Adam Smith: The rich...are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. When Providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: “Freedom” is a grand word, but under the banner of freedom for industry the most predatory wars were waged, under the banner of freedom of labour, the working people were robbed. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: Socialism is not a ready-made system that will be mankind's benefactor. Socialism is the class struggle of the present-day proletariat as it advances from one objective today to another objective tomorrow for the sake of its basic objective, to which it is coming nearer every day. In this country called Russia, socialism is today passing through the stage in which the politically conscious workers are themselves completing the organisation of a working-class party despite the attempts of the liberal intelligentsia and the "Duma Social-Democratic intelligentsia" to prevent that work of organisation. The liquidators are out to prevent the workers from building up their own working-class party-that is the meaning and significance of the struggle between "the six and the seven". They cannot, however, prevent it. The struggle is a hard one, but the workers' success is assured. Let the weak and the frightened waver on account of the "extremes" of the struggle-tomorrow they will see for themselves that not a step further could have been taken without going through this struggle. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: Petty ideas about a reconciliation of classes among the petty bourgeois do exist and are widespread. These ideas have acquired a special meaning with the fascists. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Paul Craig Roberts: The term “conspiracy theory” was invented by the CIA in order to prevent disbelief of official government stories. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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." wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Sun Tzu: Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Bible: Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
