John F. Kennedy: For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence-on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Chris Hedges: Functional illiteracy in North America is epidemic. There are 7 million illiterate Americans. Another 27 million are unable to read well enough to complete a job application, and 30 million can't read a simple sentence. There are some 50 million who read at a fourth - or fifth - grade level. Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or barely literate - a figure that is growing by more than 2 million a year. A third of high-school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives, and neither do 42 percent of college graduates. In 2007, 80 percent of the families in the United States did not buy or read a book. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Karl Marx: Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity - the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons - the modern working class - the proletarians. In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed - a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Hugo Chávez: I am convinced that the way to build a new and better world is not capitalism. Capitalism leads us straight to hell. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Tom Fenton: Americans are too broadly underinformed to digest nuggets of information that seem to contradict what they know of the world . Instead, news channels prefer to feed Americans a constant stream of simplified information, all of which fits what they already know. That way they don't have to devote more air time or newsprint space to explanations or further investigations. Politicians and the media have conspired to infantilize, to dumb down, the American public. At heart, politicians don't believe that Americans can handle complex truths, and the news media, especially television news, basically agrees. 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
Eleanor Leacock: While all women have some things in common, women from different classes have different experience, different aspirations and different interests Middle class women often direct the main focus of their struggle against the men of their class; working class women only need to fight the men of their class when the men work in a way which protects the status quo. Working class women have more in common with working class men than they do with women like Margaret Thatcher and Edwina Currie, because their oppression as women stems from the exploitation which all the working class suffers. Thatcher and Currie are representatives of the exploiting class, whose interests are in direct conflict with the interests of working class men and women. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
R. Palme Dutt: Social Democracy has thus throughout the world shown itself ready to adapt itself and enter into alliance with every counterrevolutionary, White Terrorist and Fascist Government, even entering directly into such Governments. Where Social Democracy has not been accepted into such open alliance, but has been forced under the carrying out its role of disruption of the working class under the form of opposition, this has not been for lack of trying on the part of the Social Democratic leadership, who have invariably exhausted every manoeuvre to endeavour to be admitted to the favoured circle under the protection of Fascism. The signal example of the latter process has been Germany. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
R. Palme Dutt: None have more sincere concern and zeal than thieves to maintain the institution of private property, without which their profession would come to an end, and they would find themselves faced with the unpleasant alternative of having to work for their living. On the other hand, they cannot publicly proclaim the principles of thievery and gangsterism as the basis of their stand; for public purposes, they have to proclaim the most high moral principles, to maintain existing society "unspoiled" and to keep "the mind" of the worker "healthy." wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stephen Lendman: National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting (PBS) was founded in 1970 as an independent, private, non-profit member organization of US public radio stations, NPR promised to be an alternative to commercial broadcasters by "promot(ing) personal growth rather than corporate gain (and) speak with many voices, many dialects." Having long ago abandoned its promise, and given its substantial corporate and government funding, NPR is indistinguishable from the rest of the corporate media. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
R. Palme Dutt: The sensation of a "new ideology" which intoxicates the more fanatical and emotional adherents of Fascism, giving them the illusion of a liberation from old superstitions and a new dynamic power, represents in reality no new ideology distinct from the general ideology of capitalism, but only the typical ideology of the most modern phase of capitalism, that is to say, the sharpened expression of all the tendencies of imperialism or capitalism in decay, in the period of the general crisis. The contempt for constitutional and legalist forms, the glorification of violence, the denial of all liberal, egalitarian and humanitarian ideas, the demand for the strong and powerful state, the enthronement of war as the highest form of human activity-all these are the typical expressions of modern monopolist capitalism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Robert Parry: The New York Times and the Washington Post are decidedly sliding into the neocon camp, where the likes of the Wall Street Journal have long resided. For the Post, this may already be an old story, given its enthusiastic cheerleading for the Iraq War. The Times, however, was a somewhat different story. That is now changing as the New York Times tosses aside all pretense of objectivity in the cause of seeking "regime change" in Iran, today's top priority for the neoconservatives. Not only in the New York Times opinion section but in its news columns, Iran's alleged interest in acquiring a nuclear weapon is trumpeted incessantly (despite its denial of such a desire), while rogue nuclear states in the region (such as Israel, Pakistan and India) are given a pass. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Joseph Goebbels: Principle of transposition. Load on the opponent the own errors or defects, responding the attack with the attack. If you can not deny the bad news, invent others that distract them. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Joseph Goebbels: Principle of orchestration. The propaganda should be limited to a small number of ideas and repeated tirelessly, presented again and again from different perspectives but always converging on the same concept. No cracks or doubts. From here comes the famous phrase: "If a lie repeats itself enough, it becomes truth." wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Joseph Goebbels: Principle of renewal. It is necessary to constantly issue new information and arguments at a rate such that when the adversary responds the public is already interested in something else. The adversary's responses should never be able to counteract the increasing level of accusations. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Joseph Goebbels: Principle of the silencing. To silence on the questions on which there are no arguments and to disguise the news that favors the adversary, also counterprogramando with the aid of related media. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Joseph Goebbels: Principle of the transfusion. As a rule propaganda always operates from a preexisting substrate, be it a national mythology or a complex of traditional hatreds and prejudices; It is a matter of spreading arguments that can be rooted in primitive attitudes. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Joseph Goebbels: Principle of unanimity. Reaching out to many people who think "like everyone else", creating an impression of unanimity. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
