pliant. If they issue a print-out saying we’re guilty, then we’re guilty. But it goes even deeper, doesn’t it? It’s the presence alone, the very fact, the superabundance of technology, that makes us feel we’re committing crimes. Just the fact that these things exist at this widespread level. The processing machines, the scanners, the sorters. That’s enough to make us feel like criminals. What enormous weight. What complex programs. And there’s no-one to explain it to us."

— unknown

 SOCIETY DOESN’T TOLERATE DISRUPTION

"Let us pretend that you are an ape, and that you have been born into an unusually large group of, say, a hundred or more of your kind . . . this is your society. In most societies, everyone has their place; if you do not know your place, you will soon be put where society feels you belong — usually near the bottom. In this society, there is one maximum leader, the 'Alpha'; and several of his assistants, the 'Betas'; and everyone else is subservient to the leaders and one another based on a sort of 'pecking order.' It is a society of bullies. Whomever is strongest and most feared rules, and whomever is not quite as strong is permitted to harass and attack those weaker than himself. Whatever apes are too passive, weak, or ill to defend themselves will be at the bottom of the pecking order.

     Now let us pretend that your ape, for whatever reason, is at the lower end of the pecking order. However, not only is he resentful of his mistreatment by others, but he is significantly more intelligent than most of them. Using his intelligence, he crafts a sort of long dagger from a discarded broken animal bone. Now when the dominant greyback Alpha no longer receives homage in the form of submissive and fearful gesticulation (averting the eyes, exposing the buttocks for mounting, ect.), he flies into a murderous rage and lunges, only to have the needle point of the sharp bone tool plunged through his eye and into his brain. As the Alpha drops dead, is your ape the new king? No. Even if he is able to fend off, or even kill, the attacking Betas with his magic sword, he will not sway the masses. Why? Because he was once like them and still is, in many ways. He is not inclined to rule as a tyrant, and if he sets down his weapon his strength will be gone. Aren’t the apes happy with their newfound freedom? On the contrary, they will be fearful and confused, and as soon as your ape falls asleep, as he eventually must, they will take up the weapon and kill him with it. Then, the strongest and most aggressive survivor will take over as king, and society will return to normal. In most societies, there is no place for one such as your ape. If he cannot be rendered powerless in some way, he must be exiled, imprisoned, or killed. He will never be accepted or assimilated unless be changes into that which he despises. Society does not tolerate disruption."

— anonymous (RWT)

MAD DOG SHRIVER 

"Mad Dog Shriver was twenty-eight years old and, according to one SOG veteran, 'the quintessential warrior loner, antisocial, possessed by what he was doing, leading the best team, always training, constantly training.'

     Shriver rarely spoke and walked around camp for days wearing the same clothes. In his sleep he cradled a loaded rifle, and in the NCO club he’d buy a case of beer, open every can, then go alone to a corner and drink them all. Although he could not care less about decorations, he’d been awarded a Silver Star, five Bronze Stars, and the Soldier’s Medal.

     Shriver was devoted to the Montagnards. He spent all his money on them and collected food, clothes, whatever people would give, to distribute in Yard villages. He taught the Yards how to play an accordion, the most sophisticated musical instrument they’d ever had. Mad Dog even built his own room in the Montagnard barracks so he could live with them. 'He was almost revered by the Montagnards,' O’Rourke says.

     Shriver’s closest companion was a German Shepherd he’d brought back from Taiwan and named Klaus. One night Klaus got sick on beer some recon men fed him and crapped on the NCO club floor; the men rubbed his nose in it and threw him out. Shriver arrived, drank a beer, removed his blue velvet smoking jacket and derby hat, put his .38 revolver on a table, then dropped his pants and defecated on the floor. 'If you want to rub my nose in this,' he dared, 'come on over.' Everyone pretended not to hear him, except one man who’d fed Klaus beer and who urged the recon company commander to intervene. The captain laughed in his face, saying, 'Hey, fuck you, pal.'"

— excerpted from SOG by John L. Plaster (p. 247)

 DISPOSABLE HEROES

"If the truth be known, the Army went out of its way to find guys like me — ass-kicking ‘Nam vets who ran the woods and lived on the edge — and systematically weeded them out of the service.

Why?

Because we were misfits.

We didn’t fit the mold. We just didn’t fit in. We were renegades used to operating independently, with few people pulling our strings. We disregarded the established rules and created our own. I take that back — there were no rules for us . . . But that attitude surely was out of place in a peacetime environment, and the thought of keeping guys around who were distainful of authority and might not toe the line was a little too much for the Army to deal with. So the hard-core guys were sent packing. Fortunately for me I had the medal, which gave me too much visibility to be fucked with completely, so I was spared the axe, though not the hassles.

A noncombat lifestyle was everything I’d feared. It was very boring. It was unbelievably slow-paced. And worst of all, my free-wheeling, do-as-I-damn-well-please lifestyle had come to an end . . .

I felt like I’d been put on a leash. The Army had taken a high-performance engine and drastically untuned it. Not only had my activities been severely curtailed, but the special status that I Once enjoyed quickly evaporated. I was no longer that unique individual who did the dangerous job most others were reluctant to do. Since cunning, sharpshooting, and bravery were no longer required in my new environment, I had nothing to set me apart from the crowd. I quickly found that the Medal of Honor was more a novelty than anything else to most noncombat soldiers, and really had no place in a peacetime Army. My extensive combat skills and ass-kicking abilities were no longer needed, appreciated, or even wanted."

— Franklin D. Miller, from Reflections of a Warrior (pp. 198-199)

"Never leave a potentially deadly weapon where unauthorized hands may find it. Never insert your finger into the trigger guard until the actual use of a weapon seems imminent; a fall, or the muscle-tightening reaction to a sudden noise, can result in an accidental discharge . . . Never touch a firearm while under the influence of alcohol, or display one at an occasion when liquor is flowing. Never allow yourself to become embroiled in a squabble while you are carrying a gun, be it caused by an insult to your wife, an argument in traffic, or any similar situation. Never let it be known to anyone outside your immediate household . . . that you carry a gun. Never make remarks to the effect that you will "kill any sonofabitch who breaks into my house/hooks my kid on drugs/tries to steal from my store," etc. If such a killing situation ever occurs, testimony in court will show that you seemed pre-occupied with the idea of killing real or imaginary criminals, especially if you’ve made such remarks frequently. If circumstances were such that your reactions could be considered to have been too hasty, such testimony would imply that you were excessively pre-disposed toward using your gun."

— Massad Ayoob, from In The Gravest Extreme (p. 121)

 BULLET WOUNDS: TV VERSUS REALITY

"In TV and motion pictures, the bullet is often portrayed as a very discreet piece of metal. When it strikes a bad gut, it produces a round, red polka dot approximately the diameter of a pencil. There is usually very little blood and never an exit wound. Good guys are regularly shot in the arm, shoulder or leg and are up and around in no time . . . Bullets aren’t sharp. They don’t drill neat holes in flesh. Bullets rip and tear. When they hit bone, lead slugs don’t produce neat fractures. Bones are burst and splintered. No longer able to support body weight, the jagged end of a bone is sometimes jabbed up and out through the skin as gravity pulls the flesh down. Flattened into an irregular shape by the impact, but unspent, the bullet tumbles off and away through the body, often bursting out with a fist-sized ball of meat at an odd angle and a remarkable distance from where it entered . . . If the heart does not stop right away, that organ can pump most of the blood the body contains through the wound and out onto the ground in a matter of minutes."

— Mark Baker, from Cops (pp. 168-169)

 GETTING SHOT SUCKS

"A high powered bullet through the complex of shoulder bones and muscles will leave the arm crippled for life. The same with a leg. The possibility of death from hemorrhage or shock is present with any bullet wound. A bullet in the side or abdomen can fatally damage liver, kidneys, and other organs. People don’t always recover completely from serious gunshot wounds, even if they do survive initially. Damage can be lingering — "he was never any good after he was shot" is a common description — and the results of the wound can radically shorten the natural life span."

— Massad Ayoob, from In the Gravest Extreme (p. 24)

 IF I WERE TO SHOOT YOU IN THE BELLY

"If I were to shoot you in the belly with a small caliber handgun, what do you think would happen? Do you think you would drop to the floor in a clean white shirt and expire quietly after saying a few final words? Do you think you would take the shot bravely, wrestle the gun away, apprehend me for the authorities, and see your photo on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper, smiling in your hospital bed as you receive a medal from the mayor? No, such things occur only in the fantasy world of television, but a great many people, inundated by repeated exposure to such lies, tend to believe that violence is drama.

     Let me tell you the ugly truth. If I were to shoot you in the belly, first, you would shit your pants. You would fall to the ground, doubled up in agonizing pain. You would bleed great quantities of smelly dark brown blood. As your stomach fills with blood, you would vomit copious amounts. As your lifeblood drains away, soaking into the carpeting, your core body temperature would plummet, causing you to shiver uncontrollably. Unless the abdominal aorta is punctured, there may be hours of suffering before you die.

     If you are rescued by paramedics, stabilized for transport, and immediately brought into the operating room, you will not be patched up and quickly released. First, your intestines will be placed in a pile alongside you where they can be examined while the abdominal cavity is thoroughly rinsed in hopes of averting peritonitis. If you were shot with a high velocity hollowpoint, shot repeatedly, or are just unlucky enough to have multiple ruptures of the gastrointestinal tract, the surgeons won’t even bother trying to patch you up. Your entrails will go in the hospital dumpster, and you will shit in a colostomy bag for the rest of your weak, sickly, frightened, lonely, and pain-ridden existence.

     Violence is not a game, nor is it a cartoon. Violence is sickeningly real, it hurts, it ruins lives, and it has lasting medical, psychological, legal, and social repercussions. Violence is not something to be toyed with, it is something to be avoided through whatever means necessary. Violence is not fun."

— anonymous (RWT)

 OF EYEBALLS AND JELL-O

"It’s quite unlikely that your finger will actually penetrate the eyeball. If it does, it only gets wet. It’s no slimier than gelatin.

     There will be large amounts of blood, and the criminal whose eyes you gouge will scream like a banshee. The pain and shock are enough that many people will actually pass out when their eyeballs are ruptured. It’s tough to live with afterward, but when you realize that it’s your life and your eyeballs on the line, if you don’t do it first, you can do it if you know beforehand that you’re capable.

     I have put my thumbs into eyes, and I know what it feels like for my thumb or my index finger to pierce the tough sclera (outer eye membrane) and gouge through the aqueous tissue beneath. It’s no ickier than grabbing a handful of Jell-O out of the refrigerator or pulling the gizzard out of your family’s Thanksgiving turkey."

— Massad Ayoob, from The Truth About Self-Protection (p. 243)

 SPADES AND MEN

"The infantry spade does not have a folding handle, and this is a very important feature. It has to be a single monolithic object. All three of its edges are as sharp as a knife. It is painted with a green matt paint so as not to reflect the strong sunlight. It is practically impossible to describe in words how they use their spades . . . In the hands of a spetsnaz soldier the spade is a terrible noiseless weapon . . . The first thing he has to teach himself is precision: to split little slivers of wood with the edge of his spade or to cut off the neck of a bottle so that the bottle remains whole. He has to learn to love his spade and have faith in its accuracy. To do that he places his hand on the stump of a tree with his fingers spread out and takes a big swing at the stump with his right hand using the edge of the spade. Once he has learned to use the spade well and truly as an axe he is taught more complicated things . . . A soldier armed with nothing but the spade is shut in a room without windows along with a mad dog, which makes for an interesting contest. Finally a soldier is taught to throw the spade as accurately as he would use a battle-axe . . . If it lands in a tree it is not so easy to pull out again . . . (The enemy) will rarely see the blade coming, before it lands in the back of his neck or between his shoulder blades, smashing the bones . . . (They) work with spades more surely and more accurately than they do with spoons at a table."

— Viktor Suvorov, from Spetsnaz

GROWLING

"Why not growl? The wolf is in all of us. The hunter. The warrior. Growl like the wolf. The sound is not a shallow scraping in the throat. Take a breath and force the sound from deep down into the chest. Can you feel it reverberate in the lower lobes of your lungs? Can you hear the growl, the universal growl? The growl of alpha wolves standing face to face in the moonlight. It is the growl of ancient man confronting the enemy. It is the growl of a million ancestors who abide in our genes. It is a growl out of the pit of your being, a growl from under the heart itself. The sound is a powerful sound.

     Can you feel the power? The stomach tightens when the sound is made. The stomach tightens in preparation for battle. The stomach, the diaphragm, force the sound upward and out. How does the power feel?"

— Gerry Spence, from How to Argue and Win Every Time (pp. 163-164)

 MEDITATION ON THE CORPSE

"The Buddhist Sutra of Mindfulness speaks about the meditation on the corpse: meditate on the decomposition of the body, how the body bloats and turns violet, how it is eaten by worms until only bits of blood and flesh still cling to the bones, meditate up to the point where only white bones remain, which in turn are slowly worn away and turn into dust. Meditate like that, knowing that your own body will undergo the same process. Meditate on the corpse until you are calm and at peace, until your mind and heart are light and tranquil and a smile appears on your face. Thus, by overcoming revulsion and fear, life will be seen as infinitely precious, every second of it worth living."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

 YOUR COMPUTER IS ALIVE!

"It was as if from the year 1947 to 1980 a fundamental paradigm shift in the ability to process information took place. Computers themselves almost became something like a silicon-based life-form, inspiring the carbon-based life-forms on planet Earth to develop them, grow them, and even help them reproduce. With computer-directed process-control programs now in place in virtually all major industries, software that writes software, neural-network-based expert systems that learn from their own experience in the real world, and current experiments under way to grow almost microscopically thin silicon-based chips in the weightless environment of earth orbit may be the forerunner of a time when automated orbital factories routinely grow and harvest new silicon material for microprocessors more sophisticated than we can even imagine at the present. Were all this to be true . . . would not the natural development stream, starting from the invention of the transistor, have carried us to the point where we achieve a symbiotic relationship with the silicon material that carries our data and enables us to become more creative and successful?"

— Phillip Corso

JUST PISS IN THE CUP . . .

"Throughout history, Americans have held the legal tradition that one could not give up one’s Constitutional rights — and if someone was stripped of these protections, then he or she was being victimized. By 1989, if you sign up for an extracurricular activity in school or apply for a minimum wage job, you could be asked to forego your right to privacy, protection from self-incrimination, Constitutional requirements of reasonable grounds for search and seizure, presumed innocence until found guilty by your peers, and that most fundamental right of all: personal responsibility for one’s own life and consciousness. By 1995, the supreme court upheld that these intrusions into your privacy were constitutional! . . . Submission to the humiliation of having your most private body parts and functions observed by a hired voyeur is now the test of eligibility for private employment, or to contract for a living wage."

— Jack Herer, from The Emperor Wears No Clothes (pp. 71, 87)

TRIAL BY JURY

"'Jury nullification of the law' is a traditional right dating back to the Magna Carta and was intended by America’s founding fathers as the final test a law must pass before it gains the authority to punish violators. John Adams, our nation’s second president, in 1771 said of the jury, 'it is not only his right, but his duty . . . to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court' . . . Due to special interest pressure, juries have been misinformed of their right to judge law as well as fact for almost 100 years. Jurors now swear in their oaths to judge only the facts of the case according to the law as dictated to them by the judge. The majority of judges will not allow attorneys to tell jurors of their power to say "no" to unjust laws. In most cases juries are no longer allowed to hear the defendant’s motives. Fully informed juries are essential for justice, rebuilding respect for the law, protection of individual rights and control of the government by people."

— The Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA)

POLICE STATE

"In our own time, police randomly search groups of (usually minority) adolescents, engage in mass sweeps of inner-city blocks, blockade neighborhoods, create databases of gang members and associates, and target gang leaders for arrest and incarceration. So far, these tactics have not proven particularly effective in controlling gangs. Instead, they increase alienation among adolescents, violate civil rights, and, if anything, tend to promote identification with gangs and assist their internal cohesion. Moreover, they belie the promise of more sensitive 'community policing' and, because of their lack of discrimination between gang members and non-gang members, they further the feeling of inner city residents that they are under siege with as much to fear from the police as from gang members."

— Eric C. Schneider, from Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings (p. 260)

"BLAZE OF GLORY"

"If a criminal is convinced he is cornered, he might choose to go down in what he would perceive to be a blaze of glory rather than face the ignominy of surrendering and being imprisoned, perhaps for life. Seeing no way to escape, this individual might assert himself in the final moments by trying to take someone down with him. An alternative is to kill himself. Either way, true to form, he strives one last time to remain in control of whatever happens to him. He will end his own life rather than allow someone else to do it."

— Stanton E. Samenow, from Straight Talk about Criminals (p. 83)

WETWORK

"What I need you two fellas to do is take those cleaning products and clean the inside of the car. And I’m talking fast, fast, fast. You need to go in the back seat, scoop up all those little pieces of brain and skull. Get it out of there. Wipe down the upholstery — now, when it comes to upholstery, it don’t need to be spic and span, you don’t need to eat off it. Give it a good once over. What you need to take care of are the really messy parts. The pools of blood that have collected, you gotta soak that shit up. But the windows are a different story. Them you really clean. Get the Windex, do a good job . . . I need blankets, I need comforters, I need quilts, I need bedspreads. The thicker the better, the darker the better. No whites, can’t use ‘em.. We need to camouflage the interior of the car. We’re gonna line the front seat and the back seat and the floorboards with quilts and blankets. If a cop stops us and starts stickin’ his big snout in the car, the subterfuge won’t last. But at a glance, the car will appear to be normal."

— "Winston Wolf," from Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino

"There are a whole lot of delusional clowns who seem to think that staging a protest, participating in a march, or passing around a petition will actually make a difference . . . such activities seldom show any positive results (and only to a very limited degree when they do). True, everyone with open eyes can easily see that things are horribly wrong, but boldly standing up and announcing such to the largely apathetic masses generally only succeeds in directing a lot of unwelcome scrutiny at oneself, whilst the issue remains ignored.

— anonymous (RWT)

"Pride, that’s what most of us die for. Respect and pride . . . We ain’t taught to sit there and say, 'Okay, let’s take a deep breath and count to ten.' It doesn’t work for us like that. If you get into an argument with somebody, you better be ready to die . . . that’s what gets 90 percent of these people killed. It’s your pride and your love. Your love for what you represent . . . Pride is what draws people to the gang. Because there is nothing like being around people who have something to be proud of. Pretty soon, you want to be proud of something too. And you look around at your life and realize that you have nothing that can match what they have. So you pay the price, you get jumped in (intitiated into the gang), and maybe you get into a situation where you have to spray gunfire at someone’s house one night — or drive the car for the gunman . . . Representing is a practice that is public in nature. It shows your homeboys and your enemies who you are and what you stand for. Representing can take many forms: warfare, tattooing, graffiti, clothing — even when homeboys hang out on a certain corner they represent their neighborhood."

— anonymous, from Wallbangin’ (pp. 116-117)

 ELITISM

"Like in American society is not fair. This sort of elitist behavior may have its beginnings in adolescence, but it is definitely existent in all of American society. It is self-perpetuating, the elitist class in the social stratification is learned and internalized to the point at which there will always be a dominant social elite, and that class will always take measures to ensure a constant and consistent membership. It may not be as apparent as it is in adolescents, but it still exists. The older children and adults are better social actors, and they are able to euphemize their elitist activities, and disguise them as normal social interaction. The problem that helps this behavior to continue is the duality of me, and you. It is instilled in us by society. We internalize it and make it a subconscious habituation, it is me and us, and what we want, against you and what you might do to prevent that which we want. This is the basis of all conflict, and try as progressive thinkers may, we cannot seem to alleviate this pattern of dualism."

— Donna Eder

OVERPOPULATION:

"One of the greatest sources of violence on the planet is unwanted, uncared for, unloved children. Such children as they grow older are not only typically angry and prone to violence, but are potential time-bombs that can capriciously explode and destroy whatever is around them. A world is being created that is full of people without hope, often driven by hatred and envy, who do not care about their own lives, let alone yours. How can such people really care if life on this planet continues or not? The worldwide increase in population coupled with an increasing discrepancy between haves and have-nots creates more and more people without hope. When a large segment of the population lives without hope, it is dangerous for everyone."

— Joel Kramer & Diana Alstad, from The Guru Papers (p. 373)

MY RIFLE:

"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy, who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will . . . My rifle and myself know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit . . . My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will . . . Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until there is no enemy, but Peace!"

— The Creed of the United States Marines

"WHAT’S THAT YOU’VE GOT IN YER HAND?"

"You might think that some of the signs, like being set up or stalked by an attacker, might be obvious; however, depending upon the skill and cunning of your attacker, they can be surprisingly subtle. It would be impossible to describe all the indicators here, but one of the key things to look for is the positioning of people around you. Be wary of people trying to flank you, move behind you, place you between them, or cut off your avenues of escape. Look for people whose hands are cupped or unnaturally stiff, like something is held in them, or concealed from view behind the back or in a pocket. Most importantly, don’t let anyone get too close to you, where they might be able to move on you before you can react. If someone starts to move close, try to position your back against a wall and put something between you and him as an obstacle to an advance. At the very least, tell him to back off so you can have enough distance between you to react if he makes a move. If he doesn’t listen and keeps coming, draw your blade and prepare for all hell to break loose.

— Michael D. Janich, from Knife Fighting: A Practical Course (pp. 98-99)

RIGIDITY:

"We can pass more laws, write more detailed rule books, establish more customs, paint more 'No U-Turn' signs, and so on, to cut down the variability in human behavior that can create problems. 'Well-behaved,' 'predictable,' 'rigid,' 'mechanical' people make the system run more smoothly: choose your favorite adjective. At its extreme, nothing is required of people other than following the rules. And, as the old joke says, "Everything that is not required is forbidden!" The rules are external environmental rules (like 'No U-Turn' signs) or internalized psychological rules ('Decent people never even think of doing X'). For best results, both kinds of rules need to be backed up by rewards for following them, as well as by the strength of mindless habit. . .

     If we want a smoother, more efficient, less dangerous world, then, one direction we can take is to make people more like machines, machines with lots of mechanical intelligence. You can also spend great effort and use lots of resources in designing the world so that it is mechanically impossible to violate the rules. Many parking lots now have concrete dividers or green belts that prevent you from driving diagonally across them when they are empty. The other direction is to increase genuine intelligence, including the discovery and cultivation of the uniquely human aspects of intelligence that are not mechanical.

     The unfortunate truth about people is how machinelike we can become. . . Right and wrong ways are set up and rules to implement them are established. Goodness then becomes a matter of following the rules.

     The problem with trying to create a rule to cover everything is that reality frequently gets more complex than the rules can handle, or changes faster than the rules change. Yet many people keep mechanically following the rules, feeling virtuous about it but actually destroying themselves and others."

— Charles T. Tart, from Waking Up (pp. 29-30)

"THE SECRET ARTS:"

"There are two major reasons for genuine growth practices to be secret. First, a given practice may be capable of producing such powerful effects that if you are not prepared for them, they could harm you or others. They are dangerous in the hands of the unprepared . . . The second reason why some of these practices have sometimes been secret has to do with your readiness to respond, the "shock value" they might have in requiring a radical reorientation. . . Secrecy is a useful way of handling these problems. If most techniques were secret, you wouldn’t have the blunting effect of knowledge of so many you never really tried, or the attitude caused by the residues of many failure experiences from half-heartedly trying some. The presentation of a new growth technique would command far more of your attention than it does now. If, in addition, you had to prove yourself worthy of having a technique revealed to you, not to mention the 'glamour' of being sworn to secrecy, even more attention would be given to the technique. It would have more surprise value, be more of an attention-getting shock. The result is that you would give a great deal of energy and attention to practicing the technique, and it would have a much greater chance of affecting you. For most growth practices, the old rule holds: it works if you work.

     The last two decades have been a time of drastic change, though. Many of the 'secret' techniques of spiritual paths are now available in paperback at your corner bookstore. We must deal with the dulling that comes from knowing so many techniques and the probability that it makes it harder to respond appropriately to new techniques. This is advantageous in some ways: secrecy appealed to parts of our minds that were more interested in power and glamour than in growth, for example, so there is now less feeding that part of us."

— Charles T. Tart, from Waking Up (pp. 177-179)

OVERCOMING FEAR:

"Overcoming fear does not mean eliminating fear. Courage is not the absence of fright, but the ability to act in spite of it. Reports of people having performed amazing acts of heroism reveal that they commonly felt fear — even terror. But they performed in spite of their fear. Being afraid in a dangerous situation is a normal reaction, it is not cowardice. Refusing to fight is not cowardice either.

     There are only three choices open to you when faced with the threat of attack on the street:

     You can run away (situation permitting);

     You can fight;

     You can submit to a beating.

     If you feel, as I do, that it is less dignified to get into a fight than to take off, you can run away from a fight without loss of self-esteem, especially if you know that you can win. If you are cornered and cannot run away, the decision to fight or to submit to a beating can have completely different meanings for different people. Although I respect as valid and brave the non-violent attitude of those who feel it is more dignified to submit to a beating than to fight, it is not a choice I would make, and it is not very likely a choice you would make or you would not be reading these pages. Therefore, if cornered, your choice is between fighting to defend yourself and keep your self-respect or failing to fight and losing your self-respect.

     You must prepare yourself mentally as well as physically to fight to defend yourself correctly if danger threatens. Correct behavior is no secret. There are easily recognizable traits of confident behavior, as easily recognizable as traits of demoralized behavior. You can imitate confident behavior. If you imitate it regularly, others will respond to your way of behaving and not to your inner doubts about yourself. The very act of behaving in a confident manner will eventually increase your self-respect and give you the courage to continue to behave in ways which inspire confidence. It is a self-nourishing cycle.

     Here are a few specific manners of confident behavior you can imitate: Keep your head and body erect when you speak to anyone. Avoid lowering your eyes or looking at the ground — an abject, self-despising mannerism. If you do not have the confidence to look a person in the eye, look at his ear. To look at an ear you must keep your head up and this gives the impression that you are looking into the face. Even when you are considerably shorter than the person you are talking to, keep yourself drawn up to your full height. Do not diminish yourself; show yourself at your best.

     At all times, and especially in a trouble situation, keep your voice firm and speak clearly. Many of my students have avoided a fight simply by having said to a bully, 'Leave me alone. I don’t want to fight, but if you insist on fighting, you will get hurt.'  Pleading for mercy with a streetfighter is a waste of time. Cowering only convinces him that you are an easy mark and increases his sadistic pleasure. If you cannot speak quietly and firmly say nothing at all. Keep quiet when you have nothing to say. Foolish chatter is not a sign of confidence. It is a sign of fear."

— Bruce Tegner, from Instant Self-Defense (p.7)

BLIND FAITH:

"Do not put faith in traditions, even though they have been accepted for long generations and in many countries.  Do not believe a thing on the authority of one or another of the Sages of old, nor on the ground that a statement is found in the books.   Never believe anything because probability is in its favor.  Do not believe in that which you yourselves have imagined, thinking that a God has inspired it.   Believe nothing merely on the authority of your teachers or of the priests.   After examination, believe that which you have tested for yourselves and found reasonable, which is in conformity with your well-being and that of others."

— The Buddha

INDENTURED SERVITUDE:

"Enlisting in the armed forces is definitely not for everyone. Enlistees literally sign away all their civil rights, and enter into a contemporary form of indentured servitude. If you have a problem with your boss, you will not have the option of quitting, or even speaking your mind freely — insubordination can be punished by: loss of rank (and reduction in pay), confinement to quarters, being forced to perform unpleasant (and often unsafe) tasks, or — in extremis — incarceration in a Federal penitentiary. Combine compulsory obedience to orders with an abundance of petty regulations enforced by inept (and often seemingly irrational) drones, and you are looking at an authoritarian culture only a few small steps removed from a prison society."

— anonymous (RWT)

CONTEMPORARY SERFDOM:

"When we speak of disciplinary government, we are not referring simply to the juridical and political forms that organize it. We are referring primarily to the fact that in a disciplinary society, the entire society, with all its productive and reproductive articulations, is subsumed under the command of capital and the state, and that the society tends, gradually but with unstoppable continuity, to be ruled solely by criteria of capitalist production. A disciplinary society is thus a factory-society. Disciplinarity is at once a form of production and a form of government such that disciplinary production and disciplinary society tend to coincide completely . . . It is precisely when the disciplinary regime is pushed to its highest level and most complete application that it is revealed as the extreme limit of a social arrangement, a society in the process of being overcome."

— Hardt & Negri, from Empire (p. 243)

F.T.W :

"Even though, at one time or another, many folks considered me to be an "outlaw," I’ve always respected and obeyed approximately 85% of all the laws. However, (as most people would agree) 10% of the laws we’re subject to on a daily basis have been rather poorly thought out, and seem to be enforced only selectively. The primary motivation of these (often paternally or religiously based) statutes seems to be simply to demean and oppress the general populace through regimentation and fines. The other 5% I couldn’t abide by are so Draconian as to be counter-productive due to the fact that their inherent stupidity, unfairness, and bias instils such resentment and antipathy in the masses. Since I strongly disagree with these laws, and since I seem to have no representation in the legislative process, I feel (as do many others) that these wrongful laws should not apply to me. The fact that so many of them (including 'victimless crimes' and other seemingly minor offenses) carry such heavy penalties is tantamount to an act of violent aggression against the underclasses by the power-elites."

— anonymous (RWT)

"MIND WAR":

"MindWar must be strategic in emphasis, with tactical applications playing a reinforcing, supplementary role. In its strategic context, MindWar must reach out to friends, enemies, and neutrals alike across the globe — neither through the primitive "battlefield" leaflets and loudspeakers of PSYOP nor through the weak, imprecise, and narrow effort of psychotronics — but through the media possessed by the United States which have the capabilities to reach virtually all people on the face of the Earth. These media are, of course, the electronic media — television and radio. State of the art developments in satellite communication, video recording techniques, and laser and optical transmission of broadcasts make possible a penetration of the minds of the world such as would have been inconceivable just a few years ago . . . it can transform the world for us if we have but the courage and the integrity to guide civilization with it.

     MindWar must target all participants if it is to be effective. It must not only weaken the enemy; it must strengthen the United States. It strengthens the United States by denying enemy propaganda access to our people, and by explaining and emphasizing to our people the rationale for our national interest in a specific war . . . Unlike PSYOP, MindWar has nothing to do with deception or even with "selected"— and therefore misleading — truth. Rather it states a whole truth that, if it does not now exist, will be forced into existence by the will of the United States . . . the MindWar operative must know he speaks the truth, and he must be personally committed to it. What he says is only a part of MindWar; the rest — and the test of its effectiveness — lies in the conviction he projects to his audience, in the rapport he establishes with it. . .

     There are some purely natural conditions under which minds may become more or less receptive to ideas, and MindWar should take full advantage of such phenomena as atmospheric electromagnetic activity, air ionization, and extremely low frequency waves . . . (Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) waves: ELF waves (up to 100 Hz) are naturally occurring, but they can also be produced artificially (such as for the Navy’s Project Sanguine for submarine communication). ELF-waves are not normally noticed by the unaided senses, yet their resonant effect upon the human body has been connected to both physiological disorders and emotional distortion. Infrasound vibration (up to 20 Hz) can subliminally influence brain activity to align itself to delta, theta, alpha, or beta wave patterns, inclining an audience toward everything from alertness to passivity. Infrasound could be used tactically, as ELF-waves endure for great distances, and it could be used in conjunction with media broadcasts as well.)"

— excerpted from: From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory, a declassified military document by Colonel Paul E. Vallely and Major Michael A. Aquino

"ARE YOU PARANOID???":

"Intellectual respectability required mental health, and it was becoming evident to me by then that "mental health" consisted of trusting everyone about everything as much as possible — and, for good measure, poking fun at anyone who didn’t. Especially to be trusted were the mass media, whose owners and personnel were not to be regarded as minions of the Establishment because, as they themselves used to attest with confidence, there was no Establishment in the United States of America. Only foreigners and paranoids believed (otherwise)."

"YER DIFFER’NT FROM US . . . LET’S GIT ‘IM!":

THE ECONOMIC MODEL:

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: