Penetrating Quotes - Part 2

a) "What has made the state a hell on earth has been that man has tried to make it his heaven." Friedrich Holderlin.............b) "All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a Democratic nation ought to know that war is surest and shortest means to accomplish it." Alexis de Tocqueville.............c) "There the President brought entirely our relationship with the Japanese. He brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked, probably as soon as next Monday. But the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning. And the question was, what should we do? The question was, how should we maneuver them  into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves?" Secretary of Defense, Henry Stimson, November 25, 1941 (diary entry).............d) "Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly deceived the American people in the period before Pearl Harbor. If he was going to induce the people to move at all he would have to trick them into acting in their best interests or what he perceived to be their best interests. He was like the physician who must tell the patient lies for the patient's own good. The country was overwhelmingly noninterventionist to the very day of Pearl Harbor and an overt attempt to lead the people into war would have resulted in certain failure and almost certain ousting in 1940 and a consequent defeat for his total aims." Thomas A. Bailey (Stanford historian), 1948.............e) "America provoked Japan to such an extent that the Japanese were forced to attack Peal Harbor. It is a travesty on history even to say that America was forced into the war." Captain Oliver Lyttleton, June 20, 1944.............f) "War with America. War with Britain. Peace with Russia." From our breaking of the Japanese diplomatic code, December 4, 1941 (buttressed by an additional intercept from December 6th which stated that a major event was likely to happen the next day, the only two plausible targets being U.S. naval bases at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines)...................................................................................................P.S. It is totally clear from the evidence, folks. FDR knew that an attack on Pearl Harbor was, at the very minimum, a possibility (if not a likelihood), and instead of notifying the commanders there, the fellow said nothing and 3,000 men needlessly lost their lives. In one of the more moving speeches on this subject of unchecked power, historian, John V. Denson, relates the story of how some of the sailors who were trapped on one of the vessels going down were banging on the hull from the inside, attempting to tell their fellow seamen that they were still alive, and of how the banging stopped when those brave men died (the other sailors obviously powerless to help). Denson thinks that they should make an audio replica of the sound and play it for five minutes every hour on the hour at the Roosevelt Memorial - as a reminder of just how dangerous power in the hands of one person can be.