Who controls the Past controls the Future
Who controls the Present controls the Past
— George Orwell (1903 – 50), Nineteen Eight-Four, 1949.
The struggle of Man against Power
Is the struggle of Memory against Forgetting
— Milan Kundera (1929), The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1979.
In Beleriand in those days the Elves walked, and the rivers flowed, and the stars shone, and the night-flowers gave forth their scents; and the beauty of Melian was as the noon, and the beauty of Lúthien was as the dawn in spring.
— John Tolkien (1892 – 1973), The Silmarillion, 1977.
Charles Manson (1934 – 2017):
[On release from prison in 1967, Manson] was transferred to the supervision of criminology doctoral researcher and federal probation officer Roger Smith [in San Francisco.]
… Smith worked at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic (HAFMC), which Manson and his family frequented throughout their stay in the Haight.
Roger Smith, as well as the HAFMC's founder David E Smith, received funding from the National Institutes of Health, and reportedly the CIA to study the effects of drugs like LSD and methamphetamine on the counterculture movement in Haight–Ashbury.
The patients at the clinic became subjects of their research, including Manson and his expanding group of (mostly) female followers …
David Smith … wrote that the change in Manson's personality during this time "was the most abrupt Roger Smith had observed in his entire professional career."…
David Smith claims that Manson attempted to reprogram [his followers] minds to "submit totally to his will" through the use of "LSD and … unconventional sexual practices" that would turn his followers into "empty vessels that would accept anything he poured." …
[By] April 1968, Manson had attracted 20 or so followers, all under the supervision of his parole officer Roger Smith and many of the staff at the HAFMC.
(Wikipedia, 13 February 2023)
Helter Skelter:
… Manson often spoke to the members of his Family about Helter Skelter in the months leading up to the murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in August 1969, an apocalyptic war arising from racial tensions between Black and White people.
This involved reference to music of the Beatles, particularly songs from their 1968 "White Album", and the New Testament's Book of Revelation.
(Wikipedia, 15 February 2023)
Ernst Mach (1838 – 1916):
I do not believe that atoms exist.
Being Part of the Solution
Stochastic Parrots
Living to 100
The Biggest Losers
Division vs Consensus
Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965)
The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes constitutes a national and race danger which is impossible to exagerate.
(Letter to Prime Minister Asquith)
We shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air; we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
(Speech in the House of Commons, 4 June 1940)
Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation.
Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire.
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now.
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say,
This was their finest hour.(Speech in the House of Commons, 18 June 1940)
