Freedom flotilla ii Quotes

“Leading by example through "Servant Leadership" used to be a badge of honor that distinguished you from the Corps of the Blue Falcon. Present day I see the ranks of the Blue Falcon surging in a flagless flotilla of blurred morals, a low tide of integrity, and selfish ethics adrift with no anchorage. The pulse of the led is directly influenced by the organizational heart rate of the leader.”

“I wonder where he lies. Wedged under a rock, with a thousand small mouths already sucking on his spongy flesh. Or floating still, on and down, on and down, to wider, calmer reaches of the river. I see them gathering: the drowned, the shot. Their hands float out to touch each other, fingertip to fingertip. In a day, two days, they will glide on, a funeral flotilla, past the unfinished white dome rising out of its scaffolds on a muddy hill in Washington. Will the citizens recognize them, the brave fallen, and uncover in a gesture of respect? Or will they turn away, disgusted by the bloated mass of human rot?”

“In marked contrast to the relaxed, typically Latin attitude of the Dominicans the Protestant missionaries were still proceeding at full blast with the fight for souls. These North American evangelists of strictly fundamentalist inclination combined in a curious fashion strict adhesion to the literal meaning of the Old Testament With mastery of the most modern technology. Most of them came from small towns in the Bible Belt, armed with unshakably clear consciences and a rudimentary smattering of theology, convinced that they alone were the repositories of Christian values now abolished elsewhere. Totally ignorant of the vast world, despite their transplantation, and taking the few articles of morality accepted in the rural Amenca of their childhoods to be a universal credo, they strove bravely to spread these principles of salvation all around them.Their rustic faith was well served by a flotilla of light aircraft, a powerful radio, an ultra-modern hospital and four-wheel-drive vehicles -- in short, all the equipment that a battalion of crusaders dropped behind enemy lines needed.”

“Juan Ponce de LeónOn April 2, 1513, according to legend while searching for the Fountain of Youth, Ponce de León discovered Florida. In actual fact, it was more likely that he was out seeking the gold that the Indians were always talking about. The Indians encouraged this sort of talk, in the high hopes of keeping the conquistadors away from them as far as possible. Returning to Spain in 1514, Ponce de León was recognized for his service to the crown and was knighted. Given his own coat of arms, he became the first conquistador to be honored in this way.Although Ponce de León did bring back a substantial amount of gold, much of it had been stolen from the Indians that he had enslaved. In 1521 Ponce de León set out from Puerto Rico to colonize Florida. He commanded a flotilla of two ships containing about 200 men. In this case his exploratory party was peaceful and included farmers, priests and craftsmen. However he was attacked by Calusa braves, a tribe of Indians who lived on the coast and along the rivers and inner waterways of Florida’s southwestern coast.In the skirmish, Ponce de León was wounded when an arrow, believed to have been dipped into the sap of the “Manchineel Tree,” also called Poison Guava, pierced his thigh. After fending off this attack, he and the colonists retreated to Havana, where in July of 1521, he succumbed to his wound and died. In 1559 his body was moved from Cuba and taken to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he was interred in the crypt of San José Church. In 1836, his remains were exhumed and transferred to the larger, more impressive Cathedral of San Juan Bautista in San Juan. They have remained at this urban, hillside church until this day.This information is from Captain Hank Bracker’s award winning book “The Exciting Story of Cuba” available from Amazon.com and other fine book vendors. Follow, like and share Captain Hank Bracker’s daily blogs & commentaries.”

“The little boats cannot make much difference to the welfare of Gaza either way, since the materials being shipped are in such negligible quantity. The chief significance of the enterprise is therefore symbolic. And the symbolism, when examined even cursorily, doesn't seem too adorable. The intended beneficiary of the stunt is a ruling group with close ties to two of the most retrograde dictatorships in the Middle East, each of which has recently been up to its elbows in the blood of its own civilians. The same group also manages to maintain warm relations with, or at the very least to make cordial remarks about, both Hezbollah and al-Qaida. Meanwhile, a document that was once accurately described as a 'warrant for genocide' forms part of the declared political platform of the aforesaid group. There is something about this that fails to pass a smell test.”

“The highest and most fruitful form of human freedom is found in accepting, even more than in dominating. We show the greatness of our freedom when we transform reality, but still more when we accept it trustingly as it is given to us day after day. It is natural and easy to go along with pleasant situations that arise without our choosing them. It becomes a problem, obviously, when things are unpleasant, go against us, or make us suffer. But it is precisely then that, in order to become truly free, we are often called to choose to accept what we did not want, and even what we would not have wanted at any price. There is a paradoxical law of human life here: one cannot become truly free unless one accepts not always being free!To achieve true interior freedom we must train ourselves to accept, peacefully and willingly, plenty of things that seem to contradict our freedom. This means consenting to our personal limitations, our weaknesses, our powerlessness, this or that situation that life imposes on us, and so on. We find it difficult to do this, because we feel a natural revulsion for situations we cannot control. But the fact is that the situations that really make us grow are precisely those we do not control.”

“Crime must be brought under control... Freedom without civility, freedom without the ability to live in peace, was not true freedom at all.”

“We can't have freedom unless we have freedom. And that means freedom to speak our minds.”

“The more man gains freedom in the sense of emerging from the original oneness with man and nature and the more he becomes an 'individual,' he has no choice but to unite himself with the world in the spontaneity of love and productive work or else to seek a kind of security by such ties with the world that destroys his freedom and the integrity of his individual self.”