Walter Lippmann: We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern. For there is no adequate way in which it can keep itself informed about what the people of the country are thinking and doing and wanting. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: To create a minimum standard of life below which no human being can fall is the most elementary duty of the democratic state. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: A regime, an established order, is rarely overthrown by a revolutionary movement; usually a regime collapses of its own weakness and corruption and then a revolutionary movement enters among the ruins and takes over the powers that have become vacant. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Aristotle: A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Charles Bukowski: The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts and the stupid ones are full of confidence. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Aristotle: Men create gods after their own image, not only in regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Carl Sagan: The nature of life on Earth and the search for life elsewhere are two sides of the same question - the search for who we are. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Karl Marx: We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: Soviet power is the union and constitution of the local Soviets into one common state organization, into the state organization of the proletariat as the vanguard of the oppressed and exploited masses and as the ruling class — their union in the Republic of the Soviets. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Otto Kuusinen: However, not every political party claiming the leadership of the working class is capable of accomplishing this task. This is evident from the experience of the Social-Democratic Parties of the Second International. Acting through the opportunist leaders of Social-Democracy, the bourgeoisie was able to a considerable extent to bring these parties under its influence, to "tame" them and make them barely distinguishable from the usual bourgeois parliamentary opposition. As a result, the Social-Democratic Parties, which at first raised high hopes in the working class, lost their ability to organise and lead the revolutionary working-class movement. This was particularly evident when all the social contradictions engendered by the epoch of imperialism became extremely aggravated. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: Woman and teenage children fought in the Paris Commune side by side with the men. It will be no different in the coming battles for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Upton Sinclair: The reader will understand that I despise these "yellows"; they are utterly without honor, they are vulgar and cruel; and yet, in spite of all their vices, I count them less dangerous to society than the so-called "respectable" papers, which pretend to all the virtues, and set the smug and pious tone for good society - papers like the "New York Tribune" and the "Boston Evening Transcript" and the "Baltimore Sun, " which are read by rich old gentlemen and maiden aunts, and can hardly ever be forced to admit to their columns any new or vital event or opinion. These are "kept" papers, in the strictest sense of the term, and do not have to hustle on the street for money. They serve the pocketbooks of the whole propertied class - which is the meaning of the term "respectability" in the bourgeois world. On the other hand the "yellow" journals, serving their own pocketbooks exclusively, will often print attacks on vested wealth, provided the attacks are startling and sensational, and provided the vested wealth in question is not a heavy advertiser. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Upton Sinclair: American capitalism is predatory, and American politics are corrupt: The same thing is true in England and the same in France; but in all these three countries the dominating fact is that whenever the people get ready to change the government, they can change it. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Upton Sinclair: All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Barack Obama: You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing, that citizens no longer know what to believe... Once they lose trust in their leaders, mainstream media, in political institutions, in each other, the possibility of truth — the game’s won. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: Socialism does not require idleness, but that all people work honestly, work not for others, not for the rich and exploiters, but for themselves, for society. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Che Guevara: For us there is no valid definition of socialism other than the abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Bertrand Russell: The problem of producing synthetic food is purely chemical, and there is no reason to regard it as insoluble. No doubt natural foods will taste better, and rich men, at weddings and feasts, will provide real peas and beans, which will be mentioned by the newspapers with awe. But in the main food will be manufactured in vast chemical factories. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: One cannot live in society and be free from society. The freedom of the bourgeois writer, artist or actress is simply masked (or hypocritically masked) dependence on the money-bag, on corruption, on prostitution. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Bhagat Singh: Universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity of opportunity in the social, political and individual life. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
