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Quote by Michael R. Fletcher

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Beyond Redemption

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Michael R. Fletcher

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“A diamond may be forever, but terrorism, promiscuously funded, will be too. Let's make the connection clearly by tracing the path of the diamond. Diamonds start out in the earth, and eventually that earth is part of a country, like Sierra Leone, Angola, or the Democratic Republic of Congo. In those countries, desperate battles for control have been going on for decades, and the armies that fight the battles finance their ambitions with diamonds. Villagers are forced to mine the diamonds by ruthless rebels who maintain order through terror: by raping women and hacking off the limbs of the children, something, by the way, you never see in the De Beers ads. The rebels then smuggle the diamonds into neighboring dictatorships in exchange for guns and cash. There the diamonds are sold to the highest bidder--whether they be terrorists or "legitimate" dealers--and finally they're laundered in Europe, shipped to America, and end up in jewelry stores where they're purchased by men and given to women in exchange for oral sex. In the feminized world we live in, it's practically national policy that women are more evolved that men--but if that's so, how come they're still so impressed by shiny objects?”

HumorWomenWar On TerrorBlood Diamonds
Book:When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden: What the Government Should be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism
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“De Beers set up a purchasing office in Monrovia in 1954 where they bought diamonds, with the intent of keeping as much of the diamond trade under its control as possible. However by 1956, while I was still in Monrovia, there were approximately 75,000 illegal miners, who were smuggling these valuable stones on a vast scale. At that time I was offered the opportunity to get involved in this bonanza, which I fortunately did not do since some of my friends who did, went missing never to be seen again. At that time I was the Captain of a Farrell Line’s coastal ship and made additional pocket money running booze into the Liberian interior. In those days when someone disappeared or fell off of the grid, as we would say, the chance that they would be found again was exceedingly slim. In 1984 the De Beers Group (SLST) from South Africa, sold its remaining shares, under duress, to the Precious Metals Mining Company controlled by Lebanese National, Jamil Sahid Mohamed Khalil, was a questionable local businessman, as well as a diamonds and commodities trader. He became known throughout the world’s diamond industry as a wheeler-dealer and a politician, influential in Sierra Leone, where the majority of the blood diamonds came from. In 1999, when South African mercenaries invaded Sierra Leone’s capital city Freetown, Jamil attempted to flee from this West African country but was stopped prior to leaving his home. During this altercation, one of Jamil’s sons was shot to death right in front of him. The following year, Jamil died of a stroke after having successfully made his way to Lebanon.”

LiberiaWest AfricaMma Captain Hank BrackerSmugglingMercenariesBlood Diamonds
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, The History of Liberia & West Africa
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“Dale noticed a good amount of café patrons venomously staring at him as he returned to his table after the verbal altercation. He could care less about other people’s judgments, and most of these people weren’t even people. They were sub-people with sub-par ideologies, and he was willing to bet half of them didn’t even think that spectacle at the counter was reality, being that they were currently frying, stoned, blazed, tripping, or in some other way mentally incapacitated. Cocaine was the only drug Dale honored because it allowed him to retain his focus, didn’t cloud the mind with distortions, was expensive, and went hand in hand with any successful Wall Street executive.”

DrugsNew AgeCocaineHippiesDale DickersonCocaine BusinessWall Street MindsetSub People
Book:The Beasts of Success
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“This original version of Coca-Cola contained a small amount of coca extract and therefore a trace of cocaine. (It was eliminated early in the twentieth century, though other extracts derived from coca leaves remain part of the drink to this day.) Its creation was not the accidental concoction of an amateur experimenting in his garden, but the deliberate and painstaking culmination of months of work by an experienced maker of quack remedies.”

MedicineCocaineCoca ColaQuack Remedies
Book:A History of the World in 6 Glasses
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