cars went past, paused
obedient to traffic lights
suspended lidless

Based on the passage, “Again in brilliant sunlight he walked westward down the main street of the town. Cars went past or paused at intersections, obedient to the traffic lights suspended between poles, the lidless glare of red and green, the momentary blink of amber, relaying the orders of some central brain, peremptory, electric, and unthinking.”

In the novel, Jordan County, by Shelby Foote (Dial Press, New York, 1954).

You can see it can’t you.

Cars stopping, pausing.

Obedient to the lights suspended between poles.

The orders of some central brain, peremptory, electric, and unthinking.

I have long thought that the first signs of the revolution would be when folks started to just ignore traffic signs, stoplights, four way stops.

The basic part of everyday, that requires cooperation, playing by the rules.

I always thought it would start at the bottom and work its way up.

Never ever did I think that the rot would start at the top and work its way down.

Another lesson from nature and our own version of acid rain.

because would be no
resistance whatsoever
to Hitler’s power

I was there when the Reichstagsbrand [Burning of the Reichstag (House of Parliament) in Berlin, February 27, 1933] occurred, and I remember how difficult it was for people there to understand what was going on.

A friend of mine, Michael Polanyi, who was director of a division of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry, like many other people took a very optimistic view of the situation.

They all thought that civilized Germans would not stand for anything really rough happening. The reason that I took the opposite position was based on observations of rather small and insignificant things.

What I noticed was that the Germans always took a utilitarian point of view.

They asked, “Well, suppose I would oppose this thinking, what good would I do? I wouldn’t do very much good, I would just lose my influence.

Then why should I oppose it?”

You see, the moral point of view was completely absent, or very weak, and every consideration was simply consideration of what would be the predictable consequence of my action.

And on that basis I reached in 1931 the conclusion that Hitler would get into power, not because the forces of the Nazi revolution were so strong, but rather because I thought that there would be no resistance whatsoever.

You see, the moral point of view was completely absent, or very weak, and every consideration was simply consideration of what would be the predictable consequence of my action.

The moral point of view was completely absent.

Take the latest copy of the New York Times and read out each Trump headline and then say, the moral point of view is completely absent.

According to Wikipedia, Leo Szilard was a Hungarian-born physicist, biologist and inventor who made numerous important discoveries in nuclear physics and the biological sciences. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, and patented the idea in 1936.

Together with Enrico Fermi, he applied for a nuclear reactor patent in 1944. He publicly sounded the alarm against the possible development of salted thermonuclear bombs, a new kind of nuclear weapon that might annihilate mankind.