Robert McChesney: In many respects, we now live in a society that is only formally democratic, as the great mass of citizens have minimal say on the major public issues of the day, and such issues are scarcely debated at all in any meaningful sense in the electoral arena. In our society, corporations and the wealthy enjoy a power every bit as immense as that assumed to have been enjoyed by the lords and royalty of feudal times. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Carlos Salinas: If you liked El Salvador, you're going to love Colombia. It's the same death squads, the same military aid, and the same whitewash from Washington. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: The propaganda system allows the U.S. Ieadership to commit crimes without limit and with no suggestion of misbehavior or criminality; in fact, major war criminals like Henry Kissinger appear regularly on TV to comment on the crimes of the derivative butchers. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: Because of its power and global interests U.S. leaders have committed crimes as a matter of course and structural necessity. A strict application of international law would ... have given every U.S. president of the past 50 years Nuremberg treatment. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Robert Naiman: When the IMF and the World Bank force a country to cut wages, lay off workers, produce for export instead of their own people, and sell off public property to cronies for less than its value, that's called "economic reform." wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: U.S. Ieaders commit war crimes as a matter of institutional necessity, as their imperial role calls for keeping subordinate peoples in their proper place and assuring a "favorable climate of investment" everywhere. They do this by using their economic power, but also (by means of "bombs bursting in the air" and) by supporting Diem, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto, Savimbi, Marcos, Fujimori, Salinas, and scores of similar leaders. War crimes also come easily because U.S. Ieaders consider themselves to be the vehicles of a higher morality and truth and can operate in violation of law without cost. It is also immensely helpful that their mainstream media agree that their country is above the law and will support and rationalize each and every venture and the commission of war crimes. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: The U.S. public is depoliticized, poorly informed on foreign affairs ... and strongly patriotic in the face of a struggle with "another Hitler". Even though the public is normally averse to war, even with modest propaganda efforts ... the public can be quickly transformed into enthusiastic supporters of war. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Christian la Brie: (T)here seems to be nothing to prevent the transnational corporations taking possession of the planet and subjecting humanity to the dictatorship of capital.... In order to crush any thought of organized resistance to the supporters of the new world order, tremendous police and military forces are being used to establish a doctrine of repression.... wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: As human rights conditions deteriorate, factors affecting the "climate of investment, " like the tax laws and labor repression, improve from the viewpoint of the multinational corporation. This suggests an important line of causation -- military dictatorships tend to improve the investment climate.... The multinational corporate community and the U.S. government are very sensitive to this factor. Military dictators enter into a tacit joint venture arrangement with Free World leaders: They will keep the masses quiet, maintain an open door to multinational investment, and provide bases and otherwise serve as loyal clients. In exchange, they will be aided and protected against their own people, and allowed to loot public property. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Always be on the alert against Trotskyism, reformism and revisionism / Soyez toujours en alerte contre le trotskysme, le réformisme et le révisionnisme / Seid immer wachsam gegen Trotzkismus, Reformismus und Revisionismus
Thomas Melville: The actual state of violence composed of the malnutrition, ignorance, sickness and hunger of the vast majority of the Guatemalan population, is the direct result of a capitalist system that makes the defenseless Indian compete against the powerful and well-armed landowner. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Catherine Langevin-Falcon: Today, the United States and Somalia are the only two countries in the world which haven't ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. And since Somalia is a country with no internationally recognized government, the United States essentially stands alone as the last holdout to legally guarantee children the same full range of human rights ... agreed to by 191 other sovereign states. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Howard Zinn: If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: ... the United States has given frequent and enthusiastic support to the overthrow of democracy in favor of "investor friendly" regimes. The World Bank, IMF, and private banks have consistently lavished huge sums on terror regimes, following their displacement of democratic governments, and a number of quantitative studies have shown a systematic positive relationship between U.S. and IMF / World Bank aid to countries and their violations of human rights. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Housing situation has been a pain, still on the temporary server environment and been hitting major resources bottlenecks.
I'm hoping to get a place sooner, but I've hit some roadblocks that very likely will push it drastically further out... in which case I'll need to spend more money on this environment to return things to stable.
Reminder that I'm covering this entirely out of my own pocket and these constraints are because I'm between homes and can't use my own much cheaper hardware. If you appreciate this instance I would very much appreciate a donation.
Edward M. Korry: Not a nut or bolt shall reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and all Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty... wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Robert McChesney: As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Martin Luther King, Jr.: History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
David Barsamian: One of the intentions of corporate-controlled media is to instill in people a sense of disempowerment, of immobilization and paralysis. Its outcome is to turn you into good consumers. It is to keep people isolated, to feel that there is no possibility for social change. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Noam Chomsky: The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
William Blum: Patriotism, like religion, meets people's need for something greater to which their individual lives can be anchored ... America's state religion, (is) patriotism, a phenomenon which has convinced many of the citizenry that "treason" is morally worse than murder or rape. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Arnold J. Toynbee: America is today the leader of a world-wide anti-revolutionary movement in the defense of vested interests. She now stands for what Rome stood for. Rome consistently supported the rich against the poor in all foreign communities that fell under her sway; and, since the poor, so far, have always and everywhere been far more numerous than the rich, Rome's policy made for inequality, for injustice, and for the least happiness of the greatest number. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Thomas Friedman: The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Robert Bowman: We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism and in the future, nuclear terrorism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: The United States is not only number one in military power but also in the effectiveness of its propaganda system. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
David Korten: The corporation is not a person and it does not live. It is a lifeless bundle of legally protected financial rights and relationships brilliantly designed to serve money and its imperatives. It is money that flows in its veins, not blood. The corporation has neither soul nor conscience. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Joel Bleifuss: We are witnessing an unprecedented transfer of power from people and their governments to global institutions whose allegiance is to abstract free-market principle, and whose favored citizens are soulless corporate entities that have the power to shape and break nations. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Charles Higham: ...a number of financial and industrial figures of World War II and several members of the government served the cause of money before the cause of patriotism. While aiding the United States' war effort, they also aided Nazi Germany's. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
