Political Quotes - Page 80

It's a deft trick to turn American exceptionalism into an exceptional political tactic.

Concerning politics: "The American media is like a watchdog who has developed an affection for the burglar."

All those men have their price.

I do believe that freedom isn't free - but today the corporate and political right wing is trying to cheapen this truly American value. They've been cynically using the word 'freedom' to rally the American public against its own best interests.

I have impeached myself by resigning.

As political theorist Michael Parenti points out, historians often overlook Fascism's economic agenda--the partnership between Big Capital and Big Government--in their analysis of its authoritarian social program. Indeed, according to Bertram Gross in his startlingly prescient Friendly Fascism (1980), it is possible to achieve fascist goals within an ostensibly democratic society.

With virtually no knowledge of or interest in history, the masses simply take their unprecedented high living standards under capitalism for granted.

In politics you must always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves.

On my knees, I beg of you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the path of peace. Those who resort to violence always claim that only violence brings about change. You must know there is a political, peaceful way to justice.

The particular aspect of history which both attracts and benefits its readers is the examination of causes and the capacity, which is the reward of this study, to decide in each case the best policy to follow. Now in all political situations we must understand that the principle factor which makes for success or failure is the form of a state's constitution: it is from this source, as if from a fountainhead, that all designs and plans of action not only originate but reach their fulfillment.

My major preoccupation is the question, 'What is reality ?' Many of my stories and novels deal with psychotic states or drug-induced states by which I can present the concept of a multiverse rather than a universe. Music and sociology are themes in my novels, also radical political trends; in particular I've written about fascism and my fear of it.

Mankind is supposed to have evolved in the treetops. But I have examined my sense of balance, the prehensility of my various appendages, and my attitude toward standing on anything higher than, say, political principles, and I have concluded that, personally, I evolved in the backseat of a car.

Haitians weren't screwed-up, but everything political, intellectual, and material around them is.

No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going. Not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking. Do not trust the cheering, for those persons would shout as much if you or I were going to be hanged.

I believe in market economics. But to paraphrase Churchill - who said this about democracy and political regimes - a market economy might be the worst economic regime available, apart from the alternatives. I believe that people react to incentives, that incentives matter, and that prices reflect the way things should be allocated. But I also believe that market economies sometimes have market failures, and when these occur, there's a role for prudential - not excessive - regulation of the financial system.

Suppose that the US really is trying to get rid of drugs in Colombia. Does Colombia then have the right to fumigate tobacco farms in Kentucky? They are producing a lethal substance far more dangerous than cocaine. More Colombians die from tobacco-related illnesses than Americans die from cocaine. Of course, Colombia has no right to do that.

There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.

Ever since I've had any political awareness, I've felt either alone or part of a tiny minority.

There are people in Congress who aren't very bright. In fact, some of them are just plain brain-dead.

I am a part of the political process whether the multinational forces are present or not. Politics is serving the people, not chairs and positions.

I'm not a leftist; I'm where the righteous ought to be.

Either we figure out how to keep corporate cash out of the political system or we lose the democracy.

Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a member of the Salvadoran aristocracy. He could not have risen to the top of the church hierarchy otherwise. But after he began voicing critical remarks about the war and concerned comments about the poor, he was assassinated.

Political action involves mental vulgarity, not merely because it entails the occurrence and support of those who are mentally vulgar, but because of the simplification of human life implied in even the best of it purposes.

He's passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever.