Barry Mernin

“Like every great love, patriotism broadens one’s conscience. A true patriot loves the whole world. Having discovered the greatness of one’s native land, it is impossible to conceive hatred for the world. People devoid of love are poor patriots. The pseudo-patriotism of the fascists rests on contempt for other peoples; it narrows down the world to the limits of one language, one type of people, one breed.”
― Ilya Ehrenburg, The Tempering of Russia

“Perhaps more than anything else, the press conference highlighted—for me, and for the public—just how low America could sink in its own estimation and in the eyes of the world. The country’s long-festering domestic crisis had exploded into view with Trump’s election, and now we were seeing the consequences on the international stage. This, I felt, was the agony of American populism. But it wasn’t over yet.”
― Fiona Hill, There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century

“2016 they complained about how Hillary Clinton was paid thousands of dollars to give corporate speeches and palled around with celebrities during her campaign, drinking champagne instead of coming to the American heartland to hear what they had to say about the state of the country. It was no matter that Trump was rich and had a lifestyle that could not have been more different from theirs, or that he had inherited his company from his father.”
― Fiona Hill, There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century

“Another Cebolletan account tells the story of an intrepid defender named Domingo Baca, who was disemboweled by a Navajo lancer. Undaunted by his injury, Baca strapped a pillow around his belly to hold in his guts, then seized his musket and rejoined the fight. When he removed the pillow that night, writes historian Marc Simmons, Baca’s friends “were aghast, and quickly made the sign of the cross as for one already dead. But Baca returned the dangling entrails to their proper place, called for needle and sinew, and sewed up the wound himself. These crude ministrations proved effective, for he recovered and lived to fight again.”
― Hampton Sides, Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West