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Quote by Astolphe de Custine

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Astolphe de Custine

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“The 'buccaneers' came ashore in search of bacon. The Cuban Indians had learnt (from the natives of Haiti) a process of preserving meat by drying it and then smoking it over a fire of green leaves and branches. The Indians called the rack on which the meat was laid out a boucan or buccan [bacon], while those who prepared and sold the meet were referred to as boucaniers or buccaneers. Pigs had been brought to Cuba from Europe by the first Spanish settlers. The early litters had been allowed to roan freely over the islands, becoming a vital source of food, not just for the settlers but also for the pirate who arrived in forgotten coves to replenish their water and their stores. They learnt to appreciate the pig meat dried on the boucan, and the world became associated with the pirates themselves,the men who brought home the bacon.”

BaconBuccaneers
Book:Cuba: A New History
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“...which was the real Antoine: the one who would stand mesmerised in front of the window on rainy afternoons watching the drops racing across the glass, or the one who turned the attic upside down and then suddenly appeared disguised as a buccaneer or an explorer shouting ridiculous phrases in order to amuse his sisters and cousins. He asks himself that very question. Who am I? The court jester who shakes his bells when he’s with others, or the silent introvert I am when I’m on my own?”

AviationIntrovertJesterExtrovertBuccaneers
Book:The Prince of the Skies
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“Allow me to say that if you view highwaymen as legendary and romantic figures, then I’m with you. But let me make it absolutely clear that if you’re a low life thief, beating up old ladies, or you’re stealing from your parents to fund your drug addiction, or you’re some kind of serial mugger, and you’re thinking, “Yeah, Dat’s bangin' mate!! Highwaymen is ol me bledrins, innit! Yo Yo Yo, I have no beef with highwaymen! Innit?” then the difference between a despicable and reprehensible low life like yourself and a gentleman highwayman who was well-dressed, well-mannered, an excellent horseman and who used threats rather than actual violence is wider than the gap between your ears, which trust me is pretty wide. I’ll give you that as a caveat”

HighwaymenChavs
Book:Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe
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“The breakdown of the European party system occurred in a spectacular way with Hitler's rise to power. It is now often conveniently forgotten that at the moment of the outbreak of the second World War, the majority of European countries has already adopted some form of dictatorship and discarded the party system, and that this revolutionary change in government has been effected in most countries without revolutionary upheaval. Revolutionary action more often than not was a theatrical concession to the desires of violently discontented masses rather than an actual battle for power. After all, it did not make much difference if a few thousand almost unarmed people staged a march on Rome and took over the government of Italy, or whether in Poland (in 1934) a so-called "partyless bloc," with a program of support for a semifascist government and a membership drawn from the nobility and the poorest peasantry, workers and businessmen, Catholics and orthodox Jews, legally won two-thirds of the seats in Parliament.”

RevolutionFascismDictatorshipPolitical PartiesHitlerPolitical Movements19671934
Book:The Origins of Totalitarianism
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“Ungratified sexuality is readily transformed into rage. "Prison explosions" are outbreaks of sadism resulting from the absence of sexual gratification. Hence, when 33,000 workers leave their employment site all at once precisely in spring, there can be no doubt that the unsatisfying sex-economic conditions in the Soviet Union are the cause. By "sex-economic conditions" we mean more than just the possibility of a regulated and satisfying love life; over and above this we mean everything that is related to pleasure and the joy of life in one's work.”

Rape Culture19691934Sex EconomyPrison RiotWork DemocracyBiosocial Function At WorkVoluntary Work Discipline
Book:The Mass Psychology of Fascism
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“Without the power to put them into practice, truths are of no use. They remain academic. Power, no matter what kind of power it is, without a foundation in truth, is a dictatorship, more or less and in one way or another, for it is always based on man's fear of the social responsibility and personal burden that "freedom" entails. Dictatorial power and truth do not go together. They are mutually exclusive.”

TruthFascismDictatorshipIrresponsibility19691934The Human Struggle For FreedomFear Of FreedomFreedom Ain T Free
Book:The Mass Psychology of Fascism
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“The fascist dictator declares that the masses of people are biologically inferior and crave authority, that basically, they are slaves by nature. Hence, a totalitarian authoritarian regime is the only possible form of government for such people. It is significant that all dictators who today plunge the world into misery stem from the suppressed masses of people. They are intimately familiar with this sickness on the part of masses of people. What they lack is an insight into natural processes and development, the will to truth and research, so that they are never moved by a desire to want to change these facts. On the other hand, the formal democratic leaders made the mistake of assuming that the masses of people were automatically capable of freedom and thereby precluded every possibility of establishing freedom and self-responsibility in masses of people as long as they were in power. They were engulfed in the catastrophe and will never reappear. Our answer is scientific and rational. It is based on the fact that masses of people are indeed incapable of freedom, but it does not—as racial mysticism does—look upon this incapacity as absolute, innate, and eternal. It regards this incapacity as the result of former social conditions of life and, therefore, as changeable.”

FreedomFascismTotalitarianismAuthoritarianism19691934The Human Struggle For FreedomWork Democracy
Book:The Mass Psychology of Fascism
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