Politics Quotes

Quotations are selected from this pool (and other quotation pools) in a pseudorandom way every hour and inserted at the top and bottom of some of the major pages on this website. Feel free to copy any of these quotes and paste them for whatever purpose you please, including on your own website, blog, social media page or forum debate posts.

Addictive Killing

Impersonal killers are like drug addicts.
The first time gives them the ultimate high and after that, no high is as good.
Unfortunately, the addict doesn’t know that.
He will chase that high to the gates of insanity and death.
By now, killing is all our UNSUB (Unknown Subject) thinks about.
He’s set up the exact same situation again and again, hoping to get the same result.
He begins to think he’s doing it wrong.
He becomes obsessed with improving his skills, honing his m.o.
And tailoring his weapon to his deadly purpose.
He figures if he gets them all just right, if he can get his technique and his tools perfected, he’ll feel that first high again.
He’s becoming a more lethal addict.
and he’ll never accept that the high is gone and it won’t come back.
He’ll never stop.
Never.

~ AaronHotch Hotchner Criminal Minds played by Thomas Gibson (1962-07-03 age:55)

This addiction to killing is what really draws soldiers to enlist for pitiful pay, long hours and disgusting, dangerous working conditions.

Small Stone

I am happy to be a small stone in a big lake. I just want to do something [to fight Ebola].

~ anonymous guest with a third world accent on Inside Europe radio program. On 2014-12-13

Power

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

~ Lord Acton aka John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834-01-10 1902-06-19 age:68)

Bliss in Bloodshed

Distorted history boasts of bellicose glory… and seduces the souls of boys to seek mystical bliss in bloodshed and in battles.

~ Alfred Adler (1870-02-07 1937-05-28 age:67)

Camouflaging Violence

Violence as a way of gaining power… is being camouflaged under the guise of tradition, national honor [and] national security…

~ Alfred Adler (1870-02-07 1937-05-28 age:67)

Fighting For Principles

It is always easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.

~ Alfred Adler (1870-02-07 1937-05-28 age:67)

Excuses

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

~ Aesop (620 BC 564 BC age:56)

Republican Legitimate Rape

If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

~ Todd Akin (1947-07-05 age:70) 2012-08-20

Where did you learn that? You just made it up? I thought so.

Dysfunctional Theocracy

What America has essentially done is transform Iraq from a very brutal, but highly functioning secular state into a very brutal, totally dysfunctional theocracy.

~ Jenan al-Ubaedy Full Cover Girl

What We Deserve

Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve.

~ Edward Albee (1928-03-12 age:90)

American Quarrel With Viet Nam

I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.

~ Muhammad Ali (1942-01-17 2016-06-03 age:74)

Unlike most young men in 1966, Ali was brave enough to resist the draft into the Viet Nam war.

On The Verge of Collapse

History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse.

~ Eric Alterman (1960-01-14 age:58)

Beware Passive Voice

Mistakes have been made.

This is the closest Americans will come to admitting that they behaved as badly as Nazis in Afghanistan and Iraq.

~ An Average American

Threatened Ideals

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

~ Maya Angelou (1928-04-04 2014-05-28 age:86)

Assassinate Your Political Opponents

I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.

~ Sharron Angle (1949-07-26 age:68), unsuccessful Tea Party candidate of Senator in Nevada.

In so many words, she threatened to have her supporters assassinate Harry Reid if she lost the election. This lunatic was not charged or committed to a mental institution for the criminally insane.

Politician Traitor

It’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going. But, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.

~ Sharron Angle (1949-07-26 age:68) Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada

What she is effectively saying is, if the democratic majority rejects your views, intimidate and assassinate with firearms and if that does not work, overthrow the government. My jaw drops that Americans don’t commit her to an institution for the criminally insane.

Created Future

One of the biggest flaws in the common conception of the future is that the future is something that happens to us, not something we create.

~ Michael Anissimov (1985 age:32)

Iraq was Is Illegal

The invasion and occupation of Iraq is illegal.

~ Kofi Annan (1938-04-08 age:80) Secretary General and Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922-11-14 age:95) former Secretary General of the U.N.

Chosen People

If Americans and Jews are God’s chosen people, why did He hide all their oil under Muslim soil?

~ Anonymous

Eating What You Kill

What’s the difference between an American soldier and a sow? A sow kills and devours her neighbour’s young; an American soldier kills but doesn’t eat them.

~ Anonymous

Mindlessly Opposing Obama

If Obama came out in favour of oxygen, Republicans would suffocate themselves.

~ Anonymous

Necessity of Punishing the Guilty

It is cruelty to the innocent not to punish the guilty.

~ Anonymous

Suicide

The recession is so bad, that when I called a suicide help line, I got a call center in Pakistan. When I told them I was feeling suicidal, they got all excited and asked me if I could drive a truck.

~ Anonymous

Importance of Evil

An existence deprived of freedom is a kind of death.

~ General Michel Aoun (1933-09-30 age:84)

Americans revere there own freedom but seem completely blind to the need for freedom in the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. Like meddling mother-in-laws they imagine their occupations, unlike all other occupations, are appreciated, necessary and helpful.

Binding Power of Evil

Evil brings men together.

~ Aristotle (384 BC 322 BC age:62)

Aristotle on the Republican party of his day.

Defining Treason

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

~ Article III, Section 3, clause 1 of the Constitution (1787-09-17 age:230)

Republicans use the term treason to mean disagrees with me for all manner of quite legal acts. Still, the constitutional definition is preposterously broad. An American who pointed out one of its resource wars was illegal, or that the motive for the war was less than honourable is giving comfort to the enemy as a side effect and his acts technically could be considered treason.

Overpopulation

Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.

~ Isaac Asimov (1920-01-02 1992-03-06 age:72) Russian-born American scientist and prolific writer

Freedom Of Speech

President Obama has prosecuted twice as many whistleblowers as all prior presidents combined.

~ Julian Assange (1971-07-03 age:46)

Adjustable Poverty Line

The core principle of Republicanism seems to be that $50,000 a year is unimaginable luxury (especially if it’s being paid to some useless teacher or nurse or policeman), but $200K is essentially below the poverty line and the latter need tax cuts partially financed by pay cuts to the former to get by.

~ Atrios

Republic Regret on Civil Rights

You start out in 1954 by saying, Nigger, nigger, nigger. By 1968 you can’t say nigger — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

~ Lee Atwater (1951-02-27 1991-03-29 age:40) father of dirty election tricks.

Biggest Empty Promise

Hope drives us to invent new fixes for old messes, which in turn create ever more dangerous messes. Hope elects the politician with the biggest empty promise; and as any stockbroker or lottery seller knows, most of us will take a slim hope over prudent and predictable frugality. Hope, like greed, fuels the engine of capitalism.

~ Margaret Atwood (1939-11-18 age:78)  Oryx and Crake in a 2004 Massey Lecture

Do Evil in Return

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

~ Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-02-21 1973-09-29 age:66) September 1, 1939

Most Americans are under the illusion that terrorist attacks have nothing to do with American behaviour. They are either in denial that they behave worse than Nazis, attacking other countries unprovoked, plundering their resources, torturing, targeting civilians and children and using banned weapons or they acknowledge they do these things but can’t for the life of them imagine why the victims or their friends would seek revenge, after all Americans are so darn lovable. Americans imagine they can eliminate resistance to their domination by ruthless killing, randomly picking victims, most of whom never said boo in resistance. This certainly would not work if the Chinese occupied America, so it is insane to imagine it will work in Afghanistan or Iraq neither of which had anything to do with 9/11.

Relative Vision

Good can imagine Evil; but Evil cannot imagine Good.

~ Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-02-21 1973-09-29 age:66)

Unspectacular Evil

Evil is unspectacular and always human and shares our bed and eats at our own table.

~ Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-02-21 1973-09-29 age:66)

The Germans could not see Hitler as evil. He was too familiar. Similarly, Americans could not see Bush-43 or Cheney for the mass-murdering psychopathic torturers they were. People invite soldiers to Thanksgiving dinner and mentally block out the unspeakable crimes they know perfectly well they have committed.

Terrorist vs Emperor

Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.

~ St. Augustine, Augustine of Hippo (354-11-13 AD 430-08-28 AD age:75), a pirate in City of God

Definition of Poverty

Poverty is the mother of crime.

~ Marcus Aurelius (121-04-26 AD 180-03-17 AD age:58)

Washington’s Warning

When Washington left office he warned posterity of the dangers to democracy:

• hyperpartisanship
• debt
• interference from foreign powers in elections.

Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations ~ John Avlon (1973-01-19 age:45)

Because I Love America

I love America more than any other country in this world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

~ James Baldwin (1924-08-02 1987-11-30 age:63)

Attracting Enemies

No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies.

~ Daisy Bates (1914-11-11 1999-11-04 age:84)

Definition of Terrorist

The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

~ Brendan Behan (1923-02-19 1964-03-20 age:41)

American Prisons

The USA has more people in prison that any other country, including countries with much larger populations. 13% of the population is black but 80% of the people in prison are black, mostly for soft crimes.

~ Harry Belafonte (1927-03-01 age:91)

Colored ⇒ … ⇒ African American

When I was born, I was colored. I soon became a Negro. Not long after that I was black. Most recently I was African-American. It seems we’re on a roll here. But I am still first and foremost in search of freedom.

~ Harry Belafonte (1927-03-01 age:91)

Finding Money

If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people.

~ Tony Benn (1925-04-03 2014-03-14 age:88) Labour British Member of Parliament

SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle) Owners

We need a new law that owners of SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles) are automatically in the military reserve. Then they can go get their own goddamn oil.

~ Jello Biafra (1958-06-17 age:59) 2007-11-03

Definition of Sodomy

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

~ Ezekiel 16:49

To me, that describes the USA to a tee. It is insanely conceited. It consumes the lion’s share of the earth’s resources and invades other countries to steal even more. It has exported its jobs so it no longer produces anything. It is the stingiest developed country on the planet in terms of per capita foreign aid and treats its own poor with utter contempt.

Biblical Parable on Energy Conservation

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
And five of them were wise and five were foolish.
They that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them:
But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps.
And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.
But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

~ Matthew 25:1-12

This could be taken an a parable for modern times on the necessity of energy conservation.

Officially Denied

Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

~ Otto von Bismarck (1815-04-01 1898-07-30 age:83)

They Will Come

If you build it, they will come

~ Conrad Black (1944-08-25 age:73) criticising Prime Minister Harper’s plane to build more prisons.

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck has Nazi Tourettes’.

~ Lewis Black (1948-08-30 age:69)

Two Bowls

Our two party system is two bowls of shit looking at each other in a mirror.

~ Lewis Black (1948-08-30 age:69)

Implications of Central Control

When six corporations control more than 90% of media communications, the media does not inform, it indoctrinates. Corporate media provides selective information, often unreliable, for the express purpose of controlling public opinion, rather than informing it.

~ Egberto Willies and Keyan Bliss (1961 age:56)

Oil Dependence

I did not think so at first. But the US is so incredibly dependent on oil, that they wanted to secure oil in case competition on the world market becomes too hard.

~ Dr. Hans Blix (1928-06-28 age:89), head UN (United Nations) Weapons Inspector 2005-04-07

What Muslims Hate

Muslims don’t hate our freedoms, but rather they hate our policies.

~ US Defense Science Board 2004-12

Republican Party Hijacked

The Republican Party has been hijacked by religious maniacs.

~ Dr. Peter Bogghossian Portland State University

Democracy is Incompatible with a Wealth Gap

We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.

~ Louis Brandeis (1856-11-13 1941-10-05 age:84)

No Threat

[Insurgents] pose no strategic threat to the United States or to the Coalition Forces.

~ L. Paul Bremer III (1941-09-30 age:76) Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, 2003-11-17

Bigotry

I wasn’t allowed to play in some universities in the United States and out of twenty-five concerts, twenty-three were canceled unless I would substitute my black bass player for my old white bass player, which I wouldn’t do.

~ Dave Brubeck (1920-12-06 2012-12-05 age:91)

Lure to Evil

It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

~ Gautama Buddha (563 BC 483 BC age:80)

Lying Leads to…

If people become accustomed to lying, they will unconsciously commit every possible wrong deed. Before they can act wickedly, they must lie and once they begin to lie they will act wickedly without concern.

~ Gautama Buddha (563 BC 483 BC age:80)

Politicians start by lying and graduate to other forms of corruption. You might say that lying in the entry drug to political corruption.

Deceptive Language

The whole compass of the language is tried to find sinonimies [synonyms] and circumlocutions for massacres and murder. Things never called by their common names. Massacre is sometimes called agitation, sometimes effervescence, sometimes excess sometimes too continued an exercise of revolutionary power.

~ Edmund Burke (1729-01-12 1797-07-09 age:68)

This goes way back. Donald Rumsfeld is a master of military euphemism, but is by no means the first.

Public Interest

The public interest requires doing today those things that men of intelligence and good will would wish, five or ten years hence, had been done.

~ Edmund Burke (1729-01-12 1797-07-09 age:68)

The Triumph of Evil

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

~ Edmund Burke (1729-01-12 1797-07-09 age:68)

Drunken Oblivion

Why should we hear about body bags and deaths… mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

~ Barbara Bush (1925-06-08 age:92) George W. Bush’s mother. on Good Morning America 2003-03-18.

She Should Know

I think the country has had enough Bushes.

~ Barbara Bush (1925-06-08 age:92) on hearing George W. Bush wanted his brother Jeb to run for president.

International Scofflaw

I wouldn’t join the International Criminal Court. This is a body based in The Hague where unaccountable judges, prosecutors, could pull our troops, our diplomats up for trial. And I wouldn’t join. And I understand that in certain capitals of, around the world that that wasn’t a popular move. But it’s the right move not to join a foreign court that could, where our people could be prosecuted.

~ George W. Bush (1946-07-06 age:71), 2004-10-01 confessing he is an international scofflaw during the first presidential debate with Kerry.

We Are Always Right

I will never apologise for the United States. I don’t care what the facts are.

~ George Herbert Walker Bush (1924-06-12 age:93) aka Bush-41, Bush Sr. after the US shot down a civilian airliner over Iran killing all 290 innocent passengers. The apple does not fall far from the tree.

Deinventing Government

We mustn’t assume that we are going to deinvent government solely from inside the Beltway or within one or two sessions of Congress. We will do it one step at a time, in one community at a time – at the local level and through local institutions like churches, nonprofit and volunteer organizations and families.

~ Jeb Bush (1953-02-11 age:65) Imprimis Magazine 1995

Jeb wants to destroy democratic government and hand the reigns to private corporations, much the way society was organised in the 1800s, without any regulation on the robber barons. He must have been impressed by the 1975 sci if movie, Rollerball, starring James Caan.

Just What Sort of Crisis Did You have In Mind?

We must create a [economic] crisis in order to ensure that there is no alternative to a smaller government.

~ Jeb Bush (1953-02-11 age:65) Imprimis Magazine 1995

This may explain why brother George seemed to be intentionally attempting to tank the economy.

Kill the Economy

To bring about a genuine political realignment, Republicans must kill the Government Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs — the very Goose they have fought so hard and long to possess.

~ Jeb Bush (1953-02-11 age:65) Imprimis Magazine 1995

In other words, Jeb wants to stop the functions of government that create prosperity. The man is either nuts, or has the same problems with English as his brother.

Join the Army

Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people — and kill them.

~ 1978 Protest Button

Why a Tyrant Breaks the Law

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases, observe it.

~ Julius Gaius Caesar (100-07-13 BC 44-03-15 BC age:55)

Cursing Evil

You are evil. You enjoy death. I hope you enjoy your own.

~ Horatio Caine played on CSI (Crime Scene Investigator) : Miami by David Caruso (1956-01-07 age:62) to a military sniper who killed civilians.

Definition of an Honest Politician

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.

~ Simon Cameron (1799-03-08 1889-06-29 age:90) US financier and politician

Alibi of Tyrants

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.

~ Albert Camus (1913-11-07 1960-01-04 age:46)

Generosity

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

~ Albert Camus (1913-11-07 1960-01-04 age:46)

Source of Evil

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

~ Albert Camus (1913-11-07 1960-01-04 age:46)

Difference Between Americans and Iraqis

I remember feeling ridiculous and thinking the only real difference between me and them was they had every right in the world to be fighting against me where as I had no right to be fighting against them.

~ Ross Caputi

Talk about being an American attacking Fallujah in Iraq.

Inevitable Slide

Once you duct-tape a Ziploc bag to a man’s chest, there’s no going back.

~ Orson Scott Card (1951-08-24 age:66), Treasure Box

No Doubts

When have you ever seen someone who had no doubts who was also correct about anything?

~ Orson Scott Card (1951-08-24 age:66)

What an odd thing for a Mormon to say!

, Xenocide

The Power of Evil

Good people can’t out-think evil, cause evil thinks of things good folks can’t think of.

~ Orson Scott Card (1951-08-24 age:66), Homebody

Disputed Only by Gretchen

The Department of Education is using SpongeBob SquarePants now to teach kids about global warming. The government agency showed kids this cartoon and handed out books that blamed man for global warming, but they did not tell kids that that is actually a disputed fact.

~ Gretchen Carlson (1966-06-21 age:51) Source

That is a bald faced-lie, one promoted by Rupert Murdoch through his faux-news network FOX. There is no controversy at all. Svante Arrhenius, the great Swedish chemist who also discovered ions, discovered global warming and the mathematical relationship between CO₂ and global temperature, way back in the 1800s. This has been accepted science for over a century. Spreading FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) like Gretchen did makes her one of the most evil women in the world. She and her cohorts are successfully delaying action on global warming. This procrastination will cause billions of people to die. Not even Hitler was that evil. Global warming sounds benign, but, according to Environment Canada, it is second only to global nuclear war in destructiveness.

At first I had her pegged as a bimbo. She looks like a bimbo. She moves and talks like a bimbo. She is obsessed with beauty contests. She works for FOX news, but I discovered she graduated magna cum laude in sociology from Standford, one of the best universities in America. So I can’t excuse her on the grounds she is too stupid to know what she is doing. Posterity will curse her name and wish she had never been born.

What to do First

Do the duty which lies nearest to thee. Thy second duty will already have become clearer.

~ Thomas Carlyle (1795-12-04 1881-02-05 age:85)

Definition of Terrorism

The definition of terrorism is killing civilians with the intent of changing their political affiliation.

~ Caleb Carr (1955-08-02 age:62), military historian

I would modify that definition slightly. I don’t think nuts who act completely on their own should count as terrorists. I think they need to be associated with an organisation to count as terrorists.

So, strange as it sounds to American ears, the American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are just as much terrorists as bin Laden.

The fad is to misuse the term terrorist for anyone you don’t like even when all they have done is disagree with you or resist your illegal invasion.

Definition of Terrorism

What is the definition of terrorism? killing civilians with the intent of changing their political affiliation.

~ Caleb Carr (1955-08-02 age:62), military historian

The Tea Party are a tiny minority who do not believe in majority rule. They are holding the USA hostage to force its senate and house to change the constitution, something that requires a 2/3 majority. They are clearly trying to force their political views on all the house members. They are threatening financial collapse of the USA to do it. They are not directly killing people, but there is no doubt many people would die as a result of the financial chaos from lack of food, housing and medical care. It is politically infeasible to prosecute the Tea Party members of the House of Representatives as terrorists and traitors, but it is possible to treat them with appropriate contempt.

In the hostage negotiations, Obama’s non-negotiable demand was that the Tea Party not pull this same stunt again for at least two more years and the Tea Party’s demand was that no tax loopholes be closed to make the rich start paying taxes like everyone else. They further insisted the most profitable companies in the history of man continue to receive government subsidies. The Tea Party are a front for those that have far more than enough who want to take from those who have far less than enough. The Tea Party has been clear. They want policies that will make the recession drag on. They want jobs to flee the country. They believe the worse they can make the economy, the more Obama will be blamed.

Bush’ Conjuring Trick

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America’s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre.

~ John le Carré (1931-10-19 age:86)

Carter on Guantánamo

What has happened at Guantánamo Bay… does not represent the will of the American people. I’m embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.

~ President Jimmy Carter (1924-10-01 age:93) 39th president of the USA.

Carter on Oligarchy

Now it’s [the US government] just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over.

~ President Jimmy Carter (1924-10-01 age:93) 39th president of the USA.

No More Homophobic Presidents

We must make it clear that a platform of I hate gay men and women is not a way to become president of the United States.

~ President Jimmy Carter (1924-10-01 age:93) 39th president of the USA.

Win-Win

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.

~ President Jimmy Carter (1924-10-01 age:93) 39th president of the USA

Please Die, Dick

How come it is never Dick Cheney?

~ Dick Cavett (1936-11-19 age:81), on the death of Roger Ebert.

Thirst

The privation of water is justly ranked among the most dreadful of the miseries of our life… The violence of raving thirst has no parallel in the catalogue of human calamities… Our thirst had become now incessantly more intolerable than our hunger and the quantity then allowed [ 236.59 mls (1 US cups) ] was barely sufficient to keep the mouth in a state of moisture, for about one third of the time… In vain was every expedient tried to relieve the raging fever of the throat… Our suffering during these… days almost exceeded human belief.

~ Owen Chase (1798 1869-03-08 age:70) In the Heart of the Sea Owen Chase was a whaling captain. A huge whale rammed and sank his ship, inspiring the novel Moby Dick.

Having been tortured by water deprivation myself, I concur it is a misery thousands of times worse than you might imagine. I would sooner be eaten alive by tigers than repeat the experience. The Americans in Iraq routinely torture all POWs (Prisoner Of Wars) with water deprivation. They have utterly no idea what cruelty they are imposing. The victim just sits there quietly with no energy to protest.

Amoral States; Moral People

States are not moral agents, people are and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Chomsky on Abortion

On abortion: We are talking about ambiguous issues of a complicated kind where you have to balance conflicting interests and concerns.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Control With Fear

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Finances and Politics

Corporate power is largely financial capital. It has become so influential in the political system that my now both political parties are well to the right of the population on major issues under debate.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Freedom of Expression

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Helpless

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only rôle they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Obedient Media

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Pressure from the Public

To some degree it matters who’s in office, but it matters more how much pressure they’re under from the public.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Propaganda Intends to Confuse

I think there is a good reason why the propaganda system works that way. It recognizes that the public will not support the actual policies. Therefore it is important to prevent any knowledge or understanding of them.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

To Stop Terrorism, Stop Terrorising

Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Truth Sounds Very Strange

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89)

Weaponisation of Space

If we move toward the weaponisation of space, we can bid farewell to the planet. The chances of survival are very slight.

~ Noam Chomsky (1928-12-07 age:89) Pax Americana and the weaponisation of Space

Abortionists are Murderers

Abortionists are murderers; therefore they should be executed.

~ A Christian Lake of Fire

This Christian is wrong on five points:

1. Murder is defined as killing that is against the law. Abortion is not against the law, so it is not murder. The Christian would like the law to define abortion as murder, but it currently does not.
2. Murder is killing a human being. Killing a single cell or a group of cells too small to see is like killing a blood cell. It is not killing a person. Such a belief betrays a complete lack of knowledge of biology. Christians are treating something almost indistinguishable from pond scum as equivalent to a fully formed human baby.
3. Murder is usually punished by the state with imprisonment and sometimes after exhaustive legal safeguards, with execution. There is no justification for vigilante killing of abortionists. If Catholics want abortionists executed, they must first lobby to get the law changed.
4. The prohibition against abortion is a religious belief. The first amendment forbids the state forcing religious superstitions on non-believers. It is even more wrong-headed than a law mandating fish on Friday.
5. The only alternative to abortion is contraception, but the silly buggers want that banned too.

Rebounding Destruction

If U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned.

~ Ward Churchill (1947-10-02 age:70)

Responding in Kind

When you kill 500,000 children in order to impose your will on other countries, then you shouldn’t be surprised when somebody responds in kind.

~ Ward Churchill (1947-10-02 age:70)

Americans Eventually Do the Right Thing

We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.

~ Winston Churchill (1874-11-30 1965-01-24 age:90)

Every other nation has discovered that single payer health care is by far the best solution to delivery the highest quality care for the lowest cost. Americans want to try a some other ineffective schemes to appease the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies a little longer.

The Average Voter

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

~ Winston Churchill (1874-11-30 1965-01-24 age:90)

Democracy works because consensus is wiser than the average individual.

Churchill’s Racism

The Aryan stock is bound to triumph.

~ Winston Churchill (1874-11-30 1965-01-24 age:90)

So Hitler and Churchill were in agreement when it came to racist supremacy. source

Churchill’s War on Civilians

We proceeded systematically, village by village and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation.

~ Winston Churchill (1874-11-30 1965-01-24 age:90)

He is confessing to war crimes in attacking the people of the Swat valley in Pakistan. He then sped off to help reconquer the Sudan, where he bragged that he personally shot at least three savages. source I suppose this is not so different as Americans bragging about killing sandnigger/raghead children.

Definition of Democracy

Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

~ Winston Churchill (1874-11-30 1965-01-24 age:90)

Freedom of Speech, But Only For Me

Some people’s idea of [free speech] is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.

~ Winston Churchill (1874-11-30 1965-01-24 age:90)

Look Back To Look Forward

The longer you can look back, the further you can look forward.

~ Winston Churchill (1874-11-30 1965-01-24 age:90) Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations

History is Necessary

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-01-03 BC 43-12-07 BC age:63)

Conceit of the Nuclear Powers

All nations that have nuclear weapons think that they are responsible and it is the other guys who are irresponsible.

~ Joseph Cirincione (1949-11-13 age:68) president of President of the Ploughshares Fund

Suitable Reading for Politicians

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

~ Arthur C. Clarke (1917-12-16 2008-03-19 age:90)

Technology Powers Political Change

A hundred years ago, the electric telegraph made possible — indeed, inevitable — the United States of America. The communications satellite will make equally inevitable a United Nations of Earth; let us hope that the transition period will not be equally bloody.

~ Arthur C. Clarke (1917-12-16 2008-03-19 age:90) First on the Moon 1970

Part of the Problem

What we’re saying today is that you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.

~ Eldridge Cleaver (1935-08-31 1998-05-01 age:62) U.S. African-American leader

Ode to Sean Hannity

Aping urbanity,
Oozing with vanity,
Plump as a manatee,
Faking humanity,
Intellectual inanity,
Journalistic calamity,
Fox Noise insanity,
You’re a profanity,
Hannity

~ John Cleese (1939-10-27 age:78)

Al Qaeda, not the Taliban

Our mission is to go after Al Qaeda, not the Taliban. Right now, they are in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. We should go after them wherever they are.

~ Max Cleland (1942-08-24 age:75) Viet Nam Vet and former US Senator, 2009-19-07

Non-Apology

We regret mistakes were made.

~ Hillary Clinton (1947-10-26 age:70)

What kind of apology is that? It does not even take responsibility for the error. She might as well have said I wish I did not get caught.

Definition of Is

It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the — if he — if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not — that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.

~ William Jefferson Blythe Clinton III (1946-08-19 age:71)

Who Owns the Media

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.

~ William Colby (1920-01-04 1996-04-27 age:76), former CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) director

Journey of Revenge

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

~ Confucius (551-09-28 BC 479-02-04 BC age:71)

Displacing Privilege

I just think the most difficult thing to displace is privilege.

~ Sean Connery (1930-08-25 age:87)

Swiss Army Knives

I’ve always wanted to go to Switzerland to see what the army does with those wee red knives.

~ Billy Connolly (1942-11-24 age:75)

No Need For Supernatural Evil

A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

~ Joseph Conrad (1857-12-03 1924-08-03 age:66) Under Western Eyes 1911

Why Coolio Pimps

I perform for soldiers because they are important.

~ Coolio (1963-08-01 age:54)

Saddam Hussein was important too. But was that any excuse to give him a command performance?

American and Soviet Plans to Kill Everyone

Where is the indignation about the fact that the United States and Soviet Union have accumulated thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?

~ Norman Cousins (1915-06-24 1990-11-30 age:75)

If your next door neighbour had thirty thousand pounds of explosives accumulated to kill you, you probably would insist he be either arrested or committed. Why they do you put up with this behaviour from governments?

Most American Act

Bombing another country. What could be more American than that?

~ Denny Crane Republican played by Bill Shatner (1931-03-27 age:87) on Boston Legal

American Health Care

America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.

~ Walter Cronkite (1916-11-04 2009-07-17 age:92)

Illegal Invasion

The invasion of Iraq was illegal from the start.

~ Walter Cronkite (1916-11-04 2009-07-17 age:92) 2007-12-04, Common Dreams

If It Was Good Enough Fer…

Marriage between a man and a woman has been the norm across cultures and throughout all of history. Cicero [a Roman orator who also supported slavery] way back when said that marriage was the first bond of society… Romney was right, we should not throw away 3000years of human history as quickly as is happening right now. [She is referring to polls showing younger voters are almost completely on board for marriage equality, with attitudes shifting faster than any other civil rights movement did].

~ Janice Shaw Crouse , Concerned Women For America, a professional bigot. source

Crouse is saying that, based solely on tradition, gays should be denied marriage equality. She wants to encourage homosexual promiscuity instead, a position rather inconsistent with her conservative Christian views on sex generally. I would concur with Cicero. If marriage is salutary for straight people, surely it is good for gay people too. Why should this generation have to wait for equality just because vicious old bags like her want to cling desperately too something to create the illusion she is superior?

• In parts of Africa, it is a tradition going back millennia to attack young girls and cut out their genitals.
• In other parts of Africa, a wooden disc is used to stretch their lips grotesquely.
• In part of south east Asia young women have their rib cages collapsed with brass rings to create the illusion of long necks.
• In China, female babies had their feet bound to deform them and make them smaller.
• In Britain, people set dogs loose on bulls to kill them for entertainment.
• In Spain, matadors torment bulls for entertainment.
• Even today there are just as many people living in slavery as there were during the American civil war.
• In some parts of the world, women are still not permitted to vote, drive, go to school, show their faces in public or go out in public unaccompanied.
• In Calgary, Alberta Canada every year about half a dozen horses are killed in re-enactments of chuckwagon races.
• In Canada, parents snip the tips off their son’s penises without consent or anaesthesia.
• In the United States ancient religious rituals calls for bullying homosexuals, denying them housing, denying legal recognition of their relationships and is some cases beating them up and killing them.

Is tradition sufficient justification for blindly continuing all these practices? Or should they each be examined afresh on their own merits? (That’s a rhetorical question.)

Crouse knows she is going to lose this battle eventually, however, she wants to create as much misery as she can for gays while the bigots still have the upper hand. Justice delayed is justice denied.

On Your Knees!

Any president who doesn’t begin every day on his knees isn’t fit to be commander-in-chief of this nation.

~ Ted Cruz (1970-12-22 age:47) US presidential candidate

Just what is he advocating? Asking an invisible friend do the heavy lifting of his desired job as president. Given that this invisible friend has never once been documented to answer prayer, this activity:

• is a waste of valuable time.
• deludes the president into thinking problems will be magically handled, so he need do nothing.

Cruz is suffering from extreme wishful thinking. Imagine what a naive twit he would be dealing with Putin.

Not Ruthless Enough

The Republicans were going to run the shark from Jaws as their presidential candidate but he was not cold-hearted and ruthless enough to be a modern Republican.

~ Sean Cullen (1965-08-29 age:52)

Handouts for the USA

The principal beneficiary of America’s foreign assistance programs has always been the United States.

~ US Agency for International Development

Judging a Society

A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-02-11 1881-02-09 age:59)

Understanding the Evildoer

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-02-11 1881-02-09 age:59)

Restriction of Free Speech

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

~ William O. Douglas (1898-10-16 1980-01-19 age:81)

Struggle Is Necessary

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle… If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

~ Frederick Douglass (1818 1895-02-20 age:76)

Craving War

There are those that crave war. They need it.

~ Gul Dukat a Cardassian character on Star Trek Deep Space Nine played by Marc Alaimo (1942-05-05 age:76).

Ridding the World of Evil

Is a lifelong student of the world’s wisdom literature, it is my duty to inform students that ridding the world of evil is a goal very different from any recommended by Jesus, Buddha or Muhammad, though not so different from some recommended by Joseph Stalin, Joseph McCarthy and Mao Tse Tung.

~ David James Duncan (1952-02-03 age:66) When Compassion Becomes Dissent, Orion Magazine, 2003-01

We Are Your Friends

We find that when conquerors come, their first words are often We are your friends.

~ Chancellor Avel Durken , a character in Star Trek Next Generation, First Contact.

Climate Change ⇒ Food Shortages

The first and most important impact of climate change on human civilisation will be an acute and permanent crisis of food supply. Eating regularly is a non-negotiable activity and countries that cannot feed their people are unlikely to be reasonable about it.

~ Gwynne Dyer (1943-04-17 age:75) Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats

Nobody Stays Long in Afghanistan

Never did anyone ever stay longer than ten years because the resistance grows fiercer as your presence grows longer [in Afghanistan]. I don’t think we are going to be any exception. What made us exempt from history?

~ Gwynne Dyer (1943-04-17 age:75)

Recipe for Democracy

Take the year a country first reaches 50% literacy and add one or two generations to allow the idea to sink in and, democracy, more or less automatically, appears.

~ Gwynne Dyer (1943-04-17 age:75)

Why Are Americans in Afghanistan

It doesn’t matter what we think we are there [in Afghanistan] for; it matters what they think. They think we are invaders.

~ Gwynne Dyer (1943-04-17 age:75)

When God’s On your Side

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side

~ Bob Dylan (1941-05-24 age:76) With God On Our Side

Nuclear Glitter

I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it’s there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles — this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds.

~ Freeman Dyson (1923-12-15 age:94) The Day After Trinity

Bush: Illegitimate

I don’t think Bush was legitimately elected president.

~ Roger Ebert (1942-06-18 2013-04-04 age:70)

Delusions of Grandeur

Dear Bill [O’Reilly]… I am concerned that you have been losing touch with reality recently. Did you really say you are more powerful than any politician?

That reminds me of the famous story about Squeaky the Chicago Mouse. It seems that Squeaky was floating on his back along the Chicago River one day. Approaching the Michigan Avenue lift bridge, he called out: Raise the bridge! I have an erection!

~ Roger Ebert (1942-06-18 2013-04-04 age:70)

Fearing To Offend

Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?

~ Roger Ebert (1942-06-18 2013-04-04 age:70)

The Duty of Patriots

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

~ Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-08-26 age:76)

Doing Nothing

The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.

~ Albert Einstein (1879-03-14 1955-04-18 age:76) Telegram, 1946-04-25

Force

Force always attracts men of low morality.

~ Albert Einstein (1879-03-14 1955-04-18 age:76)

If I Only Had Known

If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.

~ Albert Einstein (1879-03-14 1955-04-18 age:76)

New Manner of Thinking

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

~ Albert Einstein (1879-03-14 1955-04-18 age:76)

This mode of thinking might be called environmentalism. A world have to work for everyone and every species. It is no longer a matter of conquering.

Respect For Authority

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

~ Albert Einstein (1879-03-14 1955-04-18 age:76)

Those Who Do Nothing

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

~ Albert Einstein (1879-03-14 1955-04-18 age:76)

Unparalleled Catastrophe

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

~ Albert Einstein (1879-03-14 1955-04-18 age:76) Telegram, 1946-04-25

The Death of a Child

There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-10-14 1969-03-28 age:78)

How dare we impose this ultimate penalty on the mothers and fathers of Afghanistan and Iraq when they have done absolutely nothing to harm us or even threaten us.

Defense Also Destroys From Within

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-10-14 1969-03-28 age:78)

Definition of Motivation

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-10-14 1969-03-28 age:78)

No Offense

The best defense is no offense.

~ Dr. Ivan Eland (1879-03-14 1955-04-18 age:76)

Cruelty

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.

~ George Eliot (1819-11-22 1880-12-22 age:61) (Mary Ann Evans)

Tolerating Reality

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

~ Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-09-26 1965-01-04 age:76)

Definition of Morals

What we call morals is simply blind obedience to words of command.

~ Havelock Ellis (1859-02-02 1939-07-08 age:80)

The Function of Taboos

Life is livable because we know that wherever we go most of the people we meet will be restrained in their actions towards us by an almost instinctive network of taboos.

~ Havelock Ellis (1859-02-02 1939-07-08 age:80)

Freedom of Speech Requires Doubt

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

~ Bergen Evans (1904-09-19 1978-02-04 age:73)

Sacrifice to Prevent War

You have to be willing to sacrifice as much to prevent war, as soldiers are willing to sacrifice to wage war.

~ Jodie Evans (1954-09-22 age:63) co-founder of Code Pink

Wealth Gap ⇒ Violence

It’s very interesting that if you look at societies with the least equal distribution of income, they tend to be the most violent. There’s a very small correlation between absolute poverty and crime. There’s a strong correlation between unequal income distribution and crime. So you look, the poorer societies are not at all the ones that the most violent. It’s the ones that have the biggest discrepancy in incomes that are most violent.

~ Joshua Farley

Aftermath of 9/11

What has happened here [aftermath of 9/11] is not war in its traditional sense. This is clearly a crime against humanity. War crimes are crimes which happen in war time. There is a confusion there. This is a crime against humanity because it is deliberate and intentional killing of large numbers of civilians for political or other purposes. That is not tolerable under the international systems. And it should be prosecuted pursuant to the existing laws.

~ Benjamin Ferencz (1920-03-11 age:98) Chief Prosecutor for the United States in The Einsatzgruppen Case at the Nazi Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.

Bush ≠ Hitler

Bush is not Hitler. Hitler’s father wasn’t an arms dealer.

~ Winnipeg Comedy Festival 2008

Freedom for gays ⇒ Enslavement for Christians

We are gonna to have to choose as a nation between the homosexual agenda and freedom because the two cannot coexist. Every advance of the homosexual agenda, comes at the expense of liberty, particularly religious liberty.

~ Bryan Fischer (1951-04-08 age:67) head of The American Family Association

This is Orwellian language. He is claiming that gays having the right to marry or serve in the military somehow impairs his freedom. How pray tell? He avoids even being in the same room with gays so he unlikely to be invited to same-sex wedding. He is far too old for military service, so he won’t run into any gays in that context. Perhaps his freedom to force his fundamentalist religious beliefs on others. Perhaps he is thinking of more fundamental freedoms, to go gay bashing, or in other ways persecute gays for amusement.

Paedophile Hysteria

I certainly have no sympathy with child molesters, but I do have some great doubts about putting people in jail because of their taste in pictures.

~ Tom Flanagan (1944-03-05 age:74) Persona Non Grata: The Death of Free Speech in the Internet Age

His remarks caused a firestorm. Those who opposed him wanted people who view child porn put in jail, not because of the effects on the child models, but because they found it disgusting. They made no distinction between molesting children and looking at lewd pictures, even drawings made without models. This is understandable, but still irrational.

You Can Start Now

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, slowly changing the world.

~ Ann Frank (1929-06-12 1945 age:16)

Ridicule

Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.

~ Barney Frank (1940-03-31 age:78) former Democratic senator for Massachusetts

Giving Up Liberty

They that give up liberty for safety deserve neither.

~ Benjamin Franklin (1706-01-17 1790-04-17 age:84)

In Praise of Insults

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.

~ Sigmund Freud (1856-05-06 1939-09-23 age:83)

There Are No Secrets

He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.

~ Sigmund Freud (1856-05-06 1939-09-23 age:83) 1905

Use of Force

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

~ David Friedman (1945-02-12 age:73)

Buying Votes

Since the 1930s the technique of buying votes with the voters’ own money has been expanded to an extent undreamed of by earlier politicians.

~ Milton Friedman (1912-07-31 2006-11-16 age:94)

Creating Autocracy

The benefit of controlling a modern bureaucratic state is not the ability to persecute the innocent. That is too dangerous and risky. It’s the ability to protect the guilty.

~ David Frumm (1960-06-30 age:57)

Barbara Frumm’s son.

The Price of Empire

The price of empire is America’s soul and that price is too high.

~ J. William Fulbright (1905-04-09 1995-02-09 age:89)

Nation = Front

Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes, vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery.

~ Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller (1895-07-12 1983-07-01 age:87)

Remarkable Coincidence

Whenever we defend democracy we find oil.

~ Peter Gabriel (1950-02-13 age:68)

Be The Change

Be the change that you want to see in the world.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Dying But Not Killing For a Cause

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Error Does Not Become Truth

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Good of Violence is Temporary

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Importance of Minor Action

It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Mad Destruction

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Minority of One

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Non-cooperation With Evil

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Progression

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Sacrifice

I care so deeply about this matter that I’m willing to take on the legal penalties, to sit in this prison cell, to sacrifice my freedom, in order to show you how deeply I care. Because when you see the depth of my concern and how civil I am in going about this, you’re bound to change your mind about me, to abandon your rigid, unjust position and to let me help you see the truth of my cause.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

There Are No Democracies

My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest… No country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak… Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism… True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Tyrants Always Fall

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Will This Help?

Before you do anything, stop and recall the face of the poorest most helpless destitute person you have seen and ask yourself, Is what I am about to do going to help him?

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Your Insignificance

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Somebody Has To Do Something

Somebody has to do something and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.

~ Jerry Garcia (1942-08-01 1995-08-09 age:53), The Grateful Dead

Moral Value Judgments

The reason that I think it is a waste of time to engage in moral value judgments about people’s violence, is because it doesn’t advance by one iota our understanding of either the causes or the prevention of the violent behaviour.

~ James Gilligan (1942 age:75)

Newt’s Koan

I want to make sure every House Republican is protected from some kind of dishonest Democratic ad. So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.

~ Newt Gingrich (1943-06-17 age:74) in interview with FOX’s Greta Van Susteren

Newt is such a brazen flip flopper he thinks he has libel-law protection from anyone pointing it out.

No Religious Freedom for Muslims

The folks who want to build this mosque, who are really radical Islamists, who want to triumphfully prove they can build a mosque next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists. Those folks don’t have any interest in reaching out to the community. They’re trying to make a case about supremacy… This happens all the time in America. Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor.

~ Newt Gingrich (1943-06-17 age:74)

This is how Gingrich defends interfering with the constitutional right of Muslims from building a mosque two blocks from ground zero. His logic is flawed. The Muslims building the mosque had absolutely nothing to with 2001-09-11. Gingrich is dishonestly trying to pretend they did. He a demagogue rallying hatred for his political gain.

Definition of Liberalism

Liberalism is trust of the people, tempered by prudence; conservatism, distrust of people, tempered by fear.

~ William Gladstone (1809-12-29 1898-05-19 age:88)

The Big Lie

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

~ Joseph Goebbels (1897-10-29 1945-05-01 age:47), Nazi propaganda minister

States Have the Right to Mold Public Opinion

It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.

~ Joseph Goebbels (1897-10-29 1945-05-01 age:47), Nazi propaganda minister

Quaint Geneva Conventions

In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.

~ Alberto Gonzales (1955-08-04 age:62) Attorney General Of the USA in the Bush administration

Balancing the Budget — Eventually

Both candidates for president talk about balancing the budget ten years from now. Even if they win, they won’t be in office then.

~ Virgil Goode (1946-10-17 age:71) Constitution Party candidate for US president in 2012

Phony Choice

There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Obama and Romney.

~ Virgil Goode (1946-10-17 age:71) Constitution Party candidate for US president in 2012 who was previously both a Democrat and Republican congressman.

That is an exaggeration. However, both take huge contributions from Wall Street and corporations so there is no chance of reigning in the robber barons, or campaign financing reform or reducing military spending…

Cause of Unemployment

Is all the work done?

~ a third grader on hearing that 8% of people were unemployed.

Will of the People

Each of the great social achievements of recent decades has come about not because of government proclamations, but because people organised, made demands and made it good politics to respond. It is the political will of the people that makes and sustains the political will of governments.

~ James Grant (1922-05-12 1995-01-28 age:72), former executive director of UNICEF.

Republican Acronym

G.O.P (Greed Over Principal)

~ Alan Grayson (1958-03-13 age:60) Democratic Representative from Florida

Dumb Soldiers

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks.

~ Frederick The Great (1712-01-24 1786-08-17 age:74)

Expose Yourself

It is important to expose yourself to ideas you don’t agree with from time to time. Attend a political rally of a party you do not like.

~ Fred Green (1913-07-12 1992-04-10 age:78) (my Dad, an electrical engineer)

Silly Expenditure

It makes no sense to spend $6 billion a month to go after 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

~ Robert Greenwald (1945-08-28 age:72) director of Rethinking Afghanistan

Human Nature

We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings.

~ Ursula K. le Guin (1929-10-21 age:88) source

Gays as the new Scapegoat

The worst thing that happened to the gay community was the fall of communism… As long as the conservative movement had communism to fight, they could organize and raise their money over that issue. The minute they lost communism, they had to find a new enemy and that enemy became homosexuality.

~ Steve Gunderson (1951-05-10 age:66), first openly gay Republican congressman.

Hate ⇒ Delusion

When you hate someone intensely, 80% of what you think is delusion.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

Only of Yourself

The moment you think only of yourself, the focus of your whole mind narrows and because of this narrow focus uncomfortable things can appear huge and bring you fear and discomfort and a sense of feeling overwhelmed by misery. The moment you think of others with a sense of caring, however, your mind widens. Within that wider angle, your own problems appear to be of no significance and this makes a big difference. If you have a sense of caring for others, you will manifest a kind of inner strength in spite of your own difficult situations and problems. With this strength, your problems will seem less significant and bothersome. By going beyond your own problems and taking care of others, you gain inner strength, self-confidence, courage and a greater sense of calm.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

Letters to the Editor

The recipe to get your letter to the editor published is:

• one part pandering.
• one part crank.
• one part facts.
• one part telling what you want.

~ Geneva Hagen (1948-05-09 age:69)

Standing for Nothing

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.

~ Alexander Hamilton (1755-01-11 1804-07-12 age:49)

Screw Separation of Church and State

It doesn’t say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state.

~ Sean Hannity (1961-12-30 age:56)

He overlooked the first amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

English is Rare

Interestingly, while English was spoken by about 10% of the world’s population in 1900 and by about 11% in 1950, it is today spoken by about 8.5-9%. The corollary is that, for better than 90% of the world’s population, it is not the de facto means of international communication.

~ Don Harlow (1942-07-08 2008-01-27 age:65), former president of Esperanto-USA.

Treason Doth Never Prosper

Treason doth never prosper. What’s the reason? Why, when it prospers, none dare call it treason.

~ Sir John Harrington (1561 1612 age:51)

The True Cost of Gas

If you factor in the cost of the military to protect our petroleum assets in the middle east, gasoline costs us $7 a gallon. We have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

~ Gary Hart (1936-11-28 age:81) of The Last Word TV show on MSNBC 2010-11-21

What an arrogant imperialistic American! He refers to the oil in the middle east as belonging to the USA. I suppose it does now in a sense, stolen, now that Obama had the big auction to sell off all of Iraq’s oil reserves to American and European oil companies on the very day he announced the pullout.

Ringside Seat

We are witnesses to the decline of the largest empire since Rome [the American empire], perhaps the largest empire in the history of the world. If you are not taking notes, you should be. You have a ringside seat.

~ Len Hart echoing the sentiments of Gore Vidal.

Soak the Middle Class

The place where you got to get revenues has to come from the middle class. That’s where the huge number of people that are there. So the system does need to be revamped [to tax the rich less and the middle class more.]

~ Orrin Hatch (1934-03-22 age:84) Republican senator from Utah.

That may have been true in 1955, but since then the wealth gap has grown to a chasm. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The population may be in the middle class, but the money is now in the upper class. Even if it were true you could not extract substantial amounts of revenue from the wealthy, that is still no excuse for them to pay a lower effective tax rate that everyone else.

Why is Orrin Hatch’s top priority coddling the rich and winning special privileges and tax breaks for elites that nobody else gets? Hatch is a millionaire four times over. (Similarly, over half of congressmen are millionaires, not even counting their homes and property.) Hatch and friends, are thus fighting for their own personal gain at the expense of the country they swore to serve. Further, winning a senate seat costs about $10,000,000. Most of this money comes from a handful of billionaires for whom this is pocket change. So both senators and congressmen are complete toadies when it comes to satisfying the whims of their rich angels.

2001-09-11 Is Not the Most Important

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn’t threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

~ Stephen Hawking (1942-01-08 2018-03-13 age:76)

Goldman Sachs

It is impossible to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs in the USA.

~ Christopher Hedges (1956-09-18 age:61)

Suckered by the Democrats

The sad reality is that all the well-meaning groups and individuals who challenge our permanent war economy and the doctrine of preemptive war, who care about sustainable energy, fight for civil liberties and want corporate malfeasance to end, were once again suckered by the Democratic Party. They were had. It is not a new story. The Democrats have been doing this to us since Bill Clinton. It is the same old merry-go-round, only with Obama branding.

~ Christopher Hedges (1956-09-18 age:61) The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress

Bin Laden Was Incapable of 9/11

Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaeda as if it were Nazi Germany or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaeda has been penetrated by US intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organisation and sophistication.

~ Mohamed Hassanein Heikal (1923-09-03 age:94), editor-in-chief of the Cairo newspaper Al-Ahram.

Faults Become Virtues

We keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we at last come to look upon them as virtues.

~ Heinrich Heine (1797-12-13 1856-02-17 age:58)

Feeding the Hungry

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics.

~ Heinrich Heine (1797-12-13 1856-02-17 age:58)

Treating People Like Animals

If we treat people like animals, how can we expect them not to behave like animals.

~ Dr. Jack Henson played by David Hyde Pierce (1959-04-03 age:59) in the Outer Limits The Sentence episode.

Terror as Weapon

The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don’t ask for their love; only for their fear.

~ Heinrich Himmler (1900-10-07 1945-05-23 age:44) Chief of the German Police including the Gestapo.

No Need To Tell the Truth

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

~ Adolf Hitler (1889-04-20 1945-04-30 age:56)

This is what Bush was counting on in Iraq. His tactics would make even Hitler blush, with banned weapons (napalm, white phosphorous, land minds and cluster bombs), torture and complete disregard for the Geneva conventions.

Charlatanism and Leadership

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

~ Eric Hoffer (1902-07-25 1983-05-21 age:80)

Pride and Exploitation

Give people pride and they’ll live on bread and water, bless their exploiters, and even die for them. Self-surrender is a transaction of barter: we surrender our sense of human dignity, our judgment, or moral and aesthetic sense for pride. If there is pride in being free, we are ready to die for liberty. If there is pride to be derived from an identification with a leader, we grovel in the dust before a Napoléon, Hitler or Stalin and are ready to die for him. If there is a distinction in suffering we search for martyrdom as for hidden treasure.

~ Eric Hoffer (1902-07-25 1983-05-21 age:80)

Limits to Rights

The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-03-08 1935-03-06 age:93)

Inappropriate Taser Use

The fact that Tasers are being used in situations that border on debt collection by the government is outrageous. The public has every right to be concerned that there is a lack of proper control over the use and application of these devices. A full investigation is required.

~ Rob Holmes , President BCCLA (British Columbia Civil Liberties Association), on the use of Tasers on people with expired bus transfers.

He Just Doesn’t Get It

We need a more prosperous environment.

~ Patrick Hunt (1949 age:68) Conservative Party candidate for Victoria, on 2011-04-26, vainly attempting to sound pro-environment.

Relentless Hunters

Wherever you are, we will come and get you.

~ Nazi Hunters

Soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are committing the exact same capital crime that hanged all the Nazis at the end of WWII (World War II). I think it rather cavalier to commit a capital crime and trust all future governments to protect you or even to want to protect you from prosecution.

Persuasion

There are few more powerful ways to get people to believe something that to tell them what they want to hear. You tell them what they don’t want to hear, of course there’s a resistance. They don’t want that to be true so they find reasons to reject it, but you tell them what they want to hear and they are vastly more likely to accept it and see it as real.

~ David Icke (1952-04-29 age:66)

Unreliable Print

Just because it’s in print doesn’t mean it’s the gospel.

~ Michael Jackson (1958-08-29 2009-06-25 age:50)

Iraq Losses

Iraq has lost 5 percent of its population, a number that in the U.S. would equal 14 million people.

~ Mick Jagger (1943-07-26 age:74)

Crime Is Eventually Punished

Such is the moral construction of the world that no national crime passes unpunished in the long run… Were present oppressors to reflect on the same truth, they would spare to their own countries the penalties on their present wrongs which will be inflicted on them in future times. The seeds of hatred and revenge which they [sow] with a large hand will not fail to produce their fruits in time. Like their brother robbers on the highway, they suppose the escape of the moment a final escape and deem infamy and future risk countervailed by present gain.

~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-04-13 1826-07-04 age:83) American Founding Father and U.S. president (1743— 1826), letter to Francois de Marbois, 1817

Limits of Government Power

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-04-13 1826-07-04 age:83) American Founding Father and U.S. president

Price of Liberty

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-04-13 1826-07-04 age:83) American Founding Father and U.S. president

What he is getting at is tyrants like Adolf Hitler or Stephen Harper steal only a thin slice of liberties, then come back in another month or two to steal yet another slice. You have to put your foot down on the thinnest slice.

Resistance to Government

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-04-13 1826-07-04 age:83)

Separation of Church and State

Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the wall of separation between church and state, therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.

~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-04-13 1826-07-04 age:83) American Founding Father and U.S. president

Separation of Church and State

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-04-13 1826-07-04 age:83) American Founding Father and U.S. president, in a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802. The term separation of church and state became shorthand for the wording in the first amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof and the subsequent supreme court rulings interpreting its meaning.

Tree of Liberty

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.

~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-04-13 1826-07-04 age:83)

We’re Fucked

We’re fucked, so fucked, not in the good sense of the word.

~ Derrick Jensen (1960-12-19 age:57)  Endgame: The Problem of Civilisation

Prohibition is the Problem

90% of the problem with marijuana is prohibition related, not use related.

~ Gary Johnson (1953-01-01 age:65) Libertarian Candidate for US President

Rape Is Impossible

During a 2008 rape, Metin Gurel threatened to mutilate his ex-girlfriend with a heated screwdriver and beat her with a metal baton, before he committed rape, forced oral copulation and other crimes. Judge Derek Johnson took 10 years off Gurel’s sentence because his victim did not put up a sufficient fight, even though California law does not require that.

I’m not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something. If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted and we heard nothing about that in this case.

I have seen violent cases on that unit in which women’s vaginas were shredded by rape.

~ Judge Derek Johnson source

This dinosaur of a judge is still on the bench. In his view, unless a woman’s vagina is shredded, she wanted it. What is asshole!

Slippery Slope

Once you’ve fired your first shot, there is no going back.

~ Josh gun lover, Them: Adventures with Extremists

Selfish America

The US is a selfish, individualistic society devoted to commerce and the despoliation of the planet. It is uncaring of the poor and sick and it is indifferent to the rest of humankind. The U.S. rides roughshod over international laws and treaties and threatens the moral, environmental and physical future of humanity. It is inconsistent and hypocritical in its foreign dealings and it wields unparalleled military clout. It is, in short, a bull in the global china shop.

~ Anthony Judt (1948 age:69)

The Tortured Become Torturers

The healthy man does not torture others — generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

~ Carl Jung (1875-07-26 1961-06-06 age:85)

Kant’s Moral Principle

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

~ Immanuel Kant (1724-04-22 1804-02-12 age:79)

Call to Armed Rebellion

If ballots won’t work, bullets will.

~ Joyce Kaufman chief of staff for Representative-elect Allen West (R-Florida)

This is was a threat to assassinate the opposition if West had lost the election. This lunatic was not charged or committed to a mental institution for the criminally insane.

Thanking Soldiers

We thank you [the soldiers recently returned from the middle east] for your service.

~ Garrison Keillor (1942-08-07 age:75)

If even a gentle soul like Garrison Keillor thinks bombing, burning alive, raping and torturing men, women and children who were zero threat to the USA is service that’s proof that Americans have drunk the same Kool-Aid as the Germans under Hitler.

Disease-Care

What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system.

~ Edward (Ted) Kennedy (1932-02-22 2009-08-25 age:77) 1994

Refusing Health Care is a form of Murder

Health care is a right, not a privilege.

~ Edward (Ted) Kennedy (1932-02-22 2009-08-25 age:77)

Tough on Guns

I won’t yield to anyone about guns in our society. I know enough about it.

~ Edward (Ted) Kennedy (1932-02-22 2009-08-25 age:77) senate debate with Mitt Romney, 1994.

Futility of Military Solutions

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-05-29 1963-11-22 age:46)

The problem is usually only one person like Hitler or Assad. The military sets about killing everyone but that person. It is like trying to kill individual ants by dropping pianos.

The Castro Obsession

[The overthrow of the Castro regime] is the top priority of the US government. — all else is secondary — no time, no effort, or manpower is to be spared.

~ Robert F. Kennedy (1925-11-20 1968-06-06 age:42), Attorney General of the USA.

In hindsight, we know that Castro was no threat to the USA once the ICBMs (Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles) were gone.

Dare to Dream

There are those who look at things the way they are and ask why… I dream of things that never were and ask why not?

~ Robert F. Kennedy (1925-11-20 1968-06-06 age:42)

Dare to Fail

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

~ Robert F. Kennedy (1925-11-20 1968-06-06 age:42)

Importance of Small Acts

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

~ Robert F. Kennedy (1925-11-20 1968-06-06 age:42)

Moral vs Physical Courage

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.

~ Robert F. Kennedy (1925-11-20 1968-06-06 age:42)

Poverty is Evil

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.

~ Robert F. Kennedy (1925-11-20 1968-06-06 age:42)

Taking the law Into Their Own Hands

Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes.

~ Robert F. Kennedy (1925-11-20 1968-06-06 age:42)

Freedom and Justice For All

Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

~ Coretta Scott King (1927-04-27 2006-01-30 age:78)

Hitler’s Scrupulous Legality

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-01-15 1968-04-04 age:39)

Hitler ran in democratic elections and won more and more seats with each election. When he declared war on German Jews, he had the German people behind him. When he declared war on the world, he had the German people behind him.

Injustice Anywhere

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-01-15 1968-04-04 age:39)

Judged by the Content of Their Character

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-01-15 1968-04-04 age:39) I Have A Dream, 1963-08-23

Definition of Gaffe

A gaffe in Washington is when a politician tells the truth.

~ Michael Kinsley (1951-03-09 age:67)

American Arrogance

I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.

~ Henry Kissinger (1923-05-27 age:94)

Depopulation as Policy

Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.

~ Henry Kissinger (1923-05-27 age:94)

His statement makes you wonder how many of America’s mistakes that killed millions were really deliberate.

Its About Oil

Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs.

~ Henry Kissinger (1923-05-27 age:94)

Kissinger on his Pawns

Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.

~ Henry Kissinger (1923-05-27 age:94)

Wishing/Planning to Be Attacked

I can think of no faster way to unite the American people behind George W. Bush than a terrorist attack on an American target overseas. And I believe George W. Bush will quickly unite the American people through his foreign policy.

~ Henry Kissinger (1923-05-27 age:94)

Like 9/11. How convenient!

Cost of War

It costs us $1 million for every troop[soldier] in Afghanistan.

~ Lawrence Korb (1939-07-09 age:78) assistant Secretary of Defence under Reagan.

Abundance Of Sex Slaves

There are ten times as many sex slaves transported around the globe today as agrarian slaves were transported in the 1790s.

~ Nicholas Donabet Kristof (1959-04-27 age:59), double Pulitzer Prize winner

Human Inconsistency

Humans feel deeply the suffering of their friends and allies and easily discount/dismiss the comparable experience of their enemies.

~ Ray Kurzweil (1948-02-12 age:70)

Fighting Fire With Fire

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. I call on Congress today to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school — and to do it now, to make sure that blanket of safety is in place when our children return to school in January.

~ Wayne LaPierre (1948-11-09 age:69) Executive Vice President of the NRA (National Rifle Association) source

The problem in school shootings is not bad guys i.e. criminals, but crazy people and people who have been temporarily pushed over some psychological edge. They need psychiatric help and psychiatric monitoring, not easier access to automatic weapons. Guards will not work. Crazies using automatic weapons can mow down an entire classroom in seconds, long before any guards could react. Crazies don’t care if they are killed themselves. Armed guards are no deterrent to them. If crazies can’t get access to a school, they will board a school bus. If they can’t get on a bus they will attack a playground or public swimming pool. If they can’t do that, they will get a job as a guard. Vets with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) are the most likely hires for these proposed jobs. It would be only a matter of time until one of them went postal. You have to monitor crazy people and keep weapons out of their hands. Part of the problem is borderline crazies like survivalists, Tea Party members, NRA members and anti-abortionists encourage the crazies in their paranoia and violence. LaPierre is well aware that his plan would not work, but he is also well aware it would sell more guns for his sponsors. This is his true goal, sell more guns no matter what the consequences.

Satan and War

If Satan exists and if he is clever at promoting Evil, then would he not agitate one section of mankind to go to war with an another — both believing God was on their side?

~ Stephen Paul Lather

Waiting For Perfect Conditions

You can wait forever for perfect conditions or you can make do with what you have.

~ Jack Layton (1950-07-18 2011-08-22 age:61)

Promoting Violence

When it gets down to having to use violence, then you’re playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you — pull your beard — flick your face — to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you.

~ John Lennon (1940-10-09 1980-12-08 age:40)

I’m a Marine; I like Killing Kids

that way u get what every iraq taliban piece of shit deserves not matter what their age is if we don’t kill the little ones first all they are gunna do is grow up and wanna kill americans well FUCK that and FUCK you…

~ Derick Lewis in in email

When Fascism Comes to America

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.

~ Sinclair Lewis (1885-02-07 1951-01-10 age:65)

The Killers

The major form of killing on this planet is by governments. Governments perpetuating a genocide. Perpetuating the conditions for a civil war. Perpetuating war. It is the politicians, governments and civil servants who are the mass killers in the modern world, not some pathetic, limited, defective jerk who cannot control his temper.

~ Elliott Leyton (1939 age:78) criminologist

Murder Rates

Murder Rates

Murder Rates
1 per 100,000	Britain
2 per 100,000	Canada
10 per 100,000	USA
100 per 100,000	Detroit

~ Elliott Leyton (1939 age:78) criminologist

The irony is the Americans call for the rest of the world to become Christian like them so they can enjoy the fruits of superior morality.

Terrorist?

Is he a terrorist?
Ya, even more so now we murdered his wife and family.

~ Cal Lightman (1961-05-14 age:56) a fictitious character on Lie to Me played by Tim Roth (1961-05-14 age:56). We try to stomp out terrorism by killing and raping innocent children and women and by torturing teenagers. We know perfectly well that it has the exact opposite effect, but like brats having a tantrum we persist in the folly. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Nuclear Disarmament, Limbaugh Style

There is only one way to get rid of nuclear weapons… use them.

~ Rush Limbaugh (1951-01-12 age:67)

Rush Before and After

before: Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs… And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.

after being caught with dealer sized quantities of oxycontin: I need to tell you today that part of what you have heard and read is correct. I am addicted to prescription pain medication.

~ Rush Limbaugh (1951-01-12 age:67)

A Rush Weasel

I was not wrong. I was just misinformed.

~ Rush Limbaugh (1951-01-12 age:67)

Rush’s Understanding of Feminism

Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.

~ Rush Limbaugh (1951-01-12 age:67)

So?

If you commit a crime, you’re guilty.

~ Rush Limbaugh (1951-01-12 age:67)

Denying Freedom

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-02-12 1865-04-15 age:56)

Fear Of Failure

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-02-12 1865-04-15 age:56)

Gettysburg

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.

~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-02-12 1865-04-15 age:56) Gettysburg Address

In the civil war Americans killed 620,000 fellow Americans. Lincoln considers this a sacrifice for a higher good rather than mass insanity. Consider what would have happened had Lincoln negotiated with the south, or let the south leave without bloodshed as Canada would do if Québec seceded. With a nearby slave-free country to escape too, slave owners would be bled dry by having their expensive slaves escape. The war was mainly over taxation. It is ridiculous to murder your brother over a dispute about tax rates. Lincoln was an asshole to go to war over something so trivial. If a bumbling idiot goes on stage during war, he is guaranteed to be painted as a hero after the war ends.

Lincoln’s Anti-war Bid

And whereas this House desires to obtain a full knowledge of all the facts which go to establish whether the particular spot of soil which the blood of our citizens was so shed was, or was not, our own soil.

~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-02-12 1865-04-15 age:56), Lincoln’s Spot Resolution, 1847-12-22.

Few people know that Congressman, later President, Abraham Lincoln was an anti-war activist. He introduced the Spot Resolution in congress to challenge President Polk’s lies that Mexico had attacked America, rather than the reverse. His opposition to the Mexican-American war made him very unpopular and he lost his seat. Plus ça change…

Power is the Test of Character

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-02-12 1865-04-15 age:56)

Self Destruction Prophesy

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-02-12 1865-04-15 age:56)

After all that talk about give me liberty or give me death, Americans surrendered nearly all their freedoms with the Patriot Act, quaking in cowardly fear after terrorists demolished a mere two buildings.

Futility of the Rôle of Global Policeman

The time has come to stop beating our heads against stone walls under the illusion that we have been appointed policeman to the human race.

~ Walter Lippmann (1889-09-23 1974-12-14 age:85)

Thinking Badly About Our Victims

It is always useful to think badly about people one has exploited or plans to exploit… No one likes to think of him or herself as a bad person. To treat badly another person whom we consider a reasonable human being creates a tension between act and attitude that demands resolution. We cannot erase what we have done and to alter our future behavior may not be in our interest. To change our attitude is easier.

~ James W. Loewen (1942-02-06 age:76) sociologist

Personification of Evil

We had better dispense with the personification of evil because it leads, all too easily, to the most dangerous kind of war: religious war.

~ Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (1903-11-07 1989-02-27 age:85)

Unwitting Beasts

A beast does not know that he is a beast and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.

~ George MacDonald (1824-12-10 1905-09-18 age:80)

Achievement Requires Danger

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

~ Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-05-03 1527-06-21 age:58) The Prince

Appearances

The great majority of mankind is satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities.

~ Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-05-03 1527-06-21 age:58) The Prince

Conquer and Demolish

Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.

~ Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-05-03 1527-06-21 age:58) The Prince

This is the Hitler/Bush view. The Romans made the conquered people citizens of Rome.

Dichotomous Treatment

Men ought either to be treated well or crushed because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot, therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand fear of revenge.

~ Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-05-03 1527-06-21 age:58) The Prince

America has taken this advice to heart. If you are not a friend you are an enemy. If you are an enemy you risk being carpet bombed, hit with banned weapons, tortured and having your families targeted.

Foolish Procrastination

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

~ Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-05-03 1527-06-21 age:58) The Prince

How To Deceive

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.

~ Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-05-03 1527-06-21 age:58) The Prince

Machiavellian Advice

He who has annexed them [some principalities], if he wishes to hold them, has only to bear in mind two considerations: the one that the family of the former lord is extinguished: the other that neither their laws not their taxes are altered.

~ Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-05-03 1527-06-21 age:58) The Prince

America has taken this advice to heart. They target the wives and children of their rivals. They enforce Shari’a law in Afghanistan almost identical to the way the Taliban did.

Not Much Difference

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.

~ Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469-05-03 1527-06-21 age:58) The Prince

Karzai’s Doom

If the military contractors are out of Afghanistan, Karzai is out 15 minutes later.

~ Rachel Maddow (1957-04-01 age:61)

Stockpile

We have built something [a nuclear stockpile] bigger than we can drive.

~ Rachel Maddow (1957-04-01 age:61)

Slippery Slope

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much… to forget it.

~ James Madison (1751-03-16 1836-06-28 age:85)

Will of the People

Whenever the people are for gay marriage or medical marijuana or assisted suicide, suddenly the will of the people goes out the window.

~ Bill Maher (1956-01-20 age:62)

On Republicans

Every nation gets the government it deserves.

~ Joseph de Maistre (1753-04-01 1821-02-26 age:67)

Quality of Government

Every nation gets the government it deserves.

~ Joseph de Maistre (1753-04-01 1821-02-26 age:67)

Bush Just Wants Oil

Why is the United States behaving so arrogantly? All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95), 2003-01-30

Courage ≠ Fearlessness

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Education

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Fear of our Own Power

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

It Seems Impossible

It always seems impossible until its done.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Only the Free Can Negotiate

Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Optimism

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Origin of Racism

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. A leader… is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Overcoming Poverty

Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Peace with Your Enemy

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Playing Small

There is no passion to be found playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Prison First

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

~ Nelson Mandela (1918-07-18 2013-12-05 age:95)

Anguish of Suspense

Anguish of suspense made men even desire the arrival of enemies.

~ Guy de Maupassant (1850-08-05 1893-07-06 age:42), Boule de Suif

Barbarous Legacy

We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs… of our barbarous ancestors.

~ Guy de Maupassant (1850-08-05 1893-07-06 age:42), Sur l’eau 1888.

Military Scourges

Military men are the scourges of the world.

~ Guy de Maupassant (1850-08-05 1893-07-06 age:42)

Right of Death

Since governments take the right of death over their people, it is not astonishing if the people should sometimes take the right of death over governments.

~ Guy de Maupassant (1850-08-05 1893-07-06 age:42), Sur l’eau 1888.

Preemptive State Terror

Since 1947, American has been the chief perpetrator of preemptive state terror… These rogue actions worsened local political and economic conditions and were of a piece with equally unscrupulous blockades, embargoes, military interventions, punitive air (missile) strikes and kidnappings, always in the name of democracy, liberty and justice.

~ Arno Mayer (1926-06-19 age:91), historian

Negative Goal

The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.

~ Mitch McConnell (1942-02-20 age:76) senate minority leader.

He meant this quite literally. He was willing to gridlock government, tank the economy, block the creation of jobs and in any way sacrifice his country just to make Obama look bad.

Ahead of Your Time

You know, sometimes, when they say you’re ahead of your time, it’s just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.

~ George McGovern (1922-07-19 2012-10-21 age:90)

Agent of the Church

The state in the matter of drugs should not, any more than in the matter of sex, act as the secret agent for the agenda of the church.

~ Terence McKenna (1946-11-16 2000-04-03 age:53)

Republican Emergency Rape

It was really an issue about a Catholic church being forced to offer those pills if the person came in an emergency rape.

~ Linda McMahon (1948-10-04 age:69) 2012-10-15

confusing churches with hospitals.

Futility of Charity

Don’t give to charity; give to change.

~ S. McNutt

Military Adrenalin

After living on the edge, the adrenalin, some people in the military get addicted. Anything else seem boring. They have to have the excitement.

~ Timothy McVeigh (1968-04-23 2001-06-11 age:33) approximate words from the Rachel Maddow documentary.

Morals of a Terrorist

Kids are fair game; women are fair game.

~ Timothy McVeigh (1968-04-23 2001-06-11 age:33) convicted for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Where would he get that idea? Hint, he was a United States Army veteran.

Successful Action

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has.

~ Margaret Mead (1901-12-16 1978-11-15 age:76)

Satellite Spying Technology

The advent of the Keyhole satellite program nearly 30 years ago provided the United States with the capability to digitally observe events on Earth in near real time. Exponential advances in computer processing power have subsequently provided refinements that allow these spies in the sky to observe the Earth regardless of cloud cover, inclement weather and darkness. Using infrared cameras, radar and advanced sensing lenses, they can resolve images approaching a single inch in diameter.

~ Keith Melton Spies in the Digital Age CNN

Yet despite this astounding technology, Bush claimed he had no idea where Osama bin Laden was and Americans believe it is impossible to intercept illegal immigrants or to track the perpetrators of drive by shootings, or hunt down kidnappers.

Connections

We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads and along these sympathetic fibres, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.

~ Herman Melville (1819-08-01 1891-09-28 age:72)

Collective Wisdom

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Demagogue

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Love of Country

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

The Most Common Folly

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Oxymoronic Good Politicians

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Perfect Democracy

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Many people voted for Bush because he was stupid and a loser. They felt they could relate to him better than a competent candidate.

Politics as Entertainment

A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Radical Motivation

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Shameful Governments

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Stolen Goods Auction

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Temptation of Piracy

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

Underestimating Taste

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

~ Henry Louis Mencken (1880-09-12 1956-01-29 age:75)

For Your Own Good

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or to forbear because it will be better for him to do so because it will make him happier because in the opinions of others to do so would be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else.

~ John Stuart Mill (1806-05-20 1873-05-08 age:66)

Surrendering Faith in Society

Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.

~ Arthur Miller (1915-10-17 2005-02-10 age:89)

Remedy For Corruption

Sunlight is the best bleach.

~ Debbie Moffett a character on Midsomer Murders: Schooled for Murder played by Martine McCutcheon (1976-05-14 age:41).

Legal Tyranny

No tyranny is more cruel than the one practised in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice — when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves. And since a tyrant never lacks instruments for his tyranny, Tiberius always found judges ready to condemn as many people as he might suspect.

~ Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu (1689-01-19 1755-02-10 age:66)

Oddly, I first heard this quotation from the mouth of a construction worker infuriated at the way Canada’s Stephen Harper has been, bit by bit, dismantling our democracy.

Kill! Kill! Kill! You Don’t Need a Reason

Ignore their heathen prayers and help us blow those little bastards [the Viet Cong] straight to Hell. Amen.

~ Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore played by Mel Gibson (1956-01-03 age:62) in We Were Soldiers

The self-glorifying book was written by Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore. You’d think by now that anyone who went to Viet Nam to kill orphans and others who had never done anything to the USA would be considered a vicious psychopath. Oddly, even now, most Americans consider their actions heroic. Americans even gave this filthy old buzzard Moore a veteran of the year award.

There are no Insurgents in Iraq

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not insurgents or terrorists or The Enemy. They are the revolution, the Minutemen and their numbers will grow — and they will win.

~ Michael Moore (1954-04-23 age:64)

Worst Health Care in the Western World, Seriously

We are the richest country in the world. We spend more on health care than any other country. Yet we have the worst health care in the Western world. Come on. We can do better than this.

~ Michael Moore (1954-04-23 age:64)

Republican Gift-From-God Rape

When life begins with that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen.

~ Richard Mourdock (1951-10-08 age:66) 2012-10-23

You Are Not Entitled to Your Own Facts

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-03-16 2003-03-26 age:76) New York Senator

But what if your opinions are based on superstition, racism or false information? You really should not be selling your opinions to others and others should not let you express your opinions unchallenged.

Faulty Sense of Proportion

To kill one man is to be guilty of a capital crime; to kill ten men is to increase the guilt ten-fold, to kill a hundred me is to increase it hundred-fold. This the rulers of the earth all recognise and yet when it comes to the greatest crime — waging war on another state — they praise it.…

If a man on seeing a little black were to say it is black, but on seeing a lot of black were to say it is white, it would be clear that such a man could not distinguish black and white… So those who recognise a small crime as such, but do not recognise the wickedness of the greatest crime of all — the waging of war on another state — but actually praise it — cannot distinguish between right and wrong.

~ Mozi (470 BC 391 BC age:79)

Profit Over Safety

So, I’m not impressed by BP’s promises and I’m not ready to take the word of a company with a track record of pursuing profit over safety.

~ Patty Murray (1950-10-11 age:67) Democratic senator from Washington

Politicians know perfectly well that corporations are required by law to do whatever it takes to maximise profit. So it is no surprise that, for BP, profit trumps safety. Maximising profit usually requires minimal compliance with the law. If the law is weak, that is the fault of the lawmakers, not the corporations. Dr. Frankenstein (congress) is responsible for the behaviour of his creations — the conscience-free monsters (the corporations).

Dissent vs Disloyalty

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

~ Edward R. Murrow (1908-04-25 1965-04-27 age:57)

Corporatism

Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is a merger of State and Corporate power.

~ Benito Mussolini (1883-07-29 1945-04-28 age:61), the father of modern fascism.

The Non-difference between Republicans and Democrats

The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That’s the only difference.

~ Ralph Nader (1934-02-27 age:84)

Death Without Meaning

My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning.

~ Huey P. Newton (1942-02-17 1989-09-22 age:47)

Mafia and Politicians

The Mafia needs politicians like a fish needs water.

~ Antonio Nicaso

Hypocrisy

Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.

~ Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-06-21 1971-06-01 age:78)

Stupid People Follow Faith

Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This naïve faith, requires necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course.

~ Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-06-21 1971-06-01 age:78)

First They Came For the…

(modified for the USA 2017)

First they came for the transgendered
and I did not speak out
because I was not transgender.
Then they came for the Hispanics
and I did not speak out
because I was not Hispanic.
Then they came for the Muslims
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Muslim.
Then they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the gays
and I did not speak out
because I was not gay.
Then they came for the blacks
and I did not speak out
because I was not black.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

~ Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-01-14 1984-03-06 age:92)

First They Came…

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

~ Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-01-14 1984-03-06 age:92)

Excuse for Law Breaking

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

~ Richard Milhous Nixon (1913-01-09 1994-04-22 age:81) denying the rule of law in the USA.

Nixon Tells the Truth

I don’t give a damn about the civilians.

~ Richard Milhous Nixon (1913-01-09 1994-04-22 age:81)

15 Minutes Of Fame

The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56)

All Suffered

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56) speech in Egypt, 2009-06-04

Get serious! The Palestinians have had a homeland for centuries before the USA was founded. The problem is Zionists invaded, occupied and subjected them to apartheid.

American Paranoia

We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56) speech in Egypt 2009-06-04

Obama’s paranoid attitude will get the USA in deep trouble. Attempting to kill all the people who hate you will just create ten times as many new enemies. America made most of its enemies as a direct result of its illegal aggression and egregious behaviour such as torture, banned weapons and butchering civilians. If Obama cleaned up America’s act, most of its enemies would evaporate.

Better Late than Never

I concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56) 2012-05-09

I applaud Mr. Obama’s courage. He did the right thing rather than the expedient thing. To America’s shame, according to polls, about half of its population are homophobic bigots who want to keep gays in the their place by denying legal recognition of their relationships. They do this purely out of spite, a national bullying habit justified by tradition. Marriage equality would not harm or even affect them in any way. Unfortunately for Mr. Obama’s reelection chances, these bigots are more excited by putting down gays than the supporters of gays are about supporting equality. Time is on the side of full equality. Young people favour it. Old geezers do not. Black churches are firmly entrenched for bigotry. What irony!

Better Late than Never

I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56)

Blowing Up Innocents

I have no patience with people who go around blowing up innocent people.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56) 2009-04-07

St. Obama is apparently unaware the biggest killer of innocent civilians is the US military, which he commands. This is a necessary side effect of the way the USA fights wars with high technology from a safe distance.

Dividing

If you have to win a campaign by dividing people you’re not going to be able to govern them. You’re not going to be able to unite them later if that’s how you start.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56)

Global Village

Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56)

Muslim View of Murder

The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as — it is as if he has killed all mankind.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56) speech in Egypt, 2009-06-04

How odd! The USA has killed more innocent civilians than any other country in the last decade.

Proudly Piggy

We will not apologise for our way of life.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56)

defending America’s conspicuous consumption and conspicuous waste. That man is 80% Republican.

We Are the Change

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56)

We Are Fighting for No Reason, Really!

We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We see no military — we seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56) speech in Egypt, 2009-06-04

This is nonsense. According to both the US military and the Afghan puppet dictator Hamid Karzai, bin Laden is not in Afghanistan and neither are Al Qaeda. American soldiers are putting themselves in harm’s way by occupying Afghanistan. The Afghans fight the occupation with primitive home made bombs. They have no means to kill Americans once they go home and the Taliban would be insane to attempt to resume the fight. The situation is similar to Viet Nam. Obama fails to acknowledge the original motivation for the invasion was the Taliban refused to give Unocal a free right of way for their oil pipeline. He is becoming more like Bush every day in his denials.

We Write Our Destiny

Our destiny is not written for us, but by us.

~ Barack Obama (1961-08-04 age:56)

Michelle’s Lie

Every Thanksgiving, Barack sits down to call some of our troops and thank them for their service. When he tells me about these conversations, it always reminds me of how blessed we are to live in a country where men and women will stand up to protect our freedoms and preserve our way of life. And whenever I’ve had the chance to meet with these heroes and their families, I’ve always walked away inspired by their courage and in awe of their strength.

~ Michelle Obama (1964-01-17 age:54)

Michelle knows perfectly well this is a monstrous lie. She knows the soldiers who went to Afghanistan and Iraq were sent to plunder their oil and minerals, not to protect American freedoms. On the day he announced the troop drawdown in Iraq there Obama auctioned off all of Iraq’s oil reserves to American and European oil companies. True mission accomplished! Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq threatens American freedom in any way. Neither has the means to even if it wanted to. Neither had anything to do with 9/11. In contrast, the USA illegally invaded both countries, unprovoked and then enforced martial law and the imposed almost a decade of military occupation on them. Not only does America threaten other people’s freedom, it stomps all over it.

Fighting Absurdity

Even though you can’t expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That’s morality, that’s religion. That’s art. That’s life.

~ Phil Ochs (1940-12-19 1976-04-09 age:35)

A Murder by Any Other Name

Is there anybody here who thinks that following the orders takes away the blame
Is there anybody here who wouldn’t mind a murder by another name?

~ Phil Ochs (1940-12-19 1976-04-09 age:35) Is there Anybody Here?

Power of Song

One good song with a message can bring a point more deeply to more people than a thousand rallies.

~ Phil Ochs (1940-12-19 1976-04-09 age:35)

The Reward is the Struggle

It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win.

~ Phil Ochs (1940-12-19 1976-04-09 age:35)

Controlling the Past

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

Defense of the Indefensible

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

Defense of the Indefensible

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

Definition of Freedom

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

Falsification

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)  George Orwell’s 1984

Freedom of Speech

If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

The Insanity of Reality

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

Insincerity

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

Newspaper Reporting

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

Any time newspapers have reported on me, I noticed the same thing.

Pure Wind

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

Restating the Obvious

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

This quotation is what inspired me to start writing quotations.

Telling the Truth

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)

Thought Police

It was with the last revolution and the coming of INGSOC (Inglish/English Socialism) that the latest High learnt how to keep their position permanently — by cultivating ignorance among the other classes and by constantly surveying them through the Thought Police. Part of this strategy included the maintenance of a state of continual warfare, which Goldstein discussed in the third chapter. The three major powers were not fighting this perpetual war for victory; they were fighting to keep a state of emergency always present as the surest guarantee of authoritarianism.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46)  George Orwell’s 1984 chapter 9.

Sarah’s BS

Defend our freedoms

~ Sarah Palin (1964-02-11 age:54)

Sarah Palin is an American celebro-politician with a voice like a squeaky fuel pump. She uses the phrase defend our freedoms the way most people use um. What she means by it is the freedom to drive Hummers as far as you want with dirt cheap gas, the freedom to dine outside in cold weather under heat lamps, the freedom to not insulate your home but mostly the freedom to kill people who don’t subscribe to your religion and steal their oil.

Inevitability of Justice

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

~ Theodore Parker (1810-08-24 1860-05-10 age:49) quote favoured by Martin Luther King

Delay = Denial

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

~ C. Northcote Parkinson (1909-07-30 1993-03-09 age:83)

Motivated To Kill

Men never do evil so fully and so happily as when they do it for conscience’s sake.

~ Blaise Pascal (1623-06-19 1662-08-19 age:39)

The Right To Kill

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man has a right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water and because his ruler has quarrel with mine, although I have none with him?

~ Blaise Pascal (1623-06-19 1662-08-19 age:39)

Patton’s Observation

I’d rather have a German division in front of me, than a French one behind.

~ George S. Patton (1885-11-11 1945-12-21 age:60), General

This shows the anti-French bigotry goes back even before freedom fries. The Americans forget they would be a part of Canada were not for the French helping defeat the British in their battle for independence. They conveniently forget the British had 66 ships, the French had 52 and the Americans 0. France endured a billion livre deficit to help the Americans, which badly hurt their economy. Today’s Americans are embarrassingly rude and ungrateful.

Legal Heroin?

What you are inferring is, If we were to legalise heroin tomorrow everybody would use heroin. How many people here would start using heroin? I bet nobody would. Oh yeah, I need the government to take care of me. I don’t want to use heroin, so I need these laws.

~ Ron Paul (1935-08-20 age:82)

It is not quite that simple. If heroin were legalised, Altria (née Philip Morris tobacco) would flood the airwaves with ads designed to convince people that their brand of menthol heroin-lite made from genetically enhanced poppies, wink wink, was harmless and made you irresistible to the opposite sex. Just as with tobacco, horny teenagers would fall for it.

Republican Honest Rape

If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, I would give them a shot of estrogen.

~ Ron Paul (1935-08-20 age:82) 2012-02-03

to enhance breast size?

Definition of Right

Right is right, even if everyone is against it and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.

~ William Penn (1644-10-14 1718-07-30 age:73)

Unelected Dictators

Over the years, unelected dictators have been placed into power through the clandestine efforts of multinational corporations, international banks and the CIA — the shah of Iran, Suharto of Indonesia, Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Anantosio Somoza of Nicaragua, Anwar Sadat of Egypt, Jonas Savimbi of Angola, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire/Congo, the House of Saud of Saudi Arabia, to name a few.

~ John Perkins (1945-01-28 age:73) Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the Global Economy IMPLODED — and How to Fix It

Accusation without Evidence

I think there are a substantial number of [climate change] scientists who have manipulated data, so that they will have dollars rolling into their, to their projects.

~ Rick Perry (1950-03-04 age:68), ex-Democrat.

Perry later admitted he had so evidence to support this claim. Can you trust someone who makes such serious accusations based on nothing but a hunch as a president or VP (Vice President) ?

Perry’s Dichotomy

Either faith in Christ can cleanse all people of their sin, or none, but not some… The truth of Christ’s death, resurrection and power over sin is absolute.

~ Rick Perry (1950-03-04 age:68) On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting for page 180

Perry is a throwback to the 1600s when Catholics and Protestants tried to force each other to accept their dogma. The founding fathers learned the lesson from the endless religious wars in Europe and sought to avoid strife in America using the constitutional separation of church and state. Perry is so sure he is right he wants to toss that wisdom out and impose his own primitive form of Christianity on the whole country using force of law.

US Fails To Pay Its Debts

How does the richest country in the history of the world fail to pay its bills?

~ Rick Perry (1950-03-04 age:68) governor of Texas, presidential hopeful, ex-Democrat.

If Perry is truly interested in the answer to that question, he should have a look at the differences between the USA and other major nations:

• The USA is the only country to offer loopholes to let rich people and corporations pay no taxes.
• The USA is the only country to support a military bigger than every other military on earth combined.
• The USA is the only country to fight large optional wars that drag on for over a decade.
• The USA has the lowest taxes.
• The USA spends twice as much for its private medical system than other countries do for their public systems and gets the worst outcomes.
• Other countries limit how much money individuals, corporations and foreign nations may to contribute to legally buy politicians.
• The USA is a relatively new country with relatively little history. They tend to focus on the immediate future. They don’t properly plan for generations to come.
• The richest people get deepest in debt because they get used to big spending and feel entitled to live high on the hog even when they can no longer afford it.

Why Iraq?

The Defense Department claims 12 nations with nuclear weapons programs, 13 with biological weapons, 16 with chemical weapons and 28 with ballistic missiles as existing and emerging threats to the United States. But only one of those countries sits atop the second largest oil reserves in the world. [Iraq]

~ Charles Peña , Senior Defense Policy Fellow of the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, for The Chicago Tribune

Children More Vulnerable Than Adults

We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.

~ Steven Pinker (1954-09-18 age:63) The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

I think the problem is most adults can’t remember what hell it was to deal with bullies as a child. They look at the 1.22 metres (4 ft) bully and can’t see how he could possibly be a serious threat to anyone. Yet to a 91.44 cm (3 ft) child he is 1/3 taller e.g. the equivalent of 2.44 metres (8 ft) tall to an adult.

Dominance is Obsolete

Dominance in an adaptation to anarchy and it serves no purpose in a society that has undergone a civilising process or in an international system regulated by agreements and norms. Anything that deflates the concept of dominance is likely to drive down the frequency of fights between individuals and wars.

~ Steven Pinker (1954-09-18 age:63) The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Think of the old west, which was an anarchy. As rule of law came into play, who would have been most resistant? The guy with the fastest gun who could formerly get whatever he wanted by force. In modern day, Americans are both contemptuous and fearful of the UN, or of any rule of law between countries. They refuse even to be constrained by the agreements they signed into treaties. They like anarchy because, for now, they are the biggest gun. They have also refused to acknowledge the authority of the world court. They consume the lion’s share of the world’s resources. They imagine this is a result of Yankee business acumen, but it certainly helps to have military bases scattered all over the globe to provide friendly persuasion to governments insufficiently compliant with the wishes of US business. As China takes over the top superpower spot, Americans will come to regret this choice. Living in an anarchy dominated by China will be considerably less pleasant than living as #2 under rule of law.

Meaning of Equality

As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones.

~ Steven Pinker (1954-09-18 age:63)

The Price of Apathy

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

~ Plato (428 BC 348 BC age:80)

Saddam’s WMDs (Weapon of Mass Destructions) were Bogus From Day One

He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.

~ General Colin Powell (1937-04-05 age:81) 2001-02-02

Occupy Chant

We here, we’re unclear, get used to it!

~ Occupy Protester

When the Elephants Fight

When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.

~ Kikuyu Proverb

More Remains

About a year after the official program to identify victims had ended, more human remains turned up on top of the Deutsche Bank Building, which stands about 400 feet to the south of the location of the former South Tower. According to the Associated Press, more than 300 human bone fragments were recovered from the roof of the 43-story skyscraper as workers removed toxic debris in preparation for a floor-by-floor take-down of the building. Most of the fragments were less then 1/16th of an inch in length and were found in gravel raked to the sides of the roof of the building. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation purchased the building and is planning to begin its deconstruction in June, after removal of toxic waste — including asbestos, lead and other materials (including human bone fragments) deposited on it by the destruction of the Twin Towers.

~ Question911.com

Vengeance Restraint

If a man is slain unjustly, his heirs shall be entitled to satisfaction, but let him not carry his vengeance to excess, or his victim is sure to be assisted and avenged.

~ The Qur’an Al Isra 17:33

Being Specific

Down with this sort of thing!

~ Student sign an at Irish protest rally

Post 911

What does it say about our society and culture that since 1991, a World-Trade-Center’s worth of Iraqi children continue to die every month as a direct result of the crimes against humanity perpetrated under the direction of the last three Presidents of the United States? What does this fact mean to each and every person in this nation-state who pays annual taxes, the largest portion of which goes to the ongoing expansion of the United States military? As tax-paying members of the United States, can we reconcile our culpability for these Iraqi deaths with the deaths of people one year ago in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania?

~ David Ratcliffe

Christian Infiltrators

Fundamentalist groups like Christian Embassy have infiltrated the very top of the U.S. military and gained positions of influence in the Pentagon.

~ Darrel Ray in The God Virus.

Freedom = No Health Care

Freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. We have to fight for it and protect it and then hand it to them, so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.

~ Ronald Reagan (1911-02-06 2004-06-05 age:93) Warning against the dangers of universal health care, no kidding.

Scariest Words

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

~ Ronald Reagan (1911-02-06 2004-06-05 age:93)

That is perhaps true for the I.R.S. or the department of Homeland Security, but after a disaster I think you would be extremely happy to see someone from the government to help you put the fire out, dig out from an earthquake, get your water working again, get your electricity working again, stop the looters, clean up a toxic spill, help your finance repairs to your house.

No WMDs

The United States has no credible evidence that Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria early last year before the U.S.-led war that drove Saddam Hussein from power.

~ Condoleezza Rice (1954-11-14 age:63), National Security Adviser, 2004-09-04.

A Second Look

How awful for them [Hitler’s victims] to see those swastikas, the SS men and the SA — people we’d never thought of as criminals.

~ Leni Riefenstahl (1902-08-22 2003-09-08 age:101) The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

I hope some day Americans similarly allow themselves to face the reality of what they did in Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq. So far they have behaved like holocaust deniers, pretending nothing happened.

Iraq Was No Threat

There has been no case made — based on anything other than speculation — that Iraq poses a threat.

~ Scott Ritter (1961-07-15 age:56)

Iraq’s Oil

It has been estimated that 80 percent of the oil illegally smuggled out of Iraq under oil for food ended up in the United States.

~ Scott Ritter (1961-07-15 age:56)

No Weapons in Iraq

Iraq has not been disarmed 100 percent [but] in terms of what they [Iraqis] have accomplished there are no meaningful weapons or weapons production capability in Iraq today.

~ Scott Ritter (1961-07-15 age:56)  Former U.N. weapons inspector, who was right.

Republican Easy Rape

If you go down that road, some girls, they rape so easy.

~ Rodger Rivard (1952-08-27 age:65) 2011-12-21

Vive La Différence

If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that difference in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.

~ Gene Roddenberry (1921-08-19 1991-10-24 age:70)

Mitt is Anti-Abortion, No Kidding

I’ve said time and again, I’m a pro-life candidate, I’ll be a pro-life president.

~ Mitt Romney (1947-03-12 age:71) 2012-10-12 in response to a question in Delaware, Ohio

Mitt’s Deadbeats

There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right. There are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing to you-name-it. That’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean the president starts off with 48, 49… he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. 47% percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. So he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them to take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to is convince the 5 to 10% in the center, that are independents… that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not.

~ Mitt Romney (1947-03-12 age:71)

Just who is included in Mitt’s deadbeat category?

• Millionaires and billionaires with good tax lawyers. Politicians voluntarily pay some tax so they won’t look like sponges.
• People who pay a heavy tax burden, just not income taxes.
• Retired people living off pensions they paid into over 45 years.
• Firemen injured on 2001-09-11 living on disability pensions.
• People scraping to start a small business that is still just breaking even.
• People who were born disabled or mentally challenged.
• Somebody in hospital with cancer after paying into health insurance for a lifetime.
• Somebody laid off suddenly after 30 years at the same job.
• A women whose boyfriend blinded her by throwing concentrated acid in her face.
• A child abandoned by its parents.

Mitt seems to think Obama’s campaign is based around tax cuts for the rich. He is confused. That is what Republicans want to do, pretending it will create jobs, even though it never has. Mitt’s real problem is that nobody trusts him. He slings BS and he changes his mind more often than his socks. Nobody has any idea what he would be like in the White House. He is already making his excuses for why he will lose. A president should not give up that easily.

Mitt’s Silly Science

When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous. And she was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver. But she’s safe and sound.

~ Mitt Romney (1947-03-12 age:71) source

Besides demonstrating Romney’s general ignorance, his lack of understanding that airplanes are pressurised suggests that his parents carefully isolated him from all scientific knowledge, not just that which conflicted with the teachings of their Mormon cult. It also suggests they deliberately burnt out his curiosity and desire to learn. He further betrays his ignorance claiming you need more oxygen to deal with a fire rather than less. He claims to know what he is talking about and deliberately imposes his delusions on others. This is far more serious than simply not knowing. He further demonstrates his inability to form coherent sentences. Electing Romney would be like electing a three year old to make science policy. As president, he could not even formulate coherent directives, much less sensible ones.

How to Judge Me

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-01-30 1945-04-12 age:63) 32nd president of the USA.

Criticism is Patriotic

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-10-27 1919-01-06 age:60) 26th president of the USA.

Lunatic Fringe

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-10-27 1919-01-06 age:60)

Roosevelt the Great White Bigot

I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.

~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-10-27 1919-01-06 age:60) 26th president of the USA.

Roosevelt the Great White Bigot

The settler and pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages.

~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-10-27 1919-01-06 age:60) 26th president of the USA.

His attitude reminds me of modern day Israeli attitudes toward Palestinians. They have such an exalted opinion of themselves, they think it just to steal from others.

What Can You Do?

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

~ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-10-27 1919-01-06 age:60)

Burning Bridges

Bridges are burning all around us; bridges to responses that might have mitigated the already brutal (and just beginning) ravages of Peak Oil; bridges to reduce the likelihood of war and famine; bridges to avoid our selectively chosen suicide; bridges to change at least a part of energy infrastructure and consumption; bridges to becoming something better than we are or have been; bridges to non-violence. Those bridges are effectively gone.

~ Mike Ruppert (1961 2014-04-13 age:52)

In Praise of Fear

Since I am an immature and wicked man, war and unrest appeal to me more than good bourgeois order. Brutality is respected, the people need wholesome fear. They want to fear someone. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive.

~ Ernst Röhm (1887-11-28 1934-07-01 age:46)

Competent Politician

The last scientifically-literate president of the USA was Thomas Jefferson.

~ Carl Sagan (1934-11-09 1996-12-20 age:62)

Dominance of Capitalism

A market economy is a tool — a valuable and effective tool — for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavour. It’s a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market.

~ Michael J. Sandel (1953-03-05 age:65) What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

Individual vs Collective Good

First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.

~ Michael J. Sandel (1953-03-05 age:65) Liberalism and Its Critics

Many Christian Americans think they have a right to deny rights to gay people, Hispanics or Muslims because Christians don’t like them. They see rights as granted by the grace of the majority, rather than inherently guaranteed by the constitution. In the case of gays, Hispanics and Muslims there is not even a case to be made that the general good is enhanced by denying rights.

The Importance of History

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

~ George Santayana (1863-12-16 1952-09-26 age:88)

War and Law

Inter arma emim silent leges.
In times of war, the law goes silent.

~ Roman Saying

American Charlie Browns

We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.

~ Sidney Schanberg (1934-01-17 age:84)

Asserting Privacy

I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs.

~ Pete Seeger (1919-05-03 2014-01-27 age:94)

Taking Care of Each Other

I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.

~ Pete Seeger (1919-05-03 2014-01-27 age:94)

Two Kinds of Communist

I still call myself a communist because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.

~ Pete Seeger (1919-05-03 2014-01-27 age:94)

Source of Cruelty

All cruelty springs from weakness.

~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC 65 AD age:68)

Who Dunnit?

Cui prodest scelus, is fecit.
The one who derives advantage from the crime is the one most likely to have committed it.

~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC 65 AD age:68)

Who Dunnit?

Cui prodest scelus, is fecit.

~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC 65 AD age:68)

Who is responsible for the Afghan war dragging on 16 years and 6 months chewing up $10 billion a month? Seneca suggests looking at who benefits from the crime. Obviously, the military contractors, such as Halliburton, wish the war would go on forever. Hamid Karzai wants the war to continue. Under its cover, he runs a $1 trillion a year heroin export business. Further, he makes all manner of money in bribes and corruption. When the war ends, he will likely be executed. Then there are all the crooked Nato military and contractors who are involved in the heroin trade. That will all end when the war ends. Unocal, by now, probably wants the war to end so they can get on with their pipeline. They originally wanted a war to punish the Taliban for refusing them a free right of way for a pipeline.

Doing Nothing is Evil Too

My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.

~ Anna Sewell (1820-03-30 1878-04-25 age:58)

The Failure of Cruelty

When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

~ William Shakespear (1564-04-23 1616-04-23 age:52) King Henry, Act III scene vi

Persistence of Evil

The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.

~ William Shakespear Julius Caesar Act III scene ii (1564-04-23 1616-04-23 age:52) Julius Caesar Act II scene ii

Stung With Pismires

Why, look you, I am whipp’d and scourg’d with rods,
Nettled and stung with pismires[nettles], when I hear
Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.

~ William Shakespear (1564-04-23 1616-04-23 age:52) Harry Hotspur Henry IV part I Act I Scene iii

Violent Delights

These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume.

~ William Shakespear (1564-04-23 1616-04-23 age:52) Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene vi

Assassination is Censorship

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship; and it seems hard to justify an incitement to it on anti-censorial principles.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Democracy

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

The Duty Excuse

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Indifference is the Worst Sin

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Parentage Fitness Test

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Pig Wrestling

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and besides, the pig likes it.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Separated by a Common Language

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

The Uniform Excuse

Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-08-04 1822-07-08 age:29)

The Problem With Democracy

Are America’s voters prepared to shoulder the responsibility of running the most powerful nation on earth?

~ Rick Shenkman (1964-03-06 age:54) Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter

Longing to Kill

The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it.

~ Louis Simpson (1923-03-27 2012-09-18 age:89)

Kill Big

The rule in our society is that while those who kill once make wretched a single person are severely punished, those (heads of state, inventors, manufacturers) who are responsible for the death, mutilation or general wretchedness of thousands or millions are rewarded with fame, riches and prizes… If you are going to rob, rob big; if you’re going to kill, kill big.

~ Philip Slater (1927-05-15 2013-06-20 age:86)

Moral Cowardice

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.

~ Margaret Chase Smith (1897-12-14 1995-05-29 age:97)

Effect of Cuba On US Sanity

Cuba seems to have the same effect on US administrations as the full moon has on werewolves.

~ Wayne S. Smith (1932 age:85), diplomat

Censorship

The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honour you can bestow on him. It means that you recognise his superiority to yourself.

~ Joseph Sobran (1946-02-23 age:72)

Screw Trust

The sources that have deceived us so constantly don’t deserve our trust and the extent that we give them our trust we set ourselves up to be scammed again and again.

~ Norman Solomon (1951 age:66)

How To Commit Evil

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good… Ideology — that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.

~ Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-12-11 2008-08-03 age:89)

Lies and Violence

Violence can only be concealed by a lie and the lie can only be maintained by violence.

~ Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-12-11 2008-08-03 age:89)

Violence and Principle

Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.

~ Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-12-11 2008-08-03 age:89)

Republican Gift-From-God Rape

The right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless… gift of human life and accept what God is giving to you.

~ Rick Sooner 2012-01-20

The Standard Disclaimer

Mistakes were made.

~ Numerous Government Spokesman

This is the standard way to deny responsibility for government malice.

Respected Racist

The Indian is but a sketch in red crayon of a rudimental manhood. To the problem of his relation to the white race, there is one solution: extermination.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809-08-29 1894-10-07 age:85)

Delusions of Grandeur

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

~ John Steinbeck (1902-02-27 1968-12-20 age:66)

Compartmentalised Evil

We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning.

~ George Steiner (1929-04-23 age:89)

Climate Change and the Economy

Failing to curb the impact of climate change could damage the global economy on the scale of the Great Depression or the world wars by spawning environmental devastation that could cost 5 to 20 percent of the world’s annual gross domestic product.

~ Nicholas Stern (1946-04-22 age:72), economist

Fear Breeds Repression

The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism.

~ Adlai Stevenson (1900-02-05 1965-07-14 age:65) Nature of Patriotism 1952-08-27

In Praise of Torture

Bad jokes and gay marriage are destroying this country. But torture can save it.

~ Jon Stewart (1962-11-28 age:55)

Relative Funding

It’ll be a great day when schools have all the money they need and the Pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.

~ Viet Nam era bumper sticker

Extravagance of War

Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.

~ Charles Sumner (1811-01-06 1874-03-11 age:63)

Risk Assessment

People in the United States underestimate the risks associated with having a handgun at home by 100-fold and overestimate the risks of living close to a nuclear reactor by 10-fold.

~ William J. Sutherland source

worshiping the Bottom Line

The fact of the matter is that today, stuff-selling mega-corporations have a huge influence on our daily lives. And because of the competitive nature of our global economy, these corporations are generally only concerned with one thing — the bottom line. That is, maximising profit, regardless of the social or environmental costs.

~ Dr. David Suzuki (1936-03-24 age:82)

Blush!

Seek to make a person blush for their guilt rather than shed their blood.

~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD 117 AD age:61)

Corruption and the Number of Laws

Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges. (The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.)

~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD 117 AD age:61)

Crime and Audacity

Crime once exposed has no refuge but audacity.

~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD 117 AD age:61)

The Dominating Passion, Never Slaked

The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion.

~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD 117 AD age:61)

Effect of Tears on Cruelty

Cruelty is fed, not weakened, by tears.

~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD 117 AD age:61)

Hate Also For Those Injured

It is human nature to hate those whom you have injured.

~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD 117 AD age:61)

Peace

Rome creates a desert and calls it peace.

~ Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD 117 AD age:61)

How little has changed.

War is for Economics

No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.

~ A. J. P. Taylor (1906-03-25 1990-09-07 age:84) British historian

On Personal Attacks

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

~ Margaret Thatcher (1925-10-13 2013-04-08 age:87)

Persistence

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

~ Margaret Thatcher (1925-10-13 2013-04-08 age:87)

Human Nature

It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.

~ Thucydides (460 BC 395 BC age:65)

Reality

The strong do as they can and the weak suffer what they must.

~ Thucydides (460 BC 395 BC age:65)

Restraint

Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.

~ Thucydides (460 BC 395 BC age:65)
Colin Powell had this quotation under the glass of his desk.

Behaviour of War-Making States

Almost all war making states borrow extensively, raise taxes and seize the means of combat — including men — from reluctant citizens…

~ Charles Tilly (1929-05-27 2008-04-29 age:78)

Attraction of Afghanistan is Minerals

American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region.

~ New York Times (1851 age:166) 2010-06-14

Even the New York Times admits that the Afghan war is an investment in acquiring natural resources. Lithium is the new strategic mineral needed for rechargeable batteries and green power. An internal Pentagon memo, states that Afghanistan could become the Saudi Arabia of lithium.

According to Rachel Maddow, the US military was planning the exploitation of these minerals back in 2004 and the Russians were fully aware of them during their invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. So it appears the recent announcement is a crass pitch to revive enthusiasm for the flagging Afghan war.

Government They Deserve

In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.

~ Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-07-29 1859-04-16 age:53)

Sitting on a Man’s Back

I sit on man’s back choking him and making him carry me and yet I assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means, except getting off his back.

~ Leo Tolstoy (1828-09-09 1910-11-07 age:82)

Violence is to Force

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

~ Leo Tolstoy (1828-09-09 1910-11-07 age:82)

Bible is a Copy of the Qur’an

The bible is a cheap copy of the Qur’an.

~ Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (1993-07-22 age:24) accused of the Boston Marathon bombing

Surely someone would have told him the bible was written 4000 years ago and the Qur’an 1,408 years ago.

Knowing Slavery

I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.

~ Harriet Tubman (1822 1913-03-10 age:90)

Abandoning Revenge

Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge.

~ Bishop Desmond Tutu (1931-10-07 age:86)

Eating an Elephant

There is only one way to eat an elephant, a bite at a time.

~ Bishop Desmond Tutu (1931-10-07 age:86)

The Best Government Money Can Buy

We have the best government that money can buy.

~ Mark Twain (1835-11-30 1910-04-21 age:74)

Decide For Yourself

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may.

~ Mark Twain (1835-11-30 1910-04-21 age:74)

The Function of Government is to Obey, not Command

The government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

~ Mark Twain (1835-11-30 1910-04-21 age:74)

Who Runs the World?

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.

~ Mark Twain (1835-11-30 1910-04-21 age:74)

Muslims Named the Stars

George Bush, within a week of this [the 2001-09-11 attacks], in a speech, attempting to distinguish US from the Muslim fundamentalists, said Our God is the God who named the stars. The problem is: two-thirds of all stars that have names, have Arabic names. I don’t think he knew this. That would confound the point that he was making.

~ Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958-10-05 age:59)

Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all worship the same god. The thing they differ on is which holy book takes precedence. The Muslims call him Al-lah, which mean the-god in Aramaic and is thus the name Jesus would have also used.

Nationalism Stinks

Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.

~ Thorstein Veblen (1857-07-30 1929-08-03 age:72)

Bush Behaved Suspiciously

The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

Corporate Grip on Opinion

The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity — much less dissent.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

Decay of Language

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

Definition of Liberal

Liberal comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why that word had to be erased from our political lexicon.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

Democracy as Bribery

Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

The End of the American Republic

In 1950 the American republic was quietly retired and its place taken by the National Security State, set up secretly and outlined in a document not to be made public for twenty-five years, the National Security Council Memorandum 68. War and Navy Departments were combined into a single Defense Department while the CIA, an unconstitutional secret police, was invented. The NSC-68 established the imperial blueprint that governed the world until the recent crack-up of the Soviet Union, which happened not as a result of our tactics of ongoing wars and an arms race that they could not afford, but was due to the internal fragility of an artificial state which was, in a sense, a crude mirror of our own, now falling apart, as well, through debt and internal ethnic wars.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86) Truman, The Independent Magazine, 1992-10-03

Futility of Voting

It makes no difference who you vote for — the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

Never Told the Truth

Our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

Not Even a Democracy

We should stop going around babbling about how we’re the greatest democracy on earth, when we’re not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

One Party Rule

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party — and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

Paid For Presidents

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

This might explain why Obama gave billions to Wall Street crooks and dragged the Iraq and Afghan wars on and on.

Power is an End to Itself

It is difficult to find a reputable American historian who will acknowledge the crude fact that a Franklin Roosevelt, say, wanted to be President merely to wield power, to be famed and to be feared. To learn this simple fact one must wade through a sea of evasions: history as sociology, leaders as teachers, bland benevolence as a motive force, when, finally, power is an end to itself and the instinctive urge to prevail the most important single human trait, the necessary force without which no city was built, no city destroyed.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86) Robert Graves and the Twelve Caesars 1959

Speechwriters

Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86)

United States of Amnesia

Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing… We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.

~ Gore Vidal (1925-10-03 2012-07-30 age:86) The State of the Union, The Nation, 2004-09-13

Necessity of Opposing Evil

He who does not oppose evil… commands it to be done.

~ Leonardo da Vinci (1452-04-15 1519-05-02 age:67)

Perfectionism

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.
The best is the enemy of the good.

~ Voltaire (1694-11-21 1778-05-30 age:83) [François Marie d’Arouet Voltaire]

I have watched so many negotiations fail because both sides insisted on having it 100% their way. They both ended up with nothing at all since there was no agreement, no change. They each could have had perhaps 50% of what they wanted.

Right to Say It

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.

~ Voltaire (1694-11-21 1778-05-30 age:83) [François Marie d’Arouet Voltaire]

Snowflakes

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

~ Voltaire (1694-11-21 1778-05-30 age:83) [François Marie d’Arouet Voltaire]

The Difference Between Hitler and Bush

The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.

~ Kurt Vonnegut (1922-11-11 2007-04-11 age:84)

Experimental Mayhem

In 1968, the year I wrote Slaughterhouse Five, I finally became grown up enough to write about the bombing of Dresden. It was the largest massacre in European history. I, of course, know about Auschwitz, but a massacre is something that happens suddenly, the killing of a whole lot of people in a very short time. In Dresden, on 1945-02-13, about 135,000 people were killed by British firebombing in one night. It was pure nonsense, pointless destruction. The whole city was burned down and it was a British atrocity, not ours. They sent in night bombers and they came in and set the whole town on fire with a new kind of incendiary bomb. And so everything organic, except my little POW (Prisoner Of War) group, was consumed by fire. It was a military experiment to find out if you could burn down a whole city by scattering incendiaries over it.

~ Kurt Vonnegut (1922-11-11 2007-04-11 age:84) A Man without a Country, 2005

I think some atrocities, such a Dresden, can be attributed to a childish desire to play with a new toy.

A Lesson in Democracy

I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy — because we’re experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And that’s what’s going on now.

~ Kurt Vonnegut (1922-11-11 2007-04-11 age:84)

Justification for Murder

Why kill good people just to get a bad man?

~ Loudon Wainright III (1946-09-06 age:71) in song Bad Man

Giving Up Power

The most common way people give up their power is thinking they don’t have any.

~ Alice Walker (1944-02-09 age:74)

Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio used to understand climate change, but he forgot. He had to do that to be accepted by the Tea Party.

~ Dr. Harold R. Wanless chairman the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Miami

Monopoly on Violence

A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

~ Max Weber (1864-04-21 1920-06-14 age:56)

How Evil Feels

Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.

~ Simone Weil (1909-02-03 1943-08-24 age:34)

True Nationality

Our true nationality is mankind.

~ H. G. Wells (1866-09-21 1946-08-13 age:79)

What You Cannot Have Unless You are Willing To Give It To Others

Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.

~ William Allen White (1868-02-10 1944-01-31 age:75) American newspaper editor

Abusing Children

The abuse of children is the worst offence that anybody can commit.

~ Ann Widdecombe (1947-10-04 age:70)

Promoting the idea that child fondling or rape is a more serious crime than murder is dangerous. It calls for paedophiles to murder their victims to prevent detection. Even a raped child can still recover from trauma and go on to live a productive life. A murdered child cannot.

Republican Enjoyable Rape

If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.

~ Clayton Williams (1931-10-08 age:86) 1990-03-25

Just Arms, Dear

The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.

~ Robin Williams (1951-07-21 2014-08-11 age:63)

Hard To Imagine?

It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.

~ Paul Wolfowitz (1943-12-22 age:74) 2003-02-27

Why People Choose Evil

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

~ Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-04-27 1797-09-10 age:38)

Impotence of Watergate

Watergate is not the sort of issue that changes the vote. I don’t know anyone who has changed their vote because of it.

~ Bob Woodward (1943-03-26 age:75) 1972-09-19 a few days after the break-in.

Privileges of Class

There is nothing to which men cling more tenaciously than the privileges of class.

~ Leonard Sidney Woolf (1880-11-25 1969-08-14 age:88)

Bigots want a scapegoat, someone they can look down on. A few decades ago, black people sufficed. Bigots don’t like uppity gays either imagining they are equal. They like o keep them one down.

Anonymous Women

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.

~ Virginia Woolf (1882-01-25 1941-03-28 age:59)

Lying Newspapers

But I know newspapers. They have the first amendment and they can tell any lie knowing it’s a lie and they’re protected if the person’s famous or it’s a company.

~ Steve Wozniak (1950-08-11 age:67) co-founder of Apple computer.

Lack of Salt

For lack of a few pinches of ordinary iodised table salt in the diet of a third world pregnant mother, a child can lose up to ten IQ (Intelligence Quotient) points.

~ Sheryl WuDunn (1959-11-16 age:58), Pulitzer Prize winner

Republicans Urge Doing Nothing

In a move without precedent in the modern era, Republican congressional leaders including House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) have penned a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urging him not to take any steps to help the economy.

~ Matthew Yglesias (1981-05-18 age:36) 2011-09-21

We have known this is what the Republicans were up to for a long time, but up to now the Republicans denied their actions to stall the economy were actually intended to help it. Obama should be able to use this to counter the Republicans every time they try to claim cutting jobs is the best way to stimulate employment and other mindfucks.

Forget Trying

Do or do not… there is no try.

~ Yoda

Excuse for Abrogating Freedom

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

~ William Pitt the Younger (1759-05-28 1806-01-23 age:46) Britain’s youngest Prime Minister.

Unlimited Power Corrupts

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

~ William Pitt the Younger (1759-05-28 1806-01-23 age:46) Britain’s youngest Prime Minister.

standard footer

	This page is posted on the web at:	http://mindprod.com/quote/politics.html
	Optional Replicator mirror of mindprod.com on local hard disk J:	J:\mindprod\quote\politics.html
	Please read the feedback from other visitors, or send your own feedback about the site. Contact Roedy. Please feel free to link to this page without explicit permission.
	Canadian Mind Products IP:[65.110.21.43] Your face IP:[3.137.168.223]
Feedback	You are visitor number