Bashar al-Assad: For us, those veterans who fought in that ferocious war - and the Soviet Union made great sacrifices, for it offered over 26 million martyrs, and as far as we know the number was closer to 30 million - were the main force; and today they offer a role model for the present generation and for future generations. They provide a role model of resilience and standing fast. Who could expect the siege of Stalingrad at that time to end the way it did without the steadfastness of those heroes? Who could expect that the initial retreat of the Soviet army would turn into a victory later? Without the victory of the Soviet Union, the Normandy landings for Western states wouldn't have been possible. This is what many in the West are trying to obscure, i.e. the more important role played by the peoples of the Soviet Union at that time - including your people - in defeating Nazism. Today, these veterans play a vital role in strengthening the spirit of steadfastness, because you too are facing something similar to what Syria has been facing for decades. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Bashar al-Assad: The war fought today by our people is not only against the terrorists, but also against those who sponsor terrorism. Terrorism is only an instrument used by those Western states which want to apply the same Nazi mentality which aims at dominating everyone else and turning states and nations into slaves, turning them into satellites and controlling everything they have, materially and morally. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Malcolm X: That white person that you see calling himself a liberal is the most dangerous thing in the entire Western Hemisphere. He’s the most deceitful. He’s like a fox and a fox is always more dangerous in the forest than the wolf. You can see the wolf coming. You know what he’s up to, but the fox will fool you. He comes at you with his mouth shaped in such a way that even though you see his teeth you think he’s smiling and take him for a friend. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
General Smedley Butler: I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Grover Furr: Above everything else Domenico Losurdo was a fighter for the truth. His contribution to the eventual liberation of the oppressed and exploited remains with us and with the generations of fighters that will come after us. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
David Bacon: Society exists to serve the social needs of people, not the productivity needs of capital. Those two needs are in basic conflict - a conflict of class interest. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Philip Agee: But what counter-insurgency really comes down to is the protection of the capitalists back in America, their property and their privileges. US national security, as preached by US leaders, is the security of the capitalist class in the US, not the security of the rest of the people. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: ... the NSS (National Security State) is an instrument of class warfare, organized and designed to permit an elite, local and multinational, to operate without any constraint from democratic processes. This allows the bulk of the population to be treated as a mere cost of production. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Robert McChesney: The range of debate between the dominant U.S. (political) parties tends to closely resemble the range of debate within the business class. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Capital must protect itself in every way...Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied by the central power of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd. - anonymous wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michael Rivero: The big lie about capitalism is that everyone can be rich. That's impossible. Capitalism works only if the vast majority of the population are kept poor enough to never quit working, are kept poor enough to accept distasteful jobs society cannot function without. If everyone were a millionaire, who would empty the trash or repair the sewers? It follows that the poorer the general population is made, the greater the worth of the money held by the wealthy, in terms of the lives which may be bought and sold with it. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Holly Sklar: The dream of capitalism is to co-opt people with higher living standards without redistributing any wealth. Without co-optation, widespread repression is the only guarantor of gross inequality. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Ellen Meiksins-Wood: Imperialism today is taking place in the context of...the 'universalization' of capitalism. It is not now primarily a matter of territorial conquest or direct military or colonial control. It is not now a matter of capitalist powers invading non-capitalist powers in order to bleed them dry directly and by brute force. Now it is more a matter of ensuring that the forces of the capitalist market prevail in every corner of the world (even if this means marginalizing and impoverishing parts of it), and of manipulating those market forces to the advantage of the most powerful capitalist economies and the United States in particular." ... "Military force is still central to the imperialist project, in some ways more than ever. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Philip Agee: American capitalism, based as it is on exploitation of the poor, with its fundamental motivation in personal greed, simply cannot survive without force - without a secret police force. Now, more than ever, each of us is forced to make a conscious choice whether to support the system of minority comfort and privilege with all its security apparatus and repression, or whether to struggle for real equality of opportunity and fair distribution of benefits for all of society, in the domestic as well as the international order. It's harder now not to realize that there are two sides, harder not to understand each, and harder not to recognize that like it or not we contribute day in and day out either to the one side or to the other. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Alexis de Tocqueville: Can it be believed that the democracy which overthrew the feudal system and vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
David Watson: We now live in a state of permanent war - a global arms industry, apparently the largest single international business, must have its products used up so more can be sold. There must be profits for the capitalists and jobs for the proles... Are we not still in Caligula's Rome? wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Martin Niemöller: In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was nobody left to speak up. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Said: Terrorism has become a sort of screen created since the end of the Cold War by policymakers in Washington ... It is fabricated to keep the population afraid and insecure, and to justify what the United States wishes to do globally. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walden Bello: Military intervention to maintain the global status quo will become a constant feature of international relations, whether this is justified in terms of fighting drugs, fighting terrorism, containing "rogue states, " opposing "Islamic fundamentalism, " or containing China. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Hélder Câmara: When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Thomas Bodenheimer: By the later years of the Reagan regime, a preferred nomenclature suited to U.S. interests became standardized for the Third World. In the case of nations to be rolled back (e.g., Nicaragua), governments were called terrorist and the insurgents were labeled democratic. In the case of countries to be supported against "communist" insurgencies (e.g., El Salvador and the Philippines), the governments were called democratic and the insurgents were labeled terrorists. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: Among Latin American elites, a peasant asking for a higher wage or a priest helping organize a peasant cooperative is a communist. And someone going so far as to suggest land reform or a more equitable tax system is a communist fanatic. There is no word or act suggesting the desirability of elite generosity toward the poor, or the need for education, organization or material advance for the majority, that has not been branded communistic in Latin America in recent decades. ... Since communism is the enemy and peasants trying to improve themselves, priests with the slightest humanistic proclivity, and naturally anyone seriously challenging the status quo, are communists, they are also, by definition, enemies. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Martin Luther King, Jr.: We have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. Our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and maintain social stability for our investments. This tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and Peru. Increasingly the role our nation has taken is the role of those who refuse to give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Martin Luther King, Jr.: We in the West must bear in mind that the poor countries are poor primarily because we have exploited them through political or economic colonialism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Peter Phillips: ... the media in the United States effectively represents the interests of corporate America, and ... the media elite are the watchdogs of what constitutes acceptable ideological messages, the parameters of news and information content, and the general use of media resources. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
John Stockwell: It is the function of the CIA to keep the world unstable, and to propagandize and teach the American people to hate, so we will let the Establishment spend any amount of money on arms. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
