Dear Yahoo!: How was the term "fifth column" coined?
Great question! According to Britannica.com, a fifth column refers to any clandestine group or faction of subversive agents who attempt to undermine a nation's solidarity.
Who came up with the phrase, and what's with the columns? Emilio Mola Vidal, a Nationalist general during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), originally coined the term. As four of his army columns moved on Madrid, the general referred to his militant supporters within the capital as his "fifth column," intent on undermining the loyalist government from within.
So the fifth column is a group of secret sympathizers or supporters of an enemy that engage in espionage or sabotage within defense lines or national borders. Recent conflicts have had their fifth columns: Iraqi insurgents in the Gulf War, Cuban rebels in the Bay of Pigs. Those columns didn't fare quite as well.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY!
"American capitalism, based as it is on exploitation
of the poor, with its fundamental motivation in
personal greed, simply cannot survive without force --
without a secret police force. Now, more than ever,
each of us is forced to make a conscious choice
whether to support the system of minority comfort and
privilege with all its security apparatus and
repression, or whether to struggle for real equality
of opportunity and fair distribution of benefits for
all of society, in the domestic as well as the
international order. It's harder now not to realize
that there are two sides, harder not to understand
each, and harder not to recognize that like it or not
we contribute day in and day out either to the one
side or to the other." -- Philip Agee, CIA Diary, p597
Thursday, January 12, 2012
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY!
"I again recommend a law
prohibiting all corporations from contributing to the campaign expenses
of any party.... Let individuals contribute as they desire; but let us
prohibit in effective fashion all corporations from making contributions
for any political purpose, directly or indirectly."Teddy Roosevelt
added,"The fortunes amassed through corporate organization are now so
large, and vest such power in those that wield them, as to make it a
matter of necessity to give to the sovereign -- that is, to the
Government, which represents the people as a whole -- some effective
power of supervision over their corporate use. In order to insure a
healthy social and industrial life, every big corporation should be held
responsible by, and be accountable to, some sovereign strong enough to
control its conduct." -- Theodore Roosevelt
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