Word: brutes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...smoothie, not a thug. That was plain from the way he discreetly sidled up to me to show his gun, from his craftiness in taking only those items that could not incriminate him (no cards, just cash), and from his use of icy threats rather than force. No Hobbesian brute this--he seemed instead a rational, calculating man acting out of self-interest, not instinct...
...During the great drought of the 1950s, hardly a shower fell on Tom Green County for eight years; only the mesquite lived well. Mesquite resembles an otherwise handsome tree afflicted by terrible arthritis, but it possesses a sort of peasant vitality. It is a vigorous, complacent survivor, an efficient brute of evolution, like the shark...
...figures and we may not go "half-way"--but we still will not win, only prolong the agony. That our troops are not yet in El Salvador can be attributed to a limited comprehension of the Vietnam experience, but that comprehension is rapidly fading. Only when we realize that brute force cannot cure the political, social and economic woes of a nation in upheaval will we have salvaged an honorable legacy from our years of dishonor in Vietnam...
...thing should be perfectly clear: The "restoration of order" by brute force is impossible. It is impossible especially in Poland, where destruction of hopes people cherished so long can bring only more and more resistance--even if it will be only a passive resistance. Solidarity cannot be suppressed, since the only possible way to suppress it would be to exterminate ten million people--people who believed and still believe that the progress of democracy is the only chance of improving their lives. The Polish military regime and its Soviet principals will be at war, with the Polish people as long...
...sort of negotiation that most postwar diplomats practice (the years-long process that has turned Geneva into the world capital of niggling, for example) has a dreary reputation; so does the brute punch and counterpunch of labor bargaining-the two sides staring at one another across the table with reptile's eyes (their bladders nagging, their minds beginning to buzz and fray, the brain cells winking out like campfires). No Exit, a purgatory of silence and cultural incomprehension and stolid grievance, waiting for the other side to crack and start giving away points...