Quotes about guerrilla (65 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Thomas Jefferson dreamed of a land of small farmers, of shop owners and merchants. Abraham Lincoln signed into law the “Homestead Act” that ensured that the great western prairies of America would be the realm of independent, property-owning citizens-a mightier guarantee of freedom is difficult to imagine.
I know we have with us today employee-owners from La Perla Plantation in Guatemala. They have a stake in the place where they work and a stake in the freedom of their country. When Communist guerrillas came, these proud owners protected what belonged to them. They drove the Communists off their land and I know you join me in saluting their courage.
In this century, the United States has evolved into a great industrial power. Even though they are now, by and large, employees, our working people still benefit from property ownership. Most of our citizens own the homes in which they reside. In the marketplace, they benefit from direct and indirect business ownership. There are currently close to 10 million self-employed workers in the U. S.-nearly 9 percent of total civilian employment. And, millions more hope to own a business some day. Furthermore, over 47 million individuals reap the rewards of free enterprise through stock ownership in the vast number of companies listed on U. S. stock exchanges.
I can’t help but believe that in the future we will see in the United States and throughout the western world an increasing trend toward the next logical step, employee ownership. It is a path that befits a free people.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Speech on Project Economic Justice http://www.cesj.org/about-cesj-in-brief/history-accomplishments/pres-reagans-speech-on-project-economic-justice/ (The White House, 3 August 1987)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

People , World , Law , Dreams

“Any time Uncle Sam, with all his machinery for warfare, is held to a draw by some rice eaters, he’s lost the battle. He had to sign a truce. America’s not supposed to sign a truce. She’s supposed to be bad. But she’s not bad any more. She’s bad as long as she can use her hydrogen bomb, but she can’t use hers for fear Russia might use hers. Russia can’t use hers, for fear that Sam might use his. So, both of them are weapon-less. They can’t use the weapon because each’s weapon nullifies the other’s. So the only place where action can take place is on the ground. And the white man can’t win another war fighting on the ground. Those days are over. The black man knows it, the brown man knows it, the red man knows it, and the yellow man knows it. So they engage him in guerrilla warfare. That’s not his style. You’ve got to have heart to be a guerrilla warrior, and he hasn’t got any heart.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

War , Fear , Time , Heart

“Comrades, Red Army and Red Navy men, commanders and political instructors, men and women guerrillas! The whole world is looking to you as a force capable of destroying the brigand hordes of German invaders. The enslaved peoples of Europe under the yoke of the German invaders are looking to you as their liberators. A great mission of liberation has fallen to your lot. Be worthy of this mission! The war you are waging is a war of liberation, a just war.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Speech on the 24th Anniversary of the Revolution
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Women , Men , War , People

“Another characteristic of the A. R. F.'s "Western"-dependent strategy is its complete disregard for the need to transfer the Armenian armed struggle to the historic Armenian homeland, the need to build a mass-based guerrilla force closely aligned with Turkish and Kurdish revolutionaries. Many appeals in A. R. F. literature and propaganda are directed to "international public opinion" and other non-Armenian audiences. Meanwhile, few appeals are directed to the Armenian people themselves…”

Monte Melkonian (1957–1993) National Hero of Armenia

Source: The Right to Struggle (1993), P. 57.

People , Literature , Dependency

“It takes heart to be a guerrilla warrior because you’re on your own.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: It takes heart to be a guerrilla warrior because you’re on your own. In conventional warfare you have tanks and a whole lot of other people with you to back you up—planes over your head and all that kind of stuff. But a guerrilla is on his own. All you have is a rifle, some sneakers and a bowl of rice, and that’s all you need—and a lot of heart.

Heart

“Millions of mind guerrillas
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"Mind Games"
Lyrics, Mind Games (1973)
Context: So keep on playing those mind games together
Doing the ritual dance in the sun.
Millions of mind guerrillas
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel.

Soul

“Love is the answer and you know that for sure.
Love is a flower, you got to let it — you got to let it grow.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"Mind Games"
Lyrics, Mind Games (1973)
Original: We all been playing those mind games forever
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil.
Doing the mind guerrilla,
Some call it magic — the search for the grail.
Love is the answer and you know that for sure.
Love is a flower, you got to let it — you got to let it grow.

Search , Game , Flowers , Love

“We all been playing those mind games forever
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil.
Doing the mind guerrilla,
Some call it magic — the search for the grail.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Lyrics, Mind Games (1973)

Search , Game

“How could I as an individual, Ernesto Guevara, accept the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa conferred by the School of Education, since the only education I have imparted has been that of guerrilla camps, harsh words, and fierce example? And I believe such things certainly cannot be transformed into a cap and gown. That is why I continue to wear my Rebel Army uniform.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Speech at the University of Las Villas (1959)

Education , School

“I know this of my own knowledge, because when the garrison of Baton Rouge was sent to the Rio Grande to assist in protecting that frontier against the guerrilla Cortina, who had cause of offense against the Texan people, Governor Moore made strong complaints and demanded a new garrison for Baton Rouge, alleging as a reason that it was not prudent to have so much material of war in a parish where there were 20,000 slaves and less than 5,000 whites, and very shortly after this he and Bragg, backed by the militia of New Orleans, made 'prisoners of war' of that very garrison, sent there at their own request.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

1860s, 1864, Letter to James Guthrie (August 1864)

War , People , Knowledge , Strong

“All my work is informed by personal experience. It is the seed to which I apply a transcendent dialogue. The idea for my first bubble machine was rooted in a complex combination of many memories. During the Second World War I was in my sister’s arms when I saw a young Filipino guerrilla shot by a Japanese soldier. The young guerrilla ran into our garden. The sight of him lying there dying, red blood bubbles foaming from his mouth, made a strong impression on me. Flying over the Grand Canyon on my first trip to America, visiting a soap factory at the bottom of Notre Dame de la Garde in Marseilles, a visit to a brewery in Edinburgh in Scotland: these left deep impressions as well. My mother cooking “guinataan”, a Philippine dessert made of coconut milk and tropical fruit, and the movement of clouds over Manila Bay near where I was born, inspired me to create a work of art that would express and embody the motion of clouds.”

David Medalla (1942) Filipino artist

Source: Adam Nankervis, " A Stitch in time http://moussemagazine.it/articolo.mm?id=707," in: Mousse Magazine.it, Issue 29, 2015

War , World , Art , Lying

“Mass struggle was utilized throughout the war by the Vietnamese communist party. It was used, first of all, because guerrilla warfare is one expression of the mass struggle. One cannot conceive of guerrilla war when it is isolated from the people. The guerrilla group is the numerically inferior vanguard of the great majority of the people, who have no weapons but express themselves through the vanguard.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

People's War, People's Army (1964)

War , People

“The characteristics of the struggle, in which territory had to be given to the enemy and many years had to pass in order to achieve final victory, with fluctuations, ebb and flow, was that of a protracted war. During the entire struggle one could say that the front lines were where the enemy was. At a given moment, the enemy occupied almost the entire territory and the front was spread to wherever the enemy was. Later the lines of combat were delimited and a main front was established. But the enemy's rear guard constituted another front; it was a total war and the colonialists were never able to mobilize their forces with ease against the liberated zones. The slogan "dynamism, initiative, mobility, and quick decision in new situations" is in synthesis the guerrilla tactic. These few words expressed the tremendously difficult art of popular war.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

People's War, People's Army (1964)

War , Art , Decision , Victory

“When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies. They blame United States policies of 100 years ago. But then they always blame America first.”

Jeane Kirkpatrick (1926–2006) American diplomat and Presidential advisor

Washington Times, 5/15/2006 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060515-122839-9492r.htm

Way

“It is said that if the United States were to stop shooting and withdraw its troops from Vietnam, the Viet Cong would then stage a great purge of the people who we have been seeking to protect — have pledged to protect. First of all, so far they have been getting precious little protection from us. The Vietnamese people as human individuals have been shot at by the French, by us, by Communists, by guerrillas for years. Maybe, if only somebody would stop shooting at them that would be something to the good.”

A. J. Muste (1885–1967) Christian pacifist and civil rights activist

"Who Has the Spiritual Atom Bomb?" in Liberation (November 1965).

People

“The enemy soldier in the Cuban example, which we are now considering, is the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets the last crumbs left to him in a long line of profiteers that begins in Wall Street and ends with him. He is disposed to defend his privileges, but he is disposed to defend them only to the degree that they are important to him. His salary and pension are worth some suffering and some dangers, but they are never worth his life; if the price of maintaining them will cost it, he is better off giving them up, that is to say, withdrawing from the face of guerrilla danger.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Notes on the Cuban Revolution (1960)

Life , Suffering

“I stress the strength of our economy because it is essential to the strength of our nation. And what is true in our case is true in the case of other countries. Their strength in the struggle for freedom depends on the strength of their economic and their social progress. We would be badly mistaken to consider their problems in military terms alone. For no amount of arms and armies can help stabilize those governments which are unable or unwilling to achieve social and economic reform and development. Military pacts cannot help nations whose social injustice and economic chaos invite insurgency and penetration and subversion. The most skillful counter-guerrilla efforts cannot succeed where the local population is too caught up in its own misery to be concerned about the advance of communism.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Communication , Problem , Effort , Freedom

“Ultimately, in its collapse, Laos was important because it proved the validity of the so-called domino theory, which preached that communism--once victorious in South Vietnam--would metastasize throughout the region. Laos, like Cambodia, proved the domino theorists correct. On August 23, 1975, just four months after Saigon's fall, communist Pathet Lao (meaning "Land of Lao") guerrillas entered the Laotian capital of Vientiane and seized control of the nation. It was an event that, while clearly destructive to American interests in Asia, served as something of a wake-up call to those American isolationists who had downplayed the regional threat of communism. It also ushered in a horrid era for this nation's 4.8 million people.”

Michael Johns (1964) American businessman

"Let's Not Forget Laos," The World and I, September 1995, by Michael Johns: The 'Domino Theory' Proved Right

People , Communication , Victory

“Part of the definition of guerrilla decontextualization is the attempt to intentionally misrepresent an individual’s character or intentions for purpose of decreasing any measure of influence or authority they might possess in either public or private circles. Hence: the popularity of such a technique among battling politicians.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(from 2012 article 47 Percenters and Guerrilla Decontextualization).
From Articles, Essays, and Poems, On Guerrilla Decontextualization

Parting

“Guerrilla warfare is a people's warfare; an attempt to carry out this type of war without the population's support is a prelude to inevitable disaster.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Method of Guerrilla Warfare (1963)

War , People , Support

“Guerrilla decontextualization usually involves partial truths made to look complete. It goes beyond simple defamation of character or slander because it sustains an entire culture devoted to manipulating public perception for the sake of financial, political, or social gain.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(from 2013 essay Putting Text and Meaning to the Guerrilla Decontextualization Test).
From Articles, Essays, and Poems, On Guerrilla Decontextualization

Truth

“Let us look back on the events which fill up the ten years of the Sullan restoration. No one of the movements, external or internal, which occurred during this period - neither the insurrection of Lepidus, nor the enterprises of the Spanish emigrants, nor the wars in Thrace and Macedonia and in Asia Minor, nor the risings of the pirates and the slaves - constituted of itself a mighty danger necessarily affecting the vital sinews of the nation; and yet the state had in all these struggles well-night fought for its very existence. The reason was that the tasks were left everywhere unperformed, so long as they might still have been performed with ease; the neglect of the simplest precautionary measures produced the most dreadful mischiefs and misfortunes, and transformed dependent classes and impotent kings into antagonists on a footing of equality. The democracy and the servile insurrection were doubtless subdued; but such as the victories were, the victor was neither inwardly elevated nor outwardly strengthened by them. It was no credit to Rome, that the two most celebrated generals of the government party had during a struggle of eight years marked by more defeats than victories failed to master the insurgent chief Sertorius and his Spanish guerrillas, and that it was only the dagger of his friends that decided the Sertorian war in favour[sic] of the legitimate government. As to the slaves, it was far less an honour[sic] to have confronted them in equal strive for years. Little more than a century had elapsed since the Hannibalic war; it must have brought a blush to the cheek of the honourable[sic] Roman, when he reflected on the fearfully rapid decline of the nation since that great age. Then the (the Roman) Italian slaves stood like a wall against the veterans of Hannibal; now the Italian militia were scattered like chaff before the bludgeons of their runaway serfs. Then every plain captain acted in case of need as general, and fought often without success, but always with honour, not it was difficult to find among all the officers of rank a leader of even ordinary efficiency. Then the government preferred to take the last farmer from the plough rather than forgo the acquisition of Spain and Greece; now they were on the eve of again abandoning both regions long since acquired, merely that they might be able to defend themselves against the insurgent slaves at home. Spartacus too as well as Hannibal had traversed Italy with an army from the Po to the Sicilian Straights, beaten both consuls, and threatened Rome with a blockade; the enterprise which had needed the greatest general of antiquity to conduct it against the Rome of former days could be undertaken against the Rome of the present by a daring captain of banditti. Was there any wonder that no fresh life sprang out of such victories over insurgents and robber-chiefs?”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Pt. 1, Chapter 2. "Rule of the Sullan Restoration"
The Government of the Restoration as a Whole
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 1

Life , War , Age , Democracy

“Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long in the enemy's rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How may it be said that these two cannot exist together?”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On Guerilla Warfare http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/ch06.htm (1937), Chapter 6 - "The Political Problems of Guerilla Warfare"
This is usually aphorized as "The people are the sea that the revolutionary swims in," or an equivalent.

People , Thinking , Fish , Water

“Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Ch. I: 1. Essence of Guerrilla Warfare

People , Change , Fight

“…the argument is that by bombing at a time when most of the atrocities were attributed to the KLA guerrillas, with the anticipation that the bombing would lead to far worse atrocities, NATO was preventing atrocities. The fact that this is the strongest argument that can be contrived by serious analysts, and I stress serious because there's plenty of nonsense, that tells us a good deal about the decision to bomb, particularly when we recall that there apparently were diplomatic options.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2005, Illegal but Legitimate: A Dubious Doctrine for the Times, 2004

Decision , Time

“First let us rid our minds of the fallacy that guerrilla war is a wholly distinct thing in kind from regular war. It is nothing of the sort. War is a science whose fundamental principles are constant however wide or numerous the variations….”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

"War and the Arme Blanche", by Erskine Childers, Edward Arnold, (London, 1910), p. 231.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918)

War , Science

“If we like them, they’re freedom fighters, she thought. If we don’t like them, they’re terrorists. In the unlikely case we can’t make up our minds, they’re temporarily only guerrillas.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 3 (p. 55)

Freedom

“Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world’s policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world’s midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war.”

Jeane Kirkpatrick (1926–2006) American diplomat and Presidential advisor

Dictatorship and Double Standards, Commentary (New York, Nov. 1979), quoted in The Columbia World of Quotations, 1996 http://www1.bartleby.com/66/43/32843.html

War , World , Democracy , Birth

“Your defeat is not only a reality, which has been historically proven time and again. It can also be seen in your helplessness and your inability to suppress the movement, in your desperate conduct when faced with our guerrillas and the vanguard of the people.”

Ashraf Dehghani (1948) amongst the most well known Iranian female Communist revolutionary and member of the Iranian People's Fedai Guer…

Torture and Resistance in Iran, 1971
This quote was about the regime of the Shah, who was forced to flee Iran in 1979

People , Reality , Time

“The guerrilla is supported by the peasant and worker masses of the region and of the whole territory in which it acts. Without these prerequisites, guerrilla warfare is not possible.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Method of Guerrilla Warfare (1963)

Support

“He's a hope to Latin America and I would like if that philosophy came to Brazil. I think he's unique. I intend to go to Venezuela and to try to meet him. I want to pass a week there and to try to schedule an audience. I think he'll do what the militaries did in Brazil in 1964, with much more strength. I just hope the opposition doesn't go into a guerrilla warfare like they did here.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

About Hugo Chávez. "É uma esperança para a AL" http://acervo.estadao.com.br/pagina/#!/19990904-38672-nac-0007-pol-a7-not/busca/Bolsonaro. O Estado de S. Paulo (4 September 1999).

Hope , Thinking

“Whereas guerrilla forces and commando units are small, somewhat independent, and can choose the time and place of attack, with lightning strikes, and disappear as quickly as they appeared, like little David with Goliath: one little guerrilla defied a whole army; like Gideon and his little band: a bunch of guerrillas who defied a whole army; like Jonathan and his armor bearer; two more guerrillas who defied a whole army. And, boy, if you've got God with you, you're unbeatable, no matter how small you are!”

David Berg (1919–1994) Children of God founder

Attack!

God , Boy , Appearance , Time

“The guerrilla fighter, who is general of himself, need not die in every battle… [a guerrilla fighter] is ready to die, not to defend an ideal, but rather to convert it into reality.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1960), Ch. 1: General Principles of Guerrilla Warfare

Reality

“147, on the situation in Greece: "imminent collapse due to mounting guerrilla activity, supplied and directed from outside, economic chaos, and the Greek governmental inability to meet the crisis."”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Truman Doctrine, Cold War

“I wonder whether those of our political masters who have been put in charge of the defence of the country can distinguish a mortar from a motor; a gun from a howitzer; a guerrilla from a gorilla, although a great many resemble the latter.”

Sam Manekshaw (1914–2008) First Field marshal of the Indian Army

His view on the military knowledge of politicians quoted in NRIs irked by poor Manekshaw farewell, 7 July 2008, 2 December 2013, Diligent Media Corporation Ltd. http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-nris-irked-by-poor-manekshaw-farewell-1176337,

Country

“World War I a railway war of centralization and encirclement. World War II a radio war of decentralization concluded by the Bomb. World War III a TV guerrilla war with no divisions between civil and military fronts.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 152

War , World

“World War III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970), p.66

War , World

“Every time a Black Freedom Fighter is murdered or captured, the pigs try to create the impression that they have quashed the movement, destroyed our forces, and put down the Black Revolution. The pigs also try to give the impression that five or ten guerrillas are responsible for every revolutionary action carried out in amerika. That is nonsense. That is absurd. Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

To My People (July 4, 1973)

Life , Sister , Freedom , Suffering

“Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Ch. I: 1. Essence of Guerrilla Warfare

Peace , Appearance

“The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Ch. I: 1. Essence of Guerrilla Warfare

People , Help

“These battles shall not be mere street fights with stones against tear-gas bombs, or of pacific general strikes; neither shall it be the battle of a furious people destroying in two or three days the repressive scaffolds of the ruling oligarchies; the struggle shall be long, harsh, and its front shall be in the guerrilla's refuge, in the cities, in the homes of the fighters — where the repressive forces shall go seeking easy victims among their families — in the massacred rural population, in the villages or cities destroyed by the bombardments of the enemy.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Message to the Tricontinental (1967)

People , Family , Home , Tear

“Under the leadership of their democratic governments, all the anti-Japanese people in the Liberated Areas of China are called upon to join organizations of workers, peasants, youth and women, and cultural, professional and other organizations, which will wholeheartedly perform various tasks in support of the armed forces. Those tasks are not limited to rallying the people to join the army, transporting grain for it, caring for soldiers' families and helping the troops in meeting their material needs. They also include mobilizing the guerrilla units, militia and self-defence corps to make widespread raids and lay land mines against the enemy, gather intelligence about him, comb out traitors and spies, transport and protect the wounded and take direct part in the army's operations.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On Coalition Government (1945)

Women , People , Youth , Family

“This professor standing before you was once a doctor, and by force of circumstance was obliged to take up arms, and after two years graduated as a guerrilla commander.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Speech at the University of Las Villas (1959)

“Rather than trying to escape violence, human beings more often become habituated to it. History abounds with long conflicts – the Thirty Years’ War in early seventeenth-century Europe, the Time of Troubles in Russia, twentieth-century guerrilla conflicts – in which continuous slaughter has been accepted as normal. Famously adaptable, the human animal quickly learns to live with violence and soon comes to find satisfaction in it.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

In the Puppet Theatre: Roof Gardens, Feathers and Human Sacrifice (p. 80)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

War , History , Learning , Time

“Traditional guerrilla activity such as bombings, snipings and kidnappings complete with printed manifestos seem like so many ecologically risky short change feedback devices compared with the real possibilities of portable video, maverick data banks, acid metaprogramming, Cable TV, satellites, cybernetic craft industries, and alternative lifestyles. Yet the guerrilla tradition is highly relevant in the current information environment. Guerrilla warfare is by nature irregular and non-repetitive. Like information theory, it recognizes that redundancy can easily become reactionary and result in entropy and defeat.”

Paul Ryan (video artist) (1943–2013) American video artist

Paul Ryan, "Cybernetic Guerilla Warfare," Radical Software 3 (Spring 1971): 1

Nature , Change

“The function of leadership in the guerrilla, the function of Andreas Baader in the RAF is orientation: not just to distinguish the main points from the minor ones in each situation but also to remain with the entire political context in all situations; to never lose sight, among technical and logistic details and problems, of the aim, which is the revolution.”

Ulrike Meinhof (1934–1976) German left-wing militant

Published in "Minor Literature: Case Study: the Red Army Faction" http://www.simonosullivan.net/articles/red-army-faction.pdf

Problem

“So what, then, is the use of art — our art, Black art? Black art must expose the enemy, praise the people and support the revolution.… We do not need pictures of oranges in a bowl or trees standing innocently in the midst of a wasteland. If we must paint oranges and trees, let our guerrillas be eating those oranges for strength and using those trees for cover.”

Maulana Karenga (1941) Political activist

"Black Cultural Nationalism" in The Black Aesthetic (1971)

People , Art , Support , Tree

“Guerrilla ontology
The basic technique of all my books.”

Robert Anton Wilson book The Illuminati Papers

The Illuminati Papers (1980), p. 2
Context: Guerrilla ontology
The basic technique of all my books. Ontology is the study of being; the guerrilla approach is to so mix the elements of each book that the reader must decide on each page 'How much of this is real and how much is a put-on?

Books

“I was gonna hide somewhere where nobody would find me and express myself entirely. I'm like a guerrilla warfare in my best books.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

NOW interview (2004)
Context: I wasn't gonna paint. And I wasn't gonna do ostentatious drawings. I wasn't gonna have gallery pictures. I was gonna hide somewhere where nobody would find me and express myself entirely. I'm like a guerrilla warfare in my best books.

Books

“This wonderful and terrible occupation of recreating the world in a different way, each time fresh and strange, is an act of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. I stir the soup. I inconvenience you.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Introduction to Shatterday (1980), p. 2
Context: I don't know how you perceive my mission as a writer, but for me it is not a responsibility to reaffirm your concretized myths and provincial prejudices. It is not my job to lull you with a false sense of the rightness of the universe. This wonderful and terrible occupation of recreating the world in a different way, each time fresh and strange, is an act of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. I stir the soup. I inconvenience you. I make your nose run and your eyeballs water.

World , Way , Time

“There are many kinds of strength and no one kind will suffice. Overwhelming nuclear strength cannot stop a guerrilla war. Formal pacts of alliance cannot stop internal subversion. Displays of material wealth cannot stop the disillusionment of diplomats subjected to discrimination. Above all, words alone are not enough.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas
Context: I want to discuss with you today the status of our strength and our security because this question clearly calls for the most responsible qualities of leadership and the most enlightened products of scholarship. For this Nation's strength and security are not easily or cheaply obtained, nor are they quickly and simply explained. There are many kinds of strength and no one kind will suffice. Overwhelming nuclear strength cannot stop a guerrilla war. Formal pacts of alliance cannot stop internal subversion. Displays of material wealth cannot stop the disillusionment of diplomats subjected to discrimination. Above all, words alone are not enough. The United States is a peaceful nation. And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.

War , Wealth

“The Western World has been brainwashed by Aristotle for the last 2,500 years. The unconscious, not quite articulate, belief of most Occidentals is that there is one map which adequately represents reality. By sheer good luck, every Occidental thinks he or she has the map that fits. Guerrilla ontology, to me, involves shaking up that certainty.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

"Robert Anton Wilson: Searching For Cosmic Intelligence" - interview with Jeffrey Elliot (1980) http://www.rawilsonfans.com/articles/Starship.htm
Context: The Western World has been brainwashed by Aristotle for the last 2,500 years. The unconscious, not quite articulate, belief of most Occidentals is that there is one map which adequately represents reality. By sheer good luck, every Occidental thinks he or she has the map that fits. Guerrilla ontology, to me, involves shaking up that certainty. I use what in modern physics is called the "multi-model" approach, which is the idea that there is more than one model to cover a given set of facts. As I've said, novel writing involves learning to think like other people. My novels are written so as to force the reader to see things through different reality grids rather than through a single grid. It's important to abolish the unconscious dogmatism that makes people think their way of looking at reality is the only sane way of viewing the world. My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything. If one can only see things according to one's own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind. It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it. That's what guerrilla ontology is — breaking down this one-model view and giving people a multi-model perspective.

World , Thinking , Reality

“We possess weapons of tremendous power — but they are least effective in combating the weapons most often used by freedom's foes: subversion, infiltration, guerrilla warfare, civil disorder.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Also quoted in "Warrior for Peace" by David Talbot, in TIME (2 July 2007), p. 50 http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1635958_1635999_1634954-6,00.html
1961, Address at the University of Washington
Context: We increase our arms at a heavy cost, primarily to make certain that we will not have to use them. We must face up to the chance of war, if we are to maintain the peace. We must work with certain countries lacking in freedom in order to strengthen the cause of freedom. We find some who call themselves neutral who are our friends and sympathetic to us, and others who call themselves neutral who are unremittingly hostile to us. And as the most powerful defender of freedom on earth, we find ourselves unable to escape the responsibilities of freedom, and yet unable to exercise it without restraints imposed by the very freedoms we seek to protect. We cannot, as a free nation, compete with our adversaries in tactics of terror, assassination, false promises, counterfeit mobs and crises. We cannot, under the scrutiny of a free press and public, tell different stories to different audiences, foreign and domestic, friendly and hostile. We cannot abandon the slow processes of consulting with our allies to match the swift expediencies of those who merely dictate to their satellites. We can neither abandon nor control the international organization in which we now cast less than 1 percent of the vote in the General Assembly. We possess weapons of tremendous power — but they are least effective in combating the weapons most often used by freedom's foes: subversion, infiltration, guerrilla warfare, civil disorder. We send arms to other peoples — just as we send them the ideals of democracy in which we believe — but we cannot send them the will to use those arms or to abide by those ideals. And while we believe not only in the force of arms but in the force of right and reason, we have learned that reason does not always appeal to unreasonable men — that it is not always true that "a soft answer turneth away wrath" — and that right does not always make might. In short, we must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy or quick or permanent solutions. And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient — that we are only 6 percent of the world's population — that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind — that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity — and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.

Freedom