is this interesting

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When i was thinking about a signature, i considered “THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD; THATS WHY THEY BAN BOOKS, NOT BOMBS”.

That quote is made up my me - I hope. I never googled it or anything. Actually, only the last part is mine. Censorship is a powerful tool, available to the powers that be. But even in the absence of censorship, i wonder if we the people, have anyone available to us who can use that mighty pen skillfully enough to “move” the masses. It use to be that people were pro-active. Now, we civilized folks seem to be a bunch of “tsk tsk” types. With all the tools and info at our disposal, I still don’t believe that people have a revolutionary proclivity anymore.
With such a lackadasical and apathetic populace, censorship seems like it isn’t even a neccessary strategy anymore, for the powers that be.

There was a time when the pen was , indeed, mightier than the sword, because you could move the masses. But nowadays, I think we lack BOTH the skillful pen to move the masses, and a populace that would be affected by a mighty pen.

I don’t know what happened to the human psyche in my lifetime. I think about the end of the revolutionary spirit in america, back in the 1960’s. There was a time when people would take to the streets and protest. I didn’t learn a lot of things that were secretly going on back then, until the advent of the computer. There was an incident that was dubbed “The gulf of tonkin incident”. The 1960’s people didn’t know about that. I think, had they known about that lie then, maybe the history of America would have taken a different turn.
Another thing that makes me cringe, is Charlie Wilsons War. We secretly funded the mujahadeen to defeat the russians. A CIA operative showed the muj how to make IED’s that are now being used to kill our troops. WE armed both sides of the Iran/Iraq conflict. Gave Saddam weaponized anthrax, and formed a muslim network that later became known as Al Qaeda. I read the book, Charlie Wilsons war, at one sitting, cover to cover. It was written by 60 minutes producer, George Crile. After 9/11. The chapter titled “unintended consequences” left me red-faced with anger.

Three things happened at the same time: We secretly fought a war in afghanistan and Iran/Iraq, that none of us knew about, Mena airport crack cocaine ring under Bill clinton, and the introduction of crack cocaine into America. I think, as do many others, that the CIA and Barry Seal flew crack cocaine into mena arkansas under clintons nose, it was sold on the streets to raise money to finance the secret wars in the middle east, and that secret frankenstein has cost us lives and trillions of dollars now. Things like the gulf of tonkin lie, operation northwoods, and charlie wilsons war, make me angry. Someone knew, and someone was censored. But nowadays, America is too apathetic to be affected my a courageous pen.
So, i no longer believe that the pen is mightier than the sword. No writer, no matter how skilled, could move us. American history is replete with true American heroes and men who could move us with a pen, a speech. Maybe we’re on information over-load nowadays. Stories and emphasis gets changed hourly. Scandals are here today, and gone tonight.

Does anyone believe that “the pen is mightier than the sword”,anymore?

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That is a fantastic statement, wutchy. I put it in a file for future reference.

I first became acquainted with the adage, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” when I was a little kid reading a biography of Woodrow Wilson. When Wilson was a student, he had to debate that topic. I don’t remember which side he was on, but it interested me because that was the first time I ever thought of the power of the written word as opposed to that of the military weapon. To be honest, now that I’ve been observing the world and the way it works for awhile, I’m not very optimistic about the power of language over that of police and military weaponry. It seems to me that the latter determines the former these days.

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i don’t expect to live much longer. The sand is about through my hour-glass. I truly pity the younger generation. They never knew revolution, inspiration at the tip of a pen, or have heard a great men speak. They probably think that apathy is just business as usual.

We have no Thoedore Roosevelt, Norman Vincent Peale, Will Rogers, or any other great speaker, writer, or leader anymore. Those guys get squashed quick anymore. We have a choice between a couple guys that tow the party line, and thats it. America needs a great writer that can inspire us, a great leader who can lead us, a great speaker who can move us.

I think that great men are out there, but i stand amazed that even with computers and the power of the internet, we still can’t seem to find them.
Mainstream media has to take some blame in all that. I think that the great men of old are still among us, but the propensity for personal destruction, tabloid journalism ,and mainstream media bias, they just won’t step up to the plate to take the bullets anymore.

anybody feeling me out there?!

right here on this thread, i’d be thrilled to see someone post a speech that could inspire me, move us, and make me believe in a leader again.
To some degree, christianity may have played a part in all this hesitation for a true leader to stand up. For about 30 or 40 years now, it seems like christian America is “waiting for”, “expecting” and “waiting to pounce on” any leader that stands up, so they can accuse him of being the anti-christ. Christians have decided that time is up, and any leader that stands up on the world stage from now on is the anti-christ. They said it was Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and many others. I guess if you have the ability to lead, you must be the devil incarnate. Televangelists threw us under the bus, lied to us, misled us, and deceived us, for the dollar. They took it upon themselves that since Israel is a nation again, time is up, and any leader from now on is the devil. ANY LEADER VOLUNTEERS OUT THERE?

I’d love to read a great speech here. What would you say to the world, if you had a chance to speak to the world, to make the world a better place?

Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth a new nation, concieved in liberty… HOW DID PEOPLE LIKE LINCOLN DO THAT SHIT?

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We need somebody with the stylistic and emotive power of John Steinbeck. Now that man could write and move hearts and minds like nobody else. We could also use journalists like Edward R. Murrow. The plight of the migrant workers, labor, and the unemployed still resonates today as our unskilled and undereducated population swells the ranks of the poor, the homeless, and the unemployed. It seems weird and unconscionable to witness so many people so fantastically disclassed after so much progress was made in the two decades after WWII. I wonder if our very sick country will ever recover.

You ask how people like Lincoln were capable of such great speeches and rhetorical style. That’s because such people were able to grow with the language and the energy of a growing country, when intelligence and education weren’t quite so vilified and marginalized and specialized as they are now.

Another great writer of the early twentieth century, Sinclair Lewis, was a great spokesman for the decline of America that came with populism, moral values, and anti-intellectualism. His biting satire and prescience are very impressive. I took my monicker “jonquil” in honor of his writing. In his great book Arrowsmith, there is a hilarious satirized character named Almus Pickerbaugh who had eight daughters, all of whom he named after flowers, one being Jonquil. And of course, the greatness of that book lies in the sad compromises idealistic characters have to make in the face of the narrowminded, anti-intellectual powers that they have to deal with… and interestingly enough, we now see the impact that years and years of compromising have forced us to face as well.

Another very great intellect with great wit and rhetorical style was Adai Stevenson, arguably the last great political mind to grace the popular stage. If you haven’t read his veto of the Illinois Cat Bill during the time when he was Governor of Illinois, you absolutely must. It’s a clinic in the use of the reductio ad absurdum. Here it is at this link.

mrgunnar.net/ap.cfm?subpage=348265

Happy reading.

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If you study Lincoln you may find some bad decisions that he made, like starting a civil war.
Anybody that is a serious threat to the powerful will be killed.

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I once heard that things were good when voter turnout was bad. If people are happy then there is no need to be going out and making noise. You reference many historical events that occurred during the Cold War, such as the Vietnam War, Afghanistan, Iran-Contra scandal, etc. Those times were stressful and the world was under a constant threat of nuclear war. There was the civil riots movement, the threat of 5th column communists, a bi-polar world scrambling for territorial gain and armed with nuclear weapons, just to name a few. There was indeed a need for leaders in such a tumultuous time, like Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy. I seriously doubt George W. Bush would have ever been taken seriously if he were running in those days where good leadership was crucial for world peace. Today we live in a much more peaceful world where by far the majority of governments are democratic, where we have the United Nations, free trade, etc. We are living in a government where civil rights laws are taken seriously and enforced, where women have the right to vote, and so forth. We still have problems today, such as corporate influence in our government, rising inequalities, international and domestic terrorism, and corruption, but today’s political and social environment is more stable. I hear people talking more about the NFL than I do about the war in Iraq. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword, but only where there is a real need for leadership of the masses.

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I read your post and I thought about China and the brutal suppression of the Falun Gong movement. However, I do believe that the use of force to diminish a movement will not work when the movement is widespread. The Falun Gong movement was misunderstood largely by the masses and they were widely seen as a cult, or separate from mainstream society. In other situations, however, widespread movement of the masses motivated by an idea cannot be stopped no matter how repressive the government is. When the Nazi army overran all of Western Europe, minus Britain, they were harassed at every opportunity. They were uninvited guests and were treated as such. Partisans would hide in the woods and wait to attack. Civilians would hide partisans and their weapons. Given a long enough timescale they Nazis would have eventually evacuated the occupied territories. You cannot force a people to cooperate. You can shoot them dead, but they would still not be cooperating. If the garbage men refused to pick up the trash, the city would stink. And if they were replaced with loyal workers, then the tires of the garbage trucks are deflated with nails laid on the road. The tires are then replaced with new tires that cost a lot of money. Finally the garbage men themselves refuse to work because they fear for their safety. The system is slowly shut down. It is impossible to rule a people that do not want to be ruled. By changing people’s minds with the power of the pen you change the course of history.

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It has to be the right pen, of course; and there has never been a better one than that of John Steinbeck. Speaking of Nazi subversion in occupied Europe, have you read Steinbeck’s The Moon Is Down? Perhaps everyone should read that book to get an idea of what a people can do against the “sword” so to speak, although I don’t know whether it’s really possible against a force that will just break into your home and slaughter you just to keep a usurping dictator in power, here thinking of places like the Ivory Coast. Sometimes I think the power of fascism and oppression, in the hands of crazed sociopaths and their henchmen, just can’t be stopped. That’s the way it looks now anyway.