Sunday, January 11, 2015

Bill Mahr

"When there's this many bad apples, there's something wrong with the orchard."

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Noam Compsky

"Americanism. Who can be against that? Or harmony. Who can be against that? Or, to bring it up to date, "Support our troops." Who can be against that? Or yellow ribbons. Who can be against that? Anything that's totally vacuous. In fact, what does it mean if somebody asks you, Do you support the people in Iowa? Can you say, Yes, I support them, or No, I don't support them? It's not even a question. It doesn't mean anything. That's the point. The point of public relations slogans like "Support our troops" is that they don't mean anything. They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support their policy? But you don't want people to think about the issue. That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for, because nobody knows that it means, because it doesn't mean anything, but its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: do you support their policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk about."

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Adolf Hitler

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Ambrose Bierce

"POLITICS: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage."

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Thomas Paine

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Robert Louis Stevenson


"If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say "give them up," for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people."

Friday, April 13, 2012

Albert Léon Guérard


"Nationalism is militant hatred. It is not love of our countrymen: that, which denotes good citizenship, philanthropy, practical religion, should go by the name of patriotism. Nationalism is passionate xenophobia. It is fanatical, as all forms of idol-worship are bound to be. And fanaticism—l'infame denounced by Voltaire—obliterates or reverses the distinction between good and evil. Patriotism, the desire to work for the common weal, can be, must be, reasonable: "My country, may she be right!" Nationalism spurns reason: "Right or wrong, my country."