Karl Marx: Only in community (with others has each) individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible. In the previous substitutes for the community, in the State, etc. personal freedom has existed only for the individuals who developed within the relationships of the ruling class, and only insofar as they were individuals of this class. The illusory community, in which individuals have up till now combined, always took on an independent existence in relation to them, and was at the same time, since it was the combination of one class over against another, not only a completely illusory community, but a new fetter as well. In a real community the individuals obtain their freedom in and through their association. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9654
Gaius Sallustius Crispus: But when sloth has introduced itself in the place of industry, and covetousness and pride in that of moderation and equity, the condition of a state is altered together with its morals; and thus authority is always transferred from the less to the more deserving. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9656
Lenin: Imperialism is the epoch of finance capital and of monopolies, which introduce everywhere the striving for domination, not for freedom. Whatever the political system, the result of these tendencies is everywhere reaction and an extreme intensification of antagonisms in this field. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9657
Eduardo Galeano: More than half a century after (V. I.) Lenin wrote his book (Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism) monopoly capitalism has shown that it has more than the proverbial nine lives; and imperialism, its logical extension, has survived with unsuspected vigor, centered now around a single great power. But the instruments of this universal system of exploitation are no longer simply the ones Lenin described. Imperialism has evolved and has become more effective, both in robbing as well as in killing. It has polished its methods, extended into new areas, and constructed new models of domination that were unknown on the eve of the Russian Revolution. In this era of electronic computers, the "multinational" corporations do not count their profits on their fingers, to put it mildly The new type of imperialism does not make its colonies more prosperous, even though it enriches its "enclaves"; it does not alleviate social tensions, but on the contrary sharpens them; it extends poverty and concentrates wealth; it takes over the internal market and key parts of the productive apparatus; it appropriates progress for itself, determines its direction, and fixes its limits; it absorbs credit and directs foreign trade as it pleases; it does not provide capital for development but instead removes it; it encourages waste by sending the greatest part of the economic surplus abroad; it denationalizes our industry and also the profits that our industry produces. Today in Latin America the system has our veins open as it did in those distant times when our blood first served the needs of primary accumulation for European capitalist development. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9658
Harpal Brar: These are the only two paths – capitalism or socialism. There is no third alternative. All hopes of a third alternative, which will guarantee the realisation of peaceful and harmonious development without class struggle, through the forms of capitalist ‘democracy’, ‘planned capitalism’, etc. are nothing but pipe dreams. These dreams of peaceful development are merely the echo of past conceptions, belonging to the era of liberal free-competition capitalism, an era which disappeared a whole hundred years ago, never to return. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9659
Stalin: Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division; and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9660
My apologies if this is inconvenient, I opted to do it on shorter notice without a set hour because (a) there's not a lot of activity on the server and (b) I'm really impatient.
I'm doing a hardware upgrade that requires rebooting the network storage backend which will bring down everything for a short time. It should take well under 30 minutes to do the hardware swap and most of the downtime is just going to be the database starting back up (which often takes in the range of another 30 minutes).
As part of this I'll also be deploying some software updates that require a reboot to take effect.
Stalin: It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed hungry person. True freedom can only be where there is no exploitation and oppression of one person by another; where there is not unemployment, and where a person is not living in fear of losing his job, his home and his bread. Only in such a society personal and any other freedom can exist for real and not on paper. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9661
Xi Jinping: I believe that for real Communist Stalin weighs no less than Lenin. And in percentage of right decisions, He doesn't even have an equal in world history. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9662
Deng Xiaoping: If one day China should change her colour and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9663
Lenin: Revolutions are the locomotives of history, said Marx. (In The Class Struggles in France) Revolutions are the festivals of the oppressed and the exploited. At no other time are the masses of the people in a position to come forward so actively as creators of a new social order as at a time of revolution. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9664
Lenin: Small and middle enterprises are being squeezed out and ruined at a faster rate than ever. The concentration and internationalisation of capital are making gigantic strides; monopoly capitalism is developing into state monopoly capitalism. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9667
Stalin: What would happen if capital succeeded in smashing the Republic of Soviets? There would set in an era of the blackest reaction in all the capitalist and colonial countries, the working class and the oppressed peoples would be seized by the throat, the positions of international communism would be lost. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9668
Karl Marx: Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9670
Lenin: What we have said about disorganisation also applies to demoralisation. It is not guerrilla warfare which demoralises, but unorganised, irregular, non-party guerrilla acts. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9671
Karl Marx: Society is saved just as often as the circle of its rulers contracts, as a more exclusive interest is maintained against a wider one. Every demand of the simplest bourgeois financial reform, of the most ordinary liberalism, of the most formal republicanism, of the most shallow democracy, is simultaneously castigated as an "attempt on society" and stigmatized as "socialism." https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9672
Sun Tzu: If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9674
Gramsci: It is almost always the case that a 'spontaneous' movement of the subaltern classes is accompanied by a reactionary movement of the right-wing of the dominant class, for concomitant reasons. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9676
Malcolm X: You don't scare Negroes today with no badge or no white skin or no white sheet or no white anything else. The police the same way; they put their club upside your head and turn around and accuse you of attacking them. Every case of police brutality against a Negro follows the same pattern. They attack you, bust you all upside your mouth and then take you to court and charge you with assault. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9677
Michael Parenti: There is no such thing in America as an independent press. (…) You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write his honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid (…) for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with ―others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things― and any of you would be so foolish as to write his honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job (…) We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9678
Steve Kangas: The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an “American Holocaust.” The CIA justifies these actions as part of its war against communism. But most coups do not involve a communist threat. Unlucky nations are targeted for a wide variety of reasons: not only threats to American business interests abroad, but also liberal or even moderate social reforms, political instability, the unwillingness of a leader to carry out Washington’s dictates, and declarations of neutrality in the Cold War. Indeed, nothing has infuriated CIA Directors quite like a nation’s desire to stay out of the Cold War. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9680
Lenin: The intellectual forces of the workers and peasants are growing and getting stronger in their fight to overthrow the bourgeoisie and their accomplices, the educated classes, the lackeys of capital, who consider themselves the brains of the nation. In fact they are not its brains but its shit. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9681
James Connolly: The most interesting study for an intelligent worker to take up and make his own is, in our opinion, the study of the natural history of the ruling class. It is not only interesting in itself, but leads to and makes necessary excursions into all sorts of allied fields of study, so that once you have begun to take it up seriously you are led on almost unconsciously to a broadening of your field of vision, and a deepening of your insight into the heart of things. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9683
Errico Malatesta: Most assuredly the bourgeoisie has no right to complain of the violence of its foes, since its whole history, as a class, is a history of bloodshed, and since the system of exploitation, which is the law of its life, daily produces hecatombs of innocents. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9685
