Most people want security in this world,
not liberty: Henry Louis Mencken: American journalist, 1880-1956
*
Power always has to be kept in check;
power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is
doubly dangerous : William Proxmire
June 29, 2004
Justice in the life and conduct of the
State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the
citizens: Plato: Ancient Greek philosopher (428/427-348/347 B.C.)
*
Military justice is to justice what
military music is to music.: Groucho Marx: American comedian, actor and singer, 1890-1977
*
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers:
Jose Narosky
*
If my soldiers were to begin to think,
not one would remain in the ranks Frederick The Great
June 28, 2004
Democracy must be something more than
two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner: James Bovard
*
Elections are won by men and women
chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody:
Franklin P. Adams , US journalist (1881-1960)
June 27, 2004
The natural progress of things is for
liberty to yield and government to gain ground: Thomas Jefferson: 3rd US president, principal author of the Declaration of
Independence, 1743-1826
*
In all history there is no war which was
not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the
interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful :
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy : Russian author, 1828-1910
*
Governments have never learned anything
from history, or acted on principles deducted from it: Hebbel : German poet and dramatist, 1813-1863
*
The biggest lesson I learned from
Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements. I had no idea until
then that you could not rely on [them]: James W. Fulbright, US senator who initiated the international exchange
program for scholars, 1905-1995
*
In order to rally people, governments
need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them.
And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize
us: Thich Nhat Hanh, Contemporary Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist and
writer
June 26, 2004
We have enough religion to make us hate,
but not enough to make us love one another: Jonathan Swift : Irish author and foremost prose satirist, 1667-1745
*
I don't believe that the big men, the
politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little
man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in
revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to
murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars
will be waged: Anne Frank: Jewish girl author of a diary of her family's two years in hiding
during World War Two, 1929-1945
*
"Think like a man of action, act
like a man of thought." Henri Bergson (1859-1941); French philosopher.
*
"Living on Earth is expensive,
but it does include a free trip around the sun every year." Anonymous
June 25, 2004
In the eyes of empire builders men are
not men but instruments : Napoleon Bonaparte : French Emperor (1769-1821)
*
The government, which was designed for
the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the
special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of
democracy: Woodrow T. Wilson : 28th president of the United States 1856-1924
June 24, 2004
Justice denied anywhere diminishes
justice everywhere: Martin Luther King, Jr. : 1929-1968
*
Justice in the life and conduct of the
State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the
citizens : Plato, Ancient Greek philosopher (428/427-348/347 B.C.)
*
Freedom is the right to tell people what
they do not want to hear : George Orwell : English novelist, essayist, and critic, 1903-1950
*
We have now sunk to a depth at which the
restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men: George Orwell
*
They could be made to accept the most
flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of
what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events
to notice what was happening : George Orwell
*
Political language. . . is designed to
make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of
solidity to pure wind: George Orwell
*
The nationalist not only does not
disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable
capacity for not even hearing about them: George Orwell
June 23, 2004:
"... that until the
philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and
permanently discredited and abandoned; that until there is no longer any
first-class and second-class citizens of any nation; that until the color of a
man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; that until the
basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, without regard to race --
until that day, the dreams of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule
of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but
never attained: Speech by H.I.M. HAILE SELASSIE I - California 28th February 1968
June 21, 2004:
Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better
get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's
better left unsaid. : Bob Dylan : American folksinger, b.1941
*
When people speak to you about a preventive
war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate
war. War settles nothing: Dwight David Eisenhower : 34th president of the United States, 1890-1969
June 19, 2004:
Everything, everything
in war is barbaric... But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men
collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with
their whole being: Ellen Key
June 18, 2004:
Fear always springs
from ignorance: Ralph Waldo Emerson : American lecturer, poet, and essayist, 1803-1882
*
Fear follows crime,
and is its punishment : Voltaire : French writers and philosophers, 1694-1778
*
For in reason, all
government without the consent of the governed is slavery: Jonathan Swift : Irish author, 1667-1745
June 17, 2004:
The press is our chief
ideological weapon: Nikita Khrushchev
*
There are laws to
protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to
protect the people from the press: Mark Twain
*
It is a melancholy
truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the
nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood:
Thomas Jefferson
*
I take a grave view of
the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy: A. J. Liebling
June 16, 2004:
You can chain me, you
can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my
mind: Mahatma Gandhi
*
The coward wretch
whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and
start From the slightest pain or equal foe: Bertrand Russell
*
Non-violence leads to
the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming
all other living beings, we are still savages: Thomas Alva Edison
June 15, 2004:
"The most brilliant
propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is
borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat
them over and over.": Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister
*
"The process [of
mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with
sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with
it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while
genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient,
and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for
just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all
the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is
indispensably necessary.": George Orwell in the book 1984
June 14, 2004:
"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.
Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye,
to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and
the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only
a series of flashing fictions..." : Gore Vidal
*
"Following the same
course that virtually every other major industry has in the last two decades, a
relentless series of mergers and corporate takeovers has consolidated control of
the media into the hands of a few corporate behemoths.
The result has been that an increasingly authoritarian agenda has been sold to
the American people by a massive, multi-tentacled media machine that has become,
for all intents and purposes, a propaganda organ of the state.": David McGowan
June 12, 2004:
Let those who would
die for the flag on the field of battle give a better proof of their patriotism
and a higher glory to their country by promoting fraternity and justice: Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893: - Inaugural Address, 1889
*
Force is the vital
principle and immediate parent of despotism: Thomas Jefferson
*
The strength and power
of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance: Thomas Paine
*
"When the power of
love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix 1942-1970
June 10, 2004:
"The liberty of a
democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the
point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its
essence is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any
controlling private power.": President Franklin D. Roosevelt
*
"What's the point of
having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use
it?": Madeleine Albright, to General Colin Powell, as quoted in Powell's book 'My
American Journey', 1995
June 8, 2004:
"Civil disobedience is
not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of
people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their
government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this
obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the
face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem
is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all
the while the grand thieves are running and robbing the country. That's our
problem.": Howard Zinn, from 'Failure to Quit'
June 7, 2004:
Q. "Mr. President, have you approved of
covert activity to destablise the present government of Nicaragua?"
A. "Well, no, we're supporting them, the - oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm
sorry, I was thinking of El Salvador, because of the previous, when you said
Nicaragua. Here again, this is something upon which the national security
interests, I just - I will not comment.": Ronald Reagan, former US President, Washington press conference, February
13th 1983, as quoted by John Pilger in 'Heroes'
June 5, 2004:
The Pentagon recently
justified its' position on censorship by insisting: 'If we let people see that
kind of thing, there would never again be any war.'": - from 'Military Blunders' - article by Geoffrey Regan in 'Night and Day'
(Mail on Sunday supplement) 23rd January 2000
*
"Individuals have
international duties which transcend the national obligations of
obedience.therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws
to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." : Nuremberg
War Crime Tribunal, 1950
*
"When a long train of
abuses and usurpations [...] evinces a design to reduce them [the people] under
absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
government.": Thomas Jefferson, US Declaration of Independence
*
"The United States is
the most powerful among the technically advanced countries in the world today.
Its' influence on the shaping of international relations is absolutely
incalculable. But America is a large country, and its people have so far not
shown much interest in great international problems, among which the problem of
disarmament occupies first place today. This must be changed, if only in
America's own interest. The last war has shown that there are no longer any
barriers between the continents and that the destinies of all countries are
closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize that they have a
great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of
passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to
disaster all round.": Albert Einstein, from an interview in the Nieuwe
Rotterdamsche Courant, 1921
June 3, 2004:
We're not a democracy.
It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call
us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy." : Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
*
"Of all forms of
tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth,
the tyranny of plutocracy"
John Pierpont Morgan
*
"The real truth of the
matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has
owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson." Franklin D. Roosevelt
*
"Fascism should more
appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and
corporate power." Benito Mussolini
Updated/Revised:
Saturday, October 02, 2004 10:05:08 -0700
